Day 76, Year 11: South Carolina to Virginia
Date: Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Weather: Sunny, High in the 40’s F
Location: At Home with My Aunt Ethel in Roanoke, VA

Slowly we are making our way back to Cape Cod. Today we left Windbird in Little River, South Carolina, drove through back-country North Carolina, and then over the Blue Ridge Plateau to Roanoke, Virginia. We are spending the night with our favorite centenarian. In fact, my Aunt Ethel is the only person either of us has ever known who has passed the test of time and is living healthily and happily at 100 years+. She is an amazing woman who lives alone in a split-level home with her cat, has an active social life, and drives, sews, gardens, mows her own grass, and shops. Oh, how she loves to shop. She goes up and down the steps in her home like a teenager. And she still wears stiletto heels. They are not nearly as high as they used to be, but short as they are, I’d kill myself if I tried to walk anywhere in those things!

It should have been a six-hour drive to here from Little River, but it took us seven and a half as we made a little side trip. When we got to Blacksburg, Virginia, instead of heading directly west to Roanoke, we headed north to Clover Hollow. On the way to Nashville we stopped by the Giles County (VA) Courthouse and discovered that this is where my father’s mother was born. My father was born somewhere in Clover Hollow as well, but I don’t know the exact location. On today’s side trip we actually stopped and knocked on a couple of doors inquiring about the location of where the Goodwins lived in the late 1800’s. Of course, no one had a clue. But I had to try. We also visited a cemetery, but had no luck there as well. When we got to my Aunt Ethel’s she was ready to take us out to dinner. We had a wonderful evening and can’t wait to continue our visit in the morning.

160106 Day 76 Nashville Trip–Arrival at Aunt Ethel's

Day 75, Year 11: Winter Has Finally Arrived
Date: Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Weather: Sunny, High in the 30’s F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC

The thermometer didn’t get out of the 30’s here today and it will be in the 20’s F again tonight. Brrrrrr. Winter has finally arrived. But it never stays cold here for long. Things start warming up again tomorrow but the temp will dip again next week about the time we return. So we are in for a little winter ‘experience’ as we travel northward and then return here late next week. We had planned to leave our winter coats on the Cape, but we are now thinking we will bring them back with us. Better safe and warm than sorry.

Today was more of the same in terms of getting Windbird ready for passage. I went through a few more storage cabinets to assess what food items we are missing. I found a few things, so we went to the store in the late afternoon to buy those items. When we got back, we did a laundry and then we called Ginny and Bob and met them at Pizzeli’s for dinner. Ginny and Bob are my nephew Tommy’s in-laws. Bob insisted on paying for dinner and Ginny gave us a huge bag of homemade cookies and candy for us to nibble on our sail southward. My grandnephew Ryan (Tommy and Marilou’s son) works at Pizzeli’s and we got to see him. So it was a win-win evening for us.

Day 74, Year 11: Provisioning for the Winter
Date: Monday, January 4, 2016
Weather: Sunny, High 46 degrees F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC

Today was a hunt and kill food shopping day. We are trying to have the boat provisioned for the winter (except for the fresh stuff) by the time we leave here on Wednesday morning. I got up early and tried to listen to the Chris Parker East Coast and Bahamas weather, but there was just too much interference to hear him. In the morning I will try again, but this time I will go out and unplug the boat from dock electricity. I’m hoping that will cut out a great deal of the interference. Since I wasn’t able to hear much this morning, I crawled back into bed and we didn’t get up until 9:30! It was a much needed sleep-in after our 2 am bedtime on Saturday night and the drive here yesterday. We ate breakfast, defrosted the freezer and refrigerator, and headed to Costco. Also during the day we shopped at Big Lots, Walmart, and a local supermarket. Doing this makes me feel a bit like a frenzied squirrel gathering nuts for the winter. Regardless, the freezer is now stuffed, as are all of the storage cabinets. Tomorrow we will spend time reorganizing some of those storage cabinets in an effort to fit more things in. So we are getting there. And to reward ourselves for a successful day, tonight we are going out to our favorite little Asian restaurant for sushi.

