Fake Christmas

Since Madi was leaving for San Jose a couple days after graduation, and for Japan a few days after that, we decided to have our family Christmas a couple weeks early. We treated it just like Christmas, with the same way of opening presents, same favorite foods, same Christmas movies. It was kind of nice because none of the stores knew it was fake Christmas, so it was easy to pop across the street for supplies.

We had a day to recover and clean up from fake Christmas, then we decided to accompany Madi up to northern California to help her and Koji with their apartment search. Madi got there a day earlier and lined up two days of apartments to look at with military precision. With maybe the exception of the last apartment we looked at, we all agreed that each was better than the last. They ended up getting a very nice, secure, quiet, second floor 2B 1B across from a school in San Jose.

Heather and I flew back to Phoenix from San Jose on Sunday. Although we had a nonstop, our plane was delayed due to the lovely weather much of the country is experiencing. Heather was catching a connecting flight to El Paso to get to her mother's a couple days earlier. She would have missed her connection, but it was late too. She walked up and they started boarding.

I spent yesterday Christmas shopping and running errands. Today Chelsea and I drive to Las Cruces for Christmas with Heather's family. We all drive back in a couple days, then up to Prescott for my family's Christmas, which is usually mostly on Christmas Eve. This year it is Christmas Eve Eve because Chelly and company are headed to Hawaii, where Chad's family is.

We have Christmas Eve back in Mesa, then we are flying back to Florida on Christmas day. The boat is in Panama City and we want to get it to the Tampa area next. Instead of hugging the coast we are planning on cutting the corner from the panhandle of Florida with the help of a couple of friends. They fly back on January 2nd, so we have a pretty tight window. Hopefully we will get a decent weather window in that time for the 24 to 30 hour crossing.

Madi flies from San Jose to LAX in a few hours, then her flight to Japan leaves about noon today.

Other than that, not a lot happening!

Madi's Graduation

We flew back to AZ on Sunday and have started boxing some more stuff up. We got a Christmas tree yesterday.

Today Madi graduates from ASU with a double major in English and Japanese. She worked so hard for this, and we are very proud of her. She is heading up to San Jose in a couple days to look for a place to live. She then leaves a few days later for a couple weeks in Japan to visit friends and explore some more.

Cliff Clavin's Promised Land

After arriving late afternoon yesterday, we are finally tucked away at our second staging point in Panama City, Florida. Outside this morning it is a not so Florida tourist board temperature of 35 degrees. Maybe it didn't seem cold to Cliff because he was from Boston.

Biloxi seems like a long time ago. We ended up staying an extra day in Biloxi to wait out the weather, and we left Wednesday to cross Mobile Bay. It gave us a chance to catch up on some chores and sleep, and to grab a hamburger at the Margaritaville there. The weather was nice on Wednesday and we chugged all the way across to a place called Homeport, home of LuLu's, sister of Jimmie Buffett. After a masterful docking job by Heather we walked over. On Pearl Harbor day they were closed for an employee appreciation party. We forced to cook some of the food we bought in New Orleans, and had a nice spaghetti dinner.

The weather for the next day was dicy again, but we decided to go for it. The first few hours we were on the intercoastal and pretty protected so it was cold but not too bad. We met a few barges again in the twilight which was exciting. The wind was really blowing when we got to Pensacola and it was decision time. Many of the bridges from here to Carrabelle are fixed and too short for us,  so we are forced into the gulf. We decided to make the jump from Pensacola to Destin. Because of the wind and our direction we were kicking up quite a bit of spray, which combined with the cold temperature was invigorating, and we were glad to see the markers for Destin. A very shallow entrance, but we docked  six feet from the Margaritaville there. This should be called the Margaritaville tour!

We waited a little bit in the morning for the wind to die down a little, but we needed most of a day to get to Panama City. We fueled up, then headed back out into the cold, wearing everything we owned. The wind was even stronger, but we were headed and the wind was pointed in slightly different directions, so less spray but very rolly. We made our way into the Panama City entrance and over to the marina, dodging dredging equipment and very shallow water. The wind was on our side docking, and we were trying to back in, so we had a couple of close encounters with our neighbors before we finished backing in. This is our boat's home for the next few weeks.

Biloxi Blues

Isn't that a movie name? We're in Biloxi after a very wet few hours between Long Beach and Biloxi. I checked the wind, but neglected to check the rain forecast. A couple of times the rain was blowing sideways between Heather and I. I haven't been that wet with my clothes on in some time. Fortunately they had a drier here at the marina to dry all our stuff out.

The marina is at Cadet Point, and is in the shadow of the Golden Nugget casino. We had dinner there last night expecting an early start this morning, but the wind still hasn't died down sufficiently. Problem is, if we don't leave soon, we can't make it across Mobile Bay before dark, and I haven't found another place to stop yet.

Better Late than Never

I obviously got out of the habit of updating this while we were on shore leave. We're in Mississippi!

We flew home with Chelsea the Monday before TG, went to medical and eye appointments, and cleaned out the storage unit. Thanksgiving was the traditional picnic outside of Prescott and the weather was surprisingly nice. It was good to see friends and relatives. My mother and grandmother both looked well, and my middle sister and her husband came over from California.

Even though we were back home for nine days, it went by in a blur, and soon we were 24 hours from flying back with a long list of to-dos. Didn't sleep much that night, but got it (mostly) done, and we were back in New Orleans last Wednesday night. The first day we provisioned and started making plans, but a front blew through that I'm glad we were not out in. The folks two slips over got a late start and left in the middle of it on their way to Cuba. I hope they are OK.

It gave us time to work on our list, and better appreciate our weather luck with more than a week long trip from Houston. It looked like we could at least sneak across Lake Ponchatrain, fuel up, and maybe  stay the night near Slidell. The window opened a little more and it looked like we could slide between two fronts moving their way east since we were moving east. The wind died down early Sunday morning and we left the New Orleans marina an hour after dawn. The lake was pretty flat and it was foggy but no problems getting to the cleverly named "The Dock" and topping up the diesel tanks. Other than a few showers it looked like the weather would hold out till dark, so we kept going.

We missed the weather call by a few hours. By mid afternoon the temperature was dropping and the wind was gusting over 20 knots. We weren't out there long enough for the gulf to really start kicking up more that some healthy chop, but we were glad when the Long Beach marina was in sight. Heather did a masterful docking job, and after a shower we had dinner at Steve's.

We have a short day today. We're only trying to get to Biloxi. This gives us a good starting point to scoot across Mobile bay tomorrow.