BeachClub - October 2005
This month has two EXCITING chapters, click for what psyches you:

the "Hurricane Report" (our third in 13 months, Ms. Wilma, - Monday, 24 October, 2005)

the "Epic RoadTrip Report" (to Lily & John's place in New Bedford, Massachusettes (30 September through 15 October, 2005, 3,800 miles in our (now) 216,000 mile /  15 year old Mercedes station wagon (trusty steed!))

Obviously November will be a let-down after this!

Hurricane Report:       The 'begin, middle, and END' of the 2005 Hurricane Season in Stuart, Florida:

Ms. Wilma comes to visit (and she is NOT a 'welcomed' visitor) by any means...

We didn't really 'sleep-through' this hurricane, as much as prepare and endure... we spent a few days preparing, then she wandered through to visit from about 05:40 a.m. til about 3:15 pm on Monday, the 24th of October - UGH UGH...  (though she (Like Ms. Ophelia) had been wandering about for days trying to decide what to do.  I was at IBEX-trade-show in Miami Beach on Thursday 20th and the show people
actually closed the show early on Friday 21st and sent everyone 'back'...  ON the other hand many of those went to Ft. Lauderdale for a boat show on the 24th - I don't even want to think about what that looks like after Ms. Wilma's visit there?

Mr. Bill 'thought' that the 'worst was behind us' when he didn't feel / hear anything exotic from about 10:30 a.m. til about 11:45 a.m. and during that time 3 people called his cell-phone and said, "OH, the eye has passed back out into the Atlantic down around Ft. Lauderdale, and aren't you lucky???" - Well then about 11:15 a.m. the proverbial you know what hit the fan from the northwest at about 60-90 knots for about two to 3 hours and guess what, that's when all the damage started.... So - someone looking at some radar reporting to Mr. Bill on the cell-phone was wrong wrong wrong, but we won't name any names here! and in the future we won't listen to people on the cell-phone who are looking at radar on their TVs?

However - there was little permanent damage, except, perhaps, to Mr. Bill's psyche and I don't think I
want to do this again (be here, I think I'd like to pack-up the house and put on the hurricane shutters and go somewhere else the next time)...

As for previous hurricanes we thought we'd done a pretty good job and in 2004 we'd lost 5-7 pine trees - so there was little that was going to fall-on the house - the key was - would the house hold together (in the 100 mph winds predicted)...  We felt good that we now had real metal hurricane shutters over our four sliding glass doors - and that is / was a good feeling.  However, somehow I didn't count / measure right and we were one panel short - so when they re-stock at Lowe's I'll have to buy one more panel - but those metal panels gave us a lot of protection, compared to last year when we had a smattering of plywood
and other such things - it was good to have real panels!

- Well the bottom line is / was that by the time it got here it was not only moving near 20 mph but the winds were 60-90 knots from the northwest, which is a non-standard direction for us so the roof opened-up to some extent, - along the 'ridge-vent' and the rain poured-in... LUCKily, Ms. May was onto the catching it and it didn't seem to 'permanently damage' the tongue and groove cedar on the valuted ceiling in this part of the house so the only thing to do was fix the roof-ridge-vent ((the part that leaked was the black in the middle of the picture which is supposed to let hot-air-out, but in this case it was letting rain in, - I fixed it, though) and now I think we're pretty-much waterproof again (only the first rain-squall will tell, though...)

There are a few pictures, but certainly not as many as last year - we only lost one 'big' tree - well - two actually I discovered when I started running the chainsaw...

There was a lot of other cleaning-up and we had cell and land-line phone service throughout, but
lost power on the morning of the storm about 09:10 a.m. - but then we got power back today (Wednesday, the 26th) about noonish.  - However, now the landline and the cell-phones don't work, at all... - UGH UGH UGH _ but we WILL endure!
anyway- that's about the end of the Hurricane-Report - such as it is - it was scary (at least for Mr. Bill) but the bottom-line is we lived through it - we've recovered, we actually have power back, now
(Wednesday afternoon) but have lost all cell and land-line telephone services - but - life goes on!
The "Epic Road-Trip" to visit John & Lily in New Bedford, Mass:

Wherein Ms. May and Mr. Bill depart on their 'epic-journey' - to the cold-frozen NorthLand(s) to visit Ms. Lily and Mr. John in New Bedford Massachusettes (with many and varied stops along the way!)...

so - We left Stuart on 30 September, (a Friday) stopped in Titusville (to visit Vectorworks Marine (and get some 'work-assignments')) then to Jacksonville, to see Mom and Chuck, and then headed north on Saturday, 1 October to "Ocracoke Island" (North Carolina) -in the 'Cape Hatteras' area.. - an 11 hour drive (from Jacksonville) got us to the Cedar Island Ferry Pier.

