So much to do, and barely enough time.

Hey, everyone...I finally posted the boat hauling video on YouTube!

Well, like we talked about earlier, we made it back to Billings in one piece. The weather was a little cooler than the Caribbean, but sure nice just the same. After 4 days of luxury accomodations at Jeff and Pam's place we needed to make our way to Mesquite, Nevada. We woke up at 4:30am for our drive to find 1/4" of snow on the car. The road was covered with compact snow/ice for the next 5 hours of driving. I'm not too intimidated with it all, but Karen sure wasn't a "happy camper!" Along the way, we found a trucker's ratcheting tie-down strap in the middle of the road. I was thinking..."More pirate's treasure....YES!"

Interstate 90/Bozeman Pass

We finally ended up at our destination...the last 10 hours of our drive being in good weather and medium traffic. One day of relaxation and recuperation from the marathon drive...and we were off to Rancho Cucamonga, California (Los Angeles area) with Les and Sandy (Karen's parents). The next day, we left for Hemet, California to visit Karen's grandmother for Mother's Day. A nice Chinese dinner was enjoyed by everyone. I left the dinner with Susan (sister-in-law), Drew, and Cory (nephews) for Camp Pendleton while the rest of the family headed back to Ken (Karen's brother) and Sue's place. Camp Pendleton is just north of San Diego and is the primary Marine Corps training base on the Pacific Coast. Cory was being hand delivered to the barracks for his next assignment in training.

Cory, Grandma, Troy and Drew

Sandy and Aunt Louise (still sportin' a Caribbean suntan)

Ken and Susan

Let's see...that covered Saturday and Sunday...Monday was Karen's birthday. We had a wonderful birthday BBQ at her brother Ken's and Susan's place. Drew and Troy were there (Cory was still enjoying a Drill Sgt.'s quiet voice). Cheryl LaPlante and Cory Shaw visited for the evening as well. Cory transferred to Ontario, California ATCT from Billings, where we had worked together before I retired.

 

Drew, Susan, Ken, Karen, Cory Shaw, Cheryl, Les and Sandy

My Sweety!

We headed back to Mesquite on Tuesday, enjoying a nice drive with Les and Sandy. The following day we drove to St. George, Utah...dentist appointments for Karen and I. Our drive was sure nice, making the run both ways through Virgin River Gorge, one of the nicest rock formations in the area.

Interstate 15/Virgin River Gorge...No snow here!

We had another couple of days of relaxation and appointments...18 holes of golf on a putting course...a short 2 hour wait at the DMV...great BBQ and homemade pies by Les...and even lost $ in one of the casinos. Karen and I trudged our way back to Billings, arriving 15 hours later...time to stay put for awhile! I now have a fresh Nevada license on the car and in my pocket. Not to start rumors or anything, but this made me a Nevada resident...Karen still wants to claim Montana.

The summer adventure is here!

No, we haven't been drinking! Karen, Daniel, Sue and Toddy are enjoying one of the last days on "top of Tortola"

We are getting ready for our return to the states, so here's the last of our tropical adventure blog (it's a long one)...and the start of the land-yacht touring blog.

We have had the boat hauled out and stored for us at Nanny Cay on Tortola. The preparations neccessary to accomplish the haulout were, to say the least, very difficult. The temp. and humidity were about 90 and 90! And the usually light breeze was nonexistant. Despite the difficulties, we completed everything and closed the boat up for the summer. Good thing we have the boat insured, as it is supposed to be a potentially busy hurricane season. It was a pretty sad time for us to leave the boat and are already looking forward to our return.

Below are some pics of the boat during and after the haulout. It was quite interesting for us, especially to see the boat out of the water. Phil Oliver, a close friend, checked the boat hull's condition for us. He didn't find any abnormalities such as blisters or other damage needing repair.

I will be putting a short video of the haulout onto youtube within the week, so look for it.

The following portion of the blog should be read while humming the theme song from "Mission Impossible"

Our flight to the U.S. was it's usual adventure. In the last 10 years, Karen and I have been through a lot of airport terminals, so one could assume we are somewhat seasoned travelers. Hah! We haven't seen anything! We started off getting up at 5am and riding to the Road Town ferry dock with Sue. Our scheduled ferry changed to another company (did the boat break down?) From there we had a wonderful ride from Tortola to St. Thomas, then lunch and the taxi to the airport, flew to JFK on American Airlines, and...is there anyone out there that still enjoys flying into major airports? This was our first time at JFK. Don't want to do that again anytime soon...1st came the realization that the monitors showing the departures/arrivals were almost non-existent, then came the mad dash along moving walkways (some weren't working) to the shuttle train. Next came the questions back and forth between some of us on the train about which of the 3 Delta Airlines concourses we needed to get off of. Yep, Delta Airlines...not American. Our tickets sure didn't share that info. After discovering we chose the wrong stop to get off of, we enjoyed a walk outside the terminal, across about 4 lanes of taxi and bus routes to get back into the terminal. Ahhhh, yes you guessed it, now we had to go back through security. Then we were off. Sort of anyway...a short walk (in the terminal) got us to the gate where boarding was already taking place...onto an elevated bus...for 1/2 hour of waiting. When everyone's attention span started to flutter, the airline folks decided to bus us to our waiting "bird of pray"...a 1970's vintage Northwest Airlines DC9 (recently acquired by the Delta folks). Here, we enjoyed another 1/2 hour of adjusting butts in seats, using the head (can that be an airplane term also?), reading the assorted magazines in the seatbacks, etc. It seems, that the DC9 had been sitting for so long in this area that someone else parked another jetliner behind it, thinking there was no way it would ever be a problem. After a tow, we were off. By now, Karen and I realized there was no way possible we would be able to catch our connecting flight from Minneapolis to Billings. Especially when the captain said we were going to get to Minneapolis via a stop in Detroit...weather across our route of flight was going to be thunderstormy (an ATC term) so we needed more fuel. Later, we found out that we would need a new crew also, since this bunch would be violating flight time rules if they continued on to Minneapolis. So, our flight finally departed and landed in Detroit. Remember that thunderstormy weather? It must have been near Detroit also, because once we taxiied to the end of the runway for our departure to Minneapolis, the wind switched causing everyone to turn around and taxi to the other end of the runway. I believe this made our flight #24 in the lineup for takeoff. There were a lot of folks that never made their connections at Minneapolis, so the airline took pity and gave us overnight kits and a hotel to sleep off our worries. They even supplied us with vouchers for food. We used some of them that night for our dinner...at 1am. We were booked onto the next day's flight at 5pm, but also on the standby flight at 11:30am. The Lord smiled upon us, we left on the earlier flight and made it to Billings at 2:30pm. We were met by close friends at the airport and spent time catching up on everything. Whew! I'm tired just writing this...I'm going to bed.