Oct 1 - 31
Here we go with one last monthly update before we resume cruising. Yes, we really are going to resume cruising. We will be traveling to the States for two weeks at the end of the month and then rejoining the world of cruising when we return. Now for the happenings of the month.
On the dog front, it was a busy couple of weeks. We have been keeping three of the puppies in a kennel, apart from the other four. We had the injured one and a friend there, and then Ashley, one of the bartenders, decided she wanted to take the black one and two others. So, those three have been together in the kennel. When people were around, they would cry and want attention, and that was bothering Augustine, one of our grounds workers. He asked me if he could let them lose, and said he would make sure he rounded them up when he was off work. The pups enjoyed running around, and weren't too much trouble being loose. On a Saturday morning when they were almost six weeks old I came up in the morning and found the four that had been over under the platform, sitting by the bar door. Now the trouble will start. We let the other three out of the kennel, and all seven started hanging around the bar, mostly underneath the building. It only took a little bit of scolding and foot stomping to teach them to stay out of the bar itself. They would sit right in the doorway as if there was a fence there and look at us. That is with the exception of one. We decided one of them was retarded, because no amount of yelling, stomping, or spanking would get him to stay outside. Right up to the day Ashley took her three home, that one would just walk right in past the others. Retarded or fiercely independent - I don't know. Ashley took her three home when they were seven weeks old, and over the next week, we found homes for the other four. This was fortunate since the GSPCA had told me they had no room to take them. One went to Dennis Henry, the owner of the service that does laundry and fills propane bottles for cruisers, one went to the helper on the truck that delivers ice, one went to a guy who works for Tropical Shipping who just happened to come in for a beer, and the last one went to Ian the guy who works for the vet school rounding up strays for spaying. Ian was there to get the consent form sign to spay Mom. I had dropped Mom off at the clinic Wednesday before we left for the States, and she wasn't back yet when we left. It was a relief that we had wrapped up the dog story before we left.
On the burger night front, we had a good finish. On Wednesday, Oct 1, we had a good turnout, and we were telling people we would be around for one more burger night. It was pan player night, and I told Smokey that we wouldn't see him again and to call Bob in two weeks to see if he was going to continue the program. After the evening was over, I realized that I was calendar impaired. We aren't going to the States until Oct 18, which means we had two more burger nights to do. So, on the 8th we really had our next-to-last night and we showed a movie, and then on the 15th we did our last burger duty. We did not plan on making a big deal about our leaving, but a fellow cruiser, Steve on Fine Line, made an announcement on the morning VHF net on Monday telling all the cruisers that this was our final burger night. We were prepared to serve sixty burgers prior to this, but went and got stuff for twenty more. It was a good thing we did, because we had a huge turnout. We served seventy-some burgers. Smokey the pan player was there and we enjoyed his music one last time. We were surprised by a little ceremony that was held in our honor. We have been members of the Seven Seas Cruising Association for many years, and we applied to be commodores several months ago. The commodore process includes being published in the monthly newsletter for four months prior to approval. Kind of a speak-now-or-forever-hold-your-piece period. We are a couple weeks shy of the fourth month, but Tom from Jean Marie, who is one of the very early commodores of SSCA, wanted to officially recognize us at this event and give us our commodore's burgee. So, Tom got Smokey's microphone and made a little speech and gave us the burgee. I then took the mike to thank Tom, and also to thank all the cruisers who have made our stint running the bar worthwhile. Then Bob got up and gave us a thank you as well. Even though I had wanted to cruise away quietly, it was very touching.
We had several big rain storms this month. It is the rainy season after all, but what made these unique was they were thunderstorms. We don't see much thunder and lighting down here, so when we do, it gets our attention. For the first time this rainy season, the rain was heavy enough that it washed out the driveway enough that Bob had to take the tractor out to smooth it out again. A new thing this year was the mud out on the concrete road. The concrete road into the marina has a dirt section that washed out last year, and Bob smoothed it out, but this year there is a new factor involved. There is a property just uphill from the dirt portion that has been excavating. They have dug away a large part of the hillside and trucked the dirt away somewhere. We don't know if they plan to build something there, or are just selling the dirt, but it has made an ugly scar on the hillside. In addition to the ugly scar, when the heavy rains came, there was that much more loose mud to wash down into the road. After the rains had stopped for a couple of days, Bob took the tractor down to where the mud all collected in the road, and scraped away at least six inches of dirt from a couple hundred feet of the road.
On two Saturday's before we left for the States, we had our regular pot-luck dinner. There was a nice turnout despite the fact that it poured just an hour before we started, and we had a good karaoke session. Dave & Sue from Pirates Hideout are also going to the States for a couple of weeks, and this is their last pot-luck. I have always had mixed feelings about the karaoke sessions. Sometimes there is nobody interested in singing besides me and Bob, and sometimes it works great. This was a good night, as Dave, Bob, myself, and a couple of other folks all sang.
A new project started in the marina about a week before we left for the States. Bob started construction on a new building that will house a proper kitchen. For the past year, since we started burger night, we have made do with sparse kitchen facilities. We have a freezer that is primarily for ice storage, and a refrigerator for beer keg storage, both located down by the office, a hundred feet or more from the bar. When I shop for burger night on Mondays and Tuesdays, the perishable stuff gets stored in these. On Wednesday morning, when Barb makes the burgers, we tote all the meat and veges down to our boat, where she does the prep work. Then the sliced veges and burger patties get carried back to the keg fridge. Come show time, everything gets brought over to the bar where we cook and serve. Since the "our boat" portion of this equation is leaving soon, and Bob wants to expand the food offerings anyway, it made sense to build a proper kitchen. Bob has all the kitchen equipment needed stored away anyway, so all he has to do is build a simple building. Three workers came in and started digging holes, pouring concrete pilings, and framing the building all before we left for the States.
There were two high profile deaths on the island early in October. One was a gentleman named Victor Maitland. He started and owned many businesses in Grenada, including one of the two TV stations, and the Voice of Grenada radio station. His TV station was called MTV. Not to be confused with the American crap that is known as MTV, the Grenada MTV stands for Meaningful Television. The other high profile death was a DJ from the very popular local club called Karma. He was killed in a traffic accident resulting from street racing. I don't know the details of whether he was involved in the racing or an innocent passerby. The point of bringing these deaths up is that both of them had huge funerals at a large public venue which is down the street from the IGA grocery store. Somehow, I managed to get caught in the traffic for both of them. Now, the total delay wasn't but a few minutes, which pales compared to getting caught in rush hour traffic back home, but I'm spoiled.
Our friends on Salt & Light came back on the 13th, just in time to see a few of the puppies before they were all gone. The kids had gotten a chance to see them the morning they were born as they were leaving for seven weeks in the States, and they were afraid they wouldn't get to see the finished products. We were glad they got to spend a couple of days with the last few to go.
As for marina traffic, it's been very quiet for the past few weeks, but that is starting to change. Before we left for the States, we had the first two boats of the season come in after having been on the hard for the season. They will spend a few days or a week getting all their sails back on and getting ready to cruise. This time of year we would expect quite a few people to be doing this.
On the 18th, we officially "retired" from our roles of helping with the marina and bar. We left Saturday evening for two weeks in the States. When we return, we too will be preparing to start cruising again. I was still working up to about an hour before we left, getting a new boat docked and hooking them up to the power. But at 17:00, I gave Bob the keys to the place, the car keys, and the cell phone I have been using. Bob then took us to the airport to start our trip. We are flying from Grenada to Trinidad and spending the night, Trinidad to Phoenix (through Houston) for eight days, Phoenix to Houston for five days, and then back to Grenada via Atlanta and Trinidad which has us spending the night in Trinidad again. In the two weeks, we will have been on seven airplanes flown by four airlines, and slept in two hotels, three friends houses, and one airport. Our flight to Trinidad was on-time and uneventful. It's only a thirty-five minute flight, basically up and down. We spent the night at the Holiday Inn Express near the airport. It's expensive for a Holiday Inn Express, but it's the only hotel near the airport, and it offers a free shuttle and breakfast. Sunday morning, we were at the airport early to catch a Continental flight to Houston, where we switched planes and continued to Phoenix. We had a bite to eat in the Houston airport between flights where we were treated to surly poor service by the girl at the Papa John's Pizza counter. Welcome back to America.
My son and his wife picked us up at the airport in Phoenix and took us to their new home. Our plan is to spend Sunday night with them, and then spend the next five nights at a timeshare resort in the far northwest Phoenix area, where they are owners. They recently bought the timeshare and as an incentive to get them to buy it, they threw in a free five day stay for us. Cibola Vista is a beautiful new resort way on the northwest corner of the Phoenix metropolitan area. My son lives way on the west side, and the resort was about twenty minutes north of his house. Much of our visit will revolve around eating at places we miss, and we started Sunday evening with dinner at a barbeque place. Arizona has good Texas-style barbeque, so we don't have to wait until we get to Houston to partake. Monday, we spent shopping for things on our list. We traveled to the US with just two carry-on bags, but will return with much more. We hit a Wal-Mart first, because Jr. knew they replaced watch batteries. I never wear a watch on the boat, and when I put it on for the trip, I found the battery was almost dead. If you hit the button for the back-light the display went blank. So, the nice lady at the jewelry counter replaced the battery and reset the time for a mere $4.35. It was worth that much just for her to reset the time, since I have forgotten how to work the darn thing. Much as I hate Wal-Mart, as long as we were there, there were a lot of things on our list that could be procured here. After an hour or so, we left with a basketful of stuff. Some of which had been on the list and some that hadn't. Late in the afternoon, we headed up to the timeshare. We took two cars, since we will be using Jr's pickup while we are here. After getting checked in, we went down the street and had dinner at Chili's. I have been going to Chili's since they had one location in Dallas back in the mid-seventies. Until about five or six years ago, I always got a chili burger, medium rare. Back when one of the e-coli cares happened, Chili's stopped cooking burgers less than medium. So I stopped eating their burgers. They have lots of good stuff on the menu, and great margaritas, but I missed those burgers. When we got to the store Monday evening, the menu had and asterisk beside each burger, and the note at the bottom said "cooked to order" and also had the standard disclaimer about eating undercooked meat. I was excited, thinking that they had changed their policy. I specifically asked the waitress, and she said no, they would not do less than medium. So, I went to plan B and ordered shrimp alfredo which I also like. She came back from the kitchen and informed there was no shrimp alfredo for another thirty minutes. Back to the menu, I made a third choice which turned out to be mediocre. So, my one chance to eat at Chili's for another year turned out to be disappointing. Back at the timeshare, we played several games of Sequence with my son and his wife. Last time we were together, Barb and I spanked them in this game, and they wanted a rematch. They got their revenge and beat us seven games to two.
Tuesday, Barb and I tackled more things on our list. One was a visit to an eye doctor to get my eyes checked. My reading glasses have broken frames, as well as they are not strong enough anymore. I went to Eyemasters, one of the chain stores in the area that offer one-hour glasses. As a walk-in, I had to wait about half an hour for the doctor, who gave me a thorough exam. My distance vision is still perfect, and he gave me a prescription for stronger reading glasses. I took them next door to the glasses store part of the business and picked out new frames. I got some expensive indestructible ones, but with a special sale they were having the whole deal wasn't bad. It was going to take two hours instead of one to make the lenses, so we went and ran another errand in the meantime. We hit one of the two West Marine stores in the Phoenix area for a few boat things. You might wonder why there are West Marine stores in the middle of the desert, but there are lots of lakes around Phoenix, thus lots of boats. Not many sailboats, and the store was definitely geared toward powerboats, but we got a few of the things on our list. Back at the mall, we had Chinese food for lunch and got the glasses. Chinese food was on the list because while we can get Chinese food in Grenada, it's totally different from Chinese food in the States. Tuesday evening, we met up with Kevin and Amanda from Solstice for dinner. We spent last hurricane season in Grenada with Kevin and Amanda and had not seen them since last November. They left their boat on the hard in Puerto Rico this hurricane season and returned home to Phoenix to work. We had a nice visit with them getting caught up on their last few months and catching them up on mutual friends.
Wednesday, we went and bought a new camera. When we left on this journey, we each had Minolta digital cameras that were pocket sized. They were slightly different, because they were purchased a few months apart, but they shared the same battery and memory card. This was important so that when the primary one bit the dust a year ago, we still had a good camera with two batteries, etc. Well, we decided that it would be a good time to upgrade, so we went to Ritz camera, which is a chain in Phoenix. I have friends who spend hours researching such purchases, but I did no research first. The only thing I knew was that since I bought my last camera, when five mega-pixels was top of the line, the mega-pixels had gone up, and image stabilization was a feature introduced since then. I have several friends who are happy with Olympus cameras, so I went in and told the kid behind the counter that I wanted an Olympus pocket sized camera, with stabilization, that was water resistant. What we got for less than $250, was an Olympus 850 with eight mega-pixels, stabilization, and not just water resistant, but submersible to ten feet, so you can use it snorkeling. The kid behind the counter was pretty much worthless in the decision process, but he tried. We went back to the resort in the early afternoon and hit the adult pool bar. There are two pools here; a large family pool complete with a waterslide, and a small adults-only pool complete with a hot tub and a bar. We came on the trip intentionally without bathing suits, because both of us need new bathing suits. Even though it's fall, we figured that in Phoenix, somebody always sells bathing suits. Unfortunately, we hadn't had an occasion to look for any yet, so we just went to the bar. The bartender was a lively lady who was well past retirement and probably working here to supplement her retirement income. She was very friendly and we enjoyed spending an hour or so with her. We had dinner with Monica and Jr. at The Cheesecake Factory. We have been to Cheesecake Factory's before, and my only complaint about them is that there are just too many choices on the menu. I suppose I could also complain that the portions are too large, but I hate to complain. We had an excellent dinner, and got cheesecake desserts to go for breakfast tomorrow. After dinner, another Sequence challenge was in order. This time, the old farts won again.
Thursday was another busy day, all scheduled around meals with somebody. We started the morning with coffee and cheesecake in the room. For lunch, we met a friend of Barb's at the Cheesecake Factory. Yes, we were just here last night, but the menu's so big that finding something else good was no problem. Janice was the person we met. Janice's husband, who passed away in the past year, was Barb's former co-worker before she came to work at BMC. They had moved from Houston to Phoenix years ago, and we had visited them in Phoenix several times before we left cruising. It was good to catch up with her. After lunch, we drove down to the east valley to see where I spent most of my time when I lived in Phoenix. When I moved to the Phoenix area in 1985, the east valley was the place to be. The west side was primarily Glendale and it was considered the older, more blue-collar part of the area. Well, a lot has changed since then. While the east valley has enjoyed tremendous growth in Chandler and Gilbert, cities like Tempe and Mesa are landlocked and can't grow anymore. Even Chandler and Gilbert are constrained by Indian reservations, but they have grown a lot since I was there. However, the west valley has simply exploded. Phoenix is laid out in a grid, with "streets" to the east of Central Avenue, and "avenues" to the west. Every eight streets or avenues makes a mile. When I left Phoenix in 1997, 99th Avenue was pretty much the end of civilization to the west. Now the new outer loop starts just past 167th Av. My son's new house is at 181st Av. So, it was interesting to drive down to Tempe, Chandler, and Scottsdale to see what had changed in the years since I have been back. We headed for Chandler on I-10, but made a stop at 40th St. to check out where the trucking company that I used to own with my brother-in-law is. My (ex) brother-in-law Danny still owns the business, and has been quite successful since I left. He has taken over more property than we had when I was there, and is doing very well. He wasn't at the yard when we were there, so we just drove by. Then we went to Chandler to check out the house I live in from 1987 to 1997. When we first got here, I told Barb to speak up if I forgot to drive on the correct side of the road. She is not usually a back-seat driver, but I made it clear