Back in Louisiana

I guess our trip to Kansas is over. We are back in the boat yard at Northshore Marine in Mandeville, LA.  We have lived on our boat at this boat yard here off and on for years. The people here treat us like family. We are sleeping on a friends boat at night and looking up old friends buy day. We have tickets to fly back to our boat on the 8th. Back to the Rio Dulce in Guatemala where we hope to find our old schooner waiting on us just the way we left her. We have left her there going on two month now at Calypso Marina. The longest we have ever been away from her after building her and putting her in the water. Now we have a lot of decisions to make like what to do with our old motor bike we came back here to ride to Kansas to see a little farm our son bought. Keep her and find some one to store her again? Sell her or just give her away? What to buy before we go back? What will they let us bring back on the plane. We have some motor parts. Rebuilding parts for the injectors. We have been told that if there machine at the airport can detector diesel fuel, we won’t be able to take them with us. Remember when you here that you can live cheaper in the Caribbean than you can in the states. We have not found that place. You can do without there a lot easier than you can here. You won’t need a car and electricity is so high you will just learn to do with out as much as you can. Beans rice and unskilled labor is the only things cheap we have found there. Everything else will cost you more. Sometimes a lot more. So what do we take back with us. Things that we can get a lot cheaper here or thing you just cant get at all there. We have friends that make a pilgrimage back to the US every few years to do upgrades on there boats and stock there boats. This seems to work well. If you carry what you need with you bought cheap in the US. Stay out of marinas do without showers, power and not needing a car or things you need here. You can live cheap. Remember even simple things sometimes are just not available at any price. I have never seen any one I can think of cooking black beans here in the US that was born here. I really don’t like them. In the Caribbean it about all you can fine. No Lima beans, No Pinto No Navy beans and worst of all for some one that been in Louisiana for years No Red beans. Just Black beans. This is what it’s like for most things down there. For some time I couldn’t find sand paper only wet and dry. This dose not work well on wood. There is a store now that has it where we are in the river there but it’s really high. How home sick are we for our boat? “ Very” We are counting down the days now. How home sick are we for the Caribbean? About the same but maybe it’s knowing that we need to take in as much as we can because we are going on some where else before long. Maybe we will cruise back to the states and outfit for a trip across the ocean and go to Europe. Maybe to England. A change in temperature would be good. Remember it never cools of in the Caribbean. Where ever we go. It won’t be until after hurricane season is over. Until then we will just dream of where we are going and make the most of being in the Caribbean. For the next few days we will just take in New Orleans. We had crawfish for lunch today and tomorrow a friend is taking us out for soft shell crab.

Eating crawfish for lunch in boat house.” So Good”

 

It’s almost like a dream to us to ride our old bike up to a little store down here and eat boudin. Boudin is a sausage made out of meat and rice in a sausage sleeve then fried. Gator Boudin is so good. Most of what is here is so good. You forget some times just how good things are around you. Maybe being born with Wonder Lust is a curse or maybe its a blessing. Today I am not going to worry about it. To tell the truth I never think about it. I just have to much to see and do.

Gator swimming by boat house

 

 

Enjoying the park in Mandeville, LA looking at Lake Ponchartrain

Live oak trees covered with moss in the park

On The Road Again

 

