Yes - it is Saturday and in Chattanooga, this is a solemn day. Not far from our dock is the memorial service for the 5 service men murdered on American soil.  Our hearts are with their families and associates. My intention for this entire blog is to keep it upbeat, positive and FUN!!  With all due respect to the events of today - I will resume the "fun zone" in an effort to prove this is still the land of the free AND home of the brave.  We are blessed to live and play in this country and to all military and first responders and their families...THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart - I understand your sacrifices.

So this morning started off with a 2.4 mile swim down the Tennessee River!!!  No, I watched from the Starboard side of the boat.  Each swimmer had a spotter and according to one of the spotters this was a qualifying swim for an upcoming Ironman event.  The weather was cloudy & sprinkling rain.  My favorite kind of weather for running!

The boats you see are "spotters" - it's hard to see the swimmers - but they're there!

After the swimming thinned out and since we've lived on this boat for 7 days - it was time to do a little laundry.  That may sound routine to most but let's just say it took some planning.  First, we had to search "laundromats close to north shore, Chattanooga, TN" and we found one WITH a yelp review - who knew??  Great!!

Once we mapped out the walking directions, the clothes were sorted, loaded in a water resistant duffel bag along with detergent and a roll of quarters.  All that was loaded in the beach wagon and we were off to the 24 hour Coin Laundry facility 1.6 miles away. Did I mention it was sprinkling rain.

Here's the security gate from the dock side - it's secured with a 4 digit security code issued to us upon arrival.

This is the other side of the gate. Charlie is pulling the "laundry wagon" up the ramp.

I promised pics of the path from the boat to the river bank.
Here's the first flight of steps.
He carried the duffel & I toted the wagon UP STAIRS!
The green overhang is the bottom of the Veterans Bridge-heavy traffic today.

Whew! Finally made it to the ramp section - back & forth, back & forth

The glass bottom pedestrian bridge - dogs aren't big fans of this crossing.

FINALLY!  Made it to the foot bridge - this bridge is .50 miles long.
Note the wet surface - but it was just sprinkling rain...

Fun fact: It's true, this is a small world! Remember the super nice lady who offered to give us directions yesterday?  Well, who do we meet on the other side of the bridge this morning??  Yep and her name is Sarah!  She is a walking/talking tour guide of downtown Chattanooga and so very friendly!!  Great to see her again!

Shortly after the chance meeting with Sarah we arrived at the laundromat! It was not crowded so we got right to work.  A couple hours later, we stopped at Krystal's to use the facilities and I had my first-ever Krystal burger!  It wasn't bad, so now I can say I explored a "new taste"!
There were some really neat looking restaurants on our route but we weren't sure how welcomed we would be dragging in our loaded wagon of clean laundry - although the folks a Krystal didn't seem to mind at all, hmmm...

Upon returning to the boat, the dock is filling up!!  We now have 4 more neighbors & Jill (the dock manager) tells us 5 more boats will be coming in this afternoon.  After meeting everyone and making the decisions of who's boat need to be moved in which direction - everyone is settled and there's plenty of room for the others to pull in.  Of course we will help with the lines if necessary - that's what boat neighbors do!

We took the dingy out this afternoon to explore a little bit - fun, fun, fun.  There is suppose to be an open air concert tonight just down river from us.  We plan (& you know how that goes) to ride down in the dinghy and tie up to a public dock to enjoy the music.  Should be a blast!!  Here's a few pics from "dingy level" on the river.

The dingy (aka The Side Yard) ready for a short adventure!

Here's hoping your Saturday is fun, relaxing but productive and above all shared with someone you love.  Life is short, make the most of everyday and make sure those you love know it!!  God bless you family and this nation.

Dingy fun, fun, fun - even in the rain!