All you need is love…and a sailboat

Last week we drove about 1700 miles from Denver, CO to Brunswick, GA. Halfway through Missouri, my mile addled mind saw a funny road sign that seemed peculiarly pertinent. “All you need is love….and a sail boat”.

I mean….obviously. But it seemed like a strange thing for the department of transportation to put on a road sign. I told Meredith so, and she quickly decided it was her turm to drive. Oh yeah..the soundtrack for today’s blog is All You Need is Love. Give it a listen. I think these Beatles characters have a real shot at being big.

“It says ‘All you need is love…and a seat belt’ Greg. It’s a clever sign to get people to use their seat belts. I think you are a little boat obsessed”

That can’t be right. Clearly it’s about sailboats. I looked again.

Hmm. Maybe she should drive after all.

Ok, I admit that I’m a little obsessed. But it’s hard not to be. For about six months now we have been working our tails off to buy a boat, figure out how to pay for a boat (in that order), getting the boat fixed, getting the boat from Panama to Georgia, getting the standing rigging replaced, getting the boat fixed (more)….you get the picture. This adventure is all consuming to say the least.

Oh, and have I mentioned yet that at this particular point in time the only person in our whole family that has physically seen, touched, smelled, and tasted our boat is me? Yup. The family has only seen pictures. That makes it even harder for us all to keep a smile when the unexpected pops up.

Maybe I should just stop calling it the “unexpected”. A day where everything goes right…now that would be “unexpected”.

Let me catch you up.

We got here last week. The plan was to be in an VRBO for a week while we move things to the boat and get her cleaned up. The tricky part of that plan is that the boat wasn’t ready last Monday as planned. Why would it be? We’re only in week 5 of a 10 day rigging replacement. More holdups happened, and it was looking like it will now be ready a week late. For those looking at a calendar…a week from a week ago is today. Guess where I’m not? On a boat.

We booked another VRBO for this week so that we would be able to transition this week (not happening). We were supposed to move to the new place last Saturday, but ended up coming over a little sooner. You see, sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday last week, something decided to die. In the floorboards of our rental. At least, we assume it was the floorboards…the exterminator couldn’t find whatever it was. After making it’s self good and dead and hidden, the dead thing proceeded to do what dead things do.

Rot.

After hours of back and forth and civil (ha!) debate, the landlord was kind enough to refund us the last few days of our booking so we could move. Of course, VRBO kept the fees and taxes, so…grr.

Now we’re here. In the new VRBO. The new VRBO that says it sleeps 5. I guess if you count the couch, that’s true. Did I mention we have a family of five? Still with no boat. Well, we “have” a boat..I think…. we just don’t HAVE the boat. I talk (civil debate) to the rigger every day. Everyday there’s something new that delays us. Yesterday it came to a head, and we convinced him to light a fire under his butt. We got a plan going to get the boat here by Wednesday. Yay!

That was..until today. Oh, today. I hate you today. Today we found out that the rigging supplier sent the wrong rigging. Now it has to be rebuilt, reshipped, reinstalled, re…. GAAAAAAAAA!!!! Now we’re hoping for the boat by the weekend. That should work out. He’s usually pretty on point with his estimates.

I usually say something at the end of these posts to show how resilient we are, and that we’re enjoying every minute of this. But, I can’t do that today. We’re cracking at the seams a bit. So, instead I’m going to ask you to keeps us in your thoughts. If you’re the praying sort… please do that too. If you’re the paying sort, please consider buying us a bit of diesel (assuming we eventually get a boat).

And if you know a couple of very large people that like to scare people, I have the address of a rigger that I can send them to for a nice chat about estimation.

Oh look, I’m breaking out in hives. That’s new.