1700 mile road trip

We decided to visit Sue’s uncle in Ohio sooner, rather than waiting till later this year.  So we rented a car from our friendly Enterprise dealer, checked our maps (to find that we can’t really get there from here), and headed north.  We crossed the mountains in North Carolina, Virginia, & West Virginia and saw all the leaves changing colors.  (I read that West Virginia is actually the biggest state in the country, especially if you flatten out all the mountains.)

With my Aunt (on my mother's side).  I hope I'm
as energetic as she is at 86 years

We spent a couple days in Ashland OH visiting Uncle Dallas, who seems to be doing well – much better than last year.  While in northern Ohio, we also got to see my Aunt Barbara in Huron, who is a spry 86 years young, still living by herself in her home.  We’re looking forward to next summer when we’ll have the boat on Lake Erie, and be able to see all these relatives (and several more) when both Sue & I get back in our old “stomping grounds”.

Bill Bowman's 70 foot Burger yacht.  Burger yachts
are all custom built, and about 20 steps above our boat.

We then pointed the car east, past Washington DC, back to our old marina in Colonial Beach on the Potomac.  We were staying only one night to retrieve our car, so the owner of The Boathouse Marina, Mr. Bill Bowman, invited us to spend the night on his yacht.  We reciprocated by inviting him to one of the better restaurants in town, where he and Sue shared a 3# grilled flounder, which Sue claims was one of the better meals she had ever eaten.  Mr. Bowman has been a prince of a gentleman each time we’ve been to his marina, making us feel very welcome and special.

Sue and Bill Bowman about to devour a perfect
flounder meal

We drove both cars back to Myrtle Beach, watching the changing colors of the tree leaves all the way.  By the time we arrived “home”, we had driven over 1700 miles in less than a week.  Yes, our butts were sore from sitting so much.

We’ll have about 10 days here to do some chores around the boat, and to act like tourists around Myrtle Beach, before we pack up the horses again to head to TN for Thanksgiving and the family reunion.

“Home” for the Winter

Organized chaos waiting for the bridge to open -
boats going every which way

Interesting sights along the ICW

We had a 2-day trip from Morehead City NC down to Southport, and chose to anchor for the night at the edge of the USMC base Camp Lejuene.  There were major exercises going on at the base, and since the weapons range ran right along the southbound ICW, the ICW was closed while the range was “hot”.  This led to another traffic jam of a dozen boats, all waiting for the noontime re-opening of the ICW.  Even after that, the military exercise continued through the night.  The cove where we anchored was filled with USN/USMC river boats, each with several 50 caliber machine guns.  All night, we heard large gun fire, machine gun fire, helicopters, and boat traffic.  Sure gave us a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that the bad guys weren’t going to get us that night!

We made Southport NC the next day, with the continuing northwest wind 15-20 mph.  While there, we interviewed the boatyard where we may haul the boat this winter.  We must have lots of extra money lying around someplace, so we’ll just dump it into our hole in the water.  The surprising thing while in Southport was meeting up with boats whom we had met this past summer.  One was a boat we met in Norfolk a couple weeks ago, and the other was a boat we met in July at Colonial Beach.

Look! She finally let ME drive!

Our final day cruising for this year was the half day trip from Southport to Little River SC and our marina for the winter, Lightkeeper’s Marina.  The trip was mostly uneventful (the best kind of trip to take on a boat), but we still had to plan for slack current at Southport as well as mid-tide or better at two areas of shoaling along the way.  Our marina is a bit north of Myrtle Beach SC, and only 4 miles from the North Carolina border.  We had selected this place back in June when we traveled north from here.



But the Admiral is still the Admiral!

Turning into our marina, right on the ICW.


 

It was a bit melancholy when we docked for the last time this year.  We had a fantastic cruising season through the Chesapeake, eating as much crab as we could, seeing a lot of major towns (and many more smaller ones), and enjoying fabulous weather.  So now we make the transition back to being a landlubber.  One of our first tasks is to retrieve our car which is still at Colonial Beach on the Potomac River.  Then we’ll visit our aging relatives in Ohio and Tennessee.  Then we’ll start working down the project list of boat repair items, which had been growing all by itself this summer.  After visiting with relatives during the coming holidays, it will be time to start planning our adventures for 2015.  Ain’t no tellin’ what’s in store for next year!

We got to the marina just in time for Trick-or-Treat.
These cute kids lived on a sailboat next door.
I wonder if they filled up that basket?