For people that read our blog to see how we solve problems. I think it’s a bad idea. My track record is not as smooth as most. Remember some of what makes our track record a little off is our lack of money but this is how we are making out riding back from Kansas on our old motor bike to Louisiana. We are headed back to our boat in Guatemala the long way around. We want to ride back to Alabama to see friends and then on to New Orleans to fly back on July 8th. We have been on this ride for a month now checking out the Kansas prairie and our son’s farm. We are now back in the land of trees. What is it like to ride where the land is mostly flat and the only trees are the ones people have planted to block the wind. The wind makes riding hard. Farmers even build walls on there farms out of metal roofing to provide a wind brake for there cattle. Have you ever wanted to take the road less traveled If you do? “You will be alone.” We didn’t meet anyone touring the back roads. Only people on “really” big bikes and RV traveling the interstates. We were something of a novelty and people wanted to know where we were going and where we were from. Every one was good to us even the cop in Kansas that gave me a ticket “he wrote me a warming” for not coming to a full stop at a stop sign. You need to put your “feet down” to come to a full stop. Even if you are in a land where you haven’t seen a car or truck in 20 minutes. This is some of how we have been doing on this trip. The weather has been the biggest problem and the way we like to ride is maybe too slow for most but if the weather is bad it’s the only way to go. We have only been able to make 250 to 300 miles a day. Remember for us 45mph is the best speed to see what’s around us before its gone and remember what’s around you is always changing. Almost ever town has something to look at. In most of Kansas it’s old farm stuff and old trucks. A lot of the old trucks are still running and being used and they’re always the wildlife around you. A long the way there is always the surprises like stopping in Mississippi at a grocery store and buying cooked ribs. They were “so” good. We went out and sat in the shade under a tree beside the parking lot with people coming buy talking to us. This is the thing you can’t plan. Now as this trip is coming to and end we really wish we had more time and more money. We would love to ride the back roads to Alaska but the money is not there and we are getting a little home sick for our boat. The real money drain has been motels. There is not that many on the back roads and the ones near the interstates can be expensive. The most expensive we have seen was $170 plus tax. One we stopped at on the back roads was just dirty. We didn’t stay there and we didn’t stay at the $170 one either. The least was $40 with the taxes included. We stopped in Camden AR with lots of motels and there was no rooms at any price so you need to stop early sometimes. We had to ride 45 more miles and a little out of our way to find a room. When you are riding at 45. The weather is bad and you ‘re tired it just backs up what I say a lot. If you are going on even a little adventure. It can get real out here but for now we are safe and still enjoying our ride back. We have never had enough money to go on a real adventure but taking our old 1987, 450 Honda from Mississippi to Kansas and trying to get back to Louisiana so we can fly back to our old home built boat in Guatemala we built ourselves will just have to do.

Old Steam Train in Great Bend, KS

 

Buffalo in Oklahoma

Welcome Center in Greenville, Mississippi

More Kansas

Its in the cards now. We are going back to our boat in less than two weeks. Our tickets are paid for and we are packing all we can in before we go. We are still in Kansas where it’s in the low 60s at night. I am still abscessed with being able to just go in to any grocery store and buy really good food. The biggest problem is what to cook. I like steak and Kansas is steak haven. Here like most of the US if you need shoes, you just go buy a pair you like and can afford. I think most people in the US never think about how different it can be out side the US. In Guatemala where our boat hopefully is still setting in the river waiting on us to return you can not go in to “any” grocery store and buy a good steak. In Roatan I needed a pair of shoes. Finally I found a pair but one shoe was 10 and a half the other was an 11. They were being sold as a pair. You can tell people here about things like that and they will laugh but I don’t think people really understand what it’s like. They were the only pair in all the “stores” we went in that was big enough to fit me. People there are really small but I am not going to wear two different shoes. As for it being cool at night ask any one that has been south of the boarder in the summer what a little cool at night is like so why are we going back. We are going back to prepare our boat to go on father south. Why are we going on south? Here is where people say profound things but to tell the truth we just love living simple and traveling. We could live out here on the prairie simply near our son farm and not even go to town for months at a time but maybe it would soon get boring.

Pheasants in the yard

Living on our boat there always the challenges of living simply along with every thing always changing around us. No chance for boredom to set in. There is always the promise of something new happening and always the chance of something happening that is a first for us. Remember your first at any thing? We have been blessed with a lot of first with us designing and building our own boat and going cruising. When we put it in the water and it was sitting there floating in some way it felt like a first. In front of us is maybe the Panama Canal but before we get there, there’s a lot to see. Maybe there be a first or too but for now we just need to take in as much as we can out here on our old motor bike before we fly back. After being in the Western Caribbean for years it’s so different here. I have taught simple navigation for years so if I look up at the night sky I can’t help myself, I look for the North Star and it’s high up in the sky here. In Guatemala it’s low on the horizon. In the Western Caribbean you have the trade winds. Here you just have wind. The trade winds always blow the same. Here it changes by the minute and can get strong in a land with very few trees. Riding a bike in strong winds sometimes is a challenge. Riding a bike in strong winds going by a grain silo where the silo are every where out here can make the wind whip stronger takes some getting use to.

Grain Silo , not a tree in site

Even here it imposable to get away from politic “where ever you go” they’re some one you will never meet decides what you can or can not do. Here you don’t have to wear a helmet but we do. I don’t like wearing a helmet and don’t if I think I don’t need one but if you have ever had a big bug hit you in the face with you riding 60mph you can guess what that’s like. Out here it’s not bug it’s wild things like birds. Wild life is every where out here. We constantly are looking for deer crossing the road and flying peasant. I have tried to make pictures of some of the wild life out here and here is something you may not want to see. It’s a snake we had to kill that was in the chicken house. We ran it out and let it go but it came back and broke up a nest a duck had been sitting on for weeks. It destroyed the nest. No baby ducks this time. We ran it off again but when it came back again we took care of the problem.

