A Motel Too Far

I need to expand on this matter of our motel being too far from the marina.  As I mentioned earlier, this is a problem because we won't have the usual ground transportation and sometimes the distance between a motel and a marina will be rather large. I have a number of methods I'll deploy to solve this problem. The least desirable is to call a taxi and have them take us to a motel.  Not a bad choice and even though the distances might be more than one would desire to walk, most towns are relatively small in that a 2-5 mile cab ride will get you to a place to stay. An alternate to a taxi is to call the motel and ask them to pick us up.  Again this is an OK option and it usually goes hand in hand that a motel with pick up service is probably going to be a bit nicer. And still another choice is to ask the marina operator to take us to our motel. Surprisingly many will do this and some even provide a car for use when docking at their facility.

Now I must reveal something that I've been side stepping from the very beginning.  We will have with us our most preferred personal method of transportation on land and that is our bicycles.

What?  You have bicycles?  Where you keeping them?

Of course we have bicycles.  Didn't you see that bike in the design concept drawing way back when I was telling you about the boat?  Or did you think the drawing represented a guy who forgot to take the bike out before leaving?  Had he stored in the boat last winter and just forgot it was there?  Nope, bikes were part of the plan from the beginning.

I bought two of these nifty folding bicycles from Camping World and I must say I'm impressed with how they work.  I'll tuck these in the bow of the boat, one on each side, and tie them into place. Each weighs a touch over  40 lbs so not much to worry about in overloading the boat.  In fact, situating these up front in the boat helps to counter balance our body weight in the rear.

Bike Folded

Bike Open

Last autumn Mary and I took a short 8 mile round trip test ride through Minnetonka into downtown Hopkins.  The route has some busy roads, one nice half mile long hill, and the sidewalks in Hopkins. It all went very well and we felt it was a good simulation of a typical river town both in terms of the variety of terrain and distance. Only problem we had was getting the two bikes mixed up. We decided we'll mark them with some tape to distinguish Mary's from mine.

Now it gets even better.  The bikes will get us around OK but what about our stuff?  No problem. Enter the Burley Travoy. This little trailer is the perfect answer to haul our things for a motel stay.  It folds to not much larger than a brief case, weighs less than 10 lbs and can carry 60 lbs of cargo. ( I get to call it cargo because it'll have come from our boat)  It doubles as a hand pull cart too and I'd not be the least bit concerned about pulling it right through the grocery store and into the checkout lanes.  It will be excellent for loading our belongings at the dock, hand pulling them ashore, coupling to the bike, and getting on our way.  So whether by bike, taxi, or on foot the Burley is going along to haul our stuff

Burley Travoy