Heat

Yesterday was hot with heat indices into the low 100’s. This is not ideal on Carrie Rose. Granted we are protected from the sun while inside but on the outside the relentless sun heats the interior like the hot box Alec Guinness was in in the movie The Bridge Over The River Kwai. I snapped the sunshades on around the pilothouse, turned on the three mini exhaust fans, and left the doors and hatches open. These measures helped; still I watched the thermometer rise to over 90 in the pilothouse.

The slight cooling breeze had died but needing provisions, we decided to lock CR and walk 1.5 miles to town. Schuylerville, though down on its luck, showed signs of renewal. There was an adequate grocery store and several nice looking, even chic restaurants. Of all things, there were two art instruction galleries. One mosaics and the other printmaking along with an fashionable gallery.

Charlotte chose the most upscale looking hair salon to get a haircut. I bought a demi-sec Vouvray at the wine and spirits shop. The grocery yielded carrots, leaf lettuce, an apple and a pear, and one Canadian tomato. Yes, I said Canada not Mexico.

Then to fortify ourselves for the 1.5 mile walk home along the canal towpath of the Old Champlain canal, we purchased two ice cream cones at the local convenience mart. We sat at the booth in glorious A/C eating our ice cream and watching a parade of poorly done tattoos come and go. This show of skin a by-product of the scorching temperature.

CR is docked gratis to the well-built 60-foot dock of the Hudson Crossing Park at Champlain Canal Lock 5. The sign says we can stay for 48 hours and so we have. The park is the whole island separating the canal from the rapids of the Hudson River. The area adjacent to the dock is an ingenious kids park.

Returning from our walk, we opened up CR, felt the heat, and took our chairs up to the park in search of a breeze and shade. We found both. The hours passed by while we read and swatted the various critters trying to claim us. I took a few pictures of blue birds (a first for me) and learned what the Grange is. Then it was almost 6:00 PM, time to prepare dinner.

CR’s generator was reluctantly started: putt - putt - putt at 300 beats per minute. We attached every electronic device by their umbilical cords to suck up the stray electrons that were not helping to cook dinner or to run the A/C. Thirty minutes later dinner was cooked and off it went.

By the time dinner was finished and the dishes were done the sun was low in the west. The world, our world, began to cool down. Clouds blew in and with them some sprinkled. Evening descended, stars appear, and the hatches were battened to keep the outside world outside. The warmth slowly dissipated, as did we into that slightly sodden summer sleep that I remember as a young'un with only a fan as a defense from the heat.