July 1st we left Reality neatly tucked into the Marina at Boca Del Toro Panama and flew back to the USA to spend the summer visiting family and friends.
Arriving home we were delighted to see Vaughn's Dad in good health and good spirits. . Sharon's Mom, Skip and brothers and sisters were all doing great. It was wonderful to see everyone and spend a bunch of time with them throughout the summer. We visited with our daughter Jennifer and her husband Randy. We met our new grandson Ryan ( 2 months old ) for the first time. Brady, Jennifer and Randy's oldest son is just as cute as ever. He seems to really enjoy his new young brother. Our daughter Shelly had just moved into a new home in Arnold with her husband Chris and our grandchildren Jordan and Chelsey. It was fun visiting them and the kids seem to really love living in the mountains. The only bad part of traveling is we really miss our families while we are away! It was great seeing everybody!
We enjoyed celebrating July 4th American Independence Day in San Francisco with our friend Don, it was great to catch up on what he had been doing this last year. The City is a wonderful, wacky place. It feels good to call it "Home". It is a beautiful city full of diversity. We wondered through the Italian district, then China Town. We rode the Cable Cars past Japan Town, the Red Light district of Broadway down to the Fisherman's wharf. We enjoyed people watching all along the waterfront and Pier 39. The day ended with a wonderful Fireworks display!
We spent the last week of July back packing in the High Sierras with our friends Janet and Mike. We had a wonderful trip. We just about killed ourselves cross-country hiking the Cherry River Canyon, it was definitely not a hike for wimps. The scenery was breath taking; huge granite faces, granite bowls, granite, granite everywhere! The jungle has it's own beautiful but it is hard to beat the awesome beauty of the High Sierras. We had a great week hiking, swimming, laughing and enjoying visiting!
August we bounced between the Bay Area and our cabin up near Lake Tahoe. Sharon's whole family gets together for a Summer Fun Festival family weekend at the cabin. It's a weekend filled with people and fun times. We spent another week at the cabin with our cruising friends Rod and Brenda who we had not seen for several years. They have been sailing in the South Pacific for the last 3 years so we had a wonderful time sharing stories. While in the Bay Area bounced between running errands and visited with good friends for dinner. Vaughn spent a "boys" weekend camping in Reno (!?) with Don, while Sharon spent the weekend "ladies" camping with Janet and Cheryl in Sonoma Valley. We had a great time catching up with and enjoying lots of our friends. The month just seemed to fly by!
September started with a great Labor Day Week camping trip in the Sierras to Union Lake with our friends Maria and Jeff. We had a great time visiting but practically froze to death. Labor Day is normal really hot in California...not this year. We had cold rain for days. It was cold enough that it snowed on all the hill tops right around us! We must be getting soft being in the tropics these last couple years, we use to camp in the snow and rain all the time....and it never seemed that cold before! Vaughn's sister Joy and her husband Ken from Mississippi came out to California for a long weekend so we all could visit. We got together several times with our good friends Sonni and Walt. Sharon, her Mom and sisters Shelly and Sydney escaped for a ladies only camping weekend in Santa Cruz and Felton. We had a wonderful time! Wow, another month gone in a flash!
October 3rd Vaughn headed back to Panama and back to
"Reality". Sharon stayed behind for one more week to
spend just a little more time visiting with her Mom.
It is so hard to say good bye to family for months at
a time! With lots of good-byes, hugs and kisses
Sharon also returned to "Reality". We spent the first
couple weeks just getting Reality put back together
after the long summer rainy season. Then we had a
whole list of boat projects to complete. The
refrigeration system had stopped working, we needed
new batteries and a new alternator. Finally the last
week of October "Reality" was all fixed up and shined
up and ready for a new season of cruising! We left
Boca Del Toro and sailed the beautiful jungle bay of
Bluefield. We enjoyed getting back into the swing of
cruising and exploring with a long 6-hour hike through
the jungle between local Indian villages. The local
people grow bananas and of course fish the ocean for a
living. The men spend their day fishing and the
gather the bananas that are ready to pick. The women
carry huge bundles of bananas in net baskets. The net
basket is worn on their backs, kind of like a
backpack. But instead of shoulder straps to support
the weight, they carry the load of the basket by a
strap across their forehead. They made carrying the
load look pretty easy as they walked miles through the
jungle gathering bananas. Sharon being backpacker
tried carrying one of the baskets for a minute just to
see what is was like...it wasn't easy! It must be a
whole different set of muscles to carry heavy thinks
with your head and neck verses your shoulders....I
guess it's all what you get us to! Next we sailed to
Isla Escudo where we made our first purchase of
Lobster for this season. We bought two lobsters, 2
pounds each, for $6.00. Life is getting better! Then
we had a great 100 mile downwind sail back to Rio
Charges. The Rio is one of our favorite spots in
Panama. We enjoyed visiting the Old Spanish Fort that
guarded the month of the river. The fort had several
huge under ground rooms for storing gold and silver.
The fort was perched high on the cliffs over looking
the river entrance. I sure would not have wanted to
try and get up the river unless I was welcome! We
enjoyed several days in the river waiting to pick up
our first visitor of the new season; our friend Neil
would be joining us for the first week of November!