Sail Loft Time

With a little pixie dust, a lot of f-bombs, possible bleeding and a couple of glasses bottles of wine, there shall appear:

1. Binnacle cover. (not mine)
2. Sail cover for Catalina 30. (also not mine)
3. Awning for the mother-in-law's porch.

I'll probably post an album on Facebook (because I'm lazy, and that seems like a good place to put my projects).

No, I didn't order a first aid kit from Sailrite, that's just standard operating equipment for me.

It's early in the morning, and it's cold, and I didn't wanna go...

I'm actually quoting Ron White above.

But out I went I did. 2:30am Monday to be exact, and it was 20 degrees.   However, clear and no wind.

Why would I do this?

To see the lunar eclipse of course, or the blood moon.  The cold kept our resident pagans in their warm little apartments that night or else you can hear chanting and drums floating through the air.

(It's a Lawrence thing……)

However, I was kinda impressed with the shot I got on my little point and click camera.  I could have drug out Big Boy, but uh, well, uh, yeah, I don't know how to use it really.

I think it's blurry because I was just out in my sweats and flip flops in 20 degrees
and mild frost bite started setting in.

shake down cruise….finally

To define what a crappy winter we've had, our traditional St. Patrick's shakedown cruise was postponed almost an entire month.

However, we are finally here…and yes, we are forecast for some nights in the upper 20s next week.

Despite our marina's attempts to destroy our boat in one way or another, I am happy to report that steering/autopilot and rudder still seem to be functioning fine.

However, you would think that if you had employees at a marina, you would teach them line handling 101.  First lesson.  The simple yet elegant cleat hitch.  Most of our commissioning time was trying to get those freaking tie offs off and redone.  We still have one more to do, but we need a marlin spike to get the line off the cleat.  I'm not kidding.

But in a model of efficiency, Tim and I were sails up in two hours. Sails up for the first time in the season in Kansas usually means 'DUCK' as mud dauber nests and bird's nests come flying our of the sail. (We don't take our sails off every year).

Everything was ship shape, fridge is waiting it's beer/soda/wine/water provisionings and let's get rolling!

The first of many sunset sail to come this summer.

A launch off party, shots of rum and a little pirate ditty via the card.
(yes, the boat was out in the lake sailing itself with the autopilot while we were down below
some things never change)

Wendover, NV aka the Combat Air Museum Tour(s)

My parents invited us to go on a trip with them to Wendover, NV.  Basically, it was a three day gambling trip.

The price for Tim and I was $350 total, including 3 nights hotel and airfare. Okay, we can throw a few pennies in a slot machine for that.

It's something my parents like to do, and alcohol on the casino floor is free if your gambling.  I can make this work.

Long story short, the flight leaving Topeka was very late.  So now we have to decide whether to chance going back home (a 20 minute drive) or entertain ourselves.

Thus we went to the Topeka Air Combat Museum.  It was quite a pleasant surprise, these folks have a lot of crap stowed away.  And since it's a bit less regimented than the on-base museums and the Smithsonian air museum, they pretty much let us have run of the place.  And yes, Sabrina, CompyComp got touchy feely with the various orifices of an airplane.  Thankfully he just had his tetanus shot renewed.

Hard to do it justice, this was one of two hangars of planes.

Always loved the WWII era nose art.

Hard to see, but the plane says KILROY is here.

This is the original weather station for the Topeka airport during the 40s and 50s.
Try reading that radar.

If you got a lot of old planes, you got a lot of old plane parts.
This was in the hangar where they are doing restoration.

They let you go inside an old AWACs plane.
It's last mission was in VietNam and the coordinates are still
listed on the boards.

If you can read the tag: Raft Pneumatic service tag.
Last inspected 05 Aug 45.

So, we finally get an airplane (charter flight).  But the Topeka TSA doesn't start sending people through security until after the plane arrived.  We were first in line, thankfully, because after the fifth retiree went through the X-Ray with their metal knees/hips/shoulders/backs, etc.  They switched over to hand patting everybody down.  No offense to my bionic friends, but when you have a plane of geriatrics going to nowhere Nevada, I think you can back down the terrorist level check threat.  But, it provided no end of entertainment for Tim and I, particularly since the lady in front of us told her story of how they went through her billfold to. every. person. that. boarded. the. plane. after. her.  

It took 1.5 hours to board a MD-80.  OMG.  I flew to Australia on a A380 and they got that sucker boarded in 40 minutes flat.

