Putting this blog to bed

It's too cold this morning to post from the front porch, but it has become my favorite hangout. Instead I am writing from my chair in my bedroom. The same chair I sat it way back that winter when I hung out at Maureen's house and set the goal to have a chair and a corner just that. So when she gave me the chair, I found the corner and it's my cold weather place as the sun crosses from the south to the west all winter long. Thank you, Maureen!

This final post has weighed on my mind and I thought I was ready to write it all year long, but I never had the just right words. So I am simply going to write it.

The boat year (10 months on a boat is the same to me as a whole year) was an experience that I thank Kurt for that from time to time. It taught me mostly that all kinds of people have all kinds of other ways of living. Owning my own home and having my own yard and decorating my own way is not by any means THE way of living life. Boats, RVs, couch surfing, communal living, renting, barely surviving are all ways to live life. Not one of them anymore is superior to the other. The boat taught me that.

I sometimes really do miss living actually on the water. The rocking to sleep, the bare separation from the seasons, the waterfowl, the middle finger raised to all the expectations and the extra money. I miss the extra time with no chores. I miss reading during that extra time. I miss the travel.

When we bought this house, I said we'd live here till you carried me out in a pine box. Maybe. But now there is a little tiny part of me that could sell this thing, sail to the Caribbean and hang out there all wrinkled and buried in saltwater and books.

Till that happens, I love our little house in the country. I love our new to us old chocolate labs. I love my kids coming to visit. I love having friends and family over. I don't mind the commute too terribly. And I love the world my love and I are creating.

Thanks for reading. Consider this blog tucked in and lights out.

Alison

Final Sunday on the Boat

September 18, 2016

This time next week we should be moved in and drinking coffee on our new front porch! “Should” is the operative word as there are three more details we wait patiently for others to finish. So keep your fingers crossed and I will write my sub plans for Friday. Paper signing should be at 10:00 AM Friday.

I have promised Kurt, myself and my bank account that I will follow this 

as we fill the rooms of our new home. Already I have found the perfect couch at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. It has been there the last three times we’ve done laundry - every other week for six weeks. We can purchase it and then must pick it up within three business days, so here’s hoping it will still be there on Thursday. It’ll definitely need to be reupholstered, but that still counts as reusing! From that same store we have two porch chairs and a random $3 wooden chair perfect for an extra guest or a flowerpot.

My brother is probably right now waiting at his garage door for us to pull up the rental truck and get all my stuff out of said garage. I do miss my stuff. I suspect it’ll be a little like Christmas to unpack. I am so curious if, as I unpack, I decide to purge even more. I doubt it as our new home as SO MUCH ROOM compared to the boat. What I took from Arlington could just fill a one-bedroom apartment. This house has so much more space than that!

At this point, I can’t seem to find any of the right clothes I need to dress anywhere close to professionally at school. Returning to a full sized closet and dresser is going to be maybe the biggest luxury. I know that sweet black cardigan and brown leather belt are either on the boat or in the boxes of clothes in my car, unless they are in Steve’s garage where I dumped cold weather stuff on a sweltering day in July. They would have come in handy this last week. Spreading out and putting things away will reveal all that I have lost. At this point though, I kind of don’t care. What matters has changed. 

So a quick thank you to Elizabeth for being such a gracious hostess. And a deeper thank you to Kurt for his willingness to play this 10-month game. And an eternal thank you to my fortitude and patience and willingness to try something different. I WILL miss mornings and evenings on the dock. Especially when great blue herons join Miss Kitty and me for our morning coffee.

Kitty stares down the heron.
Too far for either to be bothered.

Late summer dock garden

I will also miss the slow life on the water. An audition is already scheduled for a show that will be close enough to commute from Dunkirk, Maryland. Here’s hoping I can gear back up to near city speed. Next report from the front porch! Till then.

Remember That Year We Lived on the Boat?

That’s our catch phrase for when this life seems really ridiculous. It’s usually me who says that, mostly as a mantra to help me remember this is a time to treasure not a time to curse. Whatever!

