We are once more moving toward our goal of getting through the St. Lawrence Seaway and past the Canadian Maritimes and moving south. We have followed the frost line north and are in Minnesota for the month of April.

We ended up spending the entire winter in North Carolina. We only stayed in the trailer in Etowah until the middle of October. We then went to my brother Bruce's home in Leicester to take care of their cats while Bruce and Dorothy went to NE for a football game. While they were in Lincoln, NE my sister-in-law, Dorothy, suffered a fatal stroke. It was a complete surprise and a shock to all of us. She was a wonderful lady and will certainly be missed.

We moved from the trailer to Bruce's and spent the winter helping him around the house. I was busy teaching him things like doing the laundry and cooking food. But we were also able to take some side trips and enjoy the area around Asheville. There is an amazing little town, Marshall, in Madison county just north of Asheville. The local coffee shop stays open Thursday evening where it is a gathering place for the local musicians. They come in - both world famous professionals (one of whom has 8 Grammys) and local amateurs (who are fine musicians in their own rights) - to simply have a bluegrass/hill country music jam. We were there almost every week the whole winter where we enjoyed anywhere from 3 to 16 musicians. Marshall also has an amazing little art center where we were able to attend more formal performances by most of the musicians we saw just jamming at the coffee house. As a music center Marshall is an amazing place.

We got a chance to take some short trips with my brother to Florida and were able to check out marinas in St. Augustine, Beaufort, SC, Savannah, and Charleston. Now we are more eager than before to get Eos down the coast to really get to know some of these lovely places. We also got a chance to connect with some of our friends and family - my cousin Beth and her new husband Tom, Ray and Ann Grogan, and Joel Towner (a long ago sailing mate on White Bear Lake, MN) and his wife Michelle.

We met some wonderful friends in NC who made us very welcome and who added such joy and interest to our winter - Lorna, Colleen, Robin, Carl, Katherine and David, Bill and Sally, Katherine and Mick, Ellie and Jerry among others. We hated to leave them behind but are looking forward to keeping in touch and, hopefully, getting back for a visit next year as we work our way down the east coast. So after 5 months my brother was at least partially ready to go it on his own and we were ready to start our trek back to Eos.

We loaded up the rental car with our stuff - now down many cans of food - and headed to Saint Louis to see my niece Kim and family and then on to Lincoln, NE to visit childhood friends and then Omaha to see my other brother, Scott (who drove up from NM to see us) and his son Randy and wife Suzanne.

Now we are again in Minnesota for a month staying in our good friends, Gary and Judy Robinson's lovely lake home on Lake George in a far northern suburb of Minneapolis. So we are progressing - we are on the shore of lake if not in a boat on one. It is time to see all of the various doctors for regular check-ups, get Bill's driver's license updated and, of course, take care of Uncle SAM's yearly bill. We are having a wonderful time connecting with so many friends and family here in the Twin Cities and in Superior, WI. But we are also looking forward to packing up again the first of May and heading out to Rochester to reunite with EOS and to see the folks at Shumway and to meet up with some of the local folks who have been keeping track of Eos for us. We will write another update once we get to her.