Tall Ships Come to Port

 When I saw that Port Washington was having a Tall Ships Festival, I wanted to go. I usually don't get to see them but seeing there were going to see in Port and I figured mom and dad could use my help with some stuff, I decided to go check them out. Ideally I wanted to go to EAA and Tall Ships on back to back days so I didn't mess up my week at work but it didn't work out that way but either way, I made it work.

Tall Ships are large traditional-rigged sailing vessels such as topsail schooners. They are really just modern pirate ships. 

Tall Ships were in Port for 3 days before they headed up Lake Michigan towards Door County. They actually reached out to Port for safe harbor and Port figured they could do something to draw people down to see them. Working together, the Port Visitor Center and the sailing ships put together daily sails and tours of the ships. The sails were $70-$95 depending time of day. Sails were 1.5-2 hours depending on the time of day. I kind of regret not spending the money to do a sail. I think I will save my pennies and do a sail next time I get to see Tall Ships.

I had the opportunity to volunteer at Tall Ships. I spent a couple of hours answering questions and booking sails on the ships. It let me watch the ships come into the harbor, dock, set sail, and just watch ships. It was actually a good time even though I wasn't sure what I was going to get into. I picked a time slot where there wasn't a lot going on. 

Tours of the ships were once a day around 4 pm due to the Lake level. They could only board at Rotary Park even though they docked at Coal Dock Park. Each day one of the ships would dock at Rotary Park and open up for free tours. 

Due to some miscommunications (and a late departing ship), the tour on Friday was on the Appledore. The Appledore home port is Bay City, MI. The ship is not the big. It's only 85' in length. We were free to explore the top deck of the schooner. 

You could see the itty bitty galley.

And peek down the stairs to see the living quarters. 

I was disappointed that while docked, the sails are down so they weren't as magnificent looking as they are when the sails are bellowing in the wind while out on the open water.

I was able to watch the Liberty Clipper come back after their sail with their sails bellowing in the wind as I walked back to my car. 

Even though you could only tour the shops once a day, you could view them any time while they were docked at Coal Dock Park. You could look down into them and if crew was around talk to them. 

I am glad I was took a day off to go check out the Tall Ships. I think I would have been kicking myself if I didn't. I hope you can some time be able to see Tall Ships and maybe even take a sail on one of them. 

Running around the Streets of Green Bay in the Dark

When I saw that the Nitelite in Green Bay was on Friday, August 5th, I confirmed with the hubby what game he had and signed up. This gave me a chance to do a 5K in August and based on how my August was shaping up, it was my only chance. Holly and Tanya signed up too. Yea! I had a running buddy.

I knew that the Tall Ships Festival was in Green Bay that weekend but I didn’t realize that the ships were on the Fox River and not the Bay of Green Bay. Then Trump decided to hold a rally at the KI Convention Center -- 2 blocks from the start of the race. I expected it to be crazy downtown but it really wasn’t that bad.

We got down there around 6 and the race wasn’t until 8:15. After I found Holly, we walked over to the Ray Nitchke bridge and saw the Tall Ships. With the angel of the sun, some of the ships were really dark when we took pictures of them. They were really neat to see. If it wasn’t $12 to get into the Festival, I would probably have actually checked out the festival since we had time to kill.

After checking out the tall ships, we picked up our packets. The shirts this year were better than last year. They are dusty Badger Red with blue writing which beats the blues and greens I’ve gotten at almost every other race. We got 2 glow necklaces and bracelets. Jayden got one too. He was a very happy boy.

Bob wanted to check out the statues at the Packer Heritage Trail Plaza. We took some pictures and learned about Packer History. I thought the guy in the Fedora was Vince Lombardi. Bob informed me it was George Whitney Calhoun the guy who founded the Packers. It was the hat that made me think Vince.

Holly and I went back to her car to drop off her stuff while Jayden and Bob had pizza. Then we sat around the steps across from the children’s museum waiting for the race to start.

The race was more than a 5K I swear. It took me 45 minutes to do it and my phone said I ran 3.43 miles even with stopping it after the finish line there is no way I stopped at more than .3 of a mile later. The race had to be about 3.25 miles at least. It just never seemed to end. I did beat me time from last year. The worst part was the water station was after mile 2 so I was dying by the time we got there. Even running past the Trump rally wasn’t bad. Jayden ended up with many more necklaces as I picked them up along the route.

I’ll probably do this one again since Holly likes night runs. I’m not crazy about them but it’s something do and usually an inexpensive race if you register early. Hopefully next year there won’t be as much going on downtown though.