Now that the weather is gorgeous, I can easily forget the days this July and August that I spent hunkered down in the library hiding from the heat of the sun and the ridiculous mid-Atlantic humidity. Whoever invented that should be…

The AC unit wasn’t a complete waste, but with a boat that is not insulated, on the 95+ degree days it simply kept the boat dehumidified. So imagine hanging out in a hot box and saying “Dry heat is so much better than wet heat.” I lived in the desert southwest one summer, and high heat is hot. So come 11:00 AM I’d crawl out of the boat with the least amount of clothing touching my skin, leave the AC cranking, text Kurt to meet me at the library and off I’d go. Mind you, the cat had left hours ago. Cats are truly the ones to look to when you are looking for the best seat in the house. And when she’s off the boat, humans need to take note.

The library is a godsend and I will put them in my will, as every community needs to continue to have a space for folks to gather. Mind you, there were some folks reading. But mostly there was online shopping, online game playing, news show watching (WITHOUT HEADPHONES!) and stealth napping. I did get to know many of the folks by face. The hotter the day, the more crowded the library, and the librarians seemed to revel in it. The community was seemingly happy to be gathered. And the AC was brilliantly cool. Kurt and I would often use the time to update our electronics, research termite treatments and review documents for our impending house purchase.

Yes! It’s true! We finally saved the money to buy a house! In southern Maryland, but it beats the boat on frigid and steamy days. I haven’t wanted to put anything here until it all looked like a go. Jinxing is still a holdover that keeps me mum at times. We are there! We found the perfect, unflipped by others, grandma house. My commute time will be cut in half and Kurt’s will be doubled. He swears he’s okay with that provided we build him his woodshop sooner rather than later. There has been a great deal of back and forth, but the underwriters have agreed to terms on the loan and the sellers have agreed to the repairs needed to make the underwriters happy. We’ll be able to walk to the Patuxent River to put in canoes and kayaks. We will also be able to walk to Wawa to buy candy coffee and a Sunday Washington Post. The best of all possible worlds! The property is only an acre, so we’ll have to trim our plans of forest, meadows and gardens, but I think we can get it all in there. Best of all, the house is a cape cod with the dormer window room just a’waitin on little folks to take it over with dress ups and read alouds. This is good. And I will keep my teaching job until it’s paid off. Which will take extra payments each month, but now that I am practiced at needing close to nothing to live, this will be easy.

Elizabeth, the boat, will remain in her slip here at Calvert Marina and Kurt has agreed to come check on her often on his way home from work. He’s even agreed to take a nap or two just to make sure she’s not lonely. I have pledged to accompany Kurt as we take her out at least once a week in good weather. And we will finish some of the renovations on her in balance with the house Reitzenbauerization work. That’s in writing now.

I head back to work tomorrow and will keep the long commute till the end of September when we close on the Grandma house. With the weather turning to fall, I won’t mind returning each night. And there will be parts of boat life I will miss. A lot. But that’s another post.

Vacationing by Sailboat

Is it a staycation if you stay in your home as you travel out of town?

Living on a boat makes vacations easy and cheap. Vacationing on a SAILboat make vacations really slow.

The Chesapeake Bay is the watershed in which I have lived most of my life. As a kid my parents took us to the bay in the summers, so I am familiar with stinging nettles and biting flies. I also know a little bit about the small towns in and around the bay having vacationed in them with my family and friends. So when Kurt gave me the itinerary for this trip, I thought I’d know it all and was looking forward to some chill sailing time.

This slow down vacation opened my eyes to the Chesapeake. This bay has something going on! All well educated historians would agree that our great nation begins right here, unless you are from indigenous, once enslaved or New England ancestry. I get that, but humor me for a bit. Captain John Smith spent a great deal of time looking for resources and treasures right here. Once settlements became established, the Chesapeake was the transportation hub for exports of tobacco, THE cash crop until just recently. So as we traveled by water and saw these towns from the water, I was able to imagine what the early Europeans saw. The wildlife is gorgeous and in many places well preserved. Suburban development hasn't reached this far south despite the huge houses in Urbanna. The weather was really hot and humid and the water filled with nasty stinging nettles. But the breeze either created by our motor moving us through water, or storms traveling about the bay helped to keep life bearable. And now we are well practiced with staying just long enough in air-conditioned businesses before they get irritated with our loitering. Capt. Smith didn’t have that advantage and he loved it here.

The map does not represent what we did. After Urbanna we went to Reedville and the next day went from Reedville to home.

