Nov 23 thru 30
I'm going to lump the week all together and just hit the highlights. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my son's girlfriend's family in Parker. The whole day was full of family coming and going, great food, football, and a family volleyball game. Friday we stopped by and said goodbye to Monica's dad and then drove north to Lake Havasu to see the London Bridge. We spent a little time there, walking around looking at the bridge and the shops, then continued north to I-40, where we headed east to Kingman, AZ then took AZ 93 southeast to Surprise. It was interesting to see how things have changed in the ten years since I drove this highway. AZ 93 is the primary way people drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas. When I lived in Phoenix, it was a two-lane road, mostly through mountains, so it could really suck if you got behind a slow vehicle. Now, most of the road is divided four lanes, and the parts that are still two lanes have a third lane for passing every few miles on uphill stretches.
Saturday, my son and I went out in the desert to ride his quads. Quads and dirt bike riding are very popular things to do out here with all the wide open desert to play in. I have not ridden an ATV in more than fifteen years, but quickly got the hang of it again and we had fun. There were no serious injuries except dust inhalation and we had a good time for a couple of hours. In the evening, we met Barb & Rick for dinner at The Cheesecake Factory and then went to an indoor go-cart track to hold the third almost-annual family race. For the second year in a row, I finished a very close second to my son.
Sunday we went to see the movie Happy Feet. My son and I both have a love of penguins, so we were looking forward to this. While the film has been criticized for pushing a religious and political agenda, I didn't find that overbearing, and the computer generated animation is fabulous. And it was a cute story too. Later that evening, we joined Barb & Rick again to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra. If you are not familiar with TSO, they are hard-rock, meets classical, meets Christmas. They only perform during the holiday season and do what can best be described as a rock opera of Christmas music. The music is combined with an elaborate light show that made for a great two hours.
Monday and Tuesday we spent helping my son put up outdoor decorations at his house. This is the first year he has done this, so we were planning and buying stuff as we went. We ended up with white icicle lights around the entire roofline (it's a two story house), lights in all the bushes in the front yard, and a couple of animated deer in the front yard. I let my son do all the roof work, and I held ladders and threw things up to him as needed. The finished product looked great and even drew a compliment from the guy down the street who takes Christmas decorating way too seriously.
Tuesday night was time to come back to the boat. Every time we travel, I make plans based on price or what seems like a good use of time, and then when the time comes I wonder why I thought some aspect of it was a good idea. Like why would anybody want to fly overnight if they didn't have to? I think this time it was price that lured me into it. Anyway, our flight left Phoenix at 23:45 Tuesday night. We arrived in Charlotte, NC in very foggy conditions at 05:00 Wednesday morning. There, we spent three hours waiting for our flight to Jacksonville. At that hour, the terminal is very quiet, and I actually lay down on the floor and slept for an hour or so. As dawn broke, the fog was still quite thick. I was a little concerned that we might be delayed because of it, but we weren't. We left right on time and arrived in Jacksonville at 09:20. We had arranged for a car service to take us to St. Augustine. It's almost fifty miles from the airport to St Augustine, and there is no service like Super Shuttle or a regular bus. There are car services though that use Towncars or Suburbans and charge the same rate as a taxi would, but are much nicer service. Our car was waiting for us and we got back to the boat a little before 11:00. The cat was very happy to see us and told us about everything we had missed while we were gone. We took a couple hours nap in the afternoon and got back into a normal routine.
Thursday morning we got a call from Lynda in the condo. To refresh your memory - the condo and slip are owned by Clyde and Lynda on Gypsy, whom we met in the Bahamas last year. They are still cruising on Gypsy and are currently in Venezuela. However, Lynda is back in the States for a visit. We went up to the condo and visited with Lynda for a while. Later we borrowed the car and ran some errands including restocking perishable groceries that we had let diminish before our trip. Later we began planning our trip south from here.
GPS N 29-53.553 W 081-17.621 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 7393.