Day 73, Year 11: North Carolina to South Carolina
Date: Sunday, January 3, 2016
Weather: Mostly Cloudy and Cool, High 50 degrees F
Location: Back Home on Windbird, Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC

We drove from Charlotte, North Carolina to Little River, South Carolina today and tonight we are back home on Windbird. We have had a wonderful seven weeks visiting with family and friends, but there is no place like home. It felt really good to be back onboard. However, we will be here only a couple of days before we hit the road again. We left here a little over seven weeks ago and we were very pleasantly surprised to find everything just as we left it. That makes our next two days a little easier than expected. All we have to do is defrost the refrigerator and freezer and then go to Costco to buy the items we need to fill the freezer. That is tomorrow’s job. Sea Turtle, Lee and Lynda Kaufman’s sailboat, left the slip next to us yesterday and they are headed down the Waterway on their way to Florida. So it feels a little lonely here. We did see Beth and John Schwab on the dock when we arrived and hopefully we’ll have time to visit with them before we head out. They live on a Hatteras 55 at the end of our dock.

Mark and I finally headed to bed at 2 am before the end of the last Bowl game of the season. My alma mater, West Virginia University, won the game without my help, but Tommy and Madelyn stayed up to see the exciting end of the game. I talked to my sister Patsy this evening and she said she and Joe stayed up to see the game as well, and they made to the end. Hopefully we can all get to sleep early tonight to make up for being awake until the wee hours of this morning.

Day 72, Year 11: Tennessee to North Carolina
Date: Saturday, January 2, 2016
Weather: Beautiful, Sunny Day
Location: At Home with Tommy, Marilou, and Kids, Denver, NC

After a beautiful drive though the Smoky Mountains, we arrived at my nephew’s home in Denver, North Carolina a little after 5 pm. At the last minute, Patsy and Joe decided not to make the trip. We had a wonderful visit with them and miss them so much already.

160102 Day 72 Nashville Trip–Patsy and Judy

We are spending the night here in Denver, North Carolina, with my nephew Tommy, and his wife Marilou. Patsy and Joe’s daughter Jennifer came over with tons of food for dinner and we had a feast. Tommy smoked salmon as an appetizer and then we had crab cakes and an assortment of casseroles for dinner. That was topped off with Jennifer’s banana cream pie. All was delicious.

It is presently after mid-night and we are sitting here watching the West Virginia University Arizona State football game. Tommy and Marilou’s daughter Madelyn is headed to WVU next week to begin her college career fifty years after I was there as a freshman. And amazingly, she is going to be in the same dorm I was in my first year. So as die-hard West Virginians, we sit here watching the game. I have a feeling we will get a slow start in the morning on our trip to Little River.

Day 71, Year 11: A New Year
Date: Friday, January 1, 2016
Weather: Overcast, High Temp 50 degrees F, Freezing Temps Tonight
Location: At Home with Patsy and Joe Kerwood, Mt. Juliet, TN

It is a new year and for the first time in my life, I’ve made no resolutions. There’s a whole list of things I should have resolved, but maybe next year. We talked to both of our children and I think they both made the same resolution. When we called Heather, all of the Goldstones were sorting laundry. The first person to sort out all of their clothes won the prize. I heard Sam say Jed lost, but I didn’t hear who won. We didn’t get to do a Skype video call with them as they were in a hurry to get their job done and get in the van to head to New Hampshire to meet up with some of Heather’s high school best friends for a little New Year reunion. We didn’t get to see, but we did get to hear all about Max, Jonah’s baby guinea pig. Max is the first pet any of the boys have ever had other than fish so he is quite popular. We then called Justin and they had just finished sorting laundry! I was beginning to think this was some sort of conspiracy. My dad always said that you should live New Year’s Day the way you want to live all of the days of the year, so I guess my kids and grandkids are going to have organized clothes for 2016. We were on Skype video with Ziggy and Coco and they showed us an amazing Lego project they have been working on since Christmas. They have turned the guest room into LegoLand and have constructed a painted cardboard background and floor for their ocean theme. On the ocean floor they have placed all of the sea exploration vehicles they have made. Rising up from the bottom of the sea, they have constructed a coral reef. And on the table above that, they have a tropical village on land. Quite impressive! Jo was in the kitchen making granola, so the Handley-Hunts were busy, busy today.

After talking to the kids, Mark and I got inspired to organize all of the clothes we brought with us on this trip. We still have all of our summer clothes that we took to Puerto Rico, all of the heavy winter clothes that we brought to wear here (but haven’t needed), and all of the in-between clothes that we have been wearing. We will be in Little River on Windbird on Sunday and we will leave all of the summer and in-between clothes there and take the winter clothes back to Cape Cod. So we now have things packed to make that transfer an easy one.

