Gone west...

At my urging, Deb arranged to pick up the rental car a day early. I wanted to head west as quickly as possible. While she went to get the car, Grandson Eldest and I took to getting on our way in earnest. Even though we had been doing prep work since the boat went on the hard, the “last minute” stuff would take hours to accomplish. It was hot and I'm sure my eagerness to get on the road was a bit of an irritation to my crew mates. But by early afternoon we were on our way. The first family stop was just a four hour drive. There we settled in for a couple of days of pure joy. After spending time in the company of PA based family we headed west once again.

The Zen House so named because we always come amid chaos and leave with total Zen

Along the way we stopped in the town of Washington, PA, swinging by one of the many houses we have lived in to show Grandson Eldest where his Mom had grown up.

The house the kids grew up in. We planted that maple tree in 1987.

Then, on a complete lark, we stopped by the airport were Deb and I had worked for nearly two decades. It turns out one of my friends from those days long past had become a major player on the airport. He was sitting in his office when Deb and I popped up at his door, a blast from the distant past.  After heartfelt greetings we jumped in a golf cart and got a tour of all that he had built or bought over the years. That included most of the hangars on the airport, along with the one Deb and I had worked in. He had completely rebuilt it, and I have to say it was perfect. His interests also included the Fixed Base Operation (FBO) that provides fuel and services to transient aircraft and a fleet of aircraft used for charter work, with medical trips being a good part of that operation. The medical angle had led him to start a foundation that raised money for kids who couldn't afford the care they needed. He was too modest to give me a $$ number, but a description of the kids helped and the procedures they needed suggested it was substantial.

The old hangar we used to work in all completely rebuilt now.

Along the way he caught us up on many of the people we had known back then. Since we were pretty young in those days, it wasn't much of a surprise to learn that many of the actors have shuffled off this mortal stage. The ones still around all seem to have done really well for themselves. It was a unique visit, totally unscripted, and one that will never be forgotten. I intend to stay in touch; the visit was just shy of being magical. 

Driving off, I couldn't help but wonder how our lives would have been different had we stayed rather than heading off when that job went away. My friend dug in and built something special. There is a good chance Deb and I would have gone along for the ride. But we headed west instead, me taking a job flying air ambulance King Airs in the AZ desert. After that were jobs with an airshow team, various charter and corporate flight departments, and with a stint at an airline stuck in there somewhere. I did air photo work, taught acrobatics and tail wheel flying, and ended up flying more than 200 different types of airplanes. The best I can come up with to balance the two possibilities is that the gypsy in me would not have been as content had we stayed in Washington for the ensuing decades. But the paths not taken will always be a mystery.   

After an additional 8 hours or so on the go we pulled up to an enthusiastic and joyous greeting from the crew of our St. Louis Home. It was a good sized crowd as most of our FL based family is here as well. Two grandparents, three parents, and ten grandkids all in the same place at the same time. Delightful chaos now reigns. Walks in the park to check up on my favorite trees look like a parade. There are always games and music being played. Multiple ukuleles, a piano, a couple of guitars, drums...all are available and most get used on a daily basis, though with me being the only active drummer in the group the drums are actually the quietest of the collection. Games are played, stories exchanged...it is hard to imagine that anyone is as pleased with their world as I am at the moment. 

This summer didn't go anywhere near like we thought (hoped) it would. Nor did we get the boat to its semi-permanent Alton, IL home port. We did what we could with what was handed to us, survived, and are moving along. That is about all anyone can ask of themselves. For the next many months we will regroup, catch up, and be a bit overwhelmed with being back living with family on a day to day basis while adjusting to city life once again. Any long term plans are as vague as they can possibly be. We will just take each day as it comes.

Grampy and eldest grandson enjoying some dirt bike and quad time.

I will be very sad when this tree at Oak Harbor Marina finally succumbs to some hurricane

Grandson eldest filming the rapids at Ohiopyle

The rapids at Ohiopyle in PA

Sunset at Oak Harbor Marina

A different kind of travel

Photo courtesy of airbnb.com

When we charged into Tampa Bay the other night on 6 foot swells, the plan was to go on up to St. Petersburg and take a mooring ball or slip for a couple days. The plan was foiled by the lack of availability of balls or slips, so we decided to come on in to our home slip at Snead Island, rent a car for the week, and go play tourist by land for a couple days. A few minutes on various hotel pages had me looking for alternatives due to the exorbitant prices so, remembering my daughter youngest's good experience with airbnb.com, I decided to take a peek. I had a pretty good idea where we wanted to be - close to the older part of town that flanks the shoreline of Tampa Bay and is filled with an eclectic mix of theaters, bars, restaurants, and parks. All of the one bedroom places were booked, but we happened on this adorable little two bedroom cottage that was available. It was a charming place just a few blocks from the shore, Vinoy Park, and a ton of good restaurants and bars. Ken and Renee, the hosts for this property, were gracious and accommodating. The website and booking software were incredibly easy to use, the communication from the hosts was quick; it couldn't have been a better first experience. The place was just the ticket for two weary sailors looking to spend a couple days on land.

