home again

Driving through Georgia today, we saw three different tornado sights.
The last one had horrific devastation.  By the time we reached
Tennessee, it was beautiful to see all the shades of green.
Not gonna lie, though, I already miss all the shades of blue.

Willis took the long day in the car all in stride.  He's quite the traveler.

Welcome to Indiana...bleh.  It was cold and raining (its STILL raining)
and clearly everything is flooded.  I have not missed the gray skies at all.

If I could, I would send all this rain to the Keys.  It is really dry there.

Willis was not fond of the windshield wipers.  In fact, I don't think
he's very happy about being back home either.  Willis and Simon need to
get reacquainted and back to being friends.  Right now, he just hisses. 

Home Sweet Home.  It is 47 and raining. We are
chilled, my fingers are numb, so what do we do?
Build a fire in the fireplace, and start dreaming of next year. 

For our first stab at truly living aboard, we learned so much.  We worked through whatever problems presented themselves (Helga, Bessie, and Agnes), we became more confident and accomplished in our sailing skills, we learned about all the systems on Marquesa, and we grew as a couple.  I don't think we could have asked for anything more.  We made new friends, caught up with old ones, and got to share our love of sailing with both friends and family, and random people we met at the pool!  If anything, these last three months has hardened our resolve to keep dreaming, and keep sailing.  We will be returning to Marathon, FL, for a time, but Marquesa will most definitely be moving to the Bahamas, and perhaps beyond.

For now, we must get back to work...to our neglected property, and back to making money rather than spending money.  Time to reacclimate ourselves to our log cabin in the woods (which feels so much bigger, by the way!), and back to waking to the sound of an alarm clock. Blogging will be taking a hiatus for now, since we are back on 'dry' land.  I use that term loosely as rain is predicted in the forecast for six out of the next seven days.  We'll miss you all, but you can be sure, we'll be back for more adventures in just eight short months.  Pray that this hurricane season passes by the Florida Keys without incident!

Willis shouted down his regards from the beams...he is up to his old
tricks already this evening.  He turned out to be a darn good boat cat afterall!

And just to throw a little Keys humor into the world news events...I hoped they chummed the sea as OBL was dropped overboard.  I think I just saw Willis smile on that one :)  G'bye all!