THE SECOND YEAR STARTS!
The summer flew, as did we, first to Anchorage where we had just time enough to be amazed at how much all five grandchildren had grown, and then to the East Coast for a couple of weeks with a stop in La Conner on the way. Paul Stone’s wedding in Vermont gave us the excuse for that trip. It was a wonderful country wedding with quite a number of Anchorage skiing alums, some with small children. We had time to stop in Stockbridge, Massachusetts where Paul and Sara’s 18 month old Amelia Kari met her cousin Cecelia who is about the same age but twice as big with much more hair. Whatever the external differences, the cousins had fun together. Their parents formed bonds over multiple summer vacation trips to Granny’s house in Stockbridge so it was special to see it carried on to another generation of east meeting west.
Then we went back to spend the ‘summer’ in Anchorage. ‘Summer’ ended up being 32 days of rain and only about 6 weeks long. Whatever the weather, we had a wonderful time seeing the kids and friends and enjoyed eating the wonderful shrimp that Brian brought us from Prince William Sound. Much too quickly it was time to go south to La Conner. We were in time to enjoy all the wonderful produce of the Skagit Valley and had a wonderful time seeing some of our friends there. I took a side trip to Stockbridge where my sister and I are doing some updating to the house, and then finally October 1 arrived and flew south, to California.
Our son Stuart’s 50th birthday is this month. Teri organized a party to celebrate and four older children were together for the first time in many years. Where the years have gone, I don’t know. The photographs that Teri had collected brought many warm memories and laughs. As we went upstairs for the last night, Stuart played “Bye bye Miss American Pie” for us, it was a special song for us the year we married.
Finally, on October 4th we made it back to La Paz and Serenity. Flying in over the Sea of Cortez, I was able to recognize many of last year’s anchorages. There seemed to be few boats – it is probably too early for most North Americans. However that may be, the bays looked terribly inviting. Clearing customs and immigrations was lengthy. Earl had more than the $600 limit of boat parts, so that required a visit to a separate area of the terminal to pay a $17 customs duty. Daisy was more of a problem. We were not able prove that she had been recently dewormed, a Mexican requirement. Earl talked at length of the vet we had visited here in La Paz and we finally wore the poor man down and he let us bring Daisy in.
Serenity looked beautiful after her summer. She had been waxed, her trim re cetoled, and washed regularly. She has even had her bottom scrubbed every three weeks. She’s never had it so good! We had dinner at one of our favorite places, the open air restaurant on the beach. We were greeted by our favorite waitress who even remembered our usual drinks and meals. It really felt like we were home.
We have spent the last few days checking things out. There’s a lot for Earl to do, and, somehow, always something that needs to be fixed. The control unit for the stabilizer is not working. This is the second one that we have had to replace. A new unit is on its way, but as usual with getting something to Mexico, it will take at least a week. After our last experience with DHL – that part never arrived- we have our fingers crossed that UPS will be better. I thought we had spare everything, but apparently that is not so.
Yesterday we visited our favorite pottery place. It was unchanged and we got a big hello from Vicki – She said business has been terribly slow. I think the drug war scare has really impacted tourism and many of the small businesses that depend on tourists down here. We have only seen a couple of tourists walking along the Malecon, which is nothing, even allowing for the time of year. We left the pottery shop with a box full of lovely things to bring home on our next trip. I did leave an order for something that I saw there that was broken so I have an excuse to go back.
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