The Admiral is on the move, all stations prepare for inspection!
Lori left Bakersfield at 4AM this morning with our son Jason and is heading for her 1330hrs flight to Guadalajara out of Tijuana. She will first drive to our office in San Diego and my business partner will drive them to the Border so that my car will be there for me to pick up when I fly in on the 10th for the Oakland Boat Show, but at least we will get some overlap days! Once in Guadalajara, she will take a cab to the bus station and try to get on a 6hr bus to Barra. If she can't get a bus tonight, then she will find a hotel and try again in the morning. So she will either arrive back in the wee hours of Thursday morning, or Thursday afternoon. The fact that she's undertaking the above travel schedule should tell you that she's looking forward to coming home!
I've made some good progress knocking items off "The List" she left for me, but it's Amazing how more than 3 weeks can fly by now that it's over. When she first left I thought I had plenty of time to not just knock off the items on her list, but to even throw in a few others, just to make me look good. Oh the cold hard truth of reality! Today I'll head back to Malaque to check on the status of my heat exchanger but I doubt I will have the time/energy to get it reinstalled. Taking boat parts out is always easier than putting them back in. As I look around the boat, my last few hours look to be best spent in general organizing and putting tools and supplies away. I'll of course have to take them back out right after she gets home, but at least she will get a few hours of seeing a clean and organized boat with a re-worked galley and freshly painted areas around the boat.
The Big Question that I'm about to find out is if a 1/2 (ok, 1/5) painted boat interior looks better than no new painting at all? It's a hard call because the 1/5 that I've managed to get done really looks great, but it highlights the 4/5 I wasn't able to get done and makes it look worse. I'm afraid the 4/5 to the negative could overshadow the 1/5 to the positive, so in that case I hope she arrives in the wee hours of Thursday morning rather than in the bright sunlight of Thursday afternoon!