Every Day Things

A week now we have been in Guatemala and on our boat. It’s hard to work on our boat in this heat. Numbers don’t count as much as how it feels. You can’t walk on deck bare footed. Lay down a metal square and go back to get it, you can’t hold it in your hand very long. I’m tired of hearing globe warming. I’m tired of people saying they have all the answers for what is wrong in the world. We were in New Orleans years ago and I was complaining about it being hot there and a little boy maybe 4 years old said, “It’s summer time mister and it is suppose to be hot. Pam and I have said most of our lives (we have been married 57 years now) that we were going to become snow birds and go north in the summer and south in the winter but this takes timing and work and money. Bought that little house in Kansas and thought we could make it happen. Along came the Chinese virus and we couldn’t get out of here and back to Kansas. Back there 8 months and just had to come back down when we thought we could to see what we had left of our boat. The boat is better than we thought but in a mess. Every thing covered in mold inside. Pam reworked a sail in trade for a window air conditioner so we can sleep at night. All the pot smokers here on their boats say every thing is cheap here but there is very little cheap here. Power is 75 cents a kilowatt here at the marina. Not made a plain yet but trying to get the boat where we can leave it again and come back after hurricane season and sail her north.

In Guatemala City

Here a young boy is selling mask on the street and not going to school. You see this a lot.

Here a flat bottom wooden boat is hauling rock and sand using shovels a wheel bars rolling down a plank.

You worry about buying fresh meat here with it being so hot and not knowing how long the meat you can buy on the street had been laying out. If you are worried you can buy it fresh still alive most of the time. All the women through out the world I have seen are not pretty but some most every where are. We were on the street here one day and a girl that was just gorgeous and riding her motor bike in high heels bought a live chicken and rung it’s neck, hung it over the handle bars and left with her chicken. I looked around at Pam laughing and told her, “You would do that wouldn’t you.” She said, “No. Maybe but we don’t have a motor bike down here.” Anyone of you out there want to take a guess as to weather Pam would get dressed up and ride a bike in her high heels, buy a live chicken if she thought it was a bargain, ring it’s neck and bring it home hanging on the handle bars of her bike today even with us getting old. The adventure goes on.

Nice live chickens for sell.

Made It Back To Guatemala

We have been on our way back to our boat. Another marathon flight from Kansas to the Rio Dulce river in Guatemala. First we had to drive 250 miles to Kansas City, MO to get to the cheap flight we wanted. Fly to Orlando and had a layover for 7 hours. This was not a connecting flight and had to get our bags and do security again. This meant only about 5 hours waiting in the airport. Then a flight to Fort Lauderdale, FL and a 2 hours layover then on to Guatemala City. There we were tired been up 36 hours wearing a mask and I’m old. Had to take a taxi to a hotel to rest for a night before we got on a bus the next day for 6 hours going on to the town of Fronteras and a 30 minute walk to our boat. In the bus station things have changed. No credit card anymore and you had to go through a temperature check. No setting beside each other. Now I have another problem with being back here in the western Caribbean. We have been making plains to take the boat out of the Caribbean and making those plains living in Kansas away from the boat up the river in Guatemala. The problem is now how much we love being here. Back in Guatemala City we have been eating street food always a hit and miss situation. Mostly always a miss but “so much fun” to try. A lot here is not cheap. A lot cost more than in the US but street food is for the locals and always cheap. Getting all the way back to our boat we were tired. Mask enforced everywhere. It was after dark and our old schooner was in a mess but beautiful seeing her floating there. Mold every where and the batteries were dead. Had to rig up a battery Pam uses to run her portable sewing machine for lights. Supper was eggs bacon and some bread Pam bought on the way in. Our friends there at the marina had the eggs and beacon for us. Saturday we did very little. It’s hard to rest up with it being near 100F and no air conditioning. Sunday we went to a swap meet and they were just a few people there. Taking your temperature and hand sanitizer everywhere you go. I don’t know how much sanitizer is too much sanitizer. After the swap meat we decided to go for lunch in town. I really don’t like the food here that much but this was okay. I had fish cooked with the head on and Pam had shrimp. Along with it we had chicken soup with vegetables we had never eat before. The vegetables was very firm and had seed like a squash. The soup was very good. This makes eating out fun when it’s good and you don’t need to load it up with salsa just to eat it. Now we are living the adventure of life again down here and the adventure goes on.

Breakfast in Guatemala city, eggs fried, bananas black beans whipped up like peanut butter and a corn chip. On the Rio Dulce river Our old home built schooner we built and call home green with mold and mildew.

She’s in a mess but we are happy to see her.

On the bridge looking at the Rio Dulce

Getting Ready ToTravel

Counting the days now. The next blog we do we should be back at our boat in Guatemala. I have for years tried to tell myself to stop for a minute “each day” and look around and try to enjoy where we are. What is there to enjoy where ever we are? Here the weather is still crazy with snow this week. Flowers are blooming everywhere.

In Full Bloom. Even though they got snow on them last week.

