Christmas slideshow

just going through my computer and seeing some photos that make me smile. thank you to all our freinds for such a goofy life!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

JW and I will ring in the new year by going to see Widespread and Yonder and then its off to sail the Eye Quit to her new home. I am a firm believer that how you start the new year is how your year will be so hopefully ours will be filled with good music, smooth sailing and wonderful friends. I hope everyone starts their new year with love, music and happiness. I can't wait to ring out 2008 and all the hardships we have suffered during this year, as well as our friends. Off with the old on with the new!!!!

Peace and love in 2009!
Lara

Christmas Day 2008

VERY quiet around here this morning! No kids; no Catie; no family…except each other. I (JW) sort of miss the noise and chaos. I miss the idea of getting up early in the morning to put the turkey in the oven and the smell of the day as it moves toward the table. I went to the store yesterday on my way home from court and the office and bought something special for today’s dinner…something both Lara and I adore.

We were in Phoenix last weekend for an early Christmas with Derek and his girlfriend, Becca. Derek only has this one week off from school and no time off from his job…so, we took Christmas to him. We took some presents, filled their pantry from the nearby grocer and took them out to dinner. As students and workers, there is little extra money for fancy dinners, so we supplied that as a treat for us all. The trip to Phoenix was delightful; clear weather and beautiful scenery (see the pics taken by Lara out the window of the truck). We were afraid that we’d have to come home via the southern route to avoid bad weather in Flagstaff, but the weather held and we got home last Sunday night. One thing I won’t miss about our mountain home in New Mexico – the temperature in the house was 21 degrees when we walked in the door from Phoenix and it took time to get the fire going in the wood stove (our sole source of heat in this house) and the cold out of here.





One of the hopes we express all the time these days is that this is the last winter we have to spend…anywhere. Our hope is to be able to spend the cold winter months in FL aboard the boat – not having to worry about the snow or cold, whether we can get the truck into 4 wheel drive, whether the propane guy can get his truck into the yard in the snow, whether we will run out of firewood before we have enough money to buy more…all the fun things about living in these glorious mountains just east of Albuquerque.



With Dylan now out of the Army (yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!) and living in the Keys, we are blessed to have two of our favorite people living close to each other (Dylan and Bradley; Bean as Lara affectionately calls him). I can’t think of two better people to be watching each other’s backs. We’ll give them a call later to see how their Christmas is going in the land of warmth and sunshine. Our hope is to be able to spend next Christmas with them, and Catie, with Christmas dinner served in the cockpit of the boat. Catie insists on naked cabana boys and rum, so we’ll have to arrange her after-dinner entertainment.

Lara’s mom and Ray are due here on December 29, on their way to Palm Springs. The weather along I-40 has been crazy so far this year. They may end up having to go the southern route from Abilene (where Lara’s grandmother lives) to SoCal.

They are calling for 6” of snow here today and tonight; 2 FEET of snow in the northern mountains of New Mexico and southern Colorado. Beautiful…but, I won’t miss it. 





Well, its time to go and start calling friends with Christmas greetings. Here’s hoping that all of you reading this missive will have a wonderful Christmas day and will get yourselves ready for a spectacular new year with family and friends. We’re already looking forward to seeing friends at music festivals in 2009, and other friends who wander through New Mexico on their way to someplace else. Be safe, my friends, and love those around you with your whole heart.

P.S. All Lara wants to talk about these days is how soon we’ll be back aboard the Eye Quit. 21 days, Darlin!

Sadness

Bean's Mother passed away last week. She will be missed by many people. She was a loving mother and grandmother to some very amazing and kind people and one crazy sorehead (not Bean). Bradley was in Terre Haute by her side when it happened and I was in New Mexico. I wish i could have been there to hug him and help him through but distance and lack of funds won out.

May she rest in the joyous peace she deserves.

Shell Point Marina

From the minute we were towed into Shell Point Marina (which has a Ruskin, FL address), the day after the election, we felt welcome. Tim, the manager of the marina, was very helpful and we were able to breathe a sigh of relief that we were not leaking water into the bilge and that we were tied up to the dock. Finally, some time to relax and quit worrying. All the work that we need to get done on the boat can be done there at the marina.

