When?

When are you leaving?  What is your departure date?  When?  When?  When?  Ugh!!!!!  Everyone keeps asking when we are leaving KC.  Truth is...we don't have a specific date.  I know, I know....cruiser philosophy says you MUST set a date or you never leave.  But we do have a date that we have been working towards.  May 15th.  This is the day the people renting our house will show up.  We agreed that there would be some overlap as we got them set up and settled in but May 15th!!  Yes, that is today!  But life happens the way it happens and we needed a few extra days.  Luckily our new tenants were able to help us out and we really appreciate that.  So the new date is May 19th!  They will roll into KC May 19th.  We are very excited.  We are currently working on the hundreds of last minute details. Will we be piling in the car and hitting the road May 20th for s/v Honey Ryder?  Um...no.  Tom still needs to wrap up some business items so we will be crashing with friends for a short period of time but.... May 19th!!!!  It's a date and that is good enough for now.

Rear View Mirror -Sleep Vacation

*Current lack of sleep as we sprint towards moving aboard prompted me to dig out this draft I wrote last fall.
Oct 2012 Very early this morning on a flight from Atlanta to Jacksonville, I met a couple, similar in age that are headed to St John in the USVI for a week's vacation.  We exchanged a few pleasantries and then they both promptly fell asleep.  Did I mention it was really early?  Really, really early!  We landed and as we waited to deplane, I wished them a good vacation. She thanked me and then said "looking forward to just sleeping."  I acknowledged and we went our separate ways.  I headed north towards s/v Honey Ryder.  However, it got me thinking about vacations and life in 2012.  I think we all look forward to vacation time.  Some vacations are spent action packed whether it's four jam packed days at various theme parks in Orland (personally my idea of hell on earth, but that is just me) while others go skiing, kayaking, hiking, camping, etc.  Some vacations are very event specific like the Annapolis Sailboat Show or the boat shopping whirlwind trips we took 2 1/2 yrs ago....you get the idea.  Yet, I think we have all taking those vacations where we did very little other than sleep.  Sleep in late, at the pool, on the beach,  on the boat (cruise ship), afternoon naps, etc....  So is where we have gotten to as a society?  We now go on holiday to catch up on our sleep?  Are we over extending ourselves to that point?  Are we packing too much into a single day?  Do we really HAVE to or do we just feel like we have to?  And if so, what does that say about the quality of that busy, busy day?  Hum?  Yawn- well off to bed, even though I had a little boat nap late this afternoon.  *Did I mention that it was really really early this morning!

2272 Craziness

Atlantic temp is good

Tom and I looked around last weekend and decided we had too much stuff in our take to the boat pile for one carload.  It wouldn't all fit in the Murano when we take off soon, especially with the new solar panel.  We could rent a trailer to haul behind but for reasons I won't go into, the better solution for us was for me to make a delivery run down to the boat with a car full.  So I grabbed my ESS (Evil Sailing Sister) Kim and we did a Thelma and Louise style ESS roadtrip down and back this week -minus Brad Pit, Harvey Keitel and the cliff scene!  Kim arrived 5:50am Tuesday morning at our house.  We jumped in the fully packed Murano and hit the road.  18 hrs later we arrived in Brunswick GA.  Yes, 18 hrs.....actually 19 for Kim since she had a 1 hr drive to our house.  We both limped stiff legged, bug eyed, brain dead (from all the driving) aboard s/v Honey Ryder and fell into our bunks.  LATE the next morning we unloaded the car thus loading up s/v Honey Ryder.  Surprisingly the waterline didn't drop too bad.  A quick check-in with Dock Mistress Sherry and we were off so Kim could see some area sights. 

Given the freaky freakin May snow storm in KC last week, it was nice to be wearing shorts and sticking our toes in the Atlantic.  It was the perfect temp.  The monthly 6pm meet and greet back at the marina gave us a chance to chat with fellow cruisers - most of whom had just sailed in from spending the winter in the Bahamas.  We were asked "when did you arrive?"  Kim and I would reply 12:15 am Wednesday morning but a quick glance at our snow white skin vs their golden tans hinted correctly that we didn't sail in like they all did but instead drove in.  Dinner on the deck at Marshside Grill wrapped up our evening in Brunswick. 

On the back deck at Marshside Grill

We opted to break up the return trip up by staying over in Paducah KY.  It still made for a long, crazy week with 2272 miles round trip.  Oh yeah....we took a leg stretching break on the way back in Chattanooga TN - home of the MOON PIE!  Ooey, gooey marshmallow smashed between two processed cookies and covered in chocolate - the childhood memories came flooding back.  

Moon Pie - childhood field trip food

I am very grateful to ESS Kim for taking the time to go with me.  Tom had his own crazy week with 10,000 things converging on him at once.  I guess some craziness is to be expected when moving from one phase of life into another completely different phase.