Two Month Anniversary

We arrived in Brunswick GA Friday, June 5th around 5pm, unlocked s/v Honey Ryder and thus officially moved aboard full time.  Happy Anniversary to us - all three of us (Tom, Sabrina, s/v Honey Ryder)

Another Step

see ya

We are officially car-less.  Our good friends took off this morning to drive our car back to KC for storage.  This is a big step for us.  I have had my drivers license since I was 14 and a car since I was 16.  While I don't like to think of myself as materialistic, I have always enjoyed my/our cars.  It hasn't sunk in yet but it's going to be a bit weird.

The car in the foreground is waiting for the owners to get to the next stop, then they will come back via rental car to get it

It was surprising to learn how many cruisers coastal cruise and move a car along behind them.  This is certainly one way to do it.  We have decided to go without.

bye

Starting today, walking, biking, public transportation will be our modes of transportation.  Several cruisers have already said we can bum rides with them to the store, hardware store, Grog shop and West Marine.  Cruisers are such good peeps!!

Home Address

Home to thousands of people world wide

We finally visited our home mailing address yesterday for the first time - ever.  We are using a mail forwarding service to get our mail and it's great.  Check it all out here St Brendan's Isle if you are interested in the details.   While we try to do as much as possible electronically - bills, communication (formal and informal) etc....let's face it, we all still get important snail mail documents now and then.  Having SBI helps us manage that portion of our life.  Normally we would have them send us our mail after enough stacks up to justify a shipment to us wherever we are.  However, we were in the area so we just popped by to pick up our mail in person and check the place out.  The people at SBI have been wonderful to work with.

Storing all the STUFF

I spent the morning working on food and galley storage.  It took all morning but I was finally able to find a spot for it all in a semi-orgainized fashion....AND later talk Tom through finding a new 12 pack of pop as well as locate the fixings for dinner this eve so not too shabby.

Vacation Mode -NOT

Written 6-8-13
It's weird.  We are here at the boat and we have all the time in the world but it doesn't seem like it.  We both have commented how it seems like we should rush as today was Saturday and we will need to leave tomorrow to head home to KC since vacation is over.  But it's not.  We are not on vacation.  We are in our new phase of life!
I went to the grocery store late this afternoon and I found myself saying several times "Sabrina, don't buy too much as we will be leaving the boat soon to head back to KC after this wonderful vacation and you will just end up giving away food like you have in the past."  But I won't.....we are not on vacation.  We are live in our new life.  Woo Hoo!

Settling In

Once we arrived, we didn't unload the car immediately.  It was a bit surreal to finally be here and so instead we have been grabbing dock cartfuls from the car here and there.  Today we got the bulk of it down to the boat and have been sorting by category (galley, head, tools, medial, etc..) to get a handle on what we have prior to storage.  There is stuff everywhere!  OMG - where are we going to put it all?  We knew this would happen.  We knew we would bring too much and need to thin out again once we were aboard.  It is what is is.  However, our first order of business was to give s/v Honey Ryder a scrub.  She was filthy.  The filthiest she has ever been - poor thing.  The marina is adding on to the main laundry/bath house and driving huge pilings into the dirt and sand.   It seems the bulk of the dust from that ended up on s/v Honey Ryder.  Yuck!  But we had her looking fabulous in no time. 
We decided that mounting the new solar panel would help the unpacking the car process greatly - the thought of decapitation while making a grocery run was troublesome to me.  See pic number 2 to understand.
All of Tom's pre-work on the solar panel mounts paid off.  While we do need to make one minor adjustment, it's temporarily mounted and out of the way - decapitation factor while on a grocery run greatly reduced.  More to come on the solar panel mounting and installation.

So much food, great for leftovers tomorrow

After grocery store run, we had dinner aboard.  It was so nice after living out of our backpacks and eating out way too much for the last 3 weeks.     

Home

First night living aboard

We did it.  We closed down our land life and are currently moving aboard.  OMG!!!

Woo Hoo!

On The Road To s/v Honey Ryder - The South

Swamp

We crossed the Mighty Mississippi River at Lake Village AR.   We drove 2 and 4 lane NON-interstate highways so we could see some of Americana. 

Tuscaloosa AL - too long to explain but funny stuff

Our navigation for most of this trip was this handy dandy pocket size atlas.

And while it was handy, it was also very deceiving in terms distance, primarily because it was so small and the scale was microscopic.  Yes, we know there are tons of map apps and web sites, but this was more fun. 

However, even though we were not on a schedule, we were anxious to get to the boat and move aboard.   Old habits die hard.  Our country is big and after 1 1/2 days, we were like..."OMG, when are we going to leave whatever state and arrive in the next state?"