So, Wendover. ... Wendover, Wendover, Wendover. It's about 2 miles long, tops. Literally on the Utah border and it's sole purpose is to let the Mormons have a place to gamble. I swear.  It's also a good stunt double for Karachi, Pakistan we decided. Very desolated.

But, onto Air Combat Museum trip, Part II.  Wendover Airfield is where all the Air Force/Army Air Corps trained in WWII.  It's also where the Enola Gay took off for it's fateful trip to Japan.  The place is falling into disarray and they are trying to get money to save it.  In it's glory it was a city upon itself. But most of the old airbase facilities have been torn down or sold.  They are in the process of restoring the Enola Gay hangar.

We checked in at the small museum and the lady said we could wander anywhere we liked if it didn't say restricted or off limits.  Tim's eyes lit up like it was Christmas.  Finally, he gets to do some UrbEx (Urban Exploration).  However, Mother Nature had other plans, and we got hit with rain and squally weather as soon as we started hiking about.  We did go up into the tower and I snapped a few pics.  The airfield has been in several movies, she mentioned ConAir and Independence Day.  Oddly enough Independence Day was just on TV and sure enough, at the very end, they show the airfield and the Bonneville Salt Flats (another thing we didn't get a chance to get to because of weather).

One of the planes used in the movie Con Air.

The old military base that's pretty much leveled now. In the distance
are old barracks.  The tan building in the center we did root through.
Don't know what it was, but it had a serious vault/safe in it at one time.

All in all, we had fun, we made our own fun as usual.  Caught up on sleep. We played penny slots in a truck stop. Yes. Yes, we did. Scratch that one off the bucket list…..  I forgot to have Tim take my picture of me standing over the Utah/Nevada line that they have on the street.

However, if I'm going to gamble for free drinks, I think I'd rather have the Venetian in Vegas serving me Santa Margarhita Pinot Grigio for free than the Wendover Wine box I got last weekend.

Trip to Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas

We've been wanting to go out to Fort Jeff again for a while, it hasn't worked out.  Mainly, we never made reservations.

There is only two ways to get to Fort Jeff if you are not travelling by your own boat (or seaplane).
Why is Fort Jefferson so special:  I'll let the fine folk at the NPS tell you.  It's 70 miles west of KeyWest, virtually the middle of nowhere.
Fort Jefferson National Park

The high speed ferry or seaplane.  We've done both, but I told Tim I wanted to do the water approach this time since we've become such big sailors :-).

There used to be two ferries, but one must have went out of business. It is a chunk of change to go out there. However, they do include breakfast/lunch/snorkel equipment.

The remaining company just recently built a new cat and put it into service in 2012.  She may not be the prettiest thing in the world, but she is smooth.  Although I was prepared for sea sickness, it never happened.  That there is good boat building.  They are also very proud of their boat. See here.

I highly recommend this trip to anyone and everyone. 

The rest will be a pictorial with commentary.

Getting buzzed by the seaplane going back to get more guests.
Our boat captain also flies the seaplanes.
I really don't think this would be approved of.

Approaching the Dry Tortugas.
Fort Jeff in front.  The light house on Loggerhead in the background

Walking along the moat wall.  Really good snorkeling in these waters.
However, we weenied out with the cooler water.

One of the bricks from the fort worn down by the waves.
That there be a 170 year old brick!

More of the bricks worn down to almost nothing.

Further along the beach we found a area of washed up 'people trash.'  We were told we can't take the bricks or any sealife off the island, but they didn't say anything about 'people' trash.  So I loaded up on a stellar load of sea glass.  Hey, didn't take the historical stuff, cleaned up.  Right?  And no, we didn't find a washed up Garmin.

Yes, it really is as cool as it looks.

The Tortugas are really good for bird watching also.  But, this time, I noticed a lot of dead birds, including three pelicans.  I thought, oh, great, what kind of killer virus is on this island.

This dude is a Royal Tern.  Love the crest on his head.

These guys. Awesome.

Close up.  Intensive research (wikipedia) informs me that they are Black Skimmers.
See how the lower beak sticks out further?

It's always good to know where to park your seaplane.

The beast.

Key West/Fort Jefferson Visit

We headed south to thaw out a bit.  We figured when you start thinking 20degF is 'warm', you've been in the cold too long.

After a brief visit to Miami Strictly Sail, mainly to look at boats we can't afford and say hi! to people we are starting to get to know 'in the circuit', we pointed the car south.

