It may have seemed like it at times, but we didn’t quite spend every day over the past three months working on the boat. Between installing a new windlass, fixing the refrigerator, servicing the engine, planning and provisioning (to name a few) we still managed to squeeze in some fun.
We finally made it over to Renton to visit the Jimi Hendrix Memorial in March. We’re big fans of classic rock and blues, and Hendrix is one of our favourites. So while it’s not for everyone, we enjoyed it . . . along with the 100,000 other visitors that come each year.
We also visited the Museum of Flight in Seattle, something David’s been itching to do for years. We spent hour after hour walking through the grounds viewing the first Boeing 747, the original Air Force One, a Concorde jet, the Red Barn (Boeing’s original manufacturing plant), exhibits on World War I and II. We both really enjoyed the museum but, honestly, it was too much. By the time we were done, we couldn’t tell you what we’d just seen, so another trip is definitely in order.
To celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary and quench our thirst for live music, we drove down to Bremerton for a rare “date night” at the Admiral Theatre, a renovated 1940s movie house, to see Coco Montoya, a blues guitarist who worked with the great Albert Collins for years. Though he’s no Buddy Guy, who we saw last year, it was a good concert, a fun night and well-worth the price of admission.
The next week, we made a quick trip to Anacortes to visit our friends on Sarita – Richard, Jude and their amazing daughter, Katya. Their freezer wasn’t working, even after getting a technician on board a couple of times, but David was confident it just needed to be properly evacuated and refilled – the same process he went through with our frig in February. The guys managed to fix the problem with plenty of time left over for catching up. But we were on our way again the next morning.
It was wet and windy when we left Anacortes, so I most likely missed the best opportunity I’m ever going to have to drag David to the Tulip Festival in Skagit Valley. But we made it to Snoqualmie Falls, one of Washington’s most popular attractions (who doesn’t like a good waterfall). But we both agree the best times we’ve had over the past three months were spent in the company of friends just saying hello and sharing a meal . . . much like the night with Richard, Jude and Katya.
And now here we are, in the final days of preparation for, what will likely be, a two thousand nautical mile and 184 day season. Most of our travels will be familiar to us, but not all. And we’re anxious to drop our lines so that we can continue to explore and discover more of this incredibly beautiful part of the world – a place we’ve come to love and call home.