Finally we arrived in Brunswick GA at 5pm Friday night, 6 days after leaving KC.    

One The Road To S/V Honey Ryder - Into the South

Spectacular modern design

We made it all the way to Little Rock AR Wednesday night.  This allowed us to spend Thursday morning at the William J Clinton Center.  I have seen my share of presidential libraries (both parties) and politics aside this one ranks right up at the top.  FYI - the Econo Louge is close by and has free shuttle to the Presidential Center.   

Love the modern

First and for most, the building design is modern and green.  This includes the kewl little tourist hauling carts that are powered off golf cart batteries and a solar panel!

funky, green little tourist ride

In addition to the regular Presidential exhibits, there were two temporary exhibits.  The first was "Jazz Through The Eyes - Herman Leonard."  See Tom's Music for more details on that exhibit or use the link to get you over there.

Yes, I was allowed in looking....let's call it touristy 

The other exhibit was just up my alley "Oscar de la Renta Modern Icon" .  Now some of  you might be saying "Up your alley?  Your moving aboard a boat.  What the heck?" 

The attention to detail was extraordinary

And while it's true that the bulk of my wardrobe in the past few years has been from Target (Tar-shea), I once knew a thing or two about the biz of fashion.

Couture excellence

Exhibit contained vintage as well as 2013 Spring and Fall

Stored away with our other records and photo albums is my Bachelor of Science - Apparel and Textile Marketing diploma from Kansas State University.  

See below for deatils

It was a fitting exhibit (get it? Ha!) given the fact that Oscar has dressed so many of our First Ladies.  Left to right above - Laura Bush, Nancy Regan, Hillary, Hillary, Chelsea, Hillary.


Ok - enough fashion - back to the sights.

A walking bridge over the river was a nice bonus.

We took one of the kewl little tourist hauling carts downtown for lunch and then hit the road for points south.
*We will be back to sailing, boating, cruising,etc....soon.  

On The Road Again - Towards s/v Honey Ryder

After a good visit with my parents, we took off yesterday morning.  This time the car was pointed in the direction of s/v Honey Ryder.....sort of.  In keeping with the adventure theme of this phase of life, we decided to check out some sights along the way and see different parts of the county that we have not seen much of.

Check out the steering wheel

Our first stop was the Mid American Air Museum in Liberal KS.  It's the 4th largest air museum in the country (so they say).  It was interesting with quite a variety of planes and helicopters.  I am not sure I get the dinosaur exhibit that smack dab in the middle of the museum (??) but oh well.  FYI, they open at 8am.

Tom at the controls

A late lunch stop in Enid OK treated us to our own air show as several fighter jets out of Tinker Air Force Base in OK City took advantage of the first nice day in weeks to do practise runs up over the skies of Enid.  Awesome!  The same was true of a crop duster doing practise runs over a Oklahoma field.

Quilt of airplanes - for my sailing sista Sammie

By the way, the American pickup truck is alive and well and HUGE!  OMG!  At the main intersection in Enid we were one of only 3 cars out of 48 vehicles at the stop light.  The rest were pickup trucks. 

Third wind farm of the trip -awesome

Constant winds in this part of the country make these a no brainer

Departing KC For Our New LIfe - June 1 2013

We are finally moving out of Limbo Land and hitting the road for s/v Honey Ryder.  Woo Hoo!

I think sailing sista Christie of s/v Hello World put it best in her congratulations for getting the heck out of town text as we rolled out of town..."It's a strange feeling isn't it?  You know it's a huge, but it feels like a normal day."  She is spot on!
So now we are on our way to s/v Honey Ryder but we are taking the long way so we can see some realitves on the way.....well not really on the way since we headed west out of KC and s/v Honey Ryder is southest out of KC (just a tad- ha).  We stopped to see family in Manhattan or Manhappiness as we like to call it.  K-State is still the best looking campus in all the Big 12.  Then we hit the road for SW Kansas where my parents live.  We are going to hang with the parental units for some days and then head towards s/v Honey Ryder.  We may do some sight seeing along the way so stay tuned. 

Packing It All Up To Go - Leaving Tomorrow

Pile of stuff to be packed

Yes, we are leaving KC tomorrow.  Let me say that one more time.....we are officially leaving KC tomorrow. Woo hoo.  We packed the car this afternoon and we are ready to go.

Packed to the roof

Packing It All Up To Go

Have you ever tried to stuff a your brand new power tool or printer/scanner/copier or small kitchen appliance back into the box it came in?  Did it fit back in exactly like it came out?  Most likely not.  With this in mind, we decided we probably needed to do a trial pack on the folding kayak.

