Random thoughts on a rainy day
Outside, rainwater drips ceaselessly off the eave of our cabin; the pine trees, which house our fat squirrel friends, shift and shiver in the wind. I sit here in a tank top sweating as a I type because Stéphane has built an outrageously hot fire. He’s out sitting in his “new” truck learning how to use all the gadgets in his bat-mobile. We’ve been looking for over a month for the right truck (proper combination of cylinders (6 not 8 – for better gas mileage) / doors (4) / year (>=2009) / miles (<=100,000) / gadgets (yes please) / price (how low can you go?)) which we finally found – unfortunately for us at a dealership, but we stuck to our budget and got a great deal.
So, it’s gross outside today and I’m missing Tom & Melisa, Pat & Kim, Dan & Karen and all of our Colorado friends – and all of the adventures we went on together. Just the other day we got a text from an old-new friend, Julie – it’s so funny how people come in and out and then back into your life:
Super Bowl Sunday at Puerto Bahia in Samana, Dominican Republic. We share slices of pizza, laughs and stories with a woman named Julie who has escaped the cold, Maine winter for a week. A year later, cleaning out her purse, Julie comes across our boat card, pulls up our blog and sees we have moved to Maine and live only a few hours away! We’ll meet up with her when weather gets nice and we start exploring Maine further afield.
Craigslist add: free ink for HP Deskjet 423C printer (before leaving for our sailing adventure we were giving things away, shedding our belongings like so much skin we had outgrown). Tom Lamb, who just so happened to be perusing Craigslist that morning and needed printer ink for his own Deskjet 423C, answered the ad, picked up our ink (and dropped of some of Mrs. Lamb’s very tasty cookies), and has been our number one blog fan ever since.
Georgetown, Bahamas: a supercharged midnight gale dislodges Free Range’s anchor and blows her into Adastra, a neighboring sailboat. The next day, we sheepishly deliver a bottle of wine, boat card, and our apologies to Bob and Judy, with whom we become fast friends and traveling companions for the next month.
The docks of Sailcraft Marina in Oriental, North Carolina. A beautiful Island Packet, s/v “Someday”, rests a few slips down. Stéphane strikes up a conversation with Dale, Someday’s owner, who later gifts us with paper charts (which we treasured and used throughout our journey). Although we never met up with Dale and Merna again, we each follow each other’s blogs and revel in each other’s (mis-)adventures.
The blisteringly hot cement shoulder of the Ohio Turnpike: a busted tire en route to Virginia and our sailing adventure had us spending an afternoon at Auto Smith Tire & Service in Newton Falls, Ohio (home of Ohio’s second oldest covered bridge, also zip code 44444). When you can fit everything you own into your car, there’s usually some kind of interesting story as to why – the boys at Auto Smith were interested in hearing ours. We had no clue that T.C. and the gang had been following our adventures on eeeeeep until they left a comment on the blog one day – to our great surprise and happiness.
We have some pretty cool stories about the people who have come into our lives. And we count ourselves lucky to have you travel along with us – whether we were buddy boating with you down in the Bahamas, climbing with you at Indian Creek, picking your brain on how to sail in North Carolina, or making you eat fondue in Michigan, a big cheers to you! Thinking of you all on this rainy, gray Maine afternoon and thankful to have each of you, in whatever small or large way, in our lives.
And a parting shot:
