Water We Thinking

Above is the view from the Harrison St. Bridge just blocks from our marina.  The rounded building on the right is River City.  Beautiful evenings like this reaffirm our decision to move to the river downtown.  We're enjoying exploring our new neighborhood and all it has to offer.  The changes to our day-to-day living do not just stem from living on a floating vessel.  They also come from the neighborhood we live in, the loss of parking in a garage outside our back door, the lack of a basement to store our bikes in.  We are figuring out solutions as we go.  We found a parking space to rent in a high-rise apartment building right across the street from us, with space for one car, a motorcycle, and maybe two bikes hanging on the installed wall rack.  We're also testing out locking bikes up on our swim platform.  This is a more convenient spot to grab and go, but then we have to move them when we want to take the boat out on the water.  ...

Anyone who lived in the northern half of the country in the winter of 2013-14 probably doesn't understand the mechanics of living aboard in the winter.  A great many of people we've told we were going to live aboard have come up with the same premier question. "What are you going to do in the winter?" It's a valid question and one that doesn't have a simple answer.  In places like California or the Caribbean it's not an issue as the water doesn't freeze.  In Chicago the winters are like a winter in Chicago.  Matthew Broderick once said about Mississippi "It's like Africa hot...Tarzan couldn't take this kind of hot" and that is the exact opposite of a Chicago winter.  If Biloxi Blues was renamed Chicago Blues the quote would be something more like "It's like Antarctic cold....Polar Bears couldn't take this kind of cold."  So what do you do for six months when you can't use half your house and exploit it...