When Tom bought the kayak, it was already out of the bag and ready to be used.  Until yesterday we had never attempted to get it back in the backpack.  We were a tad nervous about whether we could get it back in there and for moving purposes we really need it to fit back in it's bag. 

Success!!

Retired!

Tom officially retired yesterday. 

Limbo Land Slumber

Have you ever found a place were you sleep really hard?  I don't mean nice night of sleep but deep, deep sleep....like the sleep of the dead?  Perhaps a high end hotel with blackout shades or your childhood bedroom.  Here in Limbo Land we have moved over to some other friend's spare bedroom.  We didn't want to wear out our welcome where we were last week even though they said we weren't.  In our new digs I am sleeping like a dead person.  I don't know if it's a factor of all that has been going on in the last two months or what but man am I zonked out each night.  And of course these friends have been equally as fabulous about letting us crash in their spare bedroom all week.  THANKS to both of sets of friends - last week and this week.       

Squatting Doesn't Suck

Tom enjoying the "drinking porch" at our friend's house

I mentioned previously that we were living in Limbo Land but as you can see, it's not so bad. 

Dining al fresco - such a wonderful porch

Check out Beyond Burgoo tab for more on our Limbo Land Food

Tom "getting by" ha!

Limbo Land

First you need to get the music in your head so click HERE, then you can read this with the proper tune in mind.  Ok, the song doesn't really have anything to do with this posting other than the term limbo.  I just think it's a catchy tune.  Remember, life is all about attitude.

 
Limbo Land is currently where we are living....not in our house (it's occupied by our new tenants) and not yet on s/v Honey Ryder but still in KC wrapping up the last of land life.  Our friends have been absolutely wonderful by letting us crash at their house in their spare bedroom.  Their dog Riley welcomes us each time we walk in the door with rapid tail wags.....although she has managed to trick us newbies into various "treats" on occasion but we are catching on - slowly.  We have a few more business items to conclude before we hit the road and unfortunately one big item is depended a contractor getting his work done first at one of our rental houses.  So in the mean time we are living in Limbo Land.  Actually the company we are keeping here in Limbo Land is tops so all in all it's an ok place to be.
*Also big thanks to our tenants for letting us keep our "Take to the boat" pile in the corner of the basement until we are ready to head out and putting up with our frequent stops by the house to get mail, tools and such.    

NoTurning Back Now!

5-20-13 This is what Tom said last night as we moved into our temporary home - the spare bedroom of our good friend's house.

Tom's bag for the week in our temp room

Yesterday morning we took the last load to storage of the few personal items we are keeping.  Ok, by few I mean several rubbermaid containers and such but this is actually only the second load so we feel like we have done pretty good at purging the stuff of our lives.  It only took 10 mins to haul from the cars to the attic (of one of our rental houses) so not bad!  The couple that will be renting our house arrived yesterday afternoon just as promised from a long road trip with their car packed to the roof with most their worldly possessions.   Their excellent car packing skills give us hope for the near day when we have to pack all of our remaining worldly items into the Murano and head for s/v Honey Ryder.  I use the term renters but actually these are friends so we were SO excited to see/meet them yesterday.  We spent the afternoon chatting and getting them oriented to the house.  They have never been to our house.  In fact we have have never meant in personal until yesterday but have been email pen-pals (is that term still used?) for many years.  Kansas weather generated a big Welcome to Kansas in the form of thunderstorms and tornado warnings.  Fortunately, we only had strong winds and rain with dinner.  Oklahoma wasn't as luckly and our hearts are heavy for them.

My bags for the week

Tom still has many items to do to wrap up his business so we gathered up a duffle bag each, our backpacks, laptops, and various files and headed to our temporarily home around 9:30 pm last night.
The last load of  items for donation will be dropped off tomorrow.  Yep, no turning back now but then we wouldn't want to - it's time to get going towards s/v Honey Ryder.   

When?

When are you leaving?  What is your departure date?  When?  When?  When?  Ugh!!!!!  Everyone keeps asking when we are leaving KC.  Truth is...we don't have a specific date.  I know, I know....cruiser philosophy says you MUST set a date or you never leave.  But we do have a date that we have been working towards.  May 15th.  This is the day the people renting our house will show up.  We agreed that there would be some overlap as we got them set up and settled in but May 15th!!  Yes, that is today!  But life happens the way it happens and we needed a few extra days.  Luckily our new tenants were able to help us out and we really appreciate that.  So the new date is May 19th!  They will roll into KC May 19th.  We are very excited.  We are currently working on the hundreds of last minute details. Will we be piling in the car and hitting the road May 20th for s/v Honey Ryder?  Um...no.  Tom still needs to wrap up some business items so we will be crashing with friends for a short period of time but.... May 19th!!!!  It's a date and that is good enough for now.