Day 230: Monday, April 22 , 2013
Port to Port: Morehead City, North Carolina
Underway: 0:00 am Motor Off: 0:00 pm Miles Traveled: 0 Stayed At: Marina
Mile 205 to Mile 205: It could be snowing – 15+ back in Mound over the last week with more in the forecast. The ice is still frozen – they may even postpone the fishing opener because the lakes won’t be thawed by then. Yuck!
After a long stretch of ideal travel weather, we have finally had to wait for better conditions. It’s windy, rainy and cool today. Coastal flooding is likely tonight where we have to travel due to high tides and wind driven tidal surges. The wind is gusting to 30+. We have several big bodies of water to traverse so we are camped out until we can travel safely again.
We are not suffering, though. We are being well taken care of here at Portside Marina. They have repaired Boris and I changed the lower unit oil today. I reassembled the motor lift (without dropping any parts in the water) after Bill straightened out the lift bracket. It seems to work as good as new. Denard even dropped lunch off this afternoon. Wow! As soon as conditions improve, I plan to remount the motor and run it for a while to test it.
For fun, we watched a couple Redbox movies, went for a walk during a lull in the rain, made beef stew for dinner and treated ourselves to an ice cream cone. We still didn’t get a nap, though.
We are looking forward to better weather but we are going to be sad to leave. This has been a stop we will remember forever. We feel like family. It came at a good time too because we have been traveling pretty hard lately and we were feeling a little burned out and homesick.
Speaking of weather. Remember our story many months ago about Izola’s Place in Louisiana, Missouri – one of our favorite breakfast places of the trip? I happened to be watching the news yesterday in the marina office and saw a brief clip about the flooding along the Mississippi. One of the pictures they showed looked like her restaurant with water half way up the front of the building. I checked online today and it was her place. This is devastating – someone who works 12 hours a day just to make a living now has to start over from scratch. I can’t believe the hardworking, struggling communities along the river suffering from drought last fall are now getting flooded out. It really hits home and makes us appreciate everyday – even the cold, rainy ones.
