December, 2011

We started the month in Caleta Lobos with Rock N Roll and Alex II. Daily card games, hiking the trails of Caleta Lobos, and unsuccessful fishing. After a week, Kevin went in to Palmira where he planned to connect with some friends and to provision for his trip to Mazatlan and then La Cruz. His departure from Caleta Lobos was a scary one as he almost ran into Rock N Roll…. The engine was in gear after he started it and when he went below decks to do something before pulling up the anchor, Alex drifted mighty close to his neighbor. Russ let out a yell and they quickly came topside and put the boat in reverse. They made it safely out of the cove and into the bay and were in Palmira a couple of hours later. Russ and Janet followed in a day or two and anchored off of La Paz. We stayed in Lobos until December 12, the day our slip reservation started in Palmira. Before we left Lobos, I shot off an email to Palmira reconfirming our arrival and our size. As we approached the marina, we connected with them via VHF and they had assigned us to a different slip. They hadn’t realized how large we were. Turns out we were directly across from Alex II. So we were able to get in one more card game!! Weather kept them from leaving over the weekend and they were still there when we left with our luggage two days later.

To get home to California, we took the free marina shuttle into town at 9am, sat at the bus station until 11am when the Eco Tour shuttle bus took us down to the Cabo San Jose airport. From there, we caught a 4pm flight into San Francisco and were on the BART train by 6:30pm. Jer Duda met us at the Del Norte station at 8pm and we sat up chatting with the Dudas until almost 11pm. The next morning, Jer dropped us off at the Martinez Amtrak station where we caught the Capital Corridor train into Sacramento. From there, we hopped on the Amtrak bus and were met by Michelle and Karissa at the Rocklin station at 11am.

After a quick stop at the Bloom household, we joined Michelle and Karissa walking to pick up Max from school. And then spent 3 glorious weeks sharing the Christmas holidays with family and friends. Highlights of the trip; attending Max’s Christmas program where he presented the first song, taking Beth and Ryan out for a congratulatory engagement dinner at Yard House, learning all of the signs that Karissa uses, making dump cake with Max, helping Michelle finish the bench seat and plan the cushions for it, being able to give Eric and Michelle a few nights off for dates, taking Max on the Polar Express…all the way to the North Pole!!!,

Christmas morning with all of us together, Christmas dinner at Ryan’s with Micki, Brian and Marilyn joining us, roasting hot dogs outside over the fire, “supervising” Eric’s fabrication of a rudder for his canoe, dinner with Jim and Ellen and a great game of “64”, enjoying the “I will survive” turkey card on the computer with Karissa, making beanie hats for everyone (I was always crocheting hats so Karissa’s sign for me became “hat”), reading Tom Sawyer with Max, daily baths for Karissa, Max waking us up every morning at 7am, EXCEPTIONALLY nice weather for California this time of year, and playing cards with Beth and Ryan.

As usual, the weeks flew by all too soon. The end of the year arrived (with lots of noise in the neighborhood!) and before we knew it, another trip home came to an end.