They say that time flies when you're having fun





 And we're having a lot of fun, so the days are slipping through my fingers at a scary fast rate. How can it be that 2 months have gone by since we put the boat up on the hard? Didn't Hannah tell us just yesterday that she was getting married? And more importantly, where has all the rum gone? This summer was a whirlwind 8000 roadtripping miles of family, fun, good friends, and amazing scenery. Once again we started in Virginia, headed to Minnesota and North Dakota to see our families, turned left and made our way to New Mexico, where there was a big party with a small wedding in the middle.

Our family grew by many as we welcomed not only our new son-in-law, Cameron, but his entire family into the fold. It was a very beautiful Hannah/Cameron/New Mexico wedding: a beautiful clear blue sky, a gorgeous estate, green and cool, a beautiful bride and her handsome groom, family and friends dressed in the very best of elegant picnic attire, a Dia de los Muertos bride and groom piñata, fish tacos, rum bar (courtesy of the bride's parents), sack races, wild flowers bouquets and dancing outside on the grass under the twinkling lights and stars. We, of the older generation went home by midnight, but the party went on into the wee hours and, from what I understand, continued the next day. As my dad said, after watching his first grandchild get married, "The bar has been set pretty high for the rest of the grandkids." 

  

After the wedding we continued our "wear out our welcome" tour of our families. We headed to Phoenix for a bit and then back to Albuquerque and on to northern New Mexico where we spent some time looking at land. We'd like to find somewhere to build a cabin and eventually do 6 months on the boat and 6 months off.
In between family visits, we were camping again. We usually stay at the KOA campgrounds, having a fondness for bathrooms and showers and such. Most of the KOA's have some kind of a gift shop with local kitsch for sale. It actually might be a requirement: the dusty forgotten gift shop to the left of the check-in. I've never bought anything but, I always look, I just never know what to expect. In the KOA in Tucumcari NM, I found a treasure, the new mug I've been looking for. It's bright sunshine yellow with a big red Zia sun on it. I love it!

Currently, we're back on the boat, but still in the yard. The picture above is the view from the cockpit, looking around the yard. There are lots of people here, working on boats in varying states of seaworthiness.  We'd planned a quick bottom paint job and then back in the water, BUT as with all things boat, the plans changed. It goes like this. We have a new anchor, it's bigger than the last one and it doesn't fit on the bow as well as it should. The anchor roller needed to be removed and moved back and re welded, so the anchor could fit properly.  Enter our friend, Billy, who has a shop with a TIG welder. Off came the bow spirit. It'll be another week.
The picture below is of Celebration on the hard, minus the bow spirit.