I’m sitting here between mechanics scrambling around the boat for one reason or the other, trying to find perspective on the massive roadtrip we just finished that we call a vacation…and writing seems to move the perspective train along. We came home (to the boat) to re-engage in our struggle to fix the engine (while the boat is for sale)….did the eight hour of driving back and forth to pick up the our Great Dane Quincy and figured out pretty fast that our refrigeration is once more on the fritz. Good luck to us in trying to keep a birthday cake looking good for an upcoming birthday….heck we’d just like to have some cold water right now.
Our roadtrip was supposed to be cross country to get to a conference…but it was cancelled due to Covid concerns…so we had a rental for a month and nowhere to go. Except we did. Since Tulum is for sale and we now had some time on our hands, we decided to head to the PNW (Pacific Northwest) to take a look at a boat that I had been eying on yachtworld….all the way to Annacortes, Washington. I’ll do pics and discuss the (3) boats we looked at that day in a separate post. We had never been up there by car so we tent camped our way there and back…spending more nights in a tent than a hotel room and seeing two sets of cruising friends along the way. On the way back down the west coast we were able to go places like Tillamook (love the cheese), Astoria (think Goonies but make sure you go to the impressive Colombia River Maritime Museum). We also went through Eugene and on up to Bend (which we loved….microbreweries!!!) and then down through Cali. Not to be missed, we had to make stops in Paso Robles (where we found great wine at Tackitt Family Vineyards and rolled through San Luis Obispo. Cutting south, we picked up boat parts and mail from San Diego and came back to the boat with yet another roadtrip down Baja California. Then we turned around and did the eight hour journey back and forth to pick up the Quincy Dog. The very next day the boat was crawling with our favorite mechanic and his posse…but this time we had success….figured out what the hell’s been wrong with our engine and started moving forward to getting it fixed by reaching out for quotes. And, as of this moment the refrigerator guru has left the boat and our refrigerator is cooler than it’s been in the last month….let’s hope it stays that way.
I think any purposeful break from a lifestyle has the potential to recharge your personal batteries…and this roadtrip with the family was no exception. Among the verdant greenery, forests and rocky slopes of Washington, Oregon and California we tent camped night after night, sometimes having no idea where we would sleep each night. I love the fact that we could be in a place where the person lugging water back to a campsite would turn out to be a Climbing Magazine cover athlete/model, but still have to wash the dishes just like we did the same night. This break gave us all time to recharge our own batteries and was enough time to make us start to long for our home….Tulum-5. We were able to forget the stress of the engine challenge and boat for sale long enough to realize that we love our lifestyle and want to keep reaching for the horizon as we continue our family adventures.
I’m totally cognizant that this post doesn’t cover the places we went or the camping we did in any glorious detail, but wanted to at least get a bit of an update posted when I could. Coming back off the roadtrip we have the urge to cruise, but can’t get off the dock. This is frustrating. We will do this upcoming project in small bites as we manage this next upgrade to an older cruising sailboat and I will write about it as we go along. Stick with us….we’re still out here cruising and living life on a sailboat (with refrigeration working again) !