The first 75 minutes of our trip consisted of Tim having to listen to me alternately yell how every last driver in Miami needs to be shot with OH SHIT WE ARE GOING TO DIE.  We finally saw that beacon of hope:  Florida City-Gateway to the Keys.

The rest of the trip was uneventful until Key West.  Not much exciting we did in Key West other than eat too much, find our NEW favorite happy hour spot. Seriously: ANY WINE, ANY BEER, ANY LIQUOR half price and all small plate/appetizers half off.  After fresh shrimp, fresh smoked fish dip, at least a bottle and half worth of wine and 4 beers I think our check was around $35.  Our new secret hidey hole?  Alonzo's Oyster Bar on the Key West Bight.

We find another cool boutique hotel to stay at, also run by the Historic Inns of Key West.  All the rooms were modern, but the buildings themselves were built in 1888-ish. When you think of all the hurricanes and tropical storms, these old Conch houses are built pretty impressively to last.  (We won't get into the fires....)

The next day after we received our first souvenir from the fine folks at the City of Key West Parking Department.  (Whoops, blondie messed up her days when she bought her parking pass) we headed over to check the storage unit.  Everything is there, in good shape, and we discovered that the storage place routine WD-40s our lock for us to prevent rust.  Nice.

While over there, we had found out there was a new marina and at the marina there was reported to be a fantastic food truck.  Rock on.  Marina in good shape.  Food truck... AWESOME.

Shrimp Road Grille

Pulled pork queso fresco, fresh cilantro and chef's slaw.
Housemade pineapple/coconut jerk barbecue on the side.
The spouse had Mahi.

Our lunch companions were a flock of Guinea Hens, to which my spouse said:  How the HELL did you know what those damn things were?  Hello? Lived in rural Kansas for 6 years....I knows my poultry.  They also had a community garden that the marina live aboards and locals tended to. Did I take pictures?  Of course not, I get too much in this lookie lookie mode and not enough into clickie clickie mode.

Of course, here's the requisite Key West sunset shot.
Ummm, the earth is normal, I was.....not so much.
So, the schooner is NOT sailing uphill.

Snowstorm Nika

I'm still not sure how I feel about naming winter storms.  It irritates the piss out the NWS, which is amusing, but some of these names are just goofy.  But, it was entertaining to watch The Weather Channel people all say the name differently, you woulda thought that they might have had a pre-game meeting on that, hmmmm?

I think we brought this on ourselves.  Because I distinctly remember having the conversation with different people...didn't it seemed like it snowed more when we were kids?

(Then I thought, wait, when I was a kid I lived in places like Hawaii/Seattle/Okinawa.  We were stationed at Great Lakes, but you EXPECT snow up there. )

I digress...the conversations were made.  And I think Mother Nature overheard.

And she said: Oh really?  Well, let's bring it the f*** on!

So, while I watched Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel merrily hanging out at the KC Country Club Plaza saying how this area NEVER gets this much snow...

We did.  To be followed by temperatures in the single to minus digits.

That would be a little over 12 inches, thank you very much.
Not including the 1/2 inch of ice underneath.

But, since we are a bit smarter than those folks down in Atlanta, Northeast Kansas/KC Metro area pretty much shut down for two days.  Smart move, roads got cleared a lot faster, less people to rescue.

The spouse treated the folks that showed up at work well for those two days.  He's a good boss that way.

I got to work on cleaning our Matterhorn of a driveway.  But, first, I needed to gear up.  That consisted of Tim's old ski pants, my waterproof hiking boots, scarf up to my eyeballs, hat, and my big ass parka which later I decided looked like what Broadway Joe Namath wore for the coin toss at the Super Bowl.  But it's warm.  Finally, I put on Tim's NASA grade ski gloves and I was ready.  If I could figure out how to move with all of this on.

This is NOT my style.  I'm more of a shorts and swimsuit gal.

However, there was at least one carbon-based member of our household that was overjoyed with all of this nonsense.  And it's hard not to smile when you see a malamute in action in her element.

I love when my humans hide my toys in the snow for me to dig up.

Stop whining, it's great out!

Normally, there's a pool around here somewheres. 
Those are our lounge chairs.

This last bit is just for humor.  As I was TRYING to get a picture of both dogs romping in the snow, the crazy black dog decides to maul me.  Phone goes flying, I had to call it from the house phone to find it.  Found it, it works, but it wasn't until later I realized it took a picture while is was in midair.
Okay, I have cabin fever, it was funny to me.

 

One week until we fly to Miami and then down to the Keys.  Not that I'm counting.....