Sailing Last Mango

12-17-16     We arrived in Eugene to sunshine and warmer temperatures, at least warmer than Illinois. Temps were near 45 degrees and it was great to see the sun. Unfortunately the weather didn’t last longer and before we knew it we were in witness to the worst ice storm in Eugene Oregon in 45 years. Sam and Nicole’s house faired well and we only lost power for a very short time. Two days went by filled with the sounds of trees falling and branches breaking. Many other throughout the area lost power for days. Looking down the street from Sam and Nicole's House. Close up view of a tree branch. Rose bush after the storm. Hard to believe they were mowing lawns yesterday. I'm loving the Yurt idea. They're Beautiful. Karen, Sam and I went Yurt shopping the at Pacific Yurts in Cottage Grove Oregon. We had been browsing yurts on the net and...

2-9-16 Today started like most days recently, we awoke to snow flurries and typical Illinois December cold, however today is different. Today we start our trek out to Oregon for Christmas, we’ll see Sam and Nicole with Hannah soon to follow for the U of Iowa Christmas break. We’ve had this trip planned since August and have really been looking forward to the train ride out west and seeing the kids. If anyone had been following the blog last year you’d know that we traveled by train (Amtrak Empire Builder) out to the west coast last year and enjoyed it so much we chose to repeat the experience. Enjoying the observation car. My sister Cathy and brother in law, Brian was nice enough to pick us up from our new digs in Kingston IL. and drop us off at Metra’s Elgin National train station. Metra takes us to Union Station where we’ll board the train to Oregon. So far this trip I can tell you that Amtrak has built a new lounge (Metropoliton Lounge) in Union Station for custome...

It’s really been a long time since I posted. I feel that the days have been flying off the calendar in a stiff winter breeze but that’s the way it goes when I don’t make the effort to sit down and put thoughts down with paper and pen (computer and keyboard). Shame on me I know. Time just flies by when you're having fun For what it’s worth I’ve been busy with a great part-time job and dis-mantling my personal email server. I never realized how much trouble I can find myself in using one of these things. Thanks to “The Donald” and “Hillary” I’ve learned my lesson, I apologize. Seriously though, Karen and I have been a busy. This summer I’m working and Karen’s picking up a few hours each week with the local school system. We traveled out to Eugene Oregon to attend Sam’s graduation from the Oregon State Police Academy, did a bit of hiking and sightseeing along the way.  We're so proud of Sam. We were fortunate enough to be able to travel to the...

3-28-16   We left the anchorage heading back to Key West for a day or two and were forced to motor sail the whole way due to very little wind. We made our way to Garrison Bite and grabbed a mooring ball after repeatedly call the harbor master without any reply. We finally got them on the phone and were directed on how to navigate the dinghy to their location to pay our daily fee. It was quite a trek from our mooring to the harbor master, total time one way was about 20 minutes. I know understand why people complain about the mooring field being so far from the dinghy dock. We got checked in and took badly needed showers since the past several days the heat index has been in the high 90’s. After showers Karen and I walked over to Duval street and a few drinks. They tasted great and went down well, we could've stayed and drank away the night but common sense prevailed and we made our way back to Mango and dinner. Karen wanted me to take this picture of 2 young girls playi...

3-24-16   Today is the day we chose to leave Marathon / Boot Key Harbor. I couldn’t wait to leave, we’ve been in Boot Key for 31 days and we did enjoy ourselves but I’d had itchy feet for at least 2 weeks and I think Karen has also. This morning we went ashore dropped off shower keys, picked up more water and Karen went to the library to print out our state tax return and mail it. We decided to leave by noon which worked out as planned. We had one more stop on the way out at Burdine’s for fuel and ice. We found Pat, Tim, Jack and Nate waiting to catch our lines as we hung a u-turn into the fuel slip. We put in about 20 gallons of diesel and once again gave hugs said our goodbyes, I even  saw a couple tears in Karen’s eyes. Our last Marathon Sunset for the year. We picked today to leave because the winds were forecast to be East at 12 to 15 range which is perfect for us. What we found was East 15 to 25 which only required us to unfurl a portion of the jib and aw...