Sailing Right Home

The last stop at my “Uncle Brian’s” in Illinois was a perfect ending to our extended vacation. After an early arrival to the marina at Lake Carlyle where he has his sailboat – we had some breakfast, reorganized the car as he went food shopping, waited for his son, Brandon to arrive and hopped on Barefoot, his 32 foot (I think) sailboat! He said he was his worst nightmare come true because I finally made it out to visit, and of course there was no wind. But we headed out anyway and tied up to 4 other boats and just hung out for the afternoon. What more could we ask for than floating in a lake with some cold beers and good company? We had a small, late lunch and eventually headed back to the marina with a little bit of a breeze so we were able to sail for the majority of the time. Aly and I did pass out on the deck for a little while because we were still beat from not sleeping the previous night.

After making it back to the marina, we threw some steaks and asparagus on the grill and contributed to the marina wide weekly Saturday night dinners at the clubhouse. It was really cool how everyone contributed a dish and then it was just a free for all buffet of everything you could imagine. Brian was sure to hook us up with some meat since I told him we had been deprived of meat and protein for a few weeks. Thanks Hole!

Aly, Brandon and I returned home to shower and get ready to go out in St. Louis. We went to the City Museum, which is nothing you would ever anticipate it being. Brandon said it basically was a huge playground that was designed for older kids/young adults. It was a wild place – climbing, sliding, crawling all over the place in and out of crazy holes. Aly described it perfectly by saying she felt like she was inside of someone’s imagination. Pretty wild place – it had some bars too so after we got warm and sweaty from climbing around we were able to cool off with a few local beverages. Brilliant, really. Needless to say we were totally beat by 1am when we got home. We had successfully stayed up about 38 hours with only a few hours of napping here and there. Talk about a great night’s sleep. We were both out cold. Thanks for the bed Hole!

Sunday started off with some awesome breakfast burritos, which go back to when I visited Brian’s family when they lived in Maryland when I was probably in middle school and had not a clue what beans and enchilada sauce was doing on the breakfast table. This time, they were delicious! Loved them. Headed back to the lake for another day in the sunshine, which is exactly what we got. Unfortunately, Barefoot had some engine problems and we wound up having to be towed in by some friends of Brian’s – then going out on their boat to do some more floating, drinking and eating. Didn’t get a good sail in because there was no wind, but it was all good. I also got to meet Brian’s girlfriend Dee, who was really sweet and from Vermont so we had some good east coast conversations.

The night entailed seeing Brian’s other son, Jason, and his wife and 3 week old baby girl! She was absolutely beautiful, a little peanut at 6lbs. After that visit, we went out for a nice dinner with huge helpings. And back home for another solid night of sleep to be off to Ohio fairly early in the morning!

We arrived in Columbus around 5pm and went to the Columbus Brewing Company for some drinks and dinner while we waited for Aly’s friend to come home from work. Had a nice relaxing brewery visit, then off to Joe’s we went for a very relaxing night of chatting and watching TV. No complaints, we were pretty beat.

And here we are only about an hour from home! The drive through Pennsylvania was obviously brutal. Between the truckers and the fact that we did the drive already and that we just want to be home at this point has made it go by slowly. But we’re almost there!

HIGHLIGHTS:

Finally going to visit Brian after all of these years he has been asking me. I get to see him occasionally when he comes to visit back in NJ, but often I am at school and we miss each other. This was great to get to see him out in his hometown. Reconnecting with his twin sons was awesome too. I hadn’t seen them in probably about 10 years. We got to spend a lot of time with Brandon and it is cool seeing what he is up to these days.

Being out on the lake for a few days and just relaxing made us feel at home. It was a perfect ending to the trip.

NOT SO GLORIOUS HIGHLIGHTS:

The lack of wind and therefore lack of sailing was a bummer, but that just means I’ll have to make it back there again for a good weekend!

The engine acting up and having to get towed. Aly and I clearly brought our luck with that from Memphis. Hopefully it’s just a minor fix!

I can’t believe this journey is over. We were on the road for 33 days, drove just shy of 10,000 miles and traveled through 22 states, hitting 10 National Parks. So I’m down a little less than two grand, but I took advantage of this summer and did what I wanted to do that I may not have the opportunity to do for years and years. We saw so many awesome, awesome things. Met amazing people. Reconnected with old and current friends. Tried new foods. Witnessed amazing sunrises and sunsets. It’s a journey that I will never forget. This trip gave me the ideas of where I would like to go back to and spend more time. It also determined places that I am content with what I saw and have no need to return to. Thank you SO much to all of the hosts and those who gave us advice and guidance along the way. What an epic journey, but as always, it’s good to be home.