HOUSEBOAT HUNTING

This was to be the summer where we spent long stays in Colorado parks at cooler temperatures. Instead, after only a few weeks in Colorado, we found ourselves crossing the arid, barren wastes of Utah and Nevada in over 100 degrees. Our quest was to go to the Sacramento Delta and buy a houseboat to live-aboard during the hot summer months.

Heading west from Salt Lake City, we encountered about a hundred miles of nothing but salt flats. As soon as we crossed the Nevada border, there was a town that was all casinos. We spent a night at a park there and went to a casino for a wonderful dinner of lobster tail and prime rib. There wasn’t another town for two hundred miles and then two hundred miles to the next one, Sparks, Nevada. Boy has that town changed since we last saw it some fifty years ago.

The search has begun. We are here in the Sacramento Delta looking for a houseboat to live-aboard during the summers. One thousand miles of channel waterways writhing across the land make two Pisces very happy. I'm quite a sight (and sound) as I rumble along the docks in my walker. Most of the moorage at marinas is covered in long sheds so the sound echoes and re-echoes. We are looking for an outside moorage for the view as we will mostly be at the dock. We have looked at several houseboats but haven't decided yet. We learned very quickly that we needed something over 40-feet long. Ironically, the houseboat in the film, Murder By The Numbers with Sandra Bullock that inspired me to think about houseboating is for sale near here. We will go see it tomorrow.For now we are parked in our motorhome at our favorite RV park next to the Sacramento River. I am still gradually getting stronger but need the walker for longer walks. We are right on the Sacramento River. I make a circuit of this park each morning while it is cool. The Delta is actually pretty nice, temperature-wise.It is usually around 85 high and in the high 50s at night. There is always a breeze.