Our path to the boat has been a winding route over the past month. We started November on the cape spending our time organizing ourselves and doing yoga at BY Cape Cod. Besides great classes from the owner Meg, we got to take classes from Shawn's fellow teacher trainee graduates Lee and Ocean and Lee took her class along with Chris of course (her biggest fan). From here, we headed toward Chris' sister and new niece in Alaska, but we couldn't go through Seattle without stopping...
(Nov 7-11) Seattle- four fantastic days were spent with Julia and Jacob from s/v Pisces, a bit farther north than previously... As our sailing adventures have evolved together, it was great to see them in their newest iteration of cruising- graduate school from the dock. Great discussions of life, as always, and although we had great weather while there, we tried to ride their bikes from Shilshole to town one day while they were at work and aborted due to pouring rain... We were also able to see our friends Adam and Kris from s/v Estrella who have sold their boat and are starting land life anew in Seattle excitedly expecting a baby.
(Nov 11-19) Juneau- after the rejuvenating stop in Seattle we headed up to Alaska to visit Sarah and Jimmy and new baby Hazel at the same time as Chris' mom, now Nana Jane. We spent our week there holding Hazel, walking Skye-dog, doing errands, hiking whenever the sun was out (which was actually quite a lot), living at the sweet "cottage" (compost-able toilet and all!) and generally enjoying time with Sarah, Jimmy and of course Hazel. It was very special to be able to be part of Sarah and Jimmy figuring out life with their newest addition. Best of luck to the new parents!
(Nov 20-25) Ithaca- post Alaska, Shawn took another quick trip back to Ithaca to visit her Mum one more time, ensure that her radiation treatments and house renovations were coming along, and of course pick up Griz for the next stage of sailing. In addition to helping hang pictures on newly painted walls, she managed to go to a Cornell hockey game with both of her parents, have a nice dinner with Leah and Gretchen and their twins, and even saw Chuck briefly in a post-hunting-flyby.
(Nov 25- Dec 3) LA- after our time drew to a close in Alaska, Chris flew down to LA to start final preparations for leaving the States and concurrently take care of his dad's dogs Abby and Penny while Dave and Anette visited Juneau. On Thanksgiving, Chris bought a new-to-him surfboard (5'10" quad fish) for the sailing trip, enjoyed a vegetarian celebration with Al and Noah from Scheherazade at their place in Silver Lake, then picked up Shawn and Grizzly at LAX where we headed directly to Ledy and Angie's for a nice family Thanksgiving celebration. The last week of crazy stateside preparations was spent running around like chicken's with our heads cut off at Chris' dad's place in Rancho Palos Verdes. Now the proud renters of a storage unit in LA, we did manage to mix some pleasure with the business of heading south by taking a sunny sanity-saving-sail on Scheherazade, who got home to Marina del Rey from Mexico two short weeks ago. Quite a busy month, hopefully our next post will be from Mexico!
