After a day at the Dental Board, it was time to sail Sloop Dogg with Mike and Maryellen Ferring. We sailed north, talking, trimming the sails enough to keep us moving, and enjoying each other’s company and the wine and the water and the wide open, serene lake. As the sun was going down and we were heading back to the marina, I think it was Mike who asked if anybody wanted to go in. Nobody did. I turned the boat back to the north. With the lake level high, there were no shoals to get in the way of sailing through the dark. When the wind dropped, Mike grilled sausages and we ate well thanks to our snacktitian, Maryellen. After dinner, the wind rose again and we sailed by feel and the dim outline of the surrounding hills in the nautical twilight. The wind continued to rise and by 9:30 when we returned to the marina, it tried to muscle the boat away from the slip though we made it in on the second try. Exhausted from a long week, I was asleep by 10 p.m., only to awaken again and again throughout the night as the wind howled in the rigging and jerked the boat against its lines. It was still like that in the morning when I dragged myself semi-conscious but still elated out of the boat and to the shower and then to meet Ann and Hadley at the Tucson Storm lacrosse games in Scottsdale. The Storm played well, Hadley scored a goal in each of the two game, I ended up with good video and photos, we stopped at an In and Out Burger on the way home, and we returned to Tucson.

Living and sailing in the Sonoran Desert. A succession of happy hours.