From here (ferry leaves at 6pm; arrives at Ocracoke at 8:15pm) we went across to Ocracoke and spent the night.


Here's the "Island Inn" where we stayed - very nice & quiet and in-expensive.









Next Morning we went for a short-walk to the local lighthouse, and met some new friends along the way... ... ...



OH, OH, OH, OH, - almost forgot - here's a picture of May's most favourite cat, Ms. Siew Mei, sitting on the stairs in Mr. Bill's shop - looking ever so lovely (the cat, not the stairs)... -




Later on Sunday we went to the 'Hatteras Lighthouse' (Much BIGGER than the first - and the one that had been moved
2,900 feet to it's new location, which is now 1,600 feet from the surf-line - in the old location it had been within less than
50 feet of 'mean high water' - way too close to the water 'for comfort'...

Then - on Sunday (2nd October) we drove all OVER the 'islands' of the Cape-Hatteras area, watched some kiteboarding (but it was light-wind(s) - so we didn't go (didn't bring our BIG KITE (a Mercedes Wagen only has just so much room, you know) - anyway - but we looked at this, that, and the other thing(s)... watched some Hang Gliding lessons in progress and then went-to the
largest sand-dunes around (where, (at least theoretically)) the Wrigtht Brothers flew in 1903. (We checked this out on Monday in Washington, D.C. at the National Air and Space Museum).



 
Anyway, late on Sunday afternoonMr. Bill flew his stunt-kite (his 25 year old (plus) "Flexifoil" - orignally made in the Netherlands - probably now made in China (like everything else in the world). 

Ms. May flew her Prism kite and we had 'big fun' on the Sand Dunes and it was a great day...  - sorry -whoops - no picture of Ms. May with her Prism kite - we'll have to beat-up on Mr. Bill the photographer for this failure...

Then on Monday, the 3rd we took "Hang Gliding Lessons" from the premier group around "Kitty Hawk Kites" - and our instructor, Ms. Andrea was quite good...


Ms. May in the 'Hang Check' position - to make sure everything is hooked-up and adjusted correctly.



This is a picture of Ms. May, higher-up than is probably safe, but Ms. Andrea's right there along side, giving directions.



Another picture of Ms. May - nearing the bottom of her ride (of about 10 seconds) and nearing her (near-perfect) flare-landing
(this landing thing is something Mr. Bill never quite got the hang-of - always crashing!


Mr. Bill getting ready - with words of encouragement from Ms. Andrea, - NOTE: she has hold of the 'tether' tied to the left wing - in case you get 'out of control' she can 'correct' (crash-land) you by just pulling on this!


A picture, too, of Mr. Bill in similar air-borne attitude, but because he weighs a little more, he doesn't quite get the altitude...

the gang at "Kitty Hawk Kites" has recommended a place in Florida:  http://www.questairforce.com - we'll try to check-them-out when we get back to Florida / Stuart, perhaps in the next few weeks - but who-knows - time and dollars dependent like a lot of other things in our lives...

Then we went to Washington, DC,



Mr. Bill at the "Air and Space Museum" - the technical details of much of what's here are intriguing and exciting to the tech-know-geek in Mr. Bill's personality...
and spent a morning doing the 'museum thing' (you could spend the whole week if you wanted, but we only spent about 4 hours  - the standing-up gets to Mr. Bill's back...
  
However -  one of the greatest visits in Washington is the "National Botanical Garden" visit. - a few pictures here...


    
and a couple more pictures from the Botanical Garden

    
and a couple more from the Smithsonian Museum - outside the "Castle"  and then inside the Asian Art exhibit area where Ms. May views the 'wire clouds' by a famous female Chinese artist (Ms. Mei-Ling Hom).


Then - we drove (about 9 1/2 hours) on up to Ms. Lily and Mr. John's domicile in New Bedford....


Here's a picture of just 1/3 or so of their flat with Ms. Lily at her small loom (yes - she has a bigger one - seen in the left-edge of this photo - and Mr. John's 'GreenFlyer' tricycle bike in the lower-left.  We also went with Ms. Lily, after our lunch at "Margarets" on Sunday, to a new 'yarn-store' - some very interesting and colorful items, therein-offered.



Ms. Lily does some beautiful things with her knitting, crocheting, and other such 'textile arts'... She's quite accomplished at this sort of thing.  Picture above is: "The Knitters"- 'doing their thing'


However, we presented her with a kite (her beau John is an accomplished stunt-kite-expert) so Mr. Bill presented a short course on the finer points of wind-gauge-use.  small / large
We also went kite-flying a couple of times at the 'historic' Fort Taber in New Bedford - about a 5-10 minute drive from John & Lily's 'place'...



