It makes all the difference

I google "sea mule" every now and then--one never knows what'll come up. I happened to get 2 good hits: one a newspaper article for the Oregonian about a Sea MUle that sank down at the John Dey dam and one for a Sea Mule for sale on a Government auction.

Pretty exciting! I called people at the Dam to connect with staff there who worked on their Sea Mule, or at least operated it, but couldn't get anywhere. You would have thought I was prying information out of the FBI. Nobody would talk. Finally after many pestering calls I caught the Head of Maintainence at his desk. "The best I can do for you is pass along your phone number to the people in the garage and, if they want to, they'll call you." Nobody ever did. The organization our tax dollars fund that was so helpful to me here? The Army Corps of Engineers.

I managed to track down the other Mule, by luck and a guess. It was at the Grand Coulee dam. Sent them an email and got a response back right away. "You betcha we got a Sea Mule. What would you like to know about it?" I ended up making friends with one of the staff, Kent Peterson, who even invited me up to see the boat in person.

Of course, I took him up on the offer and got to see the first Sea Mule other than my own. It gave me some great ideas and a shot in the arm that, yes, there is hope for my boat.

It also restored my faith in people. I'm choosing to believe that it's at least 50/50...for every dead-hearted, unhelpful stick-in-the-mud there's another person who's wide-hearted and even on the lookout for opportunities to help fellow travelers.