Hello everyone!
Wow, how time slips away.
We have had a pretty busy time of it since we last posted. Some of those times were good, some of them were a little challenging, but that’s life. We’re here, and we’re kicking, and we’re doing fine!
This post is to bring you roughly up to date with where we are right now.
This summer we had thought seriously about continuing north from the San Juan’s to the Gulf Islands of Canada and even had an invitation to join a party of other sailor’s on a trip north, but the transmission problems we had made the prospect of going to an area of even wilder currents pretty daunting. So we arrived in Port Townsend and anchored out in our usual place southwest of the ferry dock.
After what seemed like hours on the phone with the manufacturer, the conclusion was to replace the tranny and hopefully it would fix our problems. So, while at anchor in Pt. Townsend Bay, SEA Marine made a water delivery of a brand new transmission right to our boat side. A day later Kevin had it installed all while bobbing out on our anchor. Pretty cool! Now it goes in gear every time!
Our tranny issues had sort of left us deflated and tired. After a few more days in PT we decided to head back to our home port in Tacoma by way of Port Orchard and Blake Island, two of our favorite places. We arrived back home in Tacoma just in time for Kevin to fly out to Omaha for a family emergency. I drove back in our van and after several weeks in Council Bluffs and an enjoyable trip, we arrived home at the boat in mid-September with two weeks left before going back to work.
Kevin completed the head remodel and I had my sister work up some pretty curtains to finish it up. I scraped and sanded the toe rail and he added a coat of Cetol to which we’ll add a couple additional coats this spring.
The last week of September we were back at work in a shiny new truck with 32 miles on the odometer! October-December are busy months in the trucking industry and we received loads of miles. Since the first of January however things have slowed down and for that we are actually grateful.
We had Thanksgiving week with our Council Bluffs family and watched our newest grandson while our son and daughter-in-law went on a late honeymoon. We had a blast with him but we both realized just how old we are; 15 month old babies can wear you ragged! And quite soon now we will be caring for our other 3 grandkids while their parents take a long deserved vacation to Mexico. They are 5, 7 & 9 but somehow it doesn’t seem as daunting to me!
This winter has been brutal. Remember the storm that dropped 15″ of snow in Portland? Yep… we got to go right through it with chains on. My brother, who is also a trucker, was trapped on the freeway during the worst of it for 15 hours! It dogged us all the way down through Oregon and California and then on to Ohio by way of Wyoming. By this time it had moved to the south providing a terrible ice storm in the southern midwest but we were able to stay 1 step ahead of it and went all the way to Allentown PA and back to Ohio without encountering any icy roads. #wecanrunfastwhenwewantto
We can’t seem to put our finger on it yet, but for some reason we wound up the season on a low note, unsure where to go next. Getting a post off was tougher than usual, but I think now that it is done we can move on to keeping closer tabs on our comings and goings and plotting and scheming.
Thank you all for your patience!
Wings of the Morning 
Al says I’ve gone too long since posting on our blog. You’ve inspired me to select some photos anyway. Maybe I’ll get around to posting in the next day or two. LOVE your photos!!!
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Thank you Kristi! I sometimes marvel at some of our friends who put out a blog post every few days. For me it’s kind of like giving birth. It takes a lot of energy in a long time!😁
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It sounds like a VERY busy few months. Thanks for updating we who follow you from afar. I loved the Donner Lake photos. Truly magnificent, especially after chasing a year of summer across the South Pacific. Good wishes and looking forward to hearing about what’s next…
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