September 21, 2008

Dear friends and family,

We last emailed you as we returned to the Puget Sound area on July 26. We spent August getting stuff done so we could resume our travels. Steve filed his 2007 tax return and worked out management issues for his properties, Ginny sold her car, visited her friends, and hugged her cats. Despite all our serious work, we somehow found time for an 8-day trip through the San Juans in Steve's Squeak, the boat in which he spent three years. We figured that experience sailing a 12-foot boat together would make us enjoy even more the relatively palacial one we plan to buy.

We repacked, based on revised expectations as to our travelling needs, and departed on September 2. We went first to Portland to see a 21-foot called a Sea Pearl, a beautiful and very simple boat. It's not a multi-hull but has the advantage of being a rowboat as well as a sailboat. Then we drove across Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and Colorado, where we visited Ginny's friend Stephen, who lives in the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. In Pueblo CO we saw another boat, this time a home-built 24-foot trimaran similar to the Corsairs we like. The owner took us out on his local lake. Then we drove to Oklahoma City, where we saw another Sea Pearl.

After traveling in Mexico so much we appreciate the nice roads here in the States. Where possible we take the small state highways and county roads. Finding camping has been a breeze, it's always easy to find a dark, quiet spot. We have slept in residential neighborhoods and in farmer's fields, at public recreation spots and wherever any old rough wheel track might take us. Being Western Washingtonians we cannot help but find strangely beautiful the desolate openness of the Great Basin, and the vast plains of Colorado and Oklahoma, where thunderstorms take up the whole sky and can last all day and night. Road side attractions are the most exciting part of travel. We pull over for every historical marker, mud bog, and mysterious museum. Sometimes we even check out abandoned homes and the odd cemetery, where Steve fantasizes about pioneers and their descendants resting after hard lives trying to live off some Dustbowl farm.

Now we've been a few days in St. Louis, at the home of Lena (close college friend of Ginny) and husband Jesse. They expect a baby in about a month, so Ginny has been sewing up baby clothes emblazoned with her omnipresent were-squid motif (cross between a werewolf and a squid). Meanwhile Steve sketches how to modify a Sea Pearl to suit our needs while remaining on the fence about whether to do that or buy a Corsair.

We leave soon for New York and New England to see more boats and enjoy the fall colors. Once it has cooled off down south we'll go to Florida, where the most Sea Pearls, Corsairs and Waffle Houses may be found. It's also the ideal jumping-off point for our return to the Caribbean.

There's nothing so special about our photos and rambles, nor is this "one-size-fits-all" email very personal, but we consider it a place-holder for our physical presence among the people we care about. At least you'll know where we are and know how to get hold of us! Meanwhile, enjoy your own adventures, whatever you're doing.

The new U.S. pictures are the last fifty or so starting with "Steve and Beaker" on http://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/USAUSA .
Older pictures may still be found onhttp://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/MexicoTriphttp://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/Belizeit andhttp://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/BackInMexico

Yours in weresquid,
Ginny & Steve