Slow Boat

Solar canal boat Dragonfly is spending the cold months on dry land, wrapped cozily in plastic and propped up on stilts at MidLakes Marina in Macedon. To read about our past adventures:

  - Great Loop cruise: 6,000 miles around eastern North America
  - Little Loop" cruise: 1,000 miles and the historic canals in Canada
  - Terra (Sorta) Incognita: Cruises to Ithaca and Buffalo

When winter comes, upstate New York freezes hard. So what do a couple of old canawlers do when their boat is in dry dock?

Grab your boots and Stetson, honey! We're heading to Texas!

Last winter, we hooked up our other tiny metal home, an Airstream trailer, and migrated south, to volunteer as ranger-naturalists in Everglades National Park. In a word: awesome!

This winter, we are headed to Texas.Yes, the land of barbecue and boot-scoot boogie, longhorns and lassos.

For a couple of damn Yankees, it might as well be a foreign country. We anticipate culture shock.

But we're prepared to embrace the weirdness, because we'll be doing what we love: talking about conservation and the environment with folks who are visiting a beautiful wild place. Specifically Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge. (Which happens to be near Austin, hence the reference to weirdness.)

We'll be there from Dec. 1, 2019 to Feb. 23, 2020. Balcones is in the beautiful Texas Hill Country, known for its limestone canyons, Ashe juniper forests, bluebells, and quaint little old German towns.

And then, from March 1 to April 30, we will be volunteering at Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, on the Texas coast, not far from Galveston. Also a nice place to visit.

Come on down!