ONE OF THE TWO HAPPIEST DAYS

We have been off the blog for quite a few weeks as we took a “land break” for the month of April to relax and make plans for the future.  We enjoyed the month in a beautiful beach side villa thoughtfully rented to us by a good friend, Bev Mellon.  We visited all of our doctors and dentists and eye people and we both passed all of our exams and tests with flying colors, thank God.  We loved seeing our friends and joining our fellow members at St. Andrew by the Sea United Methodist Church.  We have been to quite a few different churches in our travels, but St. Andrews is by far the most welcoming and has wonderful people.

Before we headed north to Hilton Head Island from Florida, by auto, we had decided to shorten our boat adventure.  We felt that we had checked off the boat adventure on our Bucket List and figured that although the market for larger boats has improved, it could take as much as a year to sell Monkey Business.  We put her on the market and had some immediate results.  Initially we got a low offer, from a UK couple, that did not develop to an acceptable level and was rejected.  We  also had two other showings to people who were interested, but had to sell their current boat.  We then had a showing with a broker from Delray Beach who said he had the perfect client for the boat, but we did not hold out any immediate hope for that deal.  We were encouraged by the activity, but did not get our hopes up.

While we were visiting Hilton Head, the Delray Beach broker made an offer on Monkey Business on behalf of a Canadian buyer and the negotiations began.  We reached an agreement and the boat was surveyed and went through a sea trial in Brunswick, GA, in early May and was delivered and closed on May 13, 2011.  A little quicker sale than we anticipated, but we are very happy with the deal and the boat has a new, very experienced owner who will register her in Canada.

We know that anyone who has owned a boat knows about the two happiest days of a boat owner’s life -- the day you buy your boat and the day you sell your boat.  We agree with that premise.  When you are done with an experiment, like living on a boat full time, you want the boat to go away.  We sure enjoyed our seven months aboard and have seen many beautiful places, but the lifestyle is a bit “flaky” and not really to our liking.  We are looking forward to establishing ourselves in a community.  Now we just have to find out where we want to live. 

We also retired our 136,000 mile 2003 Lexus, after we realized that our upcoming travel involved quite a bit of stuff to haul around and it would overwhelm the space in our four door sedan.  We traded the old road warrior for a Chevy Suburban.  This thing is so big it has a family room in the back!  We are surprised at the smooth ride in such a big vehicle.  It actually gets about 20 MPG on the highway, which is not much lower than the big Lexus at 23 MPG.  Mileage around town is not very good, but we only have one car and it is fun to drive and intimidate people in the motorized roller skates some of them drive.  We also feel a little more patriotic driving an American truck/SUV that was actually built in Arlington, Texas.  It looks great with our Texas plates on it!

We are heading to Texas to spend some time in the Hill Country around Austin and NW of San Antonio.  Beautiful country and we want to get a feel for the area.  After that, we will go over to southern Colorado and down to Santa Fe.  We will also take a look at the Sedona area of northern Arizona as well as visit some friends in the Tucson area.  Another period of moving around, but it is a great time in our lives to “See The USA In Our Chevrolet.”

We know this is a lot of news for you to digest -- imagine what it is for us!  We haven’t mentioned this to anyone because we didn’t want to jinx the deal and to make sure that it actually closed, but now you know.   

We will continue the blog for the foreseeable future, as some of you may be interested in our whereabouts and our travel experiences.  Until then, thanks for checking in and we hope you enjoy reading about the controlled chaos of our lives.

Our best to all,

Matt & Judy