Brunswick Landing Marina / Home to Colorado

8/1/17 – 8/13/17

Miles Today:  0 NM

Total Miles: 298.6 NM

We got Bazinga all settled into her temporary home at Brunswick Landing Marina.  It’s a lovely marina with a wonderful staff, clean bathrooms and showers, free laundry, free pump-outs, free wifi, and a very nice clubhouse with many social events – including beer on tap 24 hours a day and free wine three evenings a week.  

Brunswick Landing Marina, Georgia

On Monday, we rented a car to drive back down to Stuart, FL (5 hours) to pick up our car and trailer from the storage lot.   We dropped off the rental car, stayed overnight at a hotel, drove our car and trailer back to Brunswick, with a one-night stop in Jacksonville to say goodbye to Jim’s sister, Donna.

We arranged for the marina’s concierge service to check the boat once a week to ensure our lines were secure, batteries were charged, bilge pumps were working.  The car was packed, the trailer was filled with empty boxes and a couple of items we had decided just weren’t worth taking up valuable storage space….our waffle iron, a dish drainer, folding chaise lounges, and a wheeled wagon to haul our laundry up the docks to the marina laundromats (we’ll use the carts that most marinas provide).  Compared to the weight we had pulled a few months before when we drove to Florida, this time the trailer was filled with air!

We set off on the 2,000 mile road trip back to CO.  We actually love road trips and enjoy the variety of terrain, towns and people.   First stop was Columbus, GA to visit Nora, our sister-in-law and Jim’s nephew and family, Buddy, Nikki, Charlie and Tori.

Then on to Chattanooga, TN for a lunch date with Jim’s nephew and wife, Billy and Holly (unfortunately, Tyler and Tristen were in school).  We enjoyed this time with the ‘Southern’ branch of our family so much and realized, once again, how fast time flies and how fun and important it is to be with family.  All the other stuff really doesn’t matter.

Bill and Holly

The Great Loop route will bring us back to Chattanooga next year.  Hopefully we’ll see everyone again and entertain them on our boat!

We passed through Nashville and headed west on I-70 through St. Louis and Kansas City.  On our “Boat Hunt” last Fall, we had traveled this same route to the East Coast in search of the perfect boat.  We had enjoyed a night of dinner and music in Nashville....

Music flows from every doorway

Food, booze and music - the trifecta

.....and a lunch at Laclede’s Landing in St. Louis.  In fact, our lovely outside lunch is a favorite story of Jim’s – and how, while he was off using the restroom, I gave away the pickle right off his plate to a friendly homeless man who had inquired, “Are you going to eat that?”  Jim’s gotten a lot of mileage retelling that particular tale.  “My pickle is gone.”  “Oh, this homeless guy came by and asked for it, so I gave it to him.”  “You did what?!”  And so it goes……

Laclede's Landing, St. Louis, MO.  Our table on the left; the Arch visible down the street.

Kansas is an interesting state.  The Eastern end is rolling hills, with trees dotting the landscape.  Lots of cattle, some oil drilling and large yards for tractor and farm equipment sales.  Huge grain silos.  Beautiful churches appear in the distance - many of French/European architecture, with gorgeous steeples and stonework.  Along the highway were small signs proclaiming support for life: “I’m a child, not a choice.” “Choose life, your parents did.”

Then come the fields and fields of sunflowers and sorghum.  Our handy smart phones helped solve, “what are those plants?”

Sorghum plants

We learned that sorghum is native to Australia.  One species is for grain production (gluten free) and others can be used for animal fodder, alcoholic beverages and biofuels.  With the gluten-free craze lately, we assume these miles and miles of sorghum will end up in Whole Foods in no time.

Signs for the Orphan Train Museum located in Concordia, KS.  What’s that?  Get out the smart phones again and learn that this was a supervised welfare program that transported orphaned and homeless children from crowded Eastern cities to foster homes in the rural areas of the Midwest from 1853 to 1929.  They relocated about 200,000 orphaned, abandoned or homeless children.

An "Orphan Train"

On our previous trip through Kansas, we had expected the flatness at the western end of the state, but were unprepared for the wind and dust, dust, dust.  At one point it was difficult to see the car 25 feet ahead. 

The sky became increasingly overcast, but it was more dust than rain clouds.  Although I got a bit concerned when I saw two vans, speeding in the opposite direction, with huge antennas and large lettering declaring they were ‘Tornado Chasers”!

Much of the dust came from farmland that had recently been plowed.  You could see the topsoil blowing wherever they hadn’t laid straw or replanted.

We recalled stories we had heard as kids about the ‘Dust Bowl’ of the 1930’s.  Severe drought and failure to apply dryland farming methods that prevents wind erosion had caused dust to blow across the plains for hundreds of miles.  Choking billows of dust named ‘black blizzards’ traveled as far as New York City.

Black Blizzard

Soon we could see the Rocky Mountains far in the distance.  We had made it back home to Colorado.   

Rocky Mountains view near our home - the white ones in the distance.
The lower mountains in the foreground are The Flatirons around Boulder, CO

Home again, home again, jiggedy jig.

We couldn’t wait for 2 glorious months of enjoying the cooler weather and playing with Sebastian in Colorado and Rowan and Silas in San Diego.

Life is very, very good.

Sebastian 

Rowan and Silas

Storytime with Pa