If you want to hear God laugh tell him your plans. God, our plans are to go to Ocracoke by our boat Liquid Therapy for the Pirate Jamboree in Ocracoke. He laughed, We didn’t.

Susan has been having a hard time with asthma. Scary hard time. Enough about that.

Instead of coming to Ocracoke on Liquid Therapy, we came by land and some sea vessel as well today. Susan is much better, but I couldn’t keep thinking suppose she has an attack when we are 20 miles from any dock. What I’ve seen is very alarming and we were told by the doctor and pharmacist not a good idea. The 4 day travel is grueling and requires strength that is fading from both of us. We still love Liquid Therapy and will keep her for weekend and close cruising.

So, Today we left our house for a 4 hour land cruise to the Swan Quarter Ferry that we needed to check in by 1PM. Instead of my trusty chart plotter I’m using iPhone google maps. Not as friendly as WAZE, but we wanted to go a path that Waze doesn’t want to travel. That is, we wanted to avoid I64 to Newport News, Norfolk, Chesapeake and the terrible traffic of the Outer Banks, NC. We took the back roads through Franklin and lots of huge cotton fields in NC. Very nice trip with NO traffic at all. And, at 1:30PM a very nice ride on a ferry for 2 hours and 40 minutes to Ocracoke.

Yes, we rented a cottage instead of staying on our wonderful Liquid Therapy in the marina. We love the marina life. But guess what? The cottage life is great too. We drove to the marina and chatted with our friendly dock masters and saw the slip we had reserved with another boat in it. That was kind of a bummer.

We got to our cottage named, get this, STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN. At our age we were not sure what was going to happen to us climbing the stairs over and over to bring in 6 months of supplies for a week stay. WE could have succumbed any time. I hinted that we could afford to pay the 10¢ more for a loaf of bread here in Ocracoke rather than buying the bread in Mechanicsville. But like it was ingrained in us from teen years Susan had to buy everything at our local stores, bring it home, bring it in the house, pack it back into bags to go back into the Subaru, up the Stairway To Heaven;’s long steps !????!!! Was I perplexed? YEP! But hey we saved lots of money driving to BJs, Aldi and Kroger. I’m sure it was a wise move. YEP!?

Actually we had so much stuff I couldn’t pack the cooler for fishing. That’s ok I never catch anything anyhow.

The drive was wonderful through the back woods and cotton fields. Until, well, I had to pee. At 73 urgency happens. Uncomfortably we pulled in some little convenience store to PEE in a town I HAVE NO IDEA THE NAME OF. And then as I got out I reached for my wallet that I take out of my back pocket cause it hurts me with all that wad of money in it. And, I discover as I’m about to wet my pants I can’t find it. HUMM in the fog of packing the entire Outback, did I leave my wallet at home? I’ve got everything else. I man EVERYTHING, except maybe my wallet. Pee over comes me and I lock the door to go into the convenience store and find the bathroom right away. And, I go. And go, and go, Uh like olden do. And the urologist has said to linger a while longer when you think you’ve finished. I dribble a bit more. Hey, you guys know what I’m talking bout and the girls, all you have sneeze pee problems too. So, there.

So I feel guilty peeing and not having my wallet to buy something for the use of their bathroom. Don’t want the next car pulling in and seeing a sign ” Bathrooms For Customers only”
With my head clear of pee urgency I go to the Outback to see if I really left my wallet at home. $hit I hope that didn’t happen. I find the wallet not where I remember placing it. I guess cognitive tests when I get home. Anyhow, I go in and buy a cold Starbuck Cappuccino or something like that for use of the bathroom. $4+00. I don’t care. Peeing was worth $4.00

We make it to Swan Quarter, NC where the ferry is and wow on a Monday we find a little deli open. ( Whops kind out of sequence but I had another urgent peeing attack before Swan Quarter and peed on a farm road next to cotton filed. I hope the cotton is still white.)

Anyhow, we had a nice sandwich and home made chips and headed to the ferry landing with 10 minutes to spare.
“ Oh can we go to the local post office and mail these halloween cards? “ Susan knows EXACTLY WHERE THE POST OFIICE IS” No she doesn’t and a phone call confused me so much I thought I was going to have to pee again before the ferry. Confused Goole Maps was yelling for us to turn this way and that. Never found the Post office and couldn’t get google maps back on track to take us the giant 1 mile distance left to the ferry dock.

We got on the ferry and the ride was nice. We also exclaimed how calm the Pamlico Sound was and what a wonderful travel day it would have been on Liquid Therapy. I was most interested as the ferry enters the Big Slough channel that is such a pain for Liquid Therapy to negotiate. Blackbeard used to out maneuver and make other boats run around here. There was guy with me overlooking the bow and I was exclaiming to him how treacherous this channel is. He told me he was an observer for Army Corp Engineering and they were going to dredge. It really doesn’t help for very long because if you tell God your plans, He laughs.

Today’s picture is a picture inside Howard’s Pub in Ocracoke where we ate dinner. We have friends in Key West and I thought this flag odd in Ocracoke.