Shoreside Update
01 June 2010 | Bundaberg, AU
Nancy
G'day, Mates,
It's been awhile since we've updated our Sailblog, but that's because we haven't been sailing. Here's a little synopsis of where we've been in the interim.
After parking Halekai on the hard in Bundaberg last September, we first spent a month in a rented campervan, exploring the Queensland Outback. Then we returned to the States to visit friends and relatives, and Burger did his annual volunteer work in Ecuador in November.
We celebrated our 40th anniversary in December with a romantic weekend at a fancy hotel in St. Michael's, Maryland, the day before a huge blizzard hit. Janet Baker spent Christmas Eve with us, and Marianne Klatt came for our traditional Christmas Day goose dinner. For New Year's we flew in Vivien and Melanie, their hubbies and our grandbabies for a several day visit. Our friend Bev Heater saved the day by lending us a bunch of Fischer Price toys saved from her grandchildren, to keep litltle Anya and Ivey busy.
Sadly my brother died in January after a long illness, and we traveled to the memorial service in Olivebridge, NY. We then drove our RV south for two months in lovely San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, learning Spanish while escaping the cold of winter. A bunch of mostly American RV'ers wintered in a small RV park right in town, so we didn't want for social life. We even met a cruising couple from Los Alamos, NM there!
Early March we drove the RV north via Texas, where we had a reunion with an old friend from our Berlin days in the early seventies, now an anesthesiologist in Dallas. With his help we recruited a young colleague of his for the next volunteer stint in Guadalupe in October. I'm going to go with Burger for the first time. He wants me to assist him in the OR, which should be interesting! I've booked our tickets already and am looking forward to it!
We then drove on to Los Alamos to see Vivien, Nik and precocious little Anya, who greeted us with, "Hi Opa, can you fix my bicycle? and "Hi Nana, my birthday is November 9th." We then put the RV in storage in Los Alamos and flew to Annapolis, where we celebrated my birthday with a party of some local friends, all connected with sailing in one way or another.
My niece Beth, hubby Matt and son Emmett drove down from Kingston NY and spent Easter weekend with us. Together we drove into Washington DC to see the cherry blossoms, and took a boat tour of Annapolis harbor. Emmett loved our Easter egg hunt. Burger gave him stiff competition, especially for his favorite chocolate marzipan eggs!
After an early May visit with Melanie, Trey and almost-two year old adorable Ivey in Wilmington, NC, we flew to Germany for a 3-week whirlwind tour to visit friends and relatives who we hadn't seen in years. It was a trip down memory lane for both of us: Burger went to his 45th class reunion in Hannover where we visited his brothers, and we looked up an old colleague of his in Hildesheim; we climbed the Pfaender in Bregenz, Austria where I was a college student; we visited Lenggries, the little Bavarian ski town where we first met (December 1968!), and the places where we later lived in Berlin and Koenigstein am Taunus. (Photos on FaceBook.) The only downside was that it was the coldest, wettest May in years, and we hadn't brought clothing warm enough for it.
From Frankfurt we continued our flight around the world back to Bundaberg, via a short stopover in Singapore to soak up some tropical heat after chilly Germany. "Singapore is fine city," our taxi driver joked. "Pay fine for this, fine for that." For instance, for littering or chewing gum. The sidewalks were so nice and clean! We stayed in a fancy hotel with view of the harbor and toured the sights of the city.
The next leg of our journey will take us up and around the east coast to the top of Australia, across Indonesia to Bali, Borneo and Singapore, then up the Malacca Strait to Malaysia, where we'll store Halekai next. Then we'll return to the States again to see the kids/grandkids and for our volunteer month at the mission clinic in Guadalupe, Ecuador. We'll be anxious to meet our third grandbaby, due next month in Los Alamos, NM. Grand-toddler Anya is now a precocious 2 1/2. It's so hard to be away for so much of their cutest years!