The 2026 DAing trip. Kingston-Montreal-Ottawa-Kingston

[tribologist]

Getting close to pull up to Thousand Islands to do this years summer trip. We plan to start at Pecks Marina in the thousand Islands on July 2 or 3, take the seaway to Montreal, Lachine canal to Old port, then Lachine back to Ottawa river up to Ottawa then Rideau back to Kingston and the thousand island and be back on July 25. Driftless got a new 100A alternator, a 314Ah lipo and a 3kW inverter so now we are pretty much independent of shore power. We can run the AC for about 3 hours on battery.

[WillieC]

LiPo is a real game changer.

For a less invasive approach, especially for you weekenders and marina hoppers, look at Portable Power Stations. We just got one for our road camper and a refrigerator/freezer. I’ve been running the heck out of it on the back porch for three weeks now. Very impressive. We will be going off grid for 2 weeks later this summer so I got the 400W solar panel to boot. Marina hoppers can do a couple days easily if you don’t go nuts on the load. Sensible people. Albin owners.

[tribologist]

The key in my mind is high power recharge. 60A charging will allow modest AC use under way and two days of use recharged in a typical day run. The alternator is 100A but i limit it to 60% to keep it cool.

[DesertAlbin736]

Ulf and Elisabeth,
You go guys! Bon Voyage! Something similar to what we once considered doing but never did. The 2021 Erie Canal cruise was our last. We enjoyed our time on the canal hanging with out you and especialy touring the Corning glass museum. Was that really 5 years ago already? Wow! The "DA" crown is now yours.

[tribologist]

So this did not happen. The friday before we were supposed to depart we had a vet checkup/follow up cardiogram with our cat Stella. Got a call mid day from the vet that Stella were in Heart failure and needed treatmen asap. That went well but she need meds twice daily so until we have that sorted we cant do multi week trips. Then the week after we were plannibg a 4 day trip on Erie to meet up with iur friend from lock 28A in Western erie. Had a vet follow up on that friday and got a bit delayed so we decided to leave early saturday morning.. at 7 pm the water heater blew and filled the basement. Now we got that somewhat sorted so this weekend we took Driftless to Mystic for the weekend. I have installed a 314 Ah battery, an 100A alternator and a 3kW inverter and finally got a chance to test it. Now we can even run the AC of battery for long enough time to cool down the cabin. Cook with regular hot plates etc. Phenomenal! Here are some pictures!

[Nancy]

Ulf, It's easy to see why you changed your plans for Stella -- what a beautiful cat! The water heater -- pffftt, stuff happens. The new electrical system sounds great!

Nancy

[DesertAlbin736]

Ditto Nancy's post. So sorry to hear about your water leak. Stella is such a beautiful cat. No wonder you're doing everything possible to nurse her back to health. We went through a similar ordeal with a water leak in our single story house this year. Starting in mid-March we took a short 3 day road trip up to Monument Valley in the far northeast corner of Arizona right on the Utah border. That's the famous location used in old Western movies like 1939's "Stagecoach" which was the breakout role for John Wayne. Anyway, when we got back home we found our kitchen and two bedrooms flooded from a leak in the water supply tubing to the refrigerator ice maker. Just a small 1/2 inch long split in the 1/4" plastic tubing, which with the fridge in its normal position the tubing was up against the wall with the split in the line down low & pointing at the wall. Leaking a jet of water at line pressure it blew a hole all the way through the drywall into the bedroom behind it, which I use as my home office, flooding it with at least 20 or 30 gallons or more. Long story short, we filed a homeowner insurance claim & Servpro came in and cut out drywall around the perimeter of the bedroom, the next bedroom behind it, the hallway leading to those rooms, half of the kitchen including behind cabinets, and part of the den to a height of 2 feet, just like in your photo. Luckily the ceramic tile floor was OK. In Arizona, tract homes are built on a concrete slab, so there is no basement or wooden subfloor. We had to move into an Airbnb from the end of March all the way until the 7th of this month while restoration work was being completed. We're still sorting through boxes of stuff we had to pack up and store in our garage. We're using the situation as an opportunity to do some repainting and upgrading to more modern decor, as well has 'culling' a lot extraneous stuff we've accumulated over 17 years of living in this house.

Mystic is a nice place to visit, especially the Mystic seaport Museum there. In 2015 (11 years ago already!) we hauled La Dolce Vita out there from AZ for the first time, did part of the western end of the Erie Canal on the way. Putting in at Seneca Lake State Park, thence transiting C&S Canal to the junction with the Erie at Montezuma, then west to Fairport & back. That's all we had time for since we were on a schedule to meet up with a group of friends from our Lake Pleasant Sailing club for a week long stay at a beach house rental at Weekapaug, RI. We put La Dolce Vita in a transient slip at Norwest Marina on Pawcatuck River across from Westerly, RI for the week and did a few day trips over to the Thames River, up to New London, and as far east along the coast as Misquamicut. Spending a day at Mystic Seaport Museum was a highlight of the trip. A lot of the pictures taken are backed up on my old Windows 10 PC, and haven't gotten around to transferring them, so I don't have them avaiable here.