Rabbits are chasing rabbits and birds are doing there thing. Our son gave Pam a bird feeder and I put it just outside her kitchen window a long time ago. We can watch what birds do when we are eating and Pam can enjoy watching little birds as she does what she enjoys doing in “her” kitchen. The old 49 year old truck we drive out here is doing fine after we did a motor rebuild and transplant. We got caught driving in the snow storm in that old truck. Some how it made me feel alive driving along with it snowing so hard you could barely see. We bought a 12 volt TV when we first came out here as our only TV in case we wanted to watch the weather and the power went out. We don’t have a TV on our boat in the Caribbean. We have found we haven’t been missing much living without a TV for years now. There is so much where they are slipping in a political view. I even have trouble watching where they have some one screaming and calling it music. I do like Gun Smoke and some of the old westerns. The news on TV today is like a game show where you look to see if you can find some or any truth in there some where. It’s back to politics again. It’s been a very long time since we had and watched TV and it has changed. Even new country music has a touch of rap in it today. Pam and I were raised in the deep south and I was raised on a farm with some of my people living with the old ways. I learned some of that and today out here in Kansas in farm country I can use some of that and I feel we eat as well as any one in the world. We do miss some of the little things from other parts of the country. Some sea food we miss along the coast like blue crab. Craw fish in Louisiana and I miss boiled peanuts the way they are done the old way in the deep south. What you buy today and what most people have tried is not the way its done. To make boiled peanuts you need to boil the peanuts just as you take them out of the ground before the nuts have time to dry. This is why you see the word green boiled peanuts on what you buy. It’s like the news on TV it’s far from the truth the way they do it. They’re not green when they boil them and it changes the texture and the taste. If we make it back out here this summer we may plant a row of peanut to can as truly green boiled peanuts. Then we can add this to having good food out here. We are going back to our boat with this Chinese virus going on to see what shape our boat is in and make a plan to see how we can get it ready to sail back to the US after hurricane season is over. We don’t plan to live down there this summer. It’s just too hot with us having a place up here where it’s so much cooler. The adventure of sailing around in the Caribbean is just messed up with the virus down there now. It feels like the virus is about over out here. We plan to only be down there ten weeks and we have that art show coming up in September. I’m working on that. I never thought I would be this old and this busy. Here is a couple of pieces of art and Pam’s flowers that were starting to bloom last week that are in full bloom now. We will try to let every one know how the trip south goes. Starting with all that you have to do just to get on and airplane now. We are flying into Guatemala City Thursday15 April.

                                    With some luck it will be an adventure.

Tweedy Bird This make people smile when they see it.

Happy Fish

Tweedy Bird painted on an old burlap bag with the frame made out of wood from and old fence they were going to burn. Same with the fish.

Spring In Kansas

We are getting ready to go back to Guatemala to see what we have left of our boat. It’s been 9 months. There is a lot that happen there at the marina and we are not sure the boat has been safe. I think we have all the paper work necessary to go back with this Chinese virus going on. This trip we hope to see what we need to sail the Pamela Ann back to the US. I’m sure we won’t get her ready to sail back before hurricane season so maybe we can get her in a safe place and fly back to the US for the summer. Go back this fall and finish up. I have put in a lot of our blogs, down there, The food is bad, the music is worse and it’s hot. This is all true and the hot is just too hot for us anymore. We have seen a lot of the Caribbean and don’t really want to go any further south. We are getting old and the trip back will be a cruise but I hope it’s not our last. We want to sail north one more time and try to make Nova Scotia, Canada for a summer in our old home built schooner before we get too old to go. Maybe make the schooner race again coming back. We are not ready to quit sailing. Our problem is as it has always been. How to get the money to do these things. This Chinese virus messed up our money making this year. We have a book finished and don’t have a clue how to get it published. Published where we can make a little money. Not paying to get it published so we can say we wrote a book. They canceled all my art shows I was invited to be in when we first came back. Selling art or getting a book published to make money without the Chinese virus going on is almost impossible. Working on boats doing sails and canvas is just as hard out here. There are some lakes out here but no cruising boats. There is just no work like that out here. I have already said in our last blog we have an art show coming up in the fall that I need 50 pieces for. Doing art and writing books not knowing how to sell something is like sailing into the night with out a chart going nowhere. What do you do? I keep telling myself you have to have product before you can sell so we are working on our art and writing another book. Living out here on the prairie spring is coming.

We did not even know we had tulips. They popped out of the ground and now they are starting to bloom.

The little birds are busy making nest and things are beginning to grow. We were raised on farms and I thought I would be a farmer when I was young. Didn’t happen. We love living simple and that is easy out here. When we go back to our boat we will be making sausage down there but it want be as good as what we make up here. The meat is better here. We grow our own sage here.

Made sausage for the last time before we leave to go back to Guatemala.

I have heard there are other places where the steak is the best in the world. They would have to prove it to me. Out here in Kansas I have bought rib eyes for $6 a pound and cut them myself. We have three grills and people are still giving us more grills. The 18 below with 40 mph winds is over for this year and it’s bike weather out here now. You cant believe what Pam can hall on our old motor bike. We have little over a week before we go back to our boat. The adventure goes on

One of the studies I am working on hoping to get it done soon.