Tied up two slips away was the yacht Katapoul and two of the kindest souls you’ll have the blessing to run into – Jo and Paul. Both young army veterans, they were busy below decks on the boat that they had just bought getting the boat ready for a trip around the world. They sold nearly all that they owned in Missouri, bought their boat in Naples, FL and moved it to Shell Point to do some work on it before they head out on their adventure. They arrived every morning early and worked all day, stopping occasionally to chat with us and to share their dreams. I envy them! They are the dreams I had as a young man their age. Instead of children, they will have two dogs and a bird as their mates on the voyage. Both Jo and Paul were more than willing to share their knowledge of all sorts of boat things with us. They were very helpful to us and we appreciate it very much.

Jo and Paul's boat

I had an e-mail from Paul a day or so ago and he said that they are ready to move aboard the boat and hope that they will be able to get away from the dock by December 19, headed to the Bahamas. They will be sending e-mail updates as they voyage along and I shall pass along the updates.

Our flight back from Tampa was scheduled for early morning the Saturday after the election and we will be forever thankful for the ride that Jo and Paul gave us to the Tampa airport on Friday night after we had shared a great dinner at a local seafood restaurant. THANKS, Jo and Paul!!!

The time we spent at the dock at Shell Point before we flew back to Albuquerque was time spent lazing about for a bit and some activity sorting out the lines and equipment that filled nearly every space aboard the Eye Quit. Some of the stuff was beyond further use and we filled garbage cans with it. Some things just needed to be cleaned up, which we worked hard at and then got packed back aboard..

A mother pelican and her brood on the floating dock next to our dock.

We were sorry to have to lock up the Eye Quit on Friday evening and head for the airport. It broke our hearts to leave her there, knowing that we could not be back until some time in January.

Hopefully, we will move the boat south to the Keys and her home in the Community Harbor in Tavernier by the end of January. Jo and Paul promised to keep an eye on Eye Quit until they left. The small solar panel we installed keeps a trickle of charge going into the batteries, which power the bilge pump. All seems to be working! So far we have not gotten a frantic call telling us that Eye Quit has suddenly started taking on water.

I will soon be sending e-mails to both Tim and Mike to arrange the work that needs to be done as they haul Eye Quit out of the water.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Things to be thankful for:

A crazy sense of humor.





That this guy is history, literally as they will be talking for centuries about how he messed things up!



That Obama will be in office soon, and really not a moment too soon!



That we have such wonderful friends and family, here are some of them!!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!!!!

JWs take on election day and some positivity.

Election day starts with my call to the Shell Point Marina in Ruskin, FL at the hour shown on their website as the time they opened and spoke to the person who saved our ass. What a blessing it was to meet Tim Dickson, the manager of the marina. I explained all that a I could about our dilemma and the past 48 hours and what we were trying to arrange to get the boat trucked to Tavernier and inquired as to how we might get the boat to his marina to get it hauled out of the water.

He asked, “why are you going to all that trouble? Why don’t you just get the boat towed over here and just leave it here till the work can be done on the prop and the bottom. We do that work and I can find you someone to tow the boat over here. Its way less expensive than trying to do that work and then truck the boat to Tavernier.” Could everyone hear that sigh of relief that morning? I know that it was deafening where I stood and it felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders.

I talked to Mike, the fellow that Tim pointed me to for the towing. That turned out to be relatively inexpensive and it turned out that Mike’s business did much of what we needed done to Eye Quit and he worked almost exclusively out of Shell Point. We made arrangements to have the boat towed the following day since Mike was minding his son who was feeling out of sorts and couldn’t go to school and right on the second he had promised, Mike came around the corner in his boat, ready to haul us over to the Marina.

I had already gotten the lines to the shore ready to let go and it wasn’t long before Eye Quit’s bow was tethered to Mike’s boat and we were headed down the canal toward Tampa Bay and the two hour tow over to the marina. I was paying attention to Mike’s hand gestures about how he wanted me to steer Eye Quit as we went around the corner at the end of Benny’s canal and I am glad that I wasn’t looking back. Lara told me after we had rounded the corner that Benny had watched us all the way down the canal and around the corner; I suppose not wanting to let go of his precious friend.

Now she was really ours. The tow over to Shell Point was calm and uneventful. We pulled in the marina and Tim had lines ready to throw to us and he pulled us backward into the slip that Eye Quit is going to inhabit for the next couple of months. More about our stay in the marina in my next post.

"Eye Quit"'s new home away from home: