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Planes, Trains and Automobiles

So, here we are back in beautiful Oxford.  

We’re on the ten day countdown to our departure for Bermuda and points South.  We have collected a couple of unsuspecting crewmen for the trip and are looking forward to getting underway again.  But first a quick recap of the latest adventures.  We flew Screaming Baby Airlines to Des Moines to see family and finish a couple of boat projects in the shop.  We now have screens for all of the hatches; no more fly wars!  After a few nights listening to jazz and watching a great drag show at our favorite jazz club, NOCE, (www.nocedsm.com check it out, they are back to full capacity as well as live-streaming shows Wednesday through Saturday) we got on the AMTRAK train to head east.

 

Big Band night at NOCE

 

 After a crazy night in Chicago and lunch with my aunt and uncle in Evanston, (Psst; Meagan there are a lot of nice homes in Chicago for sale) we boarded the Cardinal to D.C.  We travel by train whenever we have the time and getting a bedroom is the only way to go!  Comfortable beds, private head/shower and meals in the dining car included.  Due to Covid you no longer share a dining table with other passengers, the conversations were hit or miss but always interesting.  The food, however, is still pretty good; not like in the before-times but better than you might expect.  Hopefully Railroad Joe will get them some more funding.  

Anyway, the Cardinal passes through the Allegheny mountains by following the New River Gorge.  It is a magnificent stretch of river and a great whitewater rafting area.  After a long delay outside of Cincinnati due to a derailment ahead of us, we arrived in D.C. and picked up our car and headed back to the boat.But first we watched the sunrise over the homeless encampment in front of the U.S. Capitol and were chased by rats.  Is this a great country or what?

Back on board Zephyr we were welcomed by a freezer that had packed it in.  Thirty pounds of meat we had loaded for the trip were thawed or thawing!  I  traced the failure to a control module in the Sea Frost freezer unit.  Fortunately he fridge unit was working fine.  Oh yes, did I mention it was Saturday!  I couldn’t get ahold of a replacement until at least Monday. While I tried to resolve the issue Nancy heroically threw herself at the melting carcasses. We now have taco meat and spaghetti meat and sloppy joe meat and meatloaf and pulled pork and cooked pork sausages.  We also learned that our little propane grill on the aft deck can hold THREE T Bone steaks.  Oh no, we weren’t going to lose those babies or there would have been a lot more screaming.  Anyway, we had a new module installed by Wednesday and we have a spare, for when the reefer packs it in.  Another trip over to the Sudlersville Meat Locker and we were back in business.  

We lured our friends Chris and Irene to come sailing for the weekend and when they got here we were reminded it was a holiday (ah, the joys of retirement) so we held them aboard for an extra day of eating and drinking and sailing around St. Michaels. A great time was had by all, if I remember correctly

Slumlord neighbors hanging out at St Michael’s with us

 

Next up : The United States Sailboat Show (fanfare, please) in Annapolis.  Lots of new boats, no new ideas.  We did, however, find the perfect dive compressor.  I can’t tell you how hard it has been to source a powerful, reliable compressor that is fully automatic with a soft-start to make the generator happy.  We got the show unit, spares, 15% discount,  and they dropped it off at the boat on the way back to Florida.  We mounted it and filled some tanks.  Oh heavenly days, McGee!

 

Dive compressor delivery to our boat!

On the downside, we’re still waiting for the new heater and watermaker to arrive.  But we can’t have  it all now, can we?  We’ve been finishing up the last of the comfort/organizing projects and Nancy has been a trouper struggling with the details of traveling in Covid World.  Some satellite link-up bugbears to resolve and we are on the road to Bermuda!  Stay tuned. The real adventure is just beginning!

 

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5 Comments

  1. Rick Blake

    Reply

    “We have collected a couple of unsuspecting crewmen for the trip”!!
    Hmmm…. starting to be suspecting… lol!

    Very excited to be joining the journey. Maybe I’ll get a guest blog post before jumping off in Bermuda.

    Rick

  2. irene

    Reply

    we had a fabulous weekend on zephyr with the hosts with the mosts we usually end up calling the rancies. they even let us rubes take over the wheel…

  3. jennifer

    Reply

    hahahaha the way you write reminds me of MARK TWAIN. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 😉 hmmmm maybe I should reread this book. REALLY WELL DONE! Randy

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