Land Trip to California
18 September 2011
Virginia and Dennis Johns
After bonding our boat at Fish Hook Marina in Golfito, Costa Rica and setting up a dehumidifier that we borrowed from Tim at Land Sea, we flew to California on July 13. Due to several flight delays, we didn't arrive in LAX until after midnight. From Houston, we let Virginia's sister off the hook for our previously scheduled 8pm pick-up and scheduled a shuttle ride to her parents' home in Long Beach (cell phones be praised). Soon after being dropped off at 2am, an exhausted Virginia realized she had left her 'purse' (backpack) on the shuttle. Since her passport was in there she immediately called the shuttle company, despite it being the wee hours. She was so relieved to hear that they did have it and that the shuttle driver would make another trip to Long Beach the next day to deliver it.
We stayed with Virginia's parents and visited with her siblings and friends in the Long Beach area the first week back. We spent the next few days in La Mirada with Dennis' mom and then drove her to Lake Tahoe for the annual Johns' family reunion. This year we didn't have any of our toys to take along (kayaks, bikes) as they were on Libertad in Costa Rica but we didn't do without as toys were available from others in the family. We did a lot of hiking and took in a lakeside production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. One day we had lunch in South Lake Tahoe with Mary Lee and Lewis from s/v MerryLee whom we met while cruising Mexico. They had been reading our blog and realized we would both be in the area that week so we enjoyed a very pleasant lunch at a lakeside restaurant. It was great to see them.
August 1 we finally got to Santa Barbara and visited with our son and his family. It was wonderful to see them. Our granddaughters are 9 and 6 now and they both looked so much taller than when we left in January. We have been in Santa Barbara staying with various friends, as our house is rented. We have received several housesitting, dogsitting, and catsitting invitations and one of Virginia's Soroptimist friends has been especially generous filling in any open weeks. Our first week in Santa Barbara was highlighted by the city-wide Fiesta of Old Spanish Days (www.oldspanishdays-fiesta.org) -we had no trouble staying busy. We have some good friends from Louisiana who arranged their annual visit to California to overlap with ours. Our return also served as an excuse for a college-buddy get-together, bringing together six of eight of Virginia's roommates -one coming all the way from the east coast (Virginia) and another from Tucson. We have reconnected with our community groups and are enjoying seeing those groups of friends again. We delivered a presentation of our first 'leg' of our cruising adventure to our boating club at a general meeting and then again at Dennis' Rotary club. We will talk again at a boating club Weather class about our practical experiences in Mexico and Central America. Dennis has jumped right back into Rotary, even leading a meeting for the current club president while he was on vacation. One day we took a highschool-aged Rotary exchange student from Germany down to Los Angeles for a soccer game of the US National Team vs. Costa Rica. You could easily identify the Costa Rica fans by their "Pura Vida" hats and shirts. US lost but it was interesting to see how well the American team has adopted new tactics introduced by the imported German coach.
One our primary projects while we are here is to find a new home for our wonderful dogs. Litter siblings, our two female Weimaraners never embraced boating life and we had to leave them with a friend when we headed off on our adventure. Our friend advised that he is moving to a smaller home and will be unable to keep them, so we've posted flyers around town and placed an ad on Craig's List. Getting these two sweet dogs a new loving home is a top priority before we resume cruising.
We're catching up on our annual doctor visits. We both had dental and eye check-ups (often the first to fail from age!!!). Dennis had hand surgery this week for his trigger finger on his right hand and is looking forward to painless hauling of sheets and halyards. We're trying to keep active, scheduling weekly hikes in the Santa Barbara area with friends. Since we aren't staying at our own house, we don't have gardening or house maintenance projects to keep us busy. It is great to be retired and explore our home town, attend the college soccer games, enjoy local theater (especially those with friends in the cast), dine with friends, and basically goof off. We are also spending time with our dogs. We pick them up most days for their daily walk. We are trying to keep track of our cruising friends via blogs, email, and Facebook.
We are planning on returning to the boat in Costa Rica after Thanksgiving, first week of December. We still have lots of fun to pack in before then, including a trip to the Bay area to visit with Dennis' two sisters and some friends, one to San Diego with Virginia's parents, and one to Disneyland with our granddaughters (we'll let their parents tag along).