Well, our 4 month trip back home is coming to a close now as we'll hopefully be back on the boat along with all of our luggage on October 22nd! We've had a great time this summer but it will also be nice to get back to our own space and cruising routine. Hopefully our little floating home will be no worse for the wear.

With the pace we've kept this summer, we crammed in all we could and didn't waste much time sitting around, that's for sure. Not that the bank accounts reflect our efforts, but we did work for 3 months to replenish some of our spending and are so thankful that those jobs worked out and gave us the chance to catch up with friends, make some new ones and practice our professions some so we don't get too rusty. It was interesting renting an apartment and living in the city for the summer. To be able to shut the door and walk away without worrying about wind, weather, seacocks and the boat sinking was a novel thing for us!

We "rediscovered" camping (this fits in with our new budget!) and had a perfect 3 days on Martha's Vineyard, in the rainy White Mountains, foggy Maine, Vermont's Champlain Islands and Colorado. We did as much biking as we could and a week of incredible hiking in Colorado recently. We finally got back out to Tulsa to see Jon's brother Craig and do a little bonding & corruption with our nephew Mason. It was great to give our parents a pretty good dose of us too!We got ourselves back into shape with running over the summer and did a road race, along with a half marathon in Portland, Maine which was a blast. I now see marathons in our future once again.....
I guess that's it for the major stuff, but there were lots of other fun times too.

We struggled with a decision as to whether to keep heading for the Pacific or spend another winter exploring Central & South America and then cross to the Med and we've decided the Med is right for us right now. If the world holds together and we hang on to enough of our savings, we plan to cross in May. We'll try to get our fill of diving and tropical climate over the winter and then soak up the history, museums, hiking & biking, great food and general independence that we're so in the mood for in the Med. We're so relieved to have a decision and even more excited at the prospect of now being able to do some travel in South America this winter. We didn't feel we'd have the time to do any of it in the same year as the Pacific crossing. Now hopefully we won't regret our decision! With the amount of energy we spend on every decision we make, it's amazing we ever get anything accomplished.

We didn't get to do all we'd planned or see everyone we'd hoped to but we sure tried. Thanks for all the fun memories! We'll keep posting our lives on this blog for anyone who's interested!