[Today’s run: 3.5 miles]<\/p>\n
Things were really slow at work yesterday, so I took the afternoon off and we went for a bit of an adventure.<\/p>\n
As you know, I watch a couple of government auction websites.\u00a0 And on the one for state\/local agencies, a state park in NW Alabama was listing two 30 ft. sailboats with an initial bid of $100.\u00a0 And not getting much attention.<\/p>\n
So I got into it a bit and tried to find out something about these boats.\u00a0 I did some match-the-picture looking with google and figured out what make\/model of boats they were.\u00a0 One was actually a pretty nice boat<\/a> when it came out in the mid 1970’s.\u00a0 The other is more of a pedestrian mid-80’s jobbie.\u00a0 I learned about how a luxury tax in the late ’80s killed the sailboat business and drove many manufacturers out.<\/p>\n So I called up the place in Alabama and we took the afternoon off and went and saw the boats.<\/p>\n I don’t really want a boat.\u00a0 Having a boat like that would mean paying for a place to park it.\u00a0 It’s like having an RV that you never use and can’t park on your own property.\u00a0\u00a0 But we’ve been taking our little fishing\/rowboat down to the river almost every Sunday for a couple of months now and really enjoying it.\u00a0 The difference being, of course, that it is cheap, and relatively easy to transport, and not worth enough money to lose any sleep over.<\/p>\n Anyway, so we had a nice drive up to the Muscle Shoals area and saw these two boats at the Joe Wheeler State Park marina.\u00a0 Both were floating OK.\u00a0 The interiors were pretty much shot.\u00a0 The exterior fittings and stuff seemed to be doing OK.\u00a0 But… too much remedial work for me, were I interested.<\/p>\n You have to understand also that the Joe Wheeler State Park is on the Tennessee river.\u00a0 And the Tennessee river connects to the Tombigbee as part of the Great Loop.\u00a0 A person could get in a boat at that park and drive it to within a couple of miles of my house… and then go on past and end up at Mobile Bay in southern Alabama.\u00a0 And the loopers go up the eastern seaboard and into the Great Lakes and into the Illinois river and the\u00a0 Ohio, Tennessee, or Mississippi.\u00a0 See this Great Loop website<\/a> for more info.\u00a0 It’s like people who live in a an RV full time… maybe more like living in a VW campervan full time… on the water, and having to pay for every night’s stay.<\/p>\n If a guy wanted to go on a multi-month boat ride, I’m in a good place from which to start.\u00a0 If I had a boat for that, which I don’t.<\/p>\n Someone finally put in an initial bid on the better of the two boats.\u00a0 He may end up with it for $100 and change.\u00a0 If he puts in a lot of work and a few thousand dollars he’ll have a nice boat.<\/p>\n Oh, I was going to add:\u00a0 we had a nice time talking to the ranger at the marina.\u00a0 He said that a lot of people never take their boats out, they just use them as waterborne campers on weekends, like having your little RV at Cutty’s\u00a0 (for those who grew up in my era and place).\u00a0 He said some will stop paying their slip fee ($150\/mo ? something like that)\u00a0 and then the park sues for ownership of the boat and sells the thing on the Alabama State Surplus system and eventually the auction site.\u00a0 He said that sometimes people will buy them and get a slip at the park and park them there and such is the circle of old-tired-boat life.\u00a0 The only indication of last-time-used on the two boats we looked at was a state license sticker from 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [Today’s run: 3.5 miles] Things were really slow at work yesterday, so I took the afternoon off and we went for a bit of an adventure. As you know, I watch a couple of government auction websites.\u00a0 And on the one for state\/local agencies, a state park in NW Alabama was listing two 30 ft. 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