Sailing Last Mango

9/21 Today Karen and I left on our grand train trip to Eugene Oregon with much trepidation. We’ve heard a couple stories that sounded like Amtrak would be up our alley. We’ve heard many more horror stories about long distance train trips. The trip started with a good friend Gary taking us to the Metra station, there we hopped on a local train and made our way to Union Station in Chicago to board Amtrak’s “Empire Builder” line to Portland and Seattle. The check in was seamless and a breeze compared to airports and flying. We were given a brief finger tour of the Amtrak lounge which has free soft drinks and snacks. The lounge was very crowded but soon started emptying as trains and passengers were departing for Texas and California. Karen and I settled back on a two person couch and started surfing the net via complimentary wifi access. We met several of our lounge neighbors through conversation which is always interesting and makes the time pass more quickly. Shortly thereafter a pag...

Last night Karen and I bicycled the Bison Night Gravel Ride out in Dekalb. The ride was put on by Axle Tree and done really well from our perspective. Now to be fair we have not rode in any organized ride in quite some time and when we did it was usually 30 miles at the most.  The Bison ride was 56 miles and Karen was a bit worried that the parking lot would be empty and all the lights would be turned off in the bar by the time she finished. That couldn't have been further from the truth as we completed the ride shortly before midnight and the KJ’s bar was packed. I’ve always liked cycling at night provided car traffic is minimal and that it was. The route was put together really well aside from the occasional missing street sign which made it easy to miss the appropriate right or left turn to continue the correct route. The majority of the ride was on gravel once out of the city of Dekalb and we cycled by some of the towering wind turbines that illuminate the dark night sky w...

Well, it’s been quite a while since I’ve typed out a blog post. Karen and I have been busy wrapping things up at my parents house and moving into our new digs in West Dundee Illinois. The move to Dundee has been wonderful as our landlords have been great, nothing Judge Judy like. Karen and I have never rented a house or an apartment but renting makes a lot of sense in our situation. We still don’t know what we want to do when we grow up or where we want to live out our golden years (Still a many years ahead). We do know that we want to go back to Last Mango and continue sailing, but we need a place to call home. Our new place is an older home, dates back to 1870 but has been beautifully maintained and updated. We couldn’t ask for better people to rent from.  Entry off the garage area. Beautiful deck to sit back and relax. Leaving my parents is a little bittersweet for me because I’m leaving my fath...