We motored for six hours and sailed for two to visit Linda and Jeff, my JMU friends, in Callao on the Potomac. The next days were much of the same as we slowly motorsailed to the towns of Kilmarnock, Urbanna and Reedville, all on the Rappahannock. Due to an unknown scheduling conflict with the governor of Virginia, we were unable to board the ferry to Tangier Island. That gave us an extra day in Reedville where live some very proud townsfolk. This area is known as the Northern Neck and by car is an economically depressed and dreadfully boring region of my beloved Virginia. I always preferred the Eastern Shore of Maryland as its towns are more defined and there’s more to do there. But there was some really good stuff here and I’d like to poke around some more by car soon. Enjoy!

Day 1 - Off to Linda and Jeff's!

The before selfie

The dinghy at sea!

The dinghy takes on water due to an open daggerboard slot.

Kurt bails out his boat and stops the leak.

With all boats afloat, we motorsail slowly from the Patuxent to the Potomac.

...and steer by foot.

While staying just out of the main channel.

Containers!

Day 2:

After a great night catching up with the St. Georges, we are delivered back to the Elizabeth and head out to the Rappahanock.

If you find yourself right here, just holler. Linda and Jeff love to spoil sailers rotten!

Thank you, Linda!

There goes the last fast motor we'll encounter the entire trip.

Then we sail....

Kind of looks like a pirate ship during humid hallucinations. Seriously.

Around Point No Point lighthouse.

You can't see them, but there is one osprey on top of each of the pound net posts. Look up "pound nets". 

and we sail

Into a small creek near Kilmarnock.
If I had known this was the only spot with no nettles, I definitely would have jumped in for a swim.

Day 3: Off to Urbanna

Heading into the river and under the bridge.

Urbanna is a very cute town. Huge waterfront houses, fancy boutiques and even a paleo restaurant!
Just don't go on a Tuesday, nothing's open. Saved us some good money!

We rowed back in time to be safe from the thunderstorm and enjoy the rainbows and sunset!

Day...all the rest. 

I lost track. It was hot and slow and it really didn't matter what day it was.

Essentials: GPS, water, cheez-its, lines (rope), binoculars.
Patience, Kindles, books, patience.

REEDVILLE! Center of menhaden fish oil processing.
Be sure to check out the museum with really great docents
and all the information you could ever want about all the industry on the bay.

 Since we couldn't take the ferry, we ended up spending the entire hot summer day here. This garden is behind the church next to the museum. Kurt was thrilled with native plants and the demonstration proved that vegetation in waterfront properties is wise!

We did hang at the town's gazebo and waited patiently until Tommy's Restaurant opened at five. Thursdays are the first day they are open for the week. Northern Neck apparently gets all their business on the weekends. ***Order off the specials menu***

 

LAST DAY!

The engine compartment open in the morning.
Serious overheating just as we headed out in the morning.

Kurt in the engine compartment searching for the source of the engine overheating.
Thank goodness Kurt is skinny and knows everything.
'Twas a jellyfish in the intake blocking water from cooling the engine. Grrr. 

Pilot boats hanging off the back.

The two boats take one net around schools of menhaden.
They are then uploaded into the big boat.
Who knew!?

You can't see them, but on the front of the coal barge is a line of seagulls catching a ride.
They are only on the front pile to the right. "Mine. Mine. Mine."

It took us the entire day to return from Reedville to Solomons. I must admit that I did feel a little "homeful" upon return. It was a mix between happy to be back from travel and grateful for having the slow time to wander and discover. Mix this with complete and utter surrender to the fact that I still won't have a real bathroom or unlimited wifi. Comforts are really simple these days. I might be that much closer to a house after this.

There is no after selfie. Not sure why we didn't think of that.

Home sweet home.
We are the ones with the redneck silver awning over the bow.

Postscript: 

We returned to a week of temperatures in the high 90's with really high Mid-Atlantic humidity. As we were heading into Solomons, Kurt suggested we maybe go ahead and get that AC unit that I mentioned this time last year when I was just a weekend warrior. I suggested that might be a good idea. So friends, the Elizabeth is climate controlled, as much as she is able!

Lowes has wifi for easy price comparisons

They call it an air conditioner