The Vinoy Basin mooring field. There are only about 10 balls there so it fills up rapidly.

As soon as we got there, we discovered why there were no mooring balls or transient slips available (or nearby parking for that matter) - the Mainsail Art Show was this weekend. We dropped our stuff off and trekked over the two blocks to the park and enjoyed walking around looking at the art and crafts as well as the finish of a local rock band's performance. At the close of the show we walked on down past the Vinoy basin moorings to the Ale and the Witch, a local bar that hosts live music seven days a week. We really lucked out on this one, arriving just as a local rock band started their three hour gig in an open courtyard outside the bar. The group was called Antelope and was doing a tribute show to the band Phish. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Yesterday we went on a St. Petersburg walkabout, strolling about 10 miles from the historic northeast, down along the shore to downtown, around by the airport and the Dali museum, through town, back up past our place and down again through the neighborhoods. St. Petersburg is a beautiful city full of amazing architecture and more parks than you can count. There are copious amounts of trails along the shoreline that are wide and paved, benches strategically placed in the shade with great views, sandy beaches interspersed among the marinas, and one glaring omission - there was no trash. I'm not sure how this city has managed to get control of the litter issue but, in spite of a wind advisory, we saw almost no trash anywhere. It was refreshing.

After a quiet evening in the cottage and a good night's sleep, we climbed into the rental and headed out this morning for the boat. Grandbabies await our flight's arrival in St. Louis this weekend and grandbabies are never to be denied.

We're suckers for historical signs and amazing trees. 

I so wish my grandkids had been with us for this one! Such a great climbing tree.

Downtown St. Petersburg

Even their alleys are beautiful

More huge trees. You could actually get inside this one.

The Vinoy Basin on the horizon

As seen on the wall at the airbnb cottage. My motto!

One word that matters

Living on a boat the way we do, one of the things we don't do much is drive. A fact that puts us on the fringe of American society all by itself. And sometimes I kind of miss it. The Z car was a hoot to drive. Tearing up the roads on the GSXR, who wouldn't miss that? There are fond stories of long road trips sprinkled throughout my life, all the way back to family vacations. A family-famous one has to do with two families, one station wagon, an impromptu desire to see Niagara Falls, and fog. But two marathon days of 1100 miles each within a week have, I suspect, satiated my thoughts of going driving for a while.

Twice we were nearly forced off the road by one of the 18-wheeled whales of the highway. One driver was talking on the phone in the midst of moderate to heavy traffic all moving at better than 70 miles an hour. The other was reading a newspaper! Really? What kind of brain sits at the controls of 80,000 pounds moving 70 miles per hour reading a newspaper? (I think that comes out to 1,135,534.04 joules of energy, enough to light a 1,135,534.04 watt bulb for one second. Damn brother, pay attention to where you point that thing!)

The trip also provoked a bit of concern over my land dwelling fellow human beings. For, in addition to driving, being back on land means being in hotel, which means being exposed to TV. There were three of them in the breakfast nook alone. Along with my Frosted Flakes I was served a constant stream of utterances from the Orange One who would be King. Utterances that, depending on the tilt of your own inner muse, could be described as gibberish, lunacy, fantasy, treason, or prophecy. It is rumored that there are a couple of other people also involved in the current election campaign, but it would be hard to prove by watching TV. The Orange One was pretty much the only face on the screen and, I have to admit, it looks like a face that would fit well on a box of Frosted Flakes.

All of which is entertaining, serving up tons of advertising dollars (the whole reason TV exists at all), and clearly keeps an entire class of people busy who otherwise would have little else to offer the rest of us. But it also makes one wonder just what the land dwellers are hoping to accomplish? Entertaining is one thing, governing is another, different thing. And the two don't have anything in common. It makes me glad I live on a boat fixed to land with only a few lines easily tossed.

