Sell, donate, give away.....lighten the load

On the road again - only staying in Phx at Aaron's to have a garage sale with him and We cleaned out, compressed, were ruthless in throwing out "stuff - yet Aaron had a collection of wonderful, exotic furniture to sell. His neighborhood is an old established one - Arcadia, in Phx/Scottsdale and near an enclave of Hispanics. In two days we sold almost all of his stuff, most of our's and then some - mainly to Hispanics who peeled off $100 bills - off of money rolls. This was a better sale than those we held in Fountain Hills - go figure. At the end of the sale, I was exhausted from bargaining and Robert was just exhausted. We had managed to downsize: do the math - three years, if we last that long cruising x $79/mo, for stuff? We can afford to buy this "stuff" with the money we saved. Then, we get back to the boat and guess what? Rented another smaller locker near the boat

in order to hang up winter clothes. We had put them all in storage as Mexico is the tropics. Again, go figure. But our skis, bikes and possibly our kayaks will fit in there.

Then there is Bishop Jake who is famous world wide. he was featured with a bishop's mitre and cassock in a calendar. He danced and snorted all during our "unbirthday dinner".

The neat thing about unbirthdays is we can just celebrate being with friends such as Shelley and Doug, Eileen & Kenny, and Debbie and ...who? Where is Harold? Falling on his head somewhere while we drink champagne and watch Jake dance. I love it when Shelley explains all of us as family - which we have become. This isn't the family where you go when you have nowhere else to go -but the family that rejoices in your triumphs and mourns in your losses and sorrows. This is the family you would travel miles and miles to be there with for any old occaision. We really love you guys.

The elegant garage sale- it is telling that all that stuff was in storage!

And we are back on the road for Thanksgiving at Bridget and Dave's. On the road again------

crocks on the beach

Good thing there was a fence between him and us - the dogs were throwing out challenges and the meadow behind him was full of his kind. Elk - the critters that have signs all over northern 101 in Calif. We left Brookings and wandered a bit to unwind before getting back to boat work. The elders have caregivers and are ok for now, so we need to get back, move the boat to our new slip and try to figure out how to stay busy in this strange new retirement life.

No problem - we are going to go to Az. and sort out the storage lockers there and sell, donate and give away stuff. I feel it loading us down when we are twelve hours away from all that stuff.

We found this secret beach - Gold Bluffs, in Prairie Creek Redwoods State park - miles of sand and camp sites. Only my sister tells us it isn't so secret as there is a fern gully miles down the treacherous road and people come from all over the world to see the ferns.- we stopped to let the dogs run. We saw ferns in Hawaii, ferns at Lake Powell hanging from seeps in dry cliffs. The dogs needed a run and the fog was lifting. No ferns for us. The ocean was silver in the sun and the waves crash and echoes against the cliffs of this magic place, while the wind soothes the low evergreens by the road. I wanted to winter camp and stay awhile.

The dogs, of course, wanted to swim - but we just yelled at them to stay with us. The waves were huge and all we needed to see was shepherds being carried out to sea while we are land bound. They jump in any water available, so it was tough to keep them dry. Sha'ash thinks it is Lake Powell and he can drink all he wants.

Highway 101 runs down through giant redwoods, to the busy towns of the wine area, to San Francisco, and to the peninsula where you take your life in your hands on the Freeway.

We were glad to get "home" to unpack and organize the boat.

Beach art.

A metaphor.

Wrong way on Coast

And we thought coming out of Half Moon Bay was foggy! At least on Hwy 101 we didn't imagine giant ships spooking through the fog. We are in Brookings taking care of the elders and came up in beautiful fall weather. And then, rain. And today is November and we sat on the beach in the sun with the dogs - the extra dog is Buddha, and she belongs to Robbie, Mom's husband. She isn't sure of the bigger guys and has a tendency to run off. Both shepherds ran into the ocean and tried to drink it - thinking, probably, "hooray, we are at Lake Powell." They don't understand why we yell at them to not drink the ocean. Bad stuff happens to their digestion.


It is strange to be on the beach in Nov. and to have warmth. Mom's beach is a little cove at the mouth of the Chetco River, which is Brookings harbor. We had thought that last summer we would be cruising up here on our way to Canada. There is an old Jewish saying, "Man plans, God laughs" - so we land cruised in the van. Mom's neighbors must think the Clampetts have arrived when we show up as we sleep in the van in front of the house. I just smile and wave at them in my pjs.

Robert looks retired here - his new job is either International Yachtsman/ boatworker/dog walker/boat fixer/mechanic/fog driver/ or whatever he feels like.

We are very relaxed after the awful push of trying to get the boat ready. The worst part is that Robert made another list that is a full page of things to do on the boat. Ok - we will be cruising in and out the Gate for the winter and enjoying doing things with our friends here. As well as shortening the list. One would hope.

This , below, is Mom's beach with the tide trying to wipe the beach out. There are huge logs and piles of driftwood, which comes in from the ocean....or as a sailor would say, was out there on the water before it came to the beach. And something to watch for when we do come north. That plan is back in place - but again, a plan is a plan, is a plan. We shall see. We had some magic charters in Canada, years ago, and there was so much country we wanted to explore that going north is something we should get out of our system. I'O goes to weather beautifully, but the lesson, after seeing the huge logs on the beach - is we will harbor hop from about 20 miles out.