Bud got back from Florida Wednesday afternoon. Although he was happy to see Jamie, Adler and me, I'm sure I was much happier to have him back here than he was to be here again. He enjoyed being in Florida, and he enjoyed being at the boat even with the work and the sickness. He was not 100% recovered until about Friday. I've enjoyed having him cook again. He made a very nice stir-fry on Thursday, with lots of sliced vegetables. The one day I sliced carrots and parsnips for Adler and myself, I managed to slice off a bit of skin from the tip of my left ring finger. A very painful and bloody little wound. We did enjoy the veggies, though.

We need to make a decision quickly about bringing the boat. Jamie has off this weekend, so I asked Bud if he was up for another trip. He was, so we drove down to Baytown on Galveston Bay yesterday to visit the Bayland Marina. This is the picture I took of it through the car window going 65 mph across the Fred Hartman Bridge. I can't believe it came out this good. We were happily impressed with the place. It's city owned, but leased and managed by a very nice couple. It has floating docks and high pilings, the best thing for hurricanes. It had floating docks and high pilings before Hurricane Ike, but the surge from Ike was high enough to float the docks up over those pilings, and they floated enmass up on the grass and street at the inland end of the little cove where they are. So the docks are all brand new and the pilings are even higher now. I put a few other pictures in the gallery.

It took us 5 hours to get there, which included one slight detour. Our route took us on the Sam Houston Parkway, which was designated as a partial toll road. We had our change ready before we made the exit. Once on it we found that you could only use a transponder, no cash was accepted, so we took the first exit and retraced our steps. Now that route took us all the way to the 610 loop in Houston, and even on Saturday the traffic was heavy. We looked for an alternative route back and found we could take route 146 that goes right by the marina, straight north for about 80 miles. It keeps you well east of Houston and its traffic.

So we drove 5 hours down, getting there at 12:15. We talked to the folks at the marina, followed their directions (and the iPad) to a West Marine where we bought a cruising guide for Western Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, and followed the clerk's recommendation to a good seafood restaurant. We haven't had good seafood since we came to Texarkana. If I haven't mentioned it before, a great deficiency of Texarkana is that it's a food desert! Nobody seems to be able to cook anything that isn't bar-be-qued or fried. Anyway, we both got the blackened redfish and shrimp plate at Joe Lee's, which was a place and pick up your order at the counter type of eatery. The fish was fresh and tasty, so we were happy. I had forgotten to take pictures of the marina. I snapped this one on the way back over the bridge, then we stopped for me to take the others, and at 2:40 we were on our way back. The new route was a bit shorter, but still took 5 hours.

Poor Bud, he must feel like he's back at work with all this driving. But it paid off as we are excited about the prospect of having Earendil here, and spending weekends aboard would be doable. I thought on the way back that the trip would soon turn tedious, but better than never seeing our boat at all. So now the challenge remains getting her here. Bud will soon have to go back to Florida, and this time sail her back. We figure he'll be gone about 6 or 7 weeks total. That will be hard, but the reward will be great.