Maybe my land dwelling friends should consider confining all of campaigning - reporting, speeches, policy proposals, promises - to live events that one can attend, or the written word. No TV coverage of any of it. People often say things “off the cuff,” so a politician claiming he “misspoke” or was “misinterpreted” is a given. But that rarely happens with what is written. Politics, decision making, policy, governing, these are things of real value, they matter. TV tends to trivialize everything and everyone. Indeed, the “Orange One” himself is trivialized. I have to admit though, I read his book once upon a time. It didn't make me think “President.” Huckster maybe, thief, poor excuse for a human being , but not "President." Buying a government, and running one, are also two different things. Actually, I suspect Tony Schwartz, who co-authored “The Art of the Deal” would be a better candidate.

Note: For the one or two who might read this blog and support Mr. Trump at the same time, no offense. I tried to take the man seriously but, really? Conspiracy Theorist in Chief? Executive Wooist? Most of the people on the planet crazy enough to think they are the smartest, or the toughest, or the ones with the best words, are not crazy enough to make that claim out loud. Doing so marks one as seriously unhinged.

The tragedy of Orlando unfolded while we were on land as well. TV carried the pictures. Those on screen did their best to add words that mattered, but failed. There were the instant accusations from the usual suspects. No one said anything not scripted, not the NRA, not “the left,” not “the right,” not the politicians, not the President.  CNN, MSNBC, Fox - one knew precisely what they would be saying without bothering to change the channel. There were the usual promises, words of “thoughts and prayers”. Which have, by now, proven to be utterly inconsequential. No one is thinking. No one is listening.

Orlando, San Bernardo, Colorado Springs, Roseburg, Chattanooga, Charleston, Isla Vista, Ft. Hood, Washington DC, Santa Monica, New Town, Brookfield, Minneapolis, Oak Creek, Aurora, Oakland, Seal Beach, Tucson, Manchester, Huntsville, Ft. Hood (again), Binghamton, Dekalb, Omaha, Blacksburg, Salt Lake City...

There is only one word that matters.  One that will count people as more important than profits. One that will elevate the freedom to live above the freedom to kill. One that can change the fear of having to risk living with others into the promise of being able to live with others. Unfortunately, it is one everyone has to agree on before anything can happen. One that those who profit, who love the violence, who need fear to stay in power, will never utter.

Enough.

“Here's another nice mess...”

With parts for the Beast and the solar panel install in transit from places hither and yon, we left Kintala to her own devices this weekend, rented a car, and drove to PA for a visit with family. It is about a four hour run from here to where my parents live. We got there in time to join them for lunch. While in the dining room word came that the closing on the condo was complete! For well and true everything we own now floats with us on our old Tartan.

Road Trip!

I have to admit to a moment of thinking, “Well, here's another nice mess you have gotten me into”. (Which is the proper quote from Professors Laurel and Hardy.) We are, by some reckoning anyway, homeless. And, just for the record, I was talking to myself. I have a long history of backing myself into a corner and then having to invent a way to escape. Some were harmless. Some less so. A few could have been down right serious and required some quick thinking, fast action, and a huge dash of luck to escape unscathed. (Or, occasionally, with a slight case of scathe.)

But the reality is that we were in a bit of a mess but are now in much less of one. The constant drain of resources: financial, emotional, and in relentless hassle and effort that having a place on land entailed, is gone. Though we be “homeless” in the normal sense of the world according to the American Dream we do, in fact, enjoy a very nice home. (Even if we do share it with a Beast.)

In fact we have many homes now or, perhaps, a really big home with many, many rooms. Biscayne Bay is a room in our home, as is the Chesapeake. The Abaco Islands are a different room, along with several places in the Eleuthera Islands. Once we find a place, set the hook, and hang around for a while, it becomes another room in our home.

This home is so big that we don't really own it. It owns us. It rocks us to sleep and sometimes rocks us awake. It teaches, frightens, soothes, admonishes, and rewards as it sees fit. Sometimes, for days on end, we stay in the same room. Sometimes, for days on end, we use a different room nearly every day. But regardless, in a way I am still learning to understand, we are always at home.

The condo is history. Kintala is in the water. There are only a few projects left to finish before we go explore some more rooms in our home. It really is a very nice mess we find ourselves in.

Anyone who sniffs...

...at Love at First sight has clearly never been a grandparent. On Tuesday afternoon we backtracked to Indy to meet the newest member of our expanding tribe. As we walked in the door Daughter Eldest surrendered little Sophia into my grasp. After a quick glance with her killer gray eyes she snuggled against my shoulder and fell promptly to sleep. At 10 days old that is one third of her repertoire, eating and filling diapers being the remainder. I was instantly smitten and quite pleased that she was happy with me holding her for many, many hours over the next couple of days.

