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April 14, 2010
The crew of Wings is back in the USA for a couple of months for a visit while Wings bobs serenely (so we hear) in its berth in the marina back in Thailand where we left her.
Our trip so far has been wonderful. We came to the US via Hong Kong and Beijing on March 25, landed on LA, took an Amtrack to San Diego, spent a week with Judy's sister Margie, then the three of us piled into her car and drove across the US to Pensacola, FL.
Loved the drive, especially since most of the way the speed limit was 80 mph; we set the cruise on 85 and just flew; straight roads and little traffic. Stopped several places to visit including my sister Jan and her husband Howard and other friends and family in other places, and had a night on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. We got 30 mpg in a Toyota Camry. Judy couldn't drive because her Washington license had expired but she got a new one in Florida for the next legs.
We borrowed a GPS navigation device from Jan and Howard. We’ve had GPS on the boat for years but this is the first time we had one in the car. It is amazing that this little box can contain all the streets, lanes, and addresses in the entire United States to say nothing of all the hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and other attractions and everything else they can think of. I’m amazed.
And it worked flawlessly until Houston's large number of streets overwhelmed it and we started getting our turn instructions about 10 seconds after we passed the turn off.
Once though, in a sort of bad neighbourhood in Houston (that's redundant), it worked perfectly. We ran out of gas in rush hour traffic and as soon as the car chugged and surged the first time Judy punched in, "nearest gas station" and hit "go to" and it said turn left in 30 ft, which we did from the right lane, cutting through traffic and going through the light just as the green left turn arrow came on, then turned right on the next street, as commanded, and coasted into what used to be a Phillips 66 station but now is a trailer hitch place but still has a single pump, and stopped 50ft short of that pump. I pushed the car to the pump (once Judy took her foot off the brake) and we filled up and were on our way. Total time from the first chug-chug: 7 minutes. So we are convinced that the GPS is a good thing.
We hung out with Judy's relatives in Florida eating fried catfish and working on perfecting our southern accents. One day we went to the Naval Aviation Museum: spectacular.
We are now in Iowa in the heart of middle America. Farm country, miles of rolling hills and huge agribusiness's. More big pick-up trucks than you can count. Yesterday we crossed the Mississippi river 800 miles from the sea and it is still 3/4 of a mile wide. Tomorrow or the next day we will head west to the Rocky Mountains and the Grand Canyon. What fun.
After returning Margie's car in California we’ll spend some more time with my sister then fly to Washington State where we'll be for a month and then we'll head back to Thailand, stopping again in Hong Kong for a week. We should be back aboard Wings in early June. Our working days are over (we hope) and we’re back sailing full time now. The next major cruise (Indian Ocean) should commence in September or so, once we figure out where we feel it is safe to sail to.
We are doing fine. Judy had back surgery in Malaysia before we left and her back is pretty much completely better. We are both getting fatter since we stopped working last year and this trip isn’t helping but otherwise we are in good health.
Check out the web site for more details of our travels and other adventures: http://wingssail.blogspot.com/
We miss you all and hope to see as many people as we can while we are travelling and we promise to write back right away if you email us. Oh, our phone number in the USA this trip is 1 619 564 9455 (but it isn’t working in Iowa, thanks ATT).
Hope to hear from you soon.
Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Ashore in Iowa