July 29, 2019
I’m sitting in a friend’s house in Everett, Washington where
we are house and dog sitting as we near the end of our 1 month vacation from
boating.
We ended the last blog post in Puerto Penasco where we were prepping the boat to be hauled
out and stored on-the-hard while we travelled. We figured we would take care of
some bottom work that could only be done out of the water, get our insurance
survey done (that required the boat to be out of the water), and could leave
the boat without worry that it would be covered in sea life when we returned.
The boat was lifted and blocked a few days before we were scheduled to fly out
of Phoenix and we went to work on re-bedding some of our through-hull fittings,
switching to a different style prop on the wing engine, and doing some general
bottom cleaning/housekeeping. The surveyor arrived from Phoenix and could
not have been more complimentary – we’ll share a few excerpts from the report
but two verbal comments I liked were; “Obviously this boat hasn’t been worked
on by an armature as everything is clearly professionally maintained” (We do ALL
of the work on the boat); and “This boat is in as good of condition as many 2
year old boats I see.” (Salish Aire was constructed in 1996.)
Some of his written comments:
Vessel shows much newer than its
actual age and the owners have equipped and maintained the vessel to top quality
standards. Owners appear very knowledgeable about their boat. This is one of
the best oceangoing yachts I have seen. A rarity.
Present Value: $428,800 [Our
estimate of the current value was between $350,000 and $400,000] Replacement:
$1,195,900 [We understand that the N46 mold no longer exists so direct
replacement with a new boat is not an option.]
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| The boatyard can only lift 2 - 3 boats in a tide cycle as the loading basin empties when the tide drops 13 ft |
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Hull #50 (Salish Aire) and hull #53 (Venture Forth) likely spent time
in the yard in TaShing while they were being fitted out, they get
to meet again in Puerto Penasco, Mexico |
On July 1st we were met by a shuttle (after
fumigating the boat as we closed it up to try to convince a few cockroaches
that had stowed away that it was not a welcome place to build a nest) and taken
to the Phoenix airport. Jarvis, as
usual, took the shuttle ride, walk through US customs, walk through TSA, and
ride on the airplane completely in stride.
The great thing is that after years of court battles the airport in
Everett where Boeing assembles all of its twin aisle jets if finally open to
commercial air traffic so we were able to bypass the Seattle airport madhouse
and freeway traffic!
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| Good Dog Jarvis waits patiently for our flight in Phoenix |
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| Jarvis seems very curious about the whole "airport thing" |
Clarice had scheduled our first two days full with family
get togethers and physician visits, eye doctor visits, etc. All went well except that my PSA (a very
non-specific blood test for prostate cancer) has continued to climb so I spent
a lot of the vacation worrying that I was going to have to go through a biopsy
or worse before returning to the boat (last week a urology consultant (MD) and
I agreed that reasonable plan at this point is that I will get my PSA rechecked
in Mexico or the USA in 3 months and then send it back to her before we choose
the next step.)
On July 3rd we drove to Tacoma and had lunch with
my sister (it was her birthday) her husband and my nephew and his S.O. at the
new Tacoma McMenamin’s . The McMenamin
brothers have a chain of facilities (hotels, meeting venues, bars, and
restaurants) that are historic buildings that they have restored and
repurposed. The Tacoma McMenamin’s was a
long abandoned Elks social club building.
Our excitement was because our nephew, Jeremy N. Gregory, did a
significant amount of the artwork in the building and has apparently gotten
himself in with the McMenamin’s team for future assignments (no longer do we
refer to him as the “family starving artist”).
As soon as we left the family get-together we headed north
to our cross country odyssey. Our goal
was to visit our daughter and her family in Ontario Canada after viewing Canada
and (on the return trip) the USA from the ground level. We had rented a Dodge Caravan mini-van with
disappearing seats to use as an “RV” (it wasn’t as comfortable as a regular RN
but was thousands cheaper to rent and much more comfortable than a tent). We often put over 500 miles a day on the
odometer but got to enjoy the scenery as we drove through the Canadian Rockies
and over the Canadian plain provinces. The plains we in full glory with greens of
growing crops, yellows of blooming plants, and miles of golden grains ripening
for harvest. We were pretty tired of driving
every night but we enjoyed every mile of the scenery as we drove past. The only issue we encountered was thick smoke
blowing our way from forest fires until with passed Winnipeg and pretty much
didn’t see it in the 1 mile of visibility. We had seen the Rockies in the past so we
weren’t too upset that they were covered in low clouds and misty rain (which
seemed a bit comforting as a welcome back to our native climate after months of
no rain). Alberta had rolling hills with
miles of farmland between periodic small towns and occasional farm houses. Buy the time we reached Manitoba the land was
still covered with miles and miles of crops but had become really really flat.
