Monthly Archives: August 2013

Saturday August 17, 2013

If there were two people I could not be more excited to see on our trip back home, it would be our friends Jackie and Ron.  They’re a couple that we met last summer through our blog, and even though we only had a chance to hang out about four times before Matt and I left for our big adventure, we became fast friends and I now even consider them among my best friends.  As fellow boaters and soon to be cruisers themselves, they’re always excited to hear what we’ve been up to, and always there to lend an ear when I want to vent about any cruising or boat related problems.  When we had our accident in St. Augustine, they were the shoulder that I leaned on to cheer me up with constant funny and sarcastic remarks that always lifted my spirits, and even sent friends on secret spy missions to leave a bottle of rum at our doorstep while we were stuck on the hard.  Little surprises like these made the fact that due to our accident and we would no longer be able to make it to the Bahamas at the time they booked their plane tickets to visit us, a very hard pill to swallow.  These two have been such amazing friends to us that there was no way I was going to let an opportunity to see them, or their new cruising boat, slip by.

Having invited myself and Matt out to visit them and their boat as soon as our tickets to Michigan were booked, I didn’t even give them the chance to turn us down, although I doubt they would have.  What I did do though, was force them back a few days early from their two week cruise around Lake Michigan in which they wanted to make sure that all systems on their boat were in working order, and just to get a taste of the cruising life before they simply leave it all without ever thinking twice.  Like we did.  After having made a drive half way across the state earlier in the day to have lunch with my brother (I was going to get that visit in one way or another, damn it!) we made the drive out to our old familiar stomping grounds of Muskegon, even stopping at our old familiar West Marine on the way out just so we could get them a boat warming gift.  Wandering under the fluorescent lights we wondered ‘What would be most useful to a new cruiser?’ and decided that a fuel filter would be appropriate since lord knows how many times ours has come in handy since leaving the country.

There was one more stop on the way at the party store for libations.  Hard as I looked for Blue Moon or Land Shark in cans, some of Jackie’s favorites, they only had bottles and since I didn’t know what their glass policy on board was, so I went with Bud Light instead.  Completely similar to Blue Moon, right?  Parking our car at the marina and stepping out I that strange feeling where you know you’ve been gone from a place for a long time, yet you feel you were also just there.  It almost felt like we never left and that we’d still find Serendipity sitting out at her mooring.  Except, now that same mooring belongs to Jackie and Ron.  And as if their ears were burning as I though that, their dinghy came turning the corner into the channel.  Doing my best to sprint in flip flops and a dress, I quickly made my way around to the landing where Jackie jumped out and we gave each other a big bear hug that I’m pretty sure the guys thought they’d have to pry us apart from.

Feels like we just left this yesterday.

After loading our bag, beer, and new gift into the dinghy, we were off to see Hullabaloo for the first time.  I was so excited when we got there that I absently left all our belongings up on deck as I scrambled below to take a tour.  It’s a beautiful and roomy boat and I think they’re going to love cruising it it.  I love my Serendipity, but I might have even been just a little bit jealous of their spacious layout.  No time for sitting around admiring cabinets and cushions though!  First orders first, we all (ok, maybe just me and Ron) grabbed cold beers out of the fridge, and then it was time to get the boat moving.  Too late in the day to actually go for a sail, unless we wanted to come back in the dark, we were only moving ourselves across the lake to anchor in front of the State Park and the dunes for the night.   It’s a calm and quiet spot which always produces great sunsets, and I can’t say that I haven’t missed being near the dunes of Michigan.  Ron ran up front to detach us from the mooring, and I fell into place behind the wheel, not even asking before I started to captain their boat.

The evening was warm and the sun was still casting a few golden rays over the water, so we spent the last few hours of daylight lounging in the cockpit and catching up on what everyone has been up to.  Which surprisingly, was not much about us this time.  Since I talk to both of them on basically a daily basis when I have Internet, telling them about every passage, project, or even dinner out Matt and I have, it was us that needed to know what they were up to and how their trip around Lake Michigan had gone.  I’d already gotten a few tidbits here and there from what Jackie posted on their blog, but it was a nice change for once to be regaled in our friend’s cruising adventures instead of the other way around.

As interested as we were in their stories and as excited as we were to see them, we were still incredibly weary from all we’d done since we left Guatemala, and unfortunately, that sleepy feeling was setting in way too early.  Matt decided to cure this with a jump in the lake.  I….was not so brave.  You can’t just take someone from 82 degree water and plop them in 72 degree water, it’s not natural!

 I did the next best thing instead and suggested that we eat.  Because we all know that food is the cure to waking someone up.  Wait, what?  You mean it’s the opposite?  It makes you even more sleepy?  Well s%*t!  Oh well, the burger and corn were damn good, and worth any extra drowsiness they may have caused. Even the dog can back me up on that one.

After dinner was finished and Jackie would not let me touch the dishes, even though I told her it’s how the dinner club works: you cook, we clean; I was sent back into the cockpit to keep enjoying myself with a fresh beer in my hand.  I couldn’t force myself to sit still at the moment though, so I floated around the deck with my camera, catching the last bits of baby pink and blue in the sky.  The sunsets here are just as beautiful and serene as I remember them.  I swear, there is something truly special about Michigan in the summer.

