Oriental at last ...
August 14 - September 6, 2007
 
We left Annapolis to arrive at our Oriental home by dark. On the way, we stopped in southern Maryland to visit Barbara’s cousin, Donna, and her husband, Frank. She was always my favorite cousin and was my matron of honor many years ago. I haven’t seen them in over 30 years and I realized how much I’ve missed them, since I’ve not lived anywhere close for many years. Now I think we will see them much more. Even though we have our house, The Bluffs, in NC, we live in the FROG (finished room over garage) when we are there because the main house is rented out. We figure we are truly down-sizing since the CA house was 2700 sq. ft, the truck-camper for our trip across country was approximately 100 sq. ft, and the FROG is about 850 sq. ft. We’ve been training for living on the boat, which we figure is approximately 500 sq. ft. After the camper, the boat will feel like a mansion. We estimate we have about 2 1/2 weeks before we can move onto the boat. Our projects in NC include staging all the boat stuff in one garage, cleaning up the camper and trailer and securing them for the winter cold and storms, getting the motorcycle running again, arrange for new gravel for the driveway, power wash the dock (sea gull poop), hire lawn service, register the dinghy. Barbara bought a Sailrite sewing machine, so she is familiarizing herself with this heavy-duty machine so she can sew projects for the boat like wench and pedestal covers, dinghy cover, cap rail covers, interior mast cover, bbq cover, motor cover and hatch covers. We were also able to do some fun things like bike riding, kayaking, sitting in the park reading, and a new activity, shrimping, right off our dock. We bought a casting net and caught about 2 dozen shrimp the last week we were there. Yummy! We don’t throw the net like a pro yet, but we’re getting there with lots of practice ../Oriental.html