When not on baby duty there were additional hours spent with my two missing shipmates from last summer in Florida, grandsons Christopher and Julian. Christopher now puts his woodworking skills to use helping his Papa build frames for a growing body of extraordinary artwork. Julian spent much of the weekend correcting my nickname for him, “I'm NOT J-J!”

Daughter Eldest and Son-in-Law are both serious, talented, artists. Daughter is working on a unique poetry that infuses two languages while creating a form of writing that invokes musical overtones. It is a daunting and daring voyage of the mind, one that has already taken her far beyond any place I could have imagined. She has imagined it for us, and her words can point the way for those of us less gifted. Tomorrow, new baby in arms, she is heading for a conference in Ohio where some of the brightest lights of her discipline have invited her to a workshop.

Son-in-Law is pushing at the very edge of painting / sculpture in a form I have never seen anyone else use. It is quite amazing and more than a little haunting, connecting with the thoughts that lie at the edge of the shadows waiting to be explored in the collective mind of human kind. There is no such a thing as empty, shallow conversation in their house.

They are raising three kids while defying a society that has rejected art, education, and wisdom as things less important than profit, ideology, and war. Yet the former are the very things that both make, and can salvage, our humanity. Daughter and Son-in-Law are deeply involved in what remains of the tattered traditions of academic and intelligentsia that once led this nation to the leading edge of history. That such a remnent survives in our culture gives me hope that all is not lost. A spark of progress still lies within these borders; the darkness has yet to completely overwhelming the future. Maybe, as the next few years roll by, the view from my little boat floating offshore will be one of renewal rather than failure.

Saying good-by was tough. Sophia may well be walking the next time I see her, and J-J will probably not be J-J. It isn't getting any easier, but I am getting better at putting up a good front. Most of the tears had dried before we got to the IL border. By the time we got back to Daughter Middle's home full of the laughter and love that comes with a family of five grand kids, all was well in my world.

Very well indeed.

Land magic

Deb and I are spending the days getting the condo ready for market. It has been rented, fully furnished, for the last 2 years. The renters took some of the stuff with them when they left, but try as we might, we could not get them to take it all. So we had a condo full of stuff that needed to go away, far, far away. Daughter Middle and Deb came up with a plan, and today we had a “Free Sale”.

Now I know what you are thinking. “Free” and “Sale” are mutually exclusive terms. If something is free then it is not for sale. And if something is for sale it is, most definitely, not free. Putting those two word together makes absolutely no sense at all.

But, apparently, if one does put those two words together and then casts them into the cosmos via “ReUseit” and Facebook, they become a potent magic spell. Wafting out across the city the words will provoke, compel, and seduce all kinds of people into action. Soon texts were flying and phones were ringing. People wanted to make appointments or put things in reserve. Used things, things they had not even seen, and some of the things built specifically to fit into this one condo and our specific kind of living.

The Free Sale was supposed to start at 2 pm. By 2 pm virtually everything was spoken for. By 3 pm virtually everything was gone. Two items were left, and tomorrow someone is coming to collect them.

Unbelievable. I am a well known skeptic of all things wooish, but how else to explain a house full of used stuff disappearing like a field of wheat under a cloud of locusts? Even better, one of those looking at stuff got to looking at the condo itself. More than an hour later she left empty handed but with the contact information for our broker. Now that would be some special magic indeed, though I would be surprised if any woo has that much power.

With the place now empty enough to echo, the last push is upon us. With any luck we will be done by the end of the week and the condo can go on the market. Now all we need is to find the magic that leads to the words, “Under Contract”.

It would be fun to have the house done that quickly as we have other things vying for attention; the most important of which is the arrival of grand baby number 9. Little Sophia made her way into the world yesterday morning. She and Mamma and the rest of the family are just a few hours drive away. Grampy-T is feeling the need to gather up the new little one and say, “Hello!”

Closing doors

The alarm drags me from a deep sleep. Within minutes our air mattress is deflated, last minute items stowed in our bags and the car packed. The house of Tim's childhood now stands empty, his parents having been moved into the nursing home last year. The sounds of childhood laughter, old TV programs, running toddler feet and shared meals echo faintly in the empty rooms. The family picture wall is blank and painted with fresh coats of bland paint suitable to market the house, but my mind still sees them there, denying the For Sale sign in the front yard. We know we will never be back inside this house of memories because an offer has been accepted and the new owners will take possession before we return. We take a last sweep through for missed belongings and close the door.