 Our wonderful hosts.  Aren’t those just the cutest faces you’ve ever seen?

 Just as I had used up almost all remaining space on my memory card and made my way back to the cockpit, Ron decided it was his turn for a swim that night.  Once again, I was still to scared to jump into what would now seem like frigid waters.  I guess two beers wasn’t enough courage or motivation to make me just go for it.  Looking at the blackening waters I told myself, tomorrow.  When we’re in the clear and even more frigid waters of Lake Michigan.

Lexie watches Ron swim in front of the dunes.

Since it was now getting dark and there were just a few too many bugs to make sitting in the cockpit enjoyable, we moved our party down below where we broke out a game they kept on board called Farkle.  And at the time, trying to figure out the rules to this game were just as hard as trying to say the name out loud without breaking into grade school worthy snickers.  I’ll just blame it on the bottle of Shiraz that had just been opened.  Round the table we went, rolling our dice and trying trying not to Farkle.  I swear that after every person played I was leaning over the scorecard trying to add up how they got to their points since even after a dozen explanations I could not catch on to anything more than a 1 is worth 100 points, and a 5 is worth 50.  I just played along as best I could until a winner was declared.  All of us stayed up a little bit longer and had Ron show off his guitar skills that he’s been picking up over the past year.  Kind of a reminder that I need to get my butt into gear and learn to play before my guitar turns into firewood at the hands of Matt.

 Having got about six hours of sleep since we unknowingly stayed up past 2, we all woke up this morning with groggy grunts as we stumbled up the stairs and into the dewy cockpit for some fresh air and sunlight.  Strong coffee was quickly made, and we sat around talking about what we wanted to do with the next few hours as Ron busied himself below making sausage and fresh blueberry pancakes for breakfast.

 Even Lexie got her own pancake in the shape of a bone.  Too cute!

After figuring out that Matt and I still had about four hours on our hands before we needed to head back to town for yet more plans we have with friends, we figured there was enough time to still squeeze in a sail on the big lake for a few hours.  Upping the anchor we made a beeline for the channel and felt the wind kick up from nothing, to a stiff breeze as we passed the USS Silverside and the lighthouse that neither Matt or I expected to see for at least 4 years after we said good-bye to it last August.  Even though that breeze which was so strong it had me running to put on my fleece even though I was just sweating moments before, it was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving us with dead calm waters and no breath of air as soon as we’d exited the channel into Lake Michigan.  I knew I wanted a leisurely sail instead of the bouncy passages we’ve been subjected to, but I was hoping for at least some wind.  We hadn’t been planning on going far, but now it was looking like we weren’t going anywhere.

 Bobbing around going nowhere for a good 10-15 minutes, I had finally decided to go below and change into my suit and at least catch some sun when just enough air hit us to get us going. True to my wish, the universe held up it’s end and gave me everything I had been asking for ever since I started planning this day over a month ago.  A beautiful sunny day.  Check.   A calm and leisurely sail on Lake Michigan.  Check.   Surrounded by friends that I had been counting down the days to see again ever since I left them last year.  Big Check.

Thursday August 15, 2013

It took 30 hours of traveling from Guatemala, but we finally arrived at Matt’s mom’s house in Michigan (where we’ll be staying our 10 days here) yesterday around 5 pm.  The journey started by leaving Serendipity an hour before our bus was scheduled to pick us up in Rio Dulce, and after sitting around waiting the 45 minutes we assumed we had if the bus to came on time at 10, we waited yet another 30 minutes since it was running late.  There was plenty of time on our hands to get to the airport in San Pedro Sula Honduras (current murder capital of the world!), so the 30 minute delay itself wasn’t anything to worry about.  What did freak me out though, is when our bus died as it was crossing the bridge out of town and I was afraid we might be SOL for getting to Honduras that day.  Do they even send back-up buses for breakdowns? Within 10 minutes though, we were back up and running.  Our bus line for the day (Fuente del Norte) wasn’t as fancy as the line that Ana Bianca and I took to Antigua, so there were no movies, and since I had a new Nook waiting for me in Michigan, I didn’t bring my old one to keep me busy for this leg of the journey.  We listened to music, slept on and off, and had a very straightforward border crossing.

We were dropped off at a very large bus terminal in San Pedro Sula at three in the afternoon, and still had ten hours until our plane departed.  Since we did happen to be in the murder capital of the world, we didn’t know what taxis we could trust and forked over $8/person (half of what it cost us to get from Guatemala to Honduras) to be able to take another bus from the terminal to the airport.  With departure from the bus terminal only four short hours after we bought our tickets.  We passed the time by having dinner at a Burger King (Matt was so excited), and watching movies in Spanish in the VIP lounge of the Hedman Atlas bus terminal.  Once we did get to the airport I realized we probably would have been better off staying at the bus terminal for as long as possible since there was no comfortable place to sit in the airport.  With nothing else to do, we grabbed some dinner from the lounge area before everything closed up for the night, went through security, and then sat on the floor in front of the restroom playing with our computers since that was the only place in the airport that seemed to offer electrical outlets.  Come 1:00 am, we were finally able to board our flight.

