John, Debbie and The Trucking Puppies

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Bryanthead's Spring Cruise - April 29 & 30 and May 1, 2011

Let me start with an explanation of what a "Bryanthead" is . . . that would be one who owns a Bryant powerboat, is totally obsessed with it and who lives for our Bryant outtings. And when I say obsessed, I truly mean obsessed, just ask any Bryanthead, or come to one of our outtings and you'll see what I mean. I have never in my life met a more loyal, friendly and simply amazing group of people. One common interest has brought together a group of folks who now share an awesome friendship, not to mention some good recipes (these folks love to eat and drink) and some great adventures.

Bryantheads in attendance on the Spring Cruise 2011: John & Debbie and Titan & Elmo(DebbaritaVille), Mike & Becky w/guests Robb & Judy (New Blue Obsession), Dave & Donna and Powder (Shifting Colors), Doug & Jane and Seven (Dea Latis II), George & Karen w/guests David & Amie (Stimulated) and Jeff & Dina (ThinkFun).

16 amazing people, 4 furry friends, 6 Bryant boats, 4 days on the water (3 for everyone except us and Dave and Powder), more than 400 miles (300+ for everyone else), 4 lakes (Watts Bar, Chickamauga, Nickajack and Guntersville), 3 locks, lots of good food, 2 gallons of Debbaritas, 2 quarts of Apple Pie, 2 nights at Hale's Bar with no electricity, cold showers, 2 overflowing toilets, a haunted powerhouse, a mystery ghost runner, an unexpected plunge in the lock water by a fellow Bryanthead, a lost anchor, a lost cell phone, a pair of shoes swooped up by a crow, a few mishaps with the lock walls, a late evening cruise after dinner in Chattanooga, late night heavy barge traffic, and an OOPS with a green marker buoy . . . just how much fun can one group of folks have?

A black cloud was over us even before we began our journey. On the Wednesday before the cruise, John Sisson, a Bryant employee and dear friend who was to join us for the weekend, had an anurism (sp?). Emergency surgery and an assurance that all was well left us feeling very fortunate. However, it was his time to go and did not survive the night. RIP John, you are loved and will be greatly missed.

Also on that same Wednesday evening, a line of severe storms and tornadoes ravaged through MS, AL, TN and GA destroying much in their path. Hale's Bar, fortunately, only suffered the loss of power (hence no electricity, cold showers and overflowing toilets). Many homes and lives were lost that evening. As our group always says, we are a truly blessed group of individuals and are all thankful for all that we have. Thursday evening also brought more severe storms and more damage.

John and I were fortuante to have gotton 4 days out instead of only 3. We spent Thursday on Watts Bar with Dave and Powder. We went to Sand Island and let the dogs wear themselves out. And worn out they were.

Titan, Elmo & Powder at Sand Island on Watts Bar Lake in TN

This was their first encounter with water (other than a bath of course)

Our boys and Powder. They had a great time playing together!

Whatcha lookin' at?

One tired little puppy!

John & I on DebbaritaVille locking through Watts Bar to Chickamauga.

"THINKFUN"

"SHIFTING COLORS"

"DEA LATIS II"

"STIMULATED"

"NEW BLUE OBSESSION"

Definitely an adventure to remember. In spite of the "black clouds", we had a wonderful time with absolutely amazing friends. Looking forward to our Homecoming on Tellico in June.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The first outing of 2011

Our first outing got off to a REALLY rough start! I'm not much of a story teller, so these posts may not be as interesting as many I have read, but it is what it is!

Hubby and I drive an 18 wheeler for a living. With that said, we arrived home at 0800 on Saturday morning (April 9th) and all appears to be going good. Clothes packed, humans showered, camper packed, etc. Good so far! Well, then it all broke loose! Going over my checklist, again, all is well . . . that is until I got to the last 2 items which were boat keys and boat registration. Okay, not an issue, they are in our waterproof box (where they ALWAYS are!!!!!) . . . NOT! . . . We then proceeded to spend more than an hour tearing up the house, truck, jeep, camper and big truck looking for these with NO SUCCESS! Amidst the search, we discover that we have NONE of the paperwork associated with our new boat! Now what to do? At this point, we are both scratching our heads in amazement that we can be so scatter brained this early in life . . . our senior years should prove to be pretty entertaining though, so this atleast gives us something to look forward to.

Our first stop for the day was going to be the Open House at Bunch Marine. This is good because this is where we purchased our boat and the manufacturer was going to be there as well. Here I have to give a HUGE KUDOS to both Bunch Marine and Bryant Boats for their commitment to customer service. Curtis (owner of Bunch) was busy with all the Open House goings on and still managed to take time to talk to us regarding our dilema. He immediately got Jeff (Vice President) from Bryant involved and within a matter of minutes, we had a temporary registration, new paperwork ordered and a new set of keys in hand. Thanks again to Curtis and Jeff for making our wonderful weekend possible.

After spending time at the Open House and enjoying Black Eyed Joe's BBQ, we headed to Lotterdale Cove. We arrived unscathed and are at this point feeling good about the weekend and are happy campers. Not so fast there folks, the power steering and hydraulic assist for the brakes go out on the truck as we are parking the boat!! My hubby swears he's Popeye now after muscleing around the 3500 with camper on board and boat in tow. I'm starting to panic at this point as we have to be back to work on Monday evening with 22 deliveries on the East Coast. I'm ready to just go home and call it quits as it is apparent that we were not meant to do this short little outting. John assures me everything will be okay, so I tell him to handle things and I'm going to go get us dinner from Pizzeria Venti in Greenback, TN . . . NO complaints there! I get back to camp and all is well with the Universe. Good food, good drink, and best of all some quiet time with hubby and the puppies. So the weekend is definitely improving.

Up early Sunday, put the boat in the water (by the way, hubby a/k/a Popeye did that with no power steering and no hydraulic assist for the brakes) and away we go for an awesome day on Tellico and Fort Loudon with some great friends.

And now for the pictures . . .

John (a/k/a Popeye or Hubby) and Elmo.

This is Elmo and Titan's first boating adventure and

I'm pretty sure they are going to be fantastic boating dogs :).

Titan and John

I am the coolest dog in the whole world . . . my daddy let me drive the big boat!

Curious, but thankfully not curious enough to jump in.

The water was still quite CHILLY and we didn't want no chilly dogs!

Me (holding Titan), Becky (holding Elmo) and Karen got the groceries.

Da girls enjoying the ride!

Da boys trying to be sexy!

Great friends relaxing after a wonderful day on the water!

Me at the helm heading back to the campground.

It don't get much better than this . . . LIFE IS GOOD!

A beautiful ending to a beautiful day!

We are truly blessed!

So, in spite of the rough start, it was a wonderful weekend. Alas, it had to end and we were back to R E A L I T Y on Monday evening. Looking forward to our next adventure at the end of the month when we pack the boat, put her in at Watts Bar and cruise down river to Nickajack Lake.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

A New Beginning

"A New Beginning", well not really . . . I suppose it's just a "New Chapter" in our lives. Most definitely a chapter worth sharing. Camping and boating are our passions. Tent camping got old really quick and towing an RV/Camper and the boat was an impossibility. Thanks to our friends Chris & Carol and Dave & Brenda, we are now able to do both. This past May, we purchased a Truck Camper! Hands down, the best thing we've done! Have truck camper, have boat, having the time of our life! By the way - is it Spring yet?