Chain Livin': The Hot Dog Boat and some Randoms

We've lived on "The Chain" for 13 years and finally had our first experience at a hot dog boat. These floating fast food counters are converted house boats that anchor in high-traffic areas to sell food and non-alcoholic drinks to passing by boaters. We've always wanted to stop at a hot dog boat but could never find one when we actually needed one. Usually they'd show up after we passed their anchor point and we'd already ate lunch by the time we passed back. Other food boats we've seen on The Chain include the pizza boat and the ice cream boat.

Bub's is one-of-two hot dog boats we've seen on The Chain this year

Docking was relatively easy and the crew working the boat was having fun. We ordered hot dogs and fries and ate them a bit further down the lake. The food was good but hard to manage condiment packs and napkins in the breeze while the boat was rocking. The next time we stop at a hot dog boat will either be when we are in dire need of food or a water or if we have a guest on board that wants to enjoy this novelty.

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We came up with a name for our pontoon boat last year and developed a graphic to stick on the back. Of course, we finally got to applying the decal this year. We bought the graphics pretty inexpensively from buildasign.com. Dave messed up the first order and bought a non-transparent background graphic. We fixed our error by ordering a few transparent stickers the second time around. We decided a windy day was the perfect time to adhere a 18x18 sticker to the boat and in the process screwed up both the transparent stickers. The next day we went back out and applied one of the old non-transparent stickers vs. ordering more and waiting two more weeks to do this project. We will replace it eventually......

Going back into the Camera Roll history on the iPad reveals some of the inspiration behind our design. We wanted it to have the 50's Retro/Googie style which meant a lot of different shapes and use of multiple fonts. "Toon-In Lounge" and the TV is part homage to Disney's Hollywood Studios' bar the Tune-In Lounge. "Toon" was also a reference to the fact that our boat is a pontoon boat and "Lounge" because our seating configuration is lounge chairs.

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Dave went to Wal-Mart unchaperoned and arrived home with some unneeded things. One such thing was a $5 bubble gun that promised "bubbles inside bubbles". This thing actually worked. Of course he had to set up the GoPro and film it.