Our schedule for this upcoming week is a busy one. Tomorrow we drive to Charlotte. Patsy and Joe are going with us, but they are driving in their own car. We will all have dinner with my nephew Tommy, niece Jennifer, and their families tomorrow evening, and then Mark and I will drive to Little River on Sunday. On Monday and Tuesday we will get Windbird ready to set sail, and then we will leave her for another week before we return. On Wednesday we will drive from Little River to Roanoke, Virginia, to visit with my 100 year-old Aunt Ethel. On Thursday we will stay in the area to do more family history research and on Friday we will drive from Roanoke to Nyack, New York. We talked to our friends Ed and Lynne Kirwin last night and they are expecting us to spend the night next Friday. Then finally on Saturday, we will drive from Nyack to Cape Cod. A few doctor appointments later, we will fly back to Little River. Whew! Instead of being ready for a passage south, I think we’ll be ready for a rest after all of that traveling.

Day 70, Year 11: Happy New Year
Date: Thursday, December 31, 2015
Weather: Overcast, High Temp 40’s F, Freezing Tonight
Location: At Home with Patsy and Joe Kerwood, Mt. Juliet, TN

Happy New Year to family and friends near and far. We are ending our year doing what we have been doing for days. Joe is watching football on TV, Mark is scanning negatives, Patsy is reading, and I just finished taping together a family tree for the Martins (paternal grandfather’s side of the family) and another for the Goodwins (paternal grandmother’s side of the family). We are on Central Time, so in another hour at 11 pm Central we will all stop and watch the ball the drop in Times Square. We did celebrate over a fantastic dinner. Joe grilled steaks, Patsy baked potatoes and sautéed mushrooms for the steak, and I cooked corn-on-the-cob and made the salad. Everything was delicious.

Mark and Joe went to the clubhouse to swim today while Patsy, Janet, and I went shopping. We were looking for two additional dining room chairs, lights for the computer room, a particular brand of shoe that is Patsy’s mainstay, and then we went shopping at Costco. Janet was amazed at the number of people going into and out of Costco, but even with the huge crowds today, there were no long waits. Unfortunately Janet didn’t get to stay for dinner tonight. She had to go home to be with the dogs. Monica’s dog Jordan has been very sick and can’t be left alone for too long. The Vet is working on adjusting medications, but needs someone there to monitor the dog’s reaction. Monica is still out of town, so Janet is sitting home alone with the dogs tonight. So none of us are out partying tonight. We are celebrating New Year’s Eve by doing what we do on other nights of the year.

151231 Day 70 Nashville Trip–Happy New Year

Day 69, Year 11: More, More, More . . .
Date: Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Weather: Overcast, High Temp 50’s F
Location: At Home with Patsy and Joe Kerwood, Mt. Juliet, TN

Today was a day of ‘mores’ . . . more granola making, more scanning of negatives, more labeling photos, more researching on Ancestry.com, more shopping. You get the picture. I made a discovery yesterday on Ancestry that has advanced my research tremendously. Once I locate a relative, I can search the family trees of other people on Ancestry for that same person. Yesterday I found two good leads, but today I found a goldmine. I had already found the name of my father’s grandfather, but I only knew the first name and two middle name initials. On a family tree I checked out today, I found that Henry Brown Morgan Goodwin was my great grandfather’s full name. I already knew my great grandmother’s name, Indiana A. Julia Epling. I found out that Henry B. M. Goodwin’s father was David Wall Goodwin and that his wife was Catherine Obedience Mitchell. And David Goodwin’s father was Enos Goodwin married to Elizabeth Wall Early. I just love these names. My last ditch efforts tomorrow will be spent delving further into my paternal grandmother’s lineage. We were always told that either she or my great grandfather was part American Indian, but I am beginning to think that is not true. My grandmother’s name was Fannie Elizabeth Catherine (Kate) Goodwin Martin. She died in 1910 when my dad was very young. Her mother’s name was Indiana. And that might be as close to being American Indian as we get!

We went to my niece Janet’s house for dinner tonight. She made a great Turkey Tetrazzini with the last of the Christmas turkey left-overs. Monica is out of town this week, so she wasn’t there tonight. But tomorrow Janet, Patsy, and I are going shopping south of Nashville close to where Monica is working. We’re hoping to take her out to lunch, finish our shopping, and get Janet home in time to watch the Orange Bowl. We enjoyed Janet’s Christmas decorations and I especially enjoyed seeing one particular ornament on the tree. When Janet was in elementary school in Akron, Ohio, I lived and taught close-by in Cleveland. For Christmas 1969, I invited Janet and her sister Jennifer to come spend the night with me and help me decorate my tree. We strung popcorn and cranberries and put cloves into oranges to hang as ornaments. Sometime later, I gave Janet an artificial clove-decorated orange in remembrance of that 1969 Christmas and it still hangs on her tree.

