We drove from Yuma, Arizona to Van Horn, Texas on Wednesday. We stopped in to visit my Aunt Charlie in Phoenix along the way, and got to visit with my other Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Dwayne who happened to be visiting as well. On Thursday we had a short day and spent the night in Houston, Texas with our friend Kate Easton from the Glenmore Sailing Club. Kate recently moved to Houston for work, so it was great to see her new place. Her parents were also visiting, so we had a lively dinner swapping sailing stories as they go cruising each year with the Calgary Yacht Club flotilla. Friday we were planning on pushing through straight to Miami with maybe just a nap at a rest stop, but instead we blew a tire at around 11 pm!
We were going over a bridge in Florida when we heard the tire go. We pulled over once off the bridge, and assessed the damage. Of course the car was full of all our sailing gear, so we had to pile that all on the grass to dig out the spare! We changed the tire fine, just had a bit of an issue getting the wheel to let go (see the awesome video). Thanks to my Uncle Dwayne for offering advice over the phone. Interestingly, not a single person on the highway stopped to see if we needed assistance. Apparently chivalry is dead, even in the south!
We continued on the spare to Chattahoochee which proved to be a very tiny town with nothing useful. Hannah was excited to see Chattahoochee because there is a country song about it she likes. We ended up driving a bit farther and spending the night in Tallahassee. We got the cheapest sleaziest motel I've ever seen, and went for dinner at the Tomahawk Girl Bar. Class all around! We got our tire changed at 8 am the next morning and had a quick breakfast at iHop and we were off! We made it to Miami at 7 pm on Sunday and managed to meet up with our landlord Sonia right away and get into our apartment. It was a very long drive and we were totally bored out of our skulls by the end. We'd pretty much run out of things to discuss and just read our books or napped when we weren't driving.
Monday we slept in really late, then unloaded the boat and did a massive grocery shop. We are now mostly all set up for training! Today (Tuesday) we ran some more errands and continued to set up and rig the boat. The boat is a 2005 but is in great shape and is set up really nicely. It hasn't been sailed since 2007 I think. We went over it closely from stern to bow and replaced most of the electrical tape and bungee but otherwise the systems look great once we figured out what was what. The one issue we had was the jib halyard, but we managed to sort it out what with our assortment of luff wires and jib halyards from other boats! After a trip to West Marine and a second trip to Home Depot I think we should be able to sail tomorrow!
We have uploaded a bunch of photos from the road-trip to the Picassa web albums, including some funny videos from the boat loading and tire changing. Enjoy!
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| November 29, 2011 |
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