Hiatus

It's been too long since we have seen our beautiful sailboat. We missed Freebird everyday we were gone. I thought I was going to be so happy to have a real shower and a tub. I thought I was going to be ecstatic to have our front loader washer and dryer. I thought it was going to be so yummy to have our fire place and even yummier to have the porch and the fire pit??? All I could think of was our boat and how I just wanted to go back.

We had rented a car and drove up to Washington. We were taking a bunch of "stuff" off the boat, purging, donating and tossing. We packed up the car with Miss Q and headed North. Stopping at Mike's Dads house for a few days to visit, then off to the house. It's been awhile! There were plenty of chores to do, things to fix and stuff to get rid of! We had a huge storage unit sitting there, just full of "stuff"! Why??? It's like you spend your life working hard, trying to make a nice life, with nice things. Then, when you get to that point, it's almost anticlimactic! You look around and just wonder why you needed or wanted even half of what you have acquired??? The only thing I can honestly validate, is my art supplies and equipment, okay and the great cookware we have. Other than that, it's just "stuff"! So first thing we did was to empty out the storage unit and take multiple truck loads of "stuff" to Goodwill and some of the Rescue Missions. We even hired a couple of guys from the Rescue Mission to help us move the big stuff. We wound up donating a 60" flat screen with a custom stand to their home so they could have real live "movie nights". They were soooooo happy!! It was so cleansing to give and donate!

Next, there was the house! It needed painting, but not before we found that some of our siding was compromised, because there was a plumbing issue, a domino effect...blah, blah, blah! After migraine #27, losing my hair, sleepless nights and my bleeding ulcer coming back, it was time to get a hold of myself and just realize, it is what it is, life is about compromises and understanding that your health is just not worth sacrificing for "stuff"! In the mix of all of this was the two new neighbors on either side of us!! They were the cherry on the cake of my ulcer coming back to life. Fences were going up with questionable new surveys done on the property line, new sewer pipe was going in and there was a bad exchange of misunderstanding between the new neighbor and us, again with the property line and the threat of tearing up our cobble stone walk to accommodate his new fence and pipe system, which he ultimately threatened not to tie into our drainage pipes.....oh well, gotta make the Renters happy! ..... and more blah, blah, blah.

Thirty days turned into sixty, which turned into ninety, which ultimately turned into almost 150 days??? It wasn't all stress, I got a hold of myself, (I'm sure my husband was happy for that!) we went for long bike rides and some hikes, a couple of lovely drives up and down the Coast, we even went up to Anacortes, WA. for a couple of days to see Orcas in the wild!! It is so beautiful up there!! I took hundreds of pictures of hundreds of different species of wildlife, beautiful sunsets and landscapes. We visited the Columbia River mouth almost daily in September to watch the Humpback and Grey Whales that rode the outgoing tides while almost suspended in place and let the food come to them! The Pacific NW is truly a magnificent place!

The house was fixed, "stuff" is donated and gone, Mike and I both had Birthdays, I think even Q was totally missing the boat and ready to hit the road back South, but not before we took a couple of trips into Portland and I lettered a few boats down at the Marina! Stayed for the Seasonal closing of our favorite restaurant with some of our favorite people!

Okay, we're really leaving now! The Renters were getting anxious!
This time, taking our own wheels, and done with rental cars! Made "peace" with the neighbor's, both sides, we actually really genuinely like the ones on the other side! Made lots of new friends while we were there and while I had a full kitchen, worked on developing and fine tuning some recipes for a Cookbook I am formulating!! I finished and framed my newest portrait and had some prints made, in hopes of being able to sell them and have the proceeds go to our Marine Conservation Organization. Packed the vehicle with Miss Q and started back down to the boat! It seemed surreal!

We stopped quite a few places along the way and took a kind of different route in order to get me to a business meeting in Nevada. The meeting turned out to just be meaningless, but it was kind of cool taking a different way down South. One thing I do know, if you ever had kids that thought they might want to "challenge" the law in their young years, take them on a road trip through the desert side of California and Nevada!! WOW!! What a lot of State and Federal Penitentiaries!!! Stop just off the Highway and let them take a good long look at what life in prison, in the middle of the desert might look like??? Holy Crap!! Made me feel blessed for my freedom!!

One of the "stops along the road" that stood out, was Tonopah, NV. The hotel/motel creepy Russian Roulette wheel of WTF??? Wow-whaaa!!! The place was pretty clean, but I could not shake the feeling that we were being watched! Weird holes in the walls, funky furniture that was permanently affixed to the floor??? Wires coming out of weird places of the wall and ceiling that went to nowhere??? Super creepy shit!!! Every other place was "Casino" style and over rated and over priced. HATE Casinos!! So the only other option was this "Clown Motel"??? Oh Hell NO!! We were too tired to drive any further, so we opted for the creepy clean place. Sneaking Miss Q in was super easy under the cloak of darkness. However, sneaking her out in the daytime, with the owners six kids playing tag, right outside our door... Well, that was a work of art! It was like they KNEW that we had a stow-a-way in our room. I swear, if we would have been in the mountains, with Ned Beatty and Burt Reynolds...que up the banjos! (Get it? The movie "Deliverance"?!!) In the morning, we couldn't get out of there fast enough! Smuggling Q out was nothing short of genius on Mike's part. The Manager and his Wife AND his kids were all outside while we packed up our vehicle. I'm sorry...it felt liked I was smuggling a Federal Witness, I couldn't understand why they were hovering??? We have "smuggled" Q into some of the finest hotels, resorts, and five star dive's all over the Country. However, smuggling her OUT??? Pah-leeeeeeeze!!! We finally got out of the place with out a scratch (pardon the pun?) and back on the road to Las Vegas. Yep, Las Vegas, not my city of choice, but every once in awhile we have to "engage" in a business meeting and just have to suck it up. More blah, blah, blah....

Back on the road and finally on a straight shot to San Diego. I have to admit that it was an unusually amazing visual drive! The Desert drive was amazing at every turn. The wildlife, the sunrises, sunsets and landscapes were epic in every visual sense! I would never have imagined what beauty awaited us! What an unexpected pleasure of the visual senses.

Ahhhhhhhhh, back on the boat!