A Quick Trip Back to (Almost) Super Bowl City

It was so nice to see the smile on Chris' face as we explained the design of her new mola from the San Blas Islands.

It’s always a mixed blessing arriving in Seattle. We lived there our whole lives and love the city. Most of our family and friends are in the area and fond memories come flooding back when we’re circling the city to land. But this was going to be a quick turn-around trip. It's always so nice to pull up at the Berries house and know our bed is made up and ready.

Brad's new house in Preston, WA.

Grandma Meryl playing with Bennett and Brody.

I think Brad likes the riding lawn mower that came with the house more than the house.

Our first stop, as always, was our son’s house to visit his family. He had recently purchased a new home just outside of Issaquah in Preston and it took us a while to find it. It's a gorgeous house on 9 acres with a spacious lawn and its very own lake!  He was so proud to show us around the property and I just know he’ll be building hiking and biking trails for the boys to explore. He moved from a somewhat small house to one so big it even has empty rooms. I think, however, he’s fearful his itinerate parents will someday move in with him.  We had a great couple of day playing with the grandkids and getting caught up with their lives. Again, that’s the hardest part of cruising, being away from people you love.

So great to visit with our old North Bend neighbors Paul and Cynthia and see there new house.

The Boat Show, The Boat Show.

As usual, the next few days were filled with doctor appointments, tracking down boat parts, and provisioning in the massive (to us) US grocery stores. We even managed to sneak in a quick visit to the Seattle Boat Show where we saw the same vendors selling the same products. We did pick up a few items on sale, so it was a worthwhile trip. It was rather strange, however, going to seminars filled with people whose dream is to sell their house and sail off into the sunset. Oh the stories we could tell them.

It was a great Super Bowl party, but our luck just ran out at the end.

Not wanting to wear out our welcome with the Berries we stayed with the Ballew’s for the remainder of our trip; they are the consummate hosts and always make us feel so welcome (as do the Berry's). We were fortunate to be invited to Irene’s sister Pat's house for a big Super Bowl party. So fun to watch such an exciting game with a group of fun people, even though the end of the game was kind of a bummer.

How all this stuff ends up on an airplane amazes even me.

Traveling light with The Conner's.

Packing up all our junk is always an issue, but this year we had the brilliant idea of getting a couple of huge used suitcases at Goodwill and loading up all our boat supplies and food into the hard sided roll-a-boards. Even though we weighed everything carefully, we wanted to avoid the fiasco of paying the $300 excess baggage, so we took the suitcases over to an empty check-in counter and carefully weighed each one, adjusted items from bag to bag. I was taking back a 35 lb. anchor windlass motor (as a spare) and unfortunately that had to go in my carry on bag. When we boarded the airplane and I was lifting up my bag to the overhead storage everyone must of thought I was a wimp, but in reality it weighed about 65 pounds. Ya do what ya gotta do.

We took an 11:00 pm flight to Houston and slept most of the way. After a two-hour layover we boarded the plane to Panama happy to be headed back to the boat. Since the flights went so smooth, my radar was up and sure enough one bag didn’t make it. That meant we had to stay at an airport hotel and pick up the bag later that evening. Naturally TSA had confiscated some dumb things out of the bag, including some grease, boat polish, and a cleaner to the tune of $150. What are you gonna do?

We took advantage of being in Panama City and had our taxi driver swing by the French Embassy the next morning to drop off our passports so the French visa could be inserted. That would have required a separate trip so it worked out OK.

It was wonderful getting back to the boat, except the minute we got on the boat the motor for the fridge gave it’s last breath of rotation and died. That meant we had to scramble to find another boat to take our freezer stuff and buy enough ice to keep the rest of the stuff cold. I had to quickly pull out the massive motor and take it to the marina so it could be sent out for repair. Our boat doesn’t like it when we are gone and this is its typical behavior.

Even though we had a ton of things to do we still found time to run and jump in the pool to cool off and have sundowners with a large group of cruisers at 5:00 pm each night. Over the next  few days we stored our provisions, worked on various boat projects, and got in some nice walks in the nature reserve that surrounds the marina.

Later in the week we did an overnight trip back to Panama City to pick up our visas at the French Embassy. Unfortunately, we arrived too late to make their 11:30 am closing time, so we had fun exploring the old town and enjoying a few drinks at the Fish Market.

The next day we split up with me heading to the French Embassy (which I swear opened at 7:30) and Meryl to the American Embassy where we had an 8:00 am appointment for additional pages to be inserted in our passports. Unfortunately, the French didn’t open up until 8:30 and I had no way of getting a hold of Meryl, so I rushed out to the American Embassy to find the waiting room packed with hundreds of visa seekers. Luckily Meryl had everything under control so we got our pages, stopped at Islamorada to buy a South Pacific chart, then on to Albrook Mall for a quick lunch and bus ride back to Shelter Bay. No Brad Pitt war movies this time.