151230 Day 69 Nashville Trip–Dinner at Janet's

Day 68, Year 11: The Force Awakens
Date: Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Weather: Overcast and Cooling Down, High Temp in the low-50’s F
Location: At Home with Patsy and Joe Kerwood, Mt. Juliet, TN

This afternoon we went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 3D and we all loved it. What a kick to see those old friends again—Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2. And I loved the new young woman with ‘the force’, Rey. I’ve read mixed reviews, but the effects were spectacular and the action kept me on the edge of my seat for the whole movie. The original Star Wars came out the year our son Justin was born. I’m sure we never saw the original, but maybe we saw IV when it came out in 1981. But whatever, Star Wars characters were popular in our household in the early 1980’s. We still have the Luke Skywalker’s plane, a Jabba the Hut village, and the original characters in storage. It was just so much fun to see them come alive this afternoon.

Mark and I took a nice, long walk this morning and Patsy, Janet, and I also did some Christmas exchange shopping. In between activities, I worked on labeling photos and Mark did more scanning. Then we went to the movie and afterwards we went to Don Pancho’s for $1 Tuesday tacos and $2.50 margaritas. Great day!

Day 67, Year 11: Just Not Enough Time
Date: Monday, December 28, 2015
Weather: Overcast with Rain, Warm Morning but Cool by Afternoon
Location: At Home with Patsy and Joe Kerwood, Mt. Juliet, TN

There is just not enough time in this life to do all of the things one would like to do . . . at least not all of the things I would like to do. This week’s projects include scanning old negatives and photos and working on family genealogy. While I lose myself in Ancestry.com, Mark works on scanning in negatives from our photos from the time we met in 1973 until we got a digital camera around the ‘turn of the century.’ I just love saying that! He has scanned a lot of the negatives for the first ten years, but not all of them. My job is to go through and group and label the photos, but I have barely started that process. We are working on this here and now because the scanner we bought jointly with Patsy and Joe a couple of years ago lives here. It is not something we can take to the boat, so we’ll do as much as we can while we are here and start again when we visit next. Scanning is time consuming, but researching on Ancestry.com is time consuming AND tedious. One problem is that I haven’t taken the time to really learn how to use the site and the other is that I am having a hard time staying focused. My goal on this trip was to do research on my father’s side of the family. But it is tough going and I get distracted looking up things on my mother’s side of the family which is much easier to find. I just have to keep reminding myself that there is nothing pressing about either the scanning and or the researching, so we’ll continue to work this week and be happy with what progress we have made. Then we will switch back to being sailors and our projects will change to food provisioning and researching the weather and the next destination. In between, we will have a brief period of time back on the Cape where grandchildren will make sure our focus is on them, not all of these other inconsequential things. And then there is that Happy New Year letter I hope to write to friends, the photos from Puerto Rico that I have never named and posted, and the Shutterfly calendar for 2016 featuring photos of grandkids that I had hoped to complete before the end of this year. Oh, yes, and then there’s that book about sailing around the world that I have intended to start writing for the past five years . . . the list goes on, but the time just slips by too quickly.

In between projects today, Mark and I drove to a Bed, Bath & Beyond to return king size pillow cases for smaller ones. We also stopped to get our car washed, but that was useless as the drive-thru wash left all of the dirt on the car. I know the car was dirty, but we still can’t figure out how that happened. When we got home, Mark decided to wash the car again. Patsy and I were supposed to do a Christmas returns shopping trip with Janet this afternoon, but it was raining. So we switched gears and went the movie theater. Janet gave us all movie gift cards for Christmas, so we just HAVE to fit in a few flicks this week. Today Janet and Mark went to see ‘Concussion’ with Will Smith and Patsy and I went to see ‘Joy’ with Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Robert De Niro. Joe didn’t get to go with us, but we’re going to see the new ‘Star Wars’ movie tomorrow afternoon and Joe will definitely go with us for that. We’d all like to go to see ‘Spotlight’, so maybe we’ll go to see that on New Year’s Eve afternoon. Mark and I rarely go to see a movie unless we are visiting with Patsy and Joe, and then we binge. Maybe we’ll even go see ‘The Danish Girl.’