Finally we entered Ontario (which is really really really BIG) and the
farmlands had given way to rolling hills, short forests (they don’t have much
in the way of soil after the ice-age pushed the surface dirt south), and many
many lakes and swamps. We looked for
(and saw) moose and bear but what really kept our interest was the rocks. The colors of the marbles and granites were
quite beautiful. Finally we reached the shores of the Great Lakes and followed
them to near Niagara Falls where our daughter lives with her children (and
husband when he is home from his work at Microsoft in Seattle).
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In rural Canada some electric companies still use single
wire distribution systems (the Earth acts as the second wire) |
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| First night in the Canadian prairies |
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| Alberta prairie |
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| Saying "goodbye" to the Rockies in the distance |
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| Classic prairie farm scene |
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| Natural grasslands |
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| Many colors of Manatoba prairie |
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Finally we reach Ontario (with smoky skies in the background)
still 2 days from Erin's house |
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| Our first glimpse of the Great Lakes |
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| One of many rivers and streams in Ontario along the lakes |
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| One of many rivers and streams in Ontario along the lakes |
We had a great time visiting our daughter and 3 grandchildren. After camping in the van it was nice to have
a real bed for a few days. We hiked with
the family and watched the kids ride bikes and show off their swimming and
tennis skills. The oldest son is now
taller than Clarice and his voice may be as low as mine before long. Our granddaughter and Clarice are both July
birthdays so we celebrated at a place that served really good Midwest beef and
I bought this matching necklaces with ruby like stones (Clarice had to explain
to Valerie about birthstones – she was pretty excited to match her
grandmother!)
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| July birthday girls got "ruby" necklaces |
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| Valerie birthday moose antlers and ice cream |
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| Clarice birthday moose antlers while Carter looks on |
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| Below Niagara Falls |
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| Niagara River |
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| Taking a cool break in the Niagara River before climbing back out of the canyon |
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| Jet boats on the Niagara River |
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| Valerie and her partner at tennis lessons |
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| Hiking to an Ontario falls |
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| Ontario stream |
Next we headed south and spent a day with a couple of our “adopted
grandchildren” that we met in Belize in 2004.
At one point in their lives they needed some stand-in parents to help
them along and we were the ones they were comfortable reaching out to. Since then we have kept in touch and were
very excited to see their new home in Ohio (a state that neither of us had ever
visited before).
From Ohio we headed pretty much east. We camped on the shores of the Mississippi and
Missouri Rivers and then explored the Bad Lands of South Dakota and on into the
Black Hills to see Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial. After that we moved on to see parts of
Yellowstone we had never visited before and took time to look at the trees that
had grown up since we last visited in about 1986 when there were active fires
as we passed through. We have to say
that Jarvis was pretty cool and calm as he and a couple of bull elk eyed each
other from a fairly close distance (a small herd has set of camp in the
campground so trying to avoid them is near impossible). From Yellowstone we passed through southern
Idaho where my brother-in-law grew up in a “three digit” (town with fewer than
1000 people) town. We got to see the
tiny town that boasts it was the first atomically powered town in the world
(they forget to mention that the reactor also had the world’s first meltdown!) We stopped to watch a tug and barge load lock
past Bonneville Dam (just because that’s what boat people do) on our way
through the Cascade Mountains via the Columbia Gorge.
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| Sun sets over the Mississippi River |
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| The Mississippi River was quite high so lots of water released over the dams |
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| Badlands National Park |
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| Prairie Dogs in Badlands National Park |
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| Selfie at Mount Rushmore |
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| Crazy Horse Memorial now has a finished face |
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| On our way to the East entrance of Yellowstone NP |
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| On our way to the East entrance of Yellowstone NP |
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| On our way to the East entrance of Yellowstone NP |
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| Yellowstone River in Yellowstone NP |
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| Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone [River] |
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| Lower Yellowstone Falls |
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| Elk Yellowstone NP |
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| Old Faithful Geyser Yellowstone NP |
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| Yellowstone NP |
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| Grand Prismatic Pool Yellowstone NP |
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| Elk in campground Yellowstone NP |
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| Bison in campground Yellowstone NP |
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| Jarvis snuggled down in his sweater at our feet every night in the van |
Coming out of the Gorge we arrived in Beaverton where we
spent time with our Grandson’s Mother and our son with his new wife. Finally from
there we headed north and stopped one more time at my 92 year old mother’s
house and then on to Everett to complete the circle.
Now I have had my urology follow-up and new glasses made.
Jarvis got a clean bill of health and a Rabies update. Clarice has new contacts
and we both have some new cloths to replace those that show the strain of
living outside with limited wardrobes.
Finally if we can get a box of parts and supplies that were mailed to
Phoenix across the border with minimal hassle and the my replacement cell phone
replaced (long story but it seems that Apple made more than one model of the SE
and they aren’t quite the same) we will be ready to get back to our home and
get her back in the water where she belongs.
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Jarvis is the last one to make his doctor visit before heading back |