that if she saw me about to do something wrong, say something. In the first four days of driving, I have not screwed up. Once we were in my old neighborhood though, I got a little sloppy. We turned onto the street where my old house was, and I was slowly poking along looking at the homes. There were no other moving cars in sight, so it wasn't really a problem when Barb calmly pointed out that I was driving on the wrong side of the road. We slowly passed 495 S. Rita Ln., and I admired how good the place looked. The whole neighborhood looked pretty good, considering it is now over twenty years old. After touring the neighborhood, we headed east on Chandler Blvd. The next thing east of my old neighborhood is Stellar Airpark, a small development where the houses line a runway, and you park your plane in your private hanger attached to your house. Stellar Airpark was a grass strip when I lived there, so imagine my surprise when I saw the runway was closed for paving. It looked to me like it has been paved for a while, and they are now either lengthening the runway or adding a paved taxiway. Wow. As we went further east, areas that had been vacant land were now all filled in with development. We drove to historic downtown Chandler and then came back west a little to have a couple of beers at a sports bar we had passed. After killing an hour there, we headed north through Scottsdale. Old Scottsdale had changed very little since last time I saw it. We did pass a Goodwill store on Scottsdale Blvd, and we turned around and stopped at it. We need to buy a suitcase or two to carry all the stuff we are buying back to Grenada. A good cruiser trick is to travel to the States with carry-ons, buy Goodwill suitcases to come back with all the stuff you buy, and then donate the suitcases here to the Grenada Heart Foundation, who sends people to various places for medical procedures. It's a win-win-win situation. About 17:30, we found our way to my old friend Peggy's house. I met Peggy back in the 80's when I worked for American Express. We met at her house, where she cooked us a nice meal and we caught up on several years of gossip. We didn't get back to the resort until almost midnight, but we avoided all the photo-radar traps along the road and got home ticket free.
Friday, we picked Jr. up in the morning to haul his quads to the repair place to get them fixed. We got them dropped off and went to Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville for lunch. Two years ago when we were last in Phoenix, Margaritaville was under construction. It was cool to visit, although this location has much too much of a chain-store, cookie-cutter look, compared to the New Orleans or Key West stores that we are used to. They do allow you to be responsible for your own actions here though, and you can get the Cheeseburger In Paradise cooked medium-rare. We dropped Jr. and Monica off at their house and went back to the resort early since we have an early morning tomorrow.
Saturday is wedding day. I don't recall if I mentioned it earlier, but the primary reason for the trip back to the States was to attend a wedding. The bride is my last ex-wife. After living together for about twelve years, she and her boyfriend are getting married. Most people find it odd that I would be going to my ex-wife's wedding, let alone taking my current girlfriend. The fact of the matter is that we are great friends and have stayed at their house on our previous visits to Phoenix. I wasn't the only ex there. Ex-Barb has been married twice, once to Kim and once to me, and we were both there. Also, Rick, the groom, had his ex-wife there. So, ponder all that for a while. The wedding is taking place at Kohl's Ranch, about twenty miles east of Payson, AZ, which is northeast of Phoenix on the Mogollon Rim. For those of you not familiar with Arizona, it's not one big flat desert. The northern half of the state is pine covered mountains. Two hours north of Phoenix, you are in pine trees, and forty or fifty degrees cooler. So, at 07:30, we checked out of the resort and drove to Jr's house. We loaded up their stuff and headed northeast. The first hour of driving was east across metropolitan Phoenix. That's how large the city has gotten. Then another two hours north to the motel we were staying at. We didn't decide to make the trip until it was too late to get a room at Kohl's Ranch, so we are staying another five miles down the road at the Christopher Creek Lodge. I would describe the lodge as "rustic". It was fine, and I've stayed at worse places, but after Cibola Ranch, it was, well, rustic. We got to the lodge at noon, and the owner had promised us an early check in, since the wedding is at 15:00. When