A tour of the boat

This is what you see when you look in the cabin:

That fancy looking control panel with tons of knobs and buttons? At least half of it is just light switches. They could have condensed all of the switches down to a 2 foot square, but instead the spread it out. It's sort of nice. And looks very important. In back, that's my desk, aka, where I read, knit, and eat lunch. If you stand in the same place as I took this pic, and turn right, you see:

More windows, our bulletin board, and the fridge, microwave and coffee maker. And tons of windows. It really warms up in there, but there's an AC unit on the roof. It's so nice. Also, if you leave the door open and open one window down by the desk, you get a lovely breeze. I didn't even turn the AC on today, and it was delightful.

On the other side of the boat, there's another cabin. It's the machinery room. It looks funny from the outside:

 The low part is only about 3 or 4 feet high. That's because you open the door to the machinery room and see this:

There's a very steep flight of stairs, and you go down four steps to the machinery. It's a pretty smart design. It means that from the main cabin, you can actually see what's going on downstream. The WL ferry has a machinery room in the same location, and it really blocks the view.

And yes, that's the bathroom right in the middle of the air compressor and everything. By the end of the day, the machinery room is at least 120 degrees, and that's with a fan running full time. I don't care. It's a toilet that flushes and doesn't smell, and the best part of all--a sink! With running water! And soap! Don't ask about the bathroom on the WL. I'd prefer to expunge that image (and smell) from my memory forever.

And oddly, the window in the machinery room/bathroom has the best view on the whole boat. You're down low, the river water is only about a foot below the window sill. And when you look out the window, you don't see the boat, just the river and the wide world. It's lovely.

I spent today focusing as much as possible on learning how to drive the boat while sitting. It's not all that hard, it's just a change in my sight lines. But oh my goodness. My feet! It makes all the difference in the world. I sat most of the day, instead of standing. Most of you know how bad my feet are. And if you don't, I give you this illustration. When I walk barefoot across a hard surface, my feet are so flat that they suction to the floor with each step. These feet of mine? They're not meant for standing on for a long time. I'm fine if I'm moving all the time, walking or jogging. Standing is the enemy. So learning to land the boat seated is a godsend.

And have I mentioned how gorgeous it is here? It's lush and full of trees. And fish are constantly jumping out of the river. There are at least 3 osprey nests right near the ferry, so they're always swooping into the river for fish. It smells good there. Like the river, and warm fields and mint crops and blackberries.