March 27, 1999 was a bright sunny 65 degree day in Michigan. Upon arrival at the boatyard my worries proved true. The water level last fall was so low that I was dragging my 6ft keel all the way up the Pine River through the mud in a midnight caper that even I shake my head at. But this spring the water is no less than 3ft lower! Boat slips with a foot of water at one end and dry ground at the other. The only perk in this was watching the look on the other sailboat owner's faces as they looked at the shallow water, their keels, and back at the water again. One panicked boater was yelling that the yard owner "better do something about this river!", What's he have in mind? A rain dance! The key to the lock on my ladder chained to the boat stands magically changed shape over the winter and wouldn't open the lock. Nothing a file and 10 minutes couldn't
cure. The "Peregrine" took the mild winter in stride. No mildew, mystery leaks, bird nests or forgotten food in the fridge! I had BB King in the CD player, a cold beer in my hand and was settled in at the table in minutes. It was like I never left last fall. After finishing a couple of small electrical projects and a visit from Kevin involving a couple of more beers. I watched the sun set and ate a to go box full of day old Chi Chi's leftovers while waiting for my partner in crime, the infamous C. "Bowrider" Kremlick, or CK. He was lost driving aimlessly through the Michigan tundra trying to retrace his alcohol soaked tracks to where we left the boat last October. Designated drivers make remembering directions back difficult on the no driving drunks! The "pullout 98" caper is the story I should be telling here but I won't for the fear of self-incrimination. Yes it's that bad, I have the video to prove it. It's the only memory many of use have of that night! After his late arrival we dueled to see who could produce the most obscure, gut wrenching, guitar bending blues CD from our bags and caught up on gossip over a brew. We soon climbed down the ladder and jumped in my Jeep to explore the small river town of St. Clair, MI.

St. Clair is a quiet little "Nutbush City Limits" kinda town with a strip of bars conveniently within walking distance of the public marina. We decided to start with the tamest looking bar, Murphy's, for "one" before moving on to the rowdier looking spots. We found the bar full of drunk, fired up, big haired, heavy set girls singing karaoke and dance fever dressed farm boys with their Blue Ribbons and Blats. The same basic crowd that's in any small rural town in Michigan on a Saturday night. Basically good people. Good drunk people. An unnamed drunk was repeatedly buying the bar a round so needless to say we didn't make it out of there until late. We made the next bar, the Lecroix, at last call. We knew it would be wild because all but 3 of the 40 vehicles outside were 4x4 pickups. It's your typical roadhouse and proved to be great people watching! After letting the first wave of drunks leave the bar burning rubber we slipped out quietly in the Jeep while the cops were busy chasing the locals.

Overall a damn good time. On the "Ziggy Scale of Ten", One being falling to sleep in your beer and Ten being the chance of life imprisonment with no parole, I give it a 6. The ladder back up to the boat was longer than we remembered when we got back, but the boat felt like home even on the boat stands. I kicked on the electric disk heaters and lit the stove to knock the chill out of the air while we ate a large stick of smoked sausage a friend gave me to try. drank one last beer and called it a night. Even though it got into the 20s outside we sleep good.
We drove our pounding hung over heads into Pt. Huron for breakfast Sunday morning just to scare the church crowd and to do a recon on the yacht club. Shortly after ordering at Bob Evans I realized I had stomach problems and ran for the bathroom terrorizing all who entered while I was there. Soon "Bowrider" was also doing a strafing run and was earning the name "bowlrider"! It was the attack of the bad smoked sausage!! We played bathroom bingo all 8 miles back to the boat. We stopped so many times that if I'd held a flashlight to my butt and opened my mouth I would've looked like a jack-o-lantern! Soon C.K. made a desperate run for home 1 and a half hours away and I crawled back in bed until 4:00pm.. Then closed up the boat and drove the 45 minutes
home to Detroit with my fingers crossed.

Not a very productive weekend but an event filled Ziggy caper all the same. In a couple of weeks we will be hooking up to prepare the bottom for painting and see if we can rattle the town now that we know our way around the big hair capital of Michigan. I'll keep you posted. I'm sure it will be a little wilder than this caper since we'll be able to act as responsible, potty trained adults on a mission. That and it could involve power tools!!