To me, Halloween is about walking through the Columbia neighborhood in Bellingham, kicking leaves from the big oak trees, wrapped up in warm clothes, and enjoying Karissa and Kelsey getting their Halloween treats. We were always welcome at our friends Matt and Nancy’s house for a cup of hot chocolate or apple cider while their girls and ours went through their stash on the living room floor. If I remember correctly Nancy loved Almond Joys and would try to finagle those from the girls while I always went for the Snicker bars.

More recently it has been about Cadence and Avery and seeing that sparkle again at the fun of Halloween. I was a bit pouty that I was going to miss carving pumpkins with the girls until it dawned on me we didn’t have to miss it. We are in Redondo Beach which is just about 30 minutes from Scott’s (Kevin’s brother) so why not go to his place and video chat on facebook and carve pumpkins together? Well, maybe not together in the same room but you get the idea. After spending the majority of the day with Scott and his girlfriend Heather running all over the place at speeds up to 12 times faster than we’ve gone in weeks, we were ready to begin. Although not nearly as satisfying as being there in person it was nice to watch the girls and participate in the festivities. Cadence made a happy jack-o-lantern (maybe Josh had something to do with it) and Avery giggled as she dug her hands into the pumpkin goo and then kept coming to the computer to show us a tube of Neosporin for some reason. Maybe she thought the pixels on the computer screen made us look like we needed first aid ;-). After we were done, we turned off the lights and took pictures of our artwork just like we used to do when our girls were young. It was nice to spend time with Scott and Heather even if the majority of the time was in the car.

We’ve been in Redondo Beach for three days at the King Harbor Yacht Club dock. In addition to the gatherings of people with similar interests, one of the nice benefits of belonging to a yacht club is the reciprocal mooring. There are two clubs in California that the Corinthian Yacht Club in Bellingham has this arrangement with and we’ve hit both of them. Not only do you get moorage for free or a reduced fee you get showers that don’t require putting quarters in them and wondering when the hot water is going to go off. This stay we’ve taken advantage of that and had a shower every day. What a luxury!

Kevin is working on installing our solar panels which until now have been tucked away in the V-Berth. I guess he thinks that this sunshine will help supplement our power needs. Did I mention there is finally sunshine? It has beautiful for the past four days and a very welcome site. I have tempted fate by putting away the majority of our winter clothes and been able to wear shorts and t-shirts. Oh, and for the past four days I’ve been able to have my morning coffee in the cockpit with the sunshine warming my toes. I love it ;-).

From here we plan on going to Newport Beach, then to San Diego where we’ll wait for a weather window to make that next big jump…Mexico!