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| From Sturgis |
The Bad Lands - South Dakota
Okay, so neither one of us landed a job. I "really" thought I had one at Juniper Networks several times but they all fell through. The other place that was a hopeful went out of business. I thought long and hard about looking elsewhere but we actually have so many things to do while we are home it didn't leave much time for work. It was a hard decision; we decided to take the summer off...
In July we loaded up our land-yacht (Honda Civic) and set sail for Cindy's brothers house in St Louis. Rather than driving the 1200 miles straight through to Doug's we stopped at a campground that was on the way for one night. I though it would be fun to sleep in a tent under the stars, Cindy wanted to stay in a hotel... I still love the adventure but I guess Cindy is getting a little refined in her years? I will say it was a good thing we had earplugs otherwise we would not have gotten much sleep. I really enjoyed it though, snuggling under the stars. I am looking forward to more camping in the future. If it's crappy weather I'm all for a hotel but when it's nice out, it's fun...The next day we got to Doug's mid-day and had a happy reunion. There is something magical about having two young nieces shouting for joy when jumping up to give you a great big bear hug!
Don't get me wrong, I love visiting family but since we've been here I've found a new or renewed passion. As any of my old friends will tell you, I've always loved riding motorcycles. Doug's friend Mike let me borrow his Harley Night Train while we're here. I've become a Harley Davidson addict! Doug and Marlo go to work in the morning and Cindy and I are a here with the girls. Cindy, Lexi and Tori take their time in the morning so I go out for a bike ride every morning, usually for a ~10 mile ride and then to a local McDonald's and have breakfast with a bunch of older retired guys. They now know me by name. Cindy and the girls get a big kick out of this. Some nights after dinner, Doug and I hop on the bikes and go riding. It's been "awesome"! Something about riding the bikes around the windy roads along the rivers and past the farms is such a feeling of freedom! It's the feeling of ocean cruising, only on land! The sounds, the smells, the feeling, it's just awesome. I can see me getting a Harley shortly after moving permanently back on terra firma; that's a definite! We had a great time in St. Louis hitting all our usual favorite spots; St. Louis Zoo, Six Flags, Fast Eddy's and just hanging out with family.
What better way to enjoy more of my motorcycle passion than to go to a motorcycle rally and there is no better rally than the Sturgis Bike Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. Several of our friends including Cindy's brother Doug where heading to Sturgis the first week of August for bike week and somehow they talked us into going! Hell, being in St. Louis we were already half way to Sturgis. I've got to admit, we had heard stories of how crazy Sturgis can be. I believe it's the biggest bike rally in the country and maybe even the world? We hopped in with Doug and Mike and after 15 hours of driving thought corn and soy bean fields we arrived in Sturgis. There were hard-core bikers everywhere. All in all, they were "very" friendly. Once we had a Harley Davidson shirt on our backs and a due-rag on our heads we were accepted. It was like we were one of them. One night we went to the largest biker bar in the world, Full Throttle Saloon. FTS is huge! There were two stages with a band on each, a zip-line running above the crowd that people ride and the girls "show there wears" as they're passing overhead, at least 15 bars, and thousands and thousands of bikers! Bikers even drive their bikes into the bar and park in the crowd. The bikers are encouraged to burn out and create smoke shows. It was "CRAZY"! Very loud bikes smoking their tires off, very cool. Walking though the crowd at FTS was like walking through a jam-packed concert full of huge hard-core bikers. The only difference was if someone bumped into you they would say they where sorry. Bikers with good manners? We had an awesome time. The riding around Sturgis is beautiful. The Bad Lands, Spearfish Canyon, Custer National Park, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Devils Tower (Wyoming) were all very beautiful rides. Some day we'll return to the Sturgis Bike Rally, with my own bike! If you enjoy riding, it is a must do. Thanks for talking us into going Jay, Denise, Dan, Mike and Doug! Also, thanks Matt and Jen for being our tour guides :-)
After a month away, we made the drive back to Massachusetts and had a full calendar for our last month in the States. We spent the time visiting with family and friends. Out of the three months we were in the States I think we only had 2 days with nothing to do! Having a job is much easier than not I think. We wish we had had time to visit a few more friends and family but before we knew it, it was time to leave for Guatemala! We did so much this summer that we're actually tired! But it was an awesome summer; West Island pig roast, Mystic, Cindy's morning walks with her Mom, fishing in Vineyard Sound, dinner with friends, Stowe, weekend rides, cookouts and road trips.
