No Travel Today
So, according to the man on the boat next to ours, we are back on boat time now that we are back in Florida. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in New Jersey where we got to have lunch or dinner with many of our friends, and the baby shower provided us an opportunity to see a major portion of my family. Our two-week trip home was over in a flash!
At the baby shower for Heather and Chris and the future Miss Lillian Martha...
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| "Oh the Places She'll Go" hand-embroidered wall hanging (hand sewn by Devon who claims she isn't "crafty") |
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| Following along on that theme ... "Oh the Places She'll Go" Cake (bought at local food store) |
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| The future parents (Chris and Heather) cutting the cake |
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| Hanging out at the park on a glorious day |
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| Jeff, Devon, and Sierra wearing T-shirts in December in New Jersey? Guess we did bring nice weather back with us from Florida! |
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| Sierra romping through the park |
I had lunch in the car with us, so other than rest stops, we could just keep going until dinner time. We found a Ruby Tuesday where we knew we could get a pretty decent dinner with a great salad bar and then kept going until 11:00 p.m. when we stopped at a Country Inn in North Carolina. We mentioned to the clerk that we thought the town nearby named Zebulon had a great name, and low and behold she was from Zebulon! I would love to be able to say that I am from Zebulon; it's such a cool name which seems more appropriate for a planet than a town!
Clark's summary of the day was that we had breakfast in New Jersey, lunch in Delaware, dinner in Virginia and slept in North Carolina.
We managed to get ourselves on our way the next day at 9:45 after the hot breakfast that came with our room for the night. Clearly, we are not morning people as we were happy with our departure time. Unlike Wednesday, Thursday's weather was not accommodating as we had rain for a large portion of the trip with some of it very heavy. I had made sandwiches in the hotel room before we left, so once again we had lunch on the move. We finally stopped for a break around 7:30 for dinner at the Texas Roadhouse near Ocala, Florida. It turned out to be a reasonable choice.
We made it back to the boat at 11:00 p.m. and were amazed when we stepped out of the car into 80 degree humid weather. We had changed to T-shirts at a gas stop in Georgia, but we found ourselves still hot and sticky. As soon as we got on the boat we turned on the air conditioning and searched for shorts. We moved all the stuff we brought back from New Jersey from the car onto the boat, put away perishable food, and "hit the hay" to get some sleep.
As we brought warm weather to New Jersey with our visit, so did we bring cooler temps back to Florida with us. A cold front went through in the middle of the night bringing rain, removing humidity, and ushering in cooler weather. The high for the day was the humid 75 degrees we felt right at midnight. The temperatures continued to drop throughout the day into the 60s with the prediction for overnight as a low of 45! Good news is that we haven't had to run the air conditioner at all today!
Christmas came early in Florida! While we were in New Jersey, several packages got delivered to the marina and were waiting for us when we got back. We carried our goodies back to the boat from the marina office and had fun opening them all to see what we had gotten. I thought the largest box was my new travel sewing machine and was surprised when we opened the smaller box first and found the sewing machine inside. It is the cutest little thing. I swore the carry bag that I ordered to go with it was the wrong size as it looked like it was designed to hold a toy. Was I surprised when the new machine slid right into the bag!!! I have not tried it out yet. I guess that will be on tomorrow's agenda!
The large-sized box turned out to be the electric griddle that has had a tour of the east coast trying to reach us. Clark ordered the griddle at the beginning of November. A typo in the address caused the package to be redirected to our home address. Thus, on November 23rd, the package found its way to Rumson instead of the marina where we wanted it to go. The package was sent via FedEx; however, FedEx contracts with the US post office for final delivery. FedEx handed the package off to USPS who said, since our mail is forwarded, "Oh, they don't live here any more."
We checked the tracking on 12/1 to see where the package was because our neighbor, who we asked to look out for it for us, said it never showed up in Rumson. Tracking showed the package "out for delivery" in Rumson on 11/23 followed by shipped to North Carolina and then "out for delivery" in Greensboro, NC. I called USPS who said, "We've forwarded it to your new address." This turned out to be incorrect as a few days later we got a call from the sender to let us know that the package had been "returned to sender". Clark provided the address of our current marina, and voila! we finally have our griddle. I truly thought I would never see it and that it would travel in an infinite loop around the U.S. trying to locate us.
I tried the griddle out right away as I made pancakes for us for brunch. For a boat, the griddle is huge. I was expecting something half the size of what I got - and this was the smaller sized model than another we looked at. The good news is that I cooked 8 pancakes simultaneously! The bad news is that my galley can't easily accommodate a griddle that is wider than my stove. I'm still trying to decide where to store it when not in use.
Having just dropped the stuff from New Jersey onto the floor or on the bed in the second state room last night, I spent all of today getting organized and stowing the goods all over the boat. I found places for all my goodies except some shoes I brought back with me, my new sewing machine, and my new griddle!
I guess I don't adapt to "boat time" as well as Clark does. Roughly speaking I think that "boat time" refers to a "do it when you get around to it or maybe never" attitude. While I worked on cleaning up the boat so we could walk from one side to the other, Clark was outside talking and talking and talking to the guys from the boats docked near ours. I guess he grasps the whole "boat time" concept better than I do.
Around 1:00, I finally called him in from his gab session saying that I needed his help. Specifically I needed his help eating the pancakes that I had cooked on my new griddle. As soon as he was done eating, he was back outside chatting with the guys again. He said he was busy "collecting local knowledge" for our travels, i.e. where to go, what to see. He claims he got good intell for our trip!
Clark's "research" turned into an all-day exercise as he started chatting at 11:00 or so and didn't finish until almost 5:00 when his musician friend Susan came by and told him she was ready for them to get together to play Christmas Carols on their instruments. She plays the violin, and Clark plays guitar. She told him before we left for NJ that he needed to bring Christmas music back with him, which he did. When they got together to play, I joined them briefly for a couple of songs but then returned to the boat to continue with my projects. Clark finally called it a day and came back on board for dinner at 7:00.
Somewhere in there, Clark did manage to do the one job I asked him to do first thing this morning - fill the boat water tank and the drinking-water jugs with fresh water. Since we didn't manage to get out to buy any groceries today, that item will be added to tomorrow's agenda. Fortunately, I had enough provisions either on board or from New Jersey to carry me through today.
We have yet to see more of Tarpon Springs than the marina and one local restaurant. Exploring the town is also high on our to-do list!
We ended the day by watching "Lethal Weapon 3" on Bounce TV. I never tire of Riggs and Leo Getz!
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