The lighter side of life – staying in touch with friends and family by celebrating the ordinary.
And We’re Off! (Florida Boating, Post 3)
Monday, February 1
And we are off! The last half-hour prior to departure is always nerve-wracking for me. Am I forgetting anything? I was finally buckled in the van, ready to go, only to decide to hop back out and run inside for one more (probably completely unnecessary) item.
What you’re looking at in the picture is our camper van towing a small 19′ sailboat with an upside down kayak strapped on top. The sailboat’s mast is down and strapped on top of the kayak. When in the water we will put the mast up and we will be towing the kayak behind the boat.
We started off with a headwind but were generally in good spirits. I honestly didn’t think we were going to actually leave on February 1st, which was initially just an estimated date; the beginning of February. But sure enough, we were on the road by 8:30 AM. It’s been one year and three days since my cancer diagnosis. I’m glad I’m on the start of a big adventure and not in the hospital fighting for my life.
Monday afternoon I tried to attend my cancer support group zoom meeting while speeding along in the van through the far west edge of Texas. The zoom meeting didn’t work very well, and I will probably not try it again if I’m in a moving vehicle. It was hard to hear and I was having bandwidth issues. I was so focused on trying to hear and trying to keep from dropping the call altogether that I didn’t feel like I was successfully connecting with my friends. They didn’t understand why I wasn’t acting excited about my trip, when actually I was just struggling to hear them and keep my internet stable.
We spent Monday night at a truck stop. We parked way in the back, very far from the trucks who were starting to line up for the night.
We were sure we’d be out of the way back there, but by morning the entire gravel lot had filled, and we we realized were the doofuses parked horizontally while everyone else was lined up in efficient lines. Oops!
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