Next stop was a short layover in Ft. Lauderdale, which turned from two hours into four.  Not a big deal, except my brother was supposed to pick us up from the airport in Detroit, our next destination, but only had about an hour he could spend with us before having to go back to work.  Matt’s mom and step-dad were planning to take us the rest of the way back, and now we were feverishly trying to send them messages on our computers that we needed to be picked up from the airport instead of my brothers house.  There was no response when we boarded our next flight, and we didn’t even know if we were going to have anyone meeting us at the airport when we landed there.  All worrying was for naught though, and as we walked out of the terminal and toward baggage claim we saw there smiling faces and opening arms welcoming us back.  We gathered all our bags and made a quick stop for lunch before driving the three hours across state and back ‘home’.  In addition to both of us being ecstatic about the fact that we were back home, we also got to enjoy Christmas in August by opening all the packages we had shipped there, ready to bring things back to the boat when we head back to her.  Matt had his boat parts to fawn over, but I was more excited about things like my new Nook, Skittles, and Michigan Sweet Cherry Coffee.  I was also surprised with some more ‘foodie’ items from Matt’s mom, like a fridge stocked with Red Stripe and Lime-a-Ritas.  I love when people pick up hints I leave on the blog.  Pepsi and Skittles when I went to visit my parents, a case of Lo Carb Monster from Nate when he passaged with us, and now my favorite adult beverages from Matt’s mom.  Thanks for reading between the lines you guys!

 Feels so good to be home again!

Today, between a whirlwind of errands, I was able to squeeze in lunch with my best friend Laura.  After having been up for more than 30 hours, I still dragged myself out of bed at a reasonable hour this morning so I could get my hair cut at one of those beauty schools where you still get the treatment of a massage, shampoo, cut, and style for less than $20.  What I thought would take an hour max turned into two, and I was racing my behind through the streets of Grand Rapids, trying to get there for my lunch date before she assumed I stood her up (no cell phone, so, no way to contact).  Luckily when I walked into the Electric Cheetah, a trendy hipster style sandwich shop, she was still waiting there for me with a glass of wine in hand.  Which after some shrieks and hugs, I was told to order one as well.  As usual when you spend time with someone you haven’t seen in so long, we were so busy catching up that our waiter (someone I used to serve with at a different restaurant five years ago, coincidentally) had to come back four times before we could force ourselves to take two minutes away from talking to look at the menu.  Although a number of things looked like they would have been fantastic, I went with the Yahtzee sandwich, partially because it looked so tempting with it’s swiss cheese and haystack onions sitting on top of a patty melt, and partially because it allowed me to play a round of Yahtzee to see if I could win my sandwich for free.  The five dice were brought out to me and through three rolls I had all but one matching.  Darn it!

 BFFs for 19 years.

YAHTZEE!!…..Or not.

Even when our food came it was hard to stop and take a bite because we had so much catching up to do from the previous year.  At one point we kind of laughed and forced ourselves into a five minute silence so we could actually eat what was on our plates.  Which happened to be…a ton of food.  I knew that half of it was going to be going home in a box as soon as it was set down in front of me.

 Which didn’t stop us from ordering dessert though.  Laura was just as hell bent on tasting their monster cookies as I was on tasting one of their 40 different varieties of craft root beer.  In the end I boxed up half my sandwich and one of the cookies to take home with me.  Hope Matt’s still hungry when I get there.

 Before I could leave the restaurant though, I had to sneak into the bathroom with my camera to capture how cool the walls in there were.  Every side, top to bottom, was covered in puzzles.  Not something you see everyday, so I figured it needed to be captured.

 After hugs and sad good-byes Laura and I finally parted ways, although we both could have stayed all afternoon and well into the night without running out of things to talk about.  As it was though, my day was still full of plans and I needed to get a move on.  Even though I could have caught the expressway on the outskirts of town, I needed a good view of my old city and took a drive through it’s center, taking in all the sights I’d been missing over the past year.

 The Grand River & Blue Bridge

 John Ball Park & Loch Ness Monster

Part of the reason I was taking the long road home was I also needed to make a stop in our old neighborhood to visit Sobie, our old butcher shop.  We have plans to grill steaks with friends in a few days, and if there has been one thing I’ve been missing from Michigan just as much as my family and friends, it’s the steaks they sell here doused in a delicious teriyaki glaze.  While they were being packaged up I couldn’t help but drool over all the other specials in their display case.  If only we had a month here instead of just over a week!

 I want one of these…

 …and one of those, and those, and those…

By the time I got back home I’d already been gone for seven hours.  No rest for the weary though.  Tonight we’re going out to dinner to see Matt’s sister as well as his dad and grandpa.  Time to go get pretty.  Since, now I actually have the tools to do so.

 Damn it feels good to be a girl again.