Sub!

I hate the Beatles. Really. Hate the whole band with a passion. I especially dislike getting their songs stuck in my head while scuba diving. This can be a problem.

Last week they brought in a submarine that will be housed here and tested throughout the summer. It came on the deck of a boat and was then offloaded onto the boat ramp.

There was much discussion.

A truck came down the (impossibly steeply graded) hill to manipulate the trailer.

The truck had trouble getting traction on the rear wheels, so they got some assistance.
The big barn in the background houses the hyperbaric chamber.

The truck drove the sub around in a big circle until it was on the dock next to the boat ramp. Literally--I was standing on the upper part of the dock when I took the boat ramp photo above.

Then they brought in a big crane.

Craning the sub off of the truck onto a launch pad.

There are days when I feel like I'm in the middle of a children's picture book about transportation. You know, the kind that talks about "planes, trains, and automobiles," except much more exhausting when you're in the middle of it.

Here's an example. I went to a wedding last weekend. Traveling there was not a small undertaking. It involved the following transportation pathway:
Went down to the dock to get onto a small boat, but the submarine operations were underway and we couldn't get down to the boats. Rode in a van to Two Harbors. Took a big ferry boat to the mainland. Rode in a minivan to the airport. Flight cancelled, so was rerouted and flew in 2 airplanes to Chicago. Arrived in Chicago and the airport was underwater

No, really, I do mean that O'Hare was underwater

and I wished once again that I had a small boat. Then I tried to take the train

Blue Line. If you look closely, the signs read "expiring? Visit Trains to city"

and briefly considered stealing and riding a water zamboni (or whatever you call that thing)

but took a taxi instead. The return path was similarly torturous.

I'm back on the island after 60 hours. The sub is still here. I just wish they had picked a different paint color.