Kintala safely on the hard, we're headed across the country to our old condo to get it ready to put on the market. The renters are moving out next week and we'll begin the process of cleaning and painting in preparation for our own For Sale sign in the yard, hoping with all our might that the real estate agent's assessment of the market is correct and that this time we will successfully divest ourselves of this land anchor.

We've closed a lot of doors in our forty years of marriage. Aviation kept us moving a lot and Kintala is our 17th home in those years. Some of those doors we were happy to close, others left me weeping as I pulled the door shut. All of them brought significant change to our lives, but probably none as much as closing the door to the condo and moving on to the boat. During this brief visit we listened to Tim's sister as she recounted the horror stories of dealing with 55 years of stuff embedded in every nook and cranny of his parent's house. We sat around a restaurant table last evening and listened as my niece-in-law (is there such a thing?) recounted her frustration with corporate society. We dodged distracted drivers in frenetic traffic, surfed hundreds of cable channels to find nothing, strolled through malls filled with useless merchandise. While some doors will always hurt to close (grandkids are the number one reason people quit cruising...), closing the door on our condo, two years after going cruising, is an affirmation of this new life we have chosen. I'll miss the kids terribly, but I'll be ready to head home soon.

A visit unexpected …

The fully loaded Boeing 737-300 rumbled far down the runway before the nose wheel floated free of the concrete. Seconds later the rest of the gear cleared Mother Earth and was tucked away for the short flight to Pittsburgh. The haze thickened, turned into a cloud layer, and then fell away as we climbed into the low flight levels.

Flight levels start somewhere around 18,000 feet above my normal living altitude, (sea level). A good portion of my career was spent in that realm, at the helm of various kinds of exotic machinery built for those extreme conditions. That last two machines I captained blew happily along in the mid flight levels, 35 to 45,000, at speeds around 500 mph. Like most pilots I kept a careful log of each hour spent in the sky. It was like being airborne was the only part of life worth a special mention, home in a way only pilots understand. For most of the best pilots I have known, such an assessment is far closer to the truth than any of us would openly admit.

Those days came to an abrupt end, my career terminated in about as ugly a way as can be imagined. (Short of digging a big, smoking hole.) Log books got stashed away in a safe deposit box while headsets and other cockpit paraphernalia were gifted to friends still in the game. Ipads, once used for approach plates, were eventually loaded with Navionics and Garmin Blue Charts. I walked away from my last flight without looking back. Heading for a new kind of living, the part of my life worth special mention would lay on the surface of the sea and at the helm of a different kind of machine. Life is short enough. Spending time in the past only makes it shorter.

But modern life, at least in the US, is spread out. Kids and grand kids are scattered across a good part of a very big country, other family scattered even further. Flying is the only option, though I would consider sailing Kintala down interstate 70 if it could be done. Drivers think I go slow in a car? Ha!

Now, for only the fifth time since we set out on the boat, the ground fell away outside the window. I don't care so much about seeing out, but they are about the only seats where I can lean to the side and get some sleep. The four flights before this one passed mostly that way. Once in the sky thoughts tuned briefly to an old life that held little allure but the sky held no special interest.  What I wanted most was for the crush of lines, security, and noise, to be over.  Flights were endured.

This time I found myself gazing out at the passing clouds. BWI to PIT is only 40 minutes at jet speeds. Soon we were letting down into a gray and bumpy overcast. The auto-flight system in jets work extremely well. I doubt many of the other passengers noted the subtle sashays of pitch and yaw, and few would realize that the contrail flowing off the corner of the deployed flap indicated how humid the sky was. I felt the turn onto the approach though we were still a thousand feet or so above the ground when the tree covered hills of PA hove into few. The pilot flying missed a perfect landing by scant inches, recovered well, and set his machine down on RW10R with a satisfying thump. Boards levered up from the wings, TRs slid open, brakes rumbled, and the first flight I have enjoyed in a couple of years turned toward the gate.

It is highly unlikely I will ever command the cockpit of a jet in the flight levels again but, no matter. It is no longer home. My world view has shifted, the need for the mad rush not part of my DNA. A world without boarders, laced together with trains, ships, and pretty roads filled with efficient cars and bicycles – without a single billboard - is closer to my ideal now. And airships, how cool would that be? Ideas and thoughts, the very things that make us human, flow around the world at near the speed of light. There is really no need for the rest of the human body to try so hard for a speed that is a paltry 0.0000747% of light's velocity. (Unless my math failed me this morning, 0.0000747% of the speed of light works out to about 500mph.)

Still, it was good to visit my old life and, for all of my change in view, remember it fondly.

Note: blog time is now several days behind real time. After visits in PA and IN, we are now safely in MO.