Over the past week we tried to say our "very" sad goodbyes to everyone. It gets harder every year it seems. Anyhoo, time to start the next chapter of our lives. Onto: Tashmoo, Guatemala, Honduras, Australia, New Zealand, Panama, Columbia, etc. Hopefully some of you are still interested in reading my ramblings...
Next post will be from Guatemala.
Fair Winds
John & Cindy
S/V Tashmoo
sailtashmoo att yahoo dot com
Copyright © 2006-2010
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Comments [10]
After several long days of prepping "Tashmoo" to leave her in the sweltering jungle heat we are finally on our way home. We left "Tashmoo" with several heavy-duty reflective tarps covering her and all ports have reflective foil in place to help keep her cool. There is also a dehumidifier running below deck running 24/7. Yesterday (Friday) at noon we piled our bags and our sweaty bodies into the Tortugal water launcha and headed down river to Fronteras. We were trying a new bus line to get us to the city. It turned out that the Maya del Oro bus was an excellent choice. We arrived in Guatemala City in a little over 5 hours with only several stops along the way! Once at the city bus station we hired a very friendly cab driver to take us to our hotel, Casa Blanca.
Saturday morning we woke early and had a great breakfast at the hotel at 6:00am. At 7:00 we left for the airport. Did you know you couldn't bring extra guitar strings on a plane? I was bringing our guitar home and there was an extra set of strings in the case. Security would not let us bring the extra strings. Apparently you can strangle someone with spare strings. It must not be illegal to remove the strings already on a guitar and strangle someone because those are okay... After some discussion, security agreed to let us replace the old strings with the new strings. There we stood for 10 minutes while security watched as we replaced the strings. The old strings where a little rusty and needed to be replaced anyway. Two hours later we took off on our air bound voyage north, to Miami Florida then on to Boston. In Miami we claimed our bags, cleared Customs, and rechecked our bags. We had a two plus hour layover so we decided to grab some lunch. Yup, we're back in the states. A bottle of water $2.99! When we were waiting for the bus in Rio Dulce I paid 1Q (12 cents) for a water... Cindy got a small $10 salad and I got a tiny pizza, $20. We've decided when we get home we're going to make signs saying "We'll Work For Food"....
I do have a couple of leads for jobs. I'm hoping one works out to go back to Juniper.
Anyway, unless we do something really cool this summer, I don't imagine we'll be writing many blog updates for the next couple of months. We plan on heading back to Guatemala in September but who knows, it could be later, it could be sooner. Thanks for reading about our travels this year, check back to see if anything new is going on, and thanks "so much" to those of you that added comments!
PS: Congratulations to Manoel and Andrea for their successful summit of Mount McKinley! You guys are awesome! Can't wait for New Zealand!
PPS: WE'RE FREEZING!
PPPS: Heather is a geek...
Fair Winds
John & Cindy
S/V Tashmoo
sailtashmoo att yahoo dot com
Copyright © 2006-2009
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Shinny interior...
N15.39.010 /W089.00.111
It's so hot here! It's been close to 100 degrees with 100% humidity for two weeks now. Fortunately we have plenty to do on the inside of "Tashmoo" to keep us busy. The air conditioner is cranking away keeping the below deck temp around 80. It actually feels cold sometimes!
We're varnishing our interior and it looks awesome! The galley and forward cabin are complete. There is an old saying "there are no secrets on a boat". This is because you live in such close quarters you don't have any privacy. Since the inside of the boat is totally apart for our varnishing project there is about ¾ less space. I can hear Cindy think...
We hope to complete the main salon before we head back to Mass. I can't believe we're heading back next week! We're excited to see everyone back home. As of now, neither one of us have jobs so we will have plenty of free time to visit and plan our Australia and New Zealand trip. I'm really hoping I can find some work though.
Tortugal is doing well. The showers are awesome, movie night is great, beers are cold and the Internet is still slow... Someone mentioned he was streaming music from the Internet on his boat. No wonder Cindy can't use Skype here!
Congratulations to Krystal on all A's, that's so awesome!
Congratulations to AJ and Calvin on their huge accomplishments - graduation!
Sorry for the crappy blog update...
See you soon. Literally!!!
Fair Winds
John & Cindy
S/V Tashmoo
sailtashmoo att yahoo dot com
Copyright © 2006-2009
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