Kite-flyers (minus-Ms.May), on a significantly sunny day (with very very little wind)



  the "Fort" (is really an old, but beautiful 'thing')


 and - Ms. Lily observing how it's "Done"


and here is a picture of Mr. John Hasegawa, - presented by his art-work, "on-sale" at the gallery on the ground-floor of the building he works in for the University of Massachusettes - Dartmouth Campus - New Bedford, Massachusetts.


We did some 'running-around' while spending a week at John & Lily's place, - we accomplished these tasks:



Mr. Bill is working (in John & Lily's kitchen).


Mr. Bill, who's done about 99.999% of all the driving so far (with Ms. May doing about 99.999% of all the navigating) has decided that the reason(s) that they're called 'damned yankees' is because of the way they drive...   AND the roads up here are very very very rough - so I guess next time we drive (IF) we may want a car with a mushier suspension...  Uncle Boink calls this kind of car the 'iron marshmallow'...

AMAZING  how rough the roads are (in the cold-frozen-NORTH)
 I guess from the fact that they freeze / thaw / freeze / thaw all the time...

here's our (driving time) summary:

October 1 - Saturday - about 11 1/2 hours from Jacksonville to the Cedar Island Ferry Pier
October 3 -Monday - about 7 hours from Nag's Head to Fredericksburg, Virginia
October 4 - Tuesday - about 2 hours from Fredericksburg to Washington DC (did the Museum Thing) then about another
9 1/2 hours to Lily & John's place in New Bedford, Mass (arriving after 11pm)
October 10 - Monday - about 10 hours from John & Lily's place in New Bedford to Alexandria
October 11 - Tuesday - about 6 hours from Alexandria, Virginia to Nag's Head (N.C.)
October 12 - Wednesday - about 6 hours from Nag's Head (N.C.) to Florence, (S.C.)
October 13 - Thursday - we're guessing about 6-8 hours to get to Jacksonville to visit Mom and stepDad
October 14 - Friday - about 4 hours to home in Stuart (again a guess - but a good one since we've done this trip

Bottom-line about 65 hours of driving (plus or minus a few)  "about" 3,000 - 3,200 miles - we don't know the full
details, yet, but will when we get home; and / OH, we're doing about 22.3 mpg or so, not bad for an ancient vehicle like this?!

We left Ms. Lily & Mr. John, on Monday morning, the10th, and headed south, and spent that night in Alexandria, Virgina, with Ms. Margaret and Mr. Henry, who is a painter that Ms. May had met through the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach.  Then - we headed south from there on the morning of the 11th, and then on towards Florida.

Ms. May's Clam Chowder comparsion:
- from our New England trip - October 2005

First time (Saturday, 1 October): was at the "Driftwood Inn" (restaurant) at the Cedar Island Inn,
at the ferry-pier (on the way) to the Hatteras area...  This chowder was about 80% clams and the 'soup'
part is clear broth and quite tasty.   So - says Ms. Wong, you'll like it  if you like a lot of clam meat
A LOT and Ms. May gives it a 3 1/2 star  rating out of five stars...

Second time was on Thursday, 6th of October (we think):
we did 'take away' from the FAMOUS Black Pearl restaurant in Newport,
Rhode Island, which came HIGHLY recommended by both friends and family.
We got a (frozen) quart to take back to Lily &  John's place.   Mr. Bill had,
heretofore, NEVER liked clam chowder, but upon taste-testing this (obviously
to prevent anyone else from getting 'sick' - he pronounced this "great stuff".

This white, creamy version of clam chowder, Ms. May thinks was mostly heavy
cream, sour cream and dill as well as some clam bits and potatoe bits.  Ms. May
gives this clam chowder 4 stars (out of five) on her scale of "clam chowder
stars".

Third-version (Sunday, 09 October):
After a rainy kite-flying session (at Fort Taber) in New Bedford, we went to Margaret's
restaurant in Fairhaven, Mass. (right next to New Bedford).   We had bowls of
steamy, chunky-potatoe, lightly creamy clam chowder, warmed us up right away.
So this clam chowder is probably worth about 3 stars on Ms. May's scale.

THEN, on our way home, in Nag's Head, N.C., we decide to get crab and corn chowder
from Miller's (waterfront) restaurant ("Best Beach Restuarant in Nag's Head"
2004 / 2005 (rated by some random newspaper or tourist magazine)).. This version
of chowder is more like vegetable soup with lots of crabmeat.  Ms. May's scale
rates this as 4 stars, even though it's not 'true' clam chowder.

But on the way back to our hotel, Mr. Billy decided we should check-out
Don Gatos clam chowder, which turned out to be mostly (Mexican) salsa
version of clam chowder and probably only rates a 2 star, if that, on Ms.
May's 5 star scale of clam chowder
 last updated:   Wednesday, 24 October, 2005 @ 14:23 USA-EDT;  revID: 2a