we got there, one room was ready, and the other would be "as soon as I can get to it". We unloaded our bags into the one room, and went for a walk around the property. After we had exhausted that option, we drove down the road a few hundred feet to the local bar/restaurant. We would have walked if we realized how close it was, but it was just around a bend in the road so we couldn't see it from the lodge. We had a couple of beers and appetizers to hold us over until the wedding. We got back to the lodge a little before 14:00, got the second room and prepared for the wedding. When ex-Barb (yes my last ex's name is also Barb - keeps things simple) invited me to the wedding, I asked her how dressed up I would have to get. So, I went as dressed up as I can get - a Batik shirt, black Dockers, and sneakers. As it turned out, I certainly wasn't the only male not in a suit, but I may have been the only one in sneakers. Barb wore the only dress she has on the boat and was fine. The wedding started exactly on time, and the music from 2001 A Space Odyssey wasn't playing. There is humor in that, and if ex-Barb reads this, she will understand what I am talking about. The ceremony was short and very nice. The ceremony was outside on a lawn and the weather was perfect. After the ceremony, we all moved to an open pavilion for the reception. After pictures had been taken, the bride and groom showed up and soon after dinner was served. Dinner was a barbeque, with ribs, chicken, and steaks. After dinner, there was dancing and the typical wedding stuff with toasts, special dances, flower throwing, and the cake cutting. There were no special dances for the ex's, but there was a good toast. Bride-Barb's brother Danny said "I graduated from high school with her first husband, I was partners in business with her second husband, and I look forward to skiing and riding motorcycles with her new husband. (I sold them my Harley when we left to cruise.) Once the sun went down, the pavilion started getting chilly, but there were several of those large propane heaters around the perimeter to keep us warm. Once the allotted time for the official reception ran out, many of us moved to the resort bar. There was a guy there singing and 80% of the people in the bar were from the wedding. Before Barb & Rick got there, somebody requested Friends In Low Places by Garth Brooks. If you're not familiar with the song, it's about a guy who shows up at his ex's wedding. I sing it frequently when we do Karaoke here at the marina, and it would have been fun to get the guy to let me sing it, but since he did it by request before they got there, I didn't do it. We closed the bar around 22:00 and went back to the lodge. We agreed to be up about 09:00 for breakfast. In the morning, Barb and I woke up and thought it was early since the room was quite dark. I looked at my watch and it was 08:30. We got up, got ready, and packed. About 08:50, I went outside and walked down to Jr's room. I gently knocked on the door, but there was no sound of life inside. Since it really didn't matter when we got anywhere, I didn't knock again. I put our bags in the back of the truck, and walked down by the creek. About ten minutes later, Jr. came out of the room and found us. The knock had awakened them, but they would be a little bit getting ready. Barb & I walked down the road to the restaurant and waited for Jr & Monica to get there for breakfast. I had the ultimate breakfast. Two things I miss from living in AZ and TX are chorizo omelets and biscuits and gravy. Well, they had both on the menu, and I was able to substitute my toast for a half order of biscuits and gravy for no extra charge, so I was happy. After breakfast, we went for a ride up to the top of the Mogollon Rim to Wood's Canyon Lake. As many times as I had been up in this part of the state when I lived there, I had never been to that lake. It was cool in the morning, but not as cold as we expected. We had each brought one long sleeve shirt and jeans just for this weekend. While they were appropriate early in the morning, by noon we could have been in shorts and t-shirts. Before we went back to Phoenix, we made a slight detour to the Tonto Natural Bridge State Park. I had been here before, but Barb hadn't, and it has all been much improved since I was last here. In our long sleeves and jeans, we were fairly hot, except once we were down under the bridge behind the waterfall. We hated to hike back up knowing how hot we would be again. We got back into Phoenix about 16:00 and stopped for another barbeque dinner before going to the house. Our flight to Houston leaves at 09:00, so we need to leave the house a little after 06:00 to be there by 07:00.
