A passing and Christmas plans that look like scrambled eggs

Yesterday Anneke’s mother passed away peacefully in the Netherlands at the age of 88. She enjoyed a long life and passed with family at her side. Since we had extensive plans for the holiday with our daughter Katie and her husband coming for the holiday and long with Victoria’s first Christmas, it was a difficult situation. In the end, we are heading early tomorrow to the airport for the long trek to Amsterdam. I have spent much of my life traveling the world, often in commercial planes. For many years it did not bother me, now I dread it. At the Christmas rush, I am sure it will be a trip to remember.

Making plans for such a immediate departure are a lot simpler with the internet, but certainly not inexpensive when you want to leave –like now. Then there is the packing and making sure you have all the credentials necessary to travel, can actually get a rental car and hotels, as needed. Surprisingly one of the hardest is the packing. After all, we have no luggage or other items normally used in such endeavors. So we are borrowing what we can and then went shopping for some clothes appropriate for the occasion. I do not even own any regular shoes! The last time I wore a tie and dress jacket was several years ago and I had to buy them for the occasion. Living in an RV is definitely a casual affair.

So we are nearly ready for an early AM departure for a week in the cold and windy North Sea country of the Netherlands-oh, I do not own a real winter coat anymore either.

We will have a small early Christmas with Victoria tonight.

I am also taking the daring step of not taking a computer, so my usual lackadaisical updates may be even more so. If we do not post again before Christmas, we want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Destin boat parade

It has been a busy week, but little that could be called exciting. It started out with some fun. One of the fellow teachers at our daughter’s school also operates a couple of charter sailing boats. We were invited to go along to take part in the Destin boat parade and decorating competition. Since the weather promised to be good, we jumped at the chance. Last May we went on one of their boats for a sunset wine cruise had a great time.

We arrived early so we look at some of the decorations on the boats while there was enough light to see how they had decorated. We knew that pictures taken during the event, in the dark, were definitely going to be tricky. Clearly some of the boats had gone all out for the competition and others just enough to justify being in the parade.

It was a great night on the water and we had a great time. Our major plan for the completion was for the invited guests to form a caroling group that was going to WOW the judges as we motored by. It was a lot of fun, but apparently the judges did not feel that our singing was more impressive than some of the over the top decorations on other vessels. Among the competition was the oldest schooner in the United States, the Governor Stone, all decorated in white rope lights.

After the parade, we headed out in the inlet entrance area and hovered around waiting for the fireworks display. We could not have had a better location for the fireworks. We were literally on top of the barge that was launching the rockets. If it were my sailboat, I would have been sweating hot residue landing in my sails. We had to look straight up for some of the explosions.

The rest of the week was spend playing with our granddaughter, who we are pretty sure is only days away from walking, and carrying out our study of lifestyle change in the form of looking at houses we might like to live in. This is always been a stress factor in our many moves over the years, but now includes changing a lifestyle we still enjoy and dealing with the wild housing market that exists in this area and indeed, around the country. At this early stage, nothing has been decided.

Happy Anniversary

Today is our daughter Heather’s and SIL Ryan’s 7^th anniversary. This is a special one since it is the first with their daughter Victoria, who is 10 months old today.

This was a great reason to look back on that fun day.

Happy Anniversary!

I had the Coast Guard on speed dial

Sometimes when we are staying in one spot for a few months, it can be challenging to find something interesting to do. The other day, as I was pondering just what I was going to do with myself, fate intervened and offered me some unexpected entertainment.

I had talked to the folk’s just behind us and we discussed his newly purchased fold up boat that he planned to use for fishing. I have spent much of my life involved with ships and boats big and small, but I have never had any experience with a fold up boat. So when I noticed that he was going to launch it on its maiden voyage with the help of another neighbor, I could not help but rubber neck the event.

Rarely does a new adventure such as this go off without a hitch, and certainly this was no exception. The boat had to be moved from the camp site to the beach for launching. This involved placing it on a two wheel dolly not unlike that used for kayaks. The procession was moving smartly toward the beach until they came to the first speed bump. They took this at speed and promptly separated the dolly from the boat bending the dolly pins in the process.

In order to get things back on track, the pins had to be straightened for the dolly and the outboard removed from the boat. Next there was a lot of checking and pushing, but the boat was again underway toward the beach. Getting the boat into the water proved a bit more difficult than planned. I think they made a note to themselves not to launch again at dead low tide. At low tide, the water depth necessary to get the boat floating and be able to get the engine shaft lowered into the water was several hundred yards off shore. This meant getting wet.

Finally, they were afloat and had to use the oars to push them far enough off shore to use the engine. Now the thing about using oars as walking poles is that you have to hang onto them tightly or they will pull out of your hands and be left behind. If you are lucky, they will stick up out of the water and you can go back and get them-if you have any energy left.

Finally, they were far enough offshore to lower the engine and head off. There was a slight delay in departing while they got the engine started. I should mention that not only was this the maiden voyage for the fold up boat, but also for the engine.

After a number of false starts, the engine was running regularly and they enjoyed a nice trip with no more mishaps. Luckily, I did not have to call the Coast Guard