US Land Logs 14, Year 4: Cape Cod to North Carolina
Date: Saturday, October 3, 2009
Weather: Rainy & Cool in New England; Sunny & Warm in North Carolina
Location: Calabash, North Carolina

Today was not an easy day. After four and a half months of living with our
daughter, her husband, and our two grandsons, it was very difficult to pack our bags and fly away. At two and a half, Sam is a beautiful bundle of energy, and at three months, Jonah is just getting into the smiley stage and is actually starting to laugh and squeal. We are grateful that we were able to spend the summer with them. The only contact we will have with them over the next nine months or more is video conversations on Skype. That’s certainly not the same as seeing them in person, but it does allow us to see them grow and change. We have been using Skype to keep up with Ziggy, our other beautiful grandson in Santa Fe, and will now use Skype as our ‘lifeline’ to all three grandchildren. Thank goodness for video Skype.

We left New England this morning on a rainy, cool Saturday morning and arrived four hours later in a sunny and warm North Carolina. We couldn’t help be warmed by the North Carolina sunshine even though our hearts were saddened by leaving Sam and Jonah behind. We won’t see them for at least nine months and maybe more. As I have said many times before, being so far away from family for such long periods of time is really the only downside to world cruising for us. But for now we’ll put that out of our minds and spend the next three weeks enjoying time with our brothers and sisters.  Then it will be back to Malaysia to continue the voyage of Windbird. We fly out of Myrtle Beach and arrive in Los Angles on October 26. After a seven hour wait in LAX, we board our Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong and on to Penang in Malaysia in the wee hours of October 27. That’s our anniversary, so we’ll have a midnight toast in Los Angles, lunch in Hong Kong, and arrive in Penang in time for dinner. There’s a great sushi restaurant just down the street from the Hotel Malaysia, so I think it will be sushi for our 35th anniversary.

091009 Year 4 Carolina Visit–Weekend in Myrtle Beach
091015 Year 4 Carolina Visit–Mark's Family Comes to Visit
091017 Year 4 Carolina Visit–Rex and Kevin & Claire Visit
091022 Year 4 Carolina Visit–Trip to Charlotte and Boone
091025 Year 4 Carolina Visit–Best of Carolina Visit
091025 Year 4 Carolina Visit–Last Day in Calabash
101003 Year 4 Ziggy Sept Photo Shoot