Bull snake

Remember what I have been saying in all our blog with traveling as much as we do and living like we do. “ It can get real out here.” Where a snake is just being a snake or sailing the wonderful waters of the Caribbean where you can find your boat on a reef in a moment if you let your guard down. Maybe our slow ride back to the coast on our old 450 Honda will be and adventure and we will be back at our boat before hurricane season really gets under way. Either way we feel blessed to have seen what we have seen out here.

Farm Life in Kansas

What is it like to be back in the US? We left our old sail boat in Guatemala and flew back to visit with our son in the states. We have left our boat to travel inland in the country we have visited before but this is the longest we have been away from our boat since we built it and moved aboard. I thought I would have a feeling of being home like when we get back to our boat being back in the states. A feeling of relief to be home. Didn’t happen. It was more like coming home early from a vacation. Maybe it was being on the ground in and airport where no one new who we were and we knew no one. Even when we see people we really want to see. We know we will see them only a short time. This has settled forever where home is “ It’s our boat.” There is where we feel at home. What is it like to be in Kansas after being on a boat for half our life. This is farm country flat with only a few trees that were planted over the years to block the wind. That the first thing you notice is how flat it is here are maybe it’s the weather. The two go hand and hand. The wind rolls across the flat prairie land everyday. There has not been a day that we have been here that the TV has not been telling where a tornado may touch down. In the olden days when the farmer need a fence with out trees They cut rock and made fence post out sand stone. To cut the rock they found flat sand stone then by boring hold in the rock. Pouring water in the holds and let it freeze in the winter it would break the rock. Ever where you look there are rock fence post.

Rock fence post

This is farm land as I have said so the people are great, always friendly. Always wanting to help in any way. The food is so good and we have been ask to eat with our son’s friends and neighbors. As I have said in our last blog. The wild life here is every where. This picture has both. Friends and wild life. What do you do when you are 15 and out on a farm with nothing to do. Maybe catch wild lizards and wear them as ear rings to impress your sisters and of course your mother.

Live Lizard earring

We live trapped a raccoon in the chicken house.

Unhappy Raccoon

They’re jack rabbits and cotton tails you see here all the time. Maybe it’s all the wheat here. The deer are bigger than they are in the Carolinas where we were born and you can see them every day. Twice I have had to dodge deer. The wild life every one is wild about is peasant. Sorry I have been chancing them but it’s hard to make them stand still for a picture. Maybe we will get a picture we can post before we go. There is a lot of cows here but the one I like the most are long hair cows.

Long hair cows have longer hair in the winter

One of the things Pam is in to is how simple life is here. Gathering fresh eggs. Cooking where you can go to the store and buy almost any thing you want to cook and eat. In Guatemala it’s hard to buy much past bean and rice to put variety in what you eat. There is no good beef there unless it’s imported from the states. Pork is not cut in any thing you can recognize there but there’s always chicken in Central America.

We are leaving next week to ride our old motor bike back the the coast to get ready to fly back to Guatemala and our boat. To all our friends there on the coast. Put away your fine china and tie your dog. There is a good chance we coming by to see y’all before we fly back.

Still in Kansas

What is it like to be home sick when you don’t have a home. Our home is where our boat is. We will be back on our boat in a few weeks but for now we are still in Kansas. Our boat is still in Guatemala where it’s always hot. Here its been in the low 50s at night and we came with what we normally wear in the Western Caribbean. We have had to buy more and more clothes.

Russell, Kansas our son’s home town now

This is farm country but there are a lot of oil here. Big dinosaur looking pumps pumping night and day with wheat growing right up to the pumps.

Oil Pumps everywhere

Cowboys on horses and every man drives a truck. Trucks are part of life out here and there is a lot of very old trucks here but most of the farm equipment here is past large.

Our son’s very proud of this old truck

It’s almost makes you think they can’t get tractors and farm equipment any bigger.

New big “John Deer”

old tractor

The weather has been not what we thought it would be.

A storm building across the prairie

The weather man said on TV that it is the most rain on record and all the farmers we talk to have said it’s cold for this time of year but it’s something to see storms building up over the open prairie. Every ones agrees this is not normal weather but it’s different to be wearing a light coat in June and where our boat is, it’s dark about 6.30 We are nearer the equator there. Here is still light at 10:00 with daylight saving. Next week maybe we can show pictures of the wild life out here. We are still happy we are getting to see this up close from our bike but it is challenging to ride out here where there is so little land marks. You need a map to go to town and there’s so many dirt roads. Dirt roads are not so great to ride on. A bike in a cold rain with spots of mud but it’s still an adventure and with all great adventures there always some challenges.