Our trip to Houston was right on time and uneventful. We left the gate five minutes early, and according to the pilot, he "flew it like he stole it" and we were in Houston ten minutes early. We got our rental car and headed south to the Clear Lake area where we are staying. Recall that Hurricane Ike ripped through this area a month ago, so right out of the airport we were noticing the effects. In Houston proper, the most obvious effects of Ike were roofs damaged and now covered with blue tarps, and large plastic signs on businesses missing. Once we got down to Clear Lake, we saw evidence of the storm surge. Most of the boats that ended up in odd places have been moved already. Many businesses in Seabrook and Kemah are still closed, and many will not reopen. Several of those that won't reopen we local favorites, and it's a shame to see them go. We drove through Clear Lake Shores, a small island community next to Kemah, where we have several friends. We saw the remains of John & Pege's house, where we originally planned to stay on this trip. It is standing, but gutted, and will have to be torn down. We stopped and said hi to Walter & Beverly, who have a newer house that was built on stilts and survived fine. The character of Clear Lake Shores will certainly change after this. By early evening, we arrived at Rob & Carol's house, just north of the lake. They were fortunate and had no damage from the storm. We met Rob & Carol and their kids Dayla & Daniel when we were cruising. We never knew them in the Clear Lake boating scene before we left, but met them in Newport, RI in the summer of 2006. We met them because they were flying a Texas flag, as we do, and we just stopped by their boat to introduce ourselves. We ended up buddy-boating with them from Florida to the Bahamas in 2006/2007, spending every day together for about four months. When we continued south in the Caribbean, they went back to the States, then did a second winter in the Bahamas, returning to TX in the spring of 2008. They sold Milano Myst as soon as they got back, and as it turns out, it was a good thing. Milano Myst was badly damaged at the Houston Yacht Club by Ike.
We spent three days in the Houston area finishing our shopping chores, voting, trying to say hi to as many friends as you can in such a limited time, and taking in the hurricane damage. We originally had arranged to vote by mail, since we didn't commit to taking this trip until just a month ago. But, since we are here, it's easier to just vote early instead of dealing with the mail ballots. Texas allows you to vote anytime for about three weeks prior to election day with no excuse other than you don't want to fight the crowds on election day. One of the other chores to be done was fix or replace my computer. I didn't leave Grenada expecting to buy a new computer, but mine broke while we were there. The screen developed a large white stripe from top to bottom. I found a Toshiba authorized repair center who told me the LCD was bad. The problem was they would have to order a replacement, and it would cost almost as much as a new computer. So, off to Best Buy to buy a new computer. I got one very similar to the broken one, except is has more RAM, more hard drive space, and a faster processor, for half the price I paid two years ago. Even though they are relatively cheap now, I hate it that electronics are basically throw-away devices. We never did get a chance to drive down to Galveston to see the brunt of Ike's wrath. It's probably just as well as it would have been depressing. We did get to go up to visit BMC Software, where we used to work. We went in and visited with a bunch of old co-workers, and then went to lunch with several of them.
Thursday, we left Rob & Carols and headed up to Houston. Barb's son lives in northwest Houston and we will be staying with him Thursday night since it's close to the airport. We hooked up with AJ at his apartment and hung out until evening when his girlfriend Mariel got home. We went to dinner together and then back to the apartment. We stayed up visiting until midnight, which was late considering we have to be up at 04:15 to head to the airport.
The trip home was long but uneventful. We left the apartment at 04:30, got the rental car returned and were checked in and through security by 06:00. Our flight home is on Delta to Trinidad, via Atlanta of course. We left Houston right on time and got to Atlanta for a four hour layover. We left Atlanta about fifteen minutes late and got to Trinidad about 21:00. There is no way to fly from the States to Trinidad in time to make the last Liat flight to Grenada. Since we got to Trinidad about 21:00 and were leaving at 06:00, we decided not to spring for the hotel, and just sleep in the airport. I was able to sleep a couple of hours, but Barb wasn't. I really felt sorry for another couple doing the same thing, but the lady was in a wheelchair. She sat all night in her chair without being able to stretch out. We checked our bags for the Liat flight at 04:30. This was the first flight we had to pay any excess baggage charge for. Our checked bags were overweight by about three pounds, which cost us $73 USD. I guess I can't bitch, because when we got to Grenada, we blew through the "nothing to declare" line and saved that much in duties on all the stuff we brought back. The only question the Customs guy asked us was if we voted while in the States. We replied that we had, and he was happy. The rest of the world is so much more in tune with what happens in the US than most US citizens are. Dave from Pirate's Hideout picked us up at the airport at 07:00 and we were back at the marina fifteen minutes later.
The story now begins of getting ready to cruise again, and seeing more of the Caribbean. We have mostly enjoyed our time in Grenada running the marina, but it's time to move on. The log updates should resume being a travelogue as we explore places we haven't been.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.