Winding Down My Travels

Posted on July 18, 2024 by Maria Langer

As I near the end of my Great Loop trip, I contemplate bringing my boat back to Washington (and elsewhere) and possibly spending some time at home.

Why So Long?

If you’re wondering why I’ve got so many miles on the Loop when most places put the mileage count at about 6,000, blame it on my side trips. I boomeranged from the Annapolis Area to Key West and back this past winter and also made round trip cruises up the St. Johns River in Florida and up to Lake Champlain in New York and Vermont.

If you’re wondering why it has taken me so long to do the trip when most folks can do it in a year, it’s because I had to come home last summer to work — I wasn’t retired yet — and I also took a few other short trips home. The northern portion of the loop can only be done in the summer and I’d been working every summer since 1998.

It’s July 18, 2024 and I’m less than a month away from the completion of my Great Loop cruise. (If you don’t know anything about this trip, you can read about it in my Great Loop blog (which is painfully out of date).) So far, since mid October 2022, I’ve spent a total of 438 days/nights on my 2019 Ranger Tug R-29 CB Do It Now, covering 7,724 nautical miles (or 8.889 statute miles or 14,305 kilometers) in 17 states, one province, and two countries. I’m currently at a very pleasant anchorage in the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, on the Canadian side of the border. I plan to cross back into the US at month end and then get to Chicago, where I cross my wake, on August 10 or so.

Do It Now at Statue of Liberty
I stopped for a selfie at the Statue of Liberty when I went through New York Harbor in May.

If you did the math, you’ve probably realized that I’ve been away from home an awful lot — but not a full year and a half. Although I started my travels on October 13, 2022, I came home for three weeks in December 2022, five months for the spring and summer of 2023, and then a few weeks in April 2024. But other than that, I’ve been living on the boat.

Some thoughts on Cruising

My boat is not large, but it’s certainly large enough for one person and two small dogs, especially when they’re accustomed to spending months at a time living in a slide-in truck camper every winter. My boat is bigger than my camper and more comfortable, with waterfront views everywhere I go. It’s also slower and burns more fuel, but that’s a topic for another discussion. Having a second person on board works with varying results, mostly depending on the expectations of that second person.

With 240 more days of active cruising experience than I had when I started this Great Loop adventure, I’ve learned a shit-ton about boats and boating. I’ve also gotten in tune with my boat, much as I had with my helicopters: I can pretty much predict how it will respond to nearly every situation. (You know it when you have that kind of relationship with a vehicle; it’s a rare and wonderful thing.) Simply said, I know how to drive my boat.

At Go Home Bay
Here’s Do It Now at a recent anchorage called Go Home Bay. Maybe that’s what got me thinking about home?

People see me cruising alone and think they need to rush out to help me with docking or locking. Usually not so. I recently brought my boat to a complete stop beside a man at a dock who had rushed over to help me with my lines. I looked at him standing there idly just two feet away from my window and said, “This ain’t my first rodeo,” before stepping off the boat with a line to cleat up. “I see that,” he replied. More recently, at Lock 37 of the Trent-Severn Waterway, a fellow boater offered to climb on board to help me lock through. I looked him in the eye and said, “I’ve done 35 of these solo so far; I think I’ve got the hang of it.” (There is no Lock 33 and I wasn’t counting the dozens of other locks on canals I’d traveled on.)

Bruce and LeaAnne at Waterfall
Here are Bruce and LeaAnne on New Bearings. We anchored about 3 miles from this waterfall and dinghied up to it with our boats. It wasn’t quite hot enough to get me in the water with them.

But I haven’t actually been alone the entire trip. I had friends on board for a total of 102 days: Janet, Alyse, Jason, and Cheri. And I’ve been “buddy boating” with others since getting on the Erie Canal and continuing north and west. I play leapfrog with many boats. Today, I’m trying to plan a meetup with some sailing friends at a place called Bad River where we can get our dinghies out and explore the waterfall there.

What’s Next?

Here’s Do It Now at the 2022 Ranger Rendezvous. I had just picked it up the day before in Olympia and made the two-day cruise to the event with very little experience. Since then, I’ve added a bimini top, a screen enclosure for the aft cockpit, and a new dinghy davit.

As I plan these last days of a very long trip, I’m thinking about what I’m going to do next. I know that I’m going to trailer my boat back to Washington state, where I’ll have it launched in Tacoma or Anacortes for the month of September. I know I’ll spend a good portion of that month cruising Puget Sound, fishing for salmon, and taking my Washington friends for day trips. And, of course, I’ll attend the 2024 Ranger/Cutwater Rendezvous, where I hope to do a presentation about why Ranger Tugs are the perfect Great Loop boat.

But what about after that?

Well, I don’t want to cruise Puget Sound in Washington state in the winter — that’s for damn sure.

I had toyed with the idea of bringing Do It Now south and launching it in Lake Powell for the month of October. I already talked to the folks at the marina in Page, AZ and they can provide the launch/retrieve assistance I need, truck and trailer parking, and even a marina slip if I want it. But whether I go there depends a lot on the water level; it’s about 6 feet higher than I need it to be now, but in October? And I don’t want to spend the winter there, either.

I can’t tell you how many hours I spent flying my helicopter over Lake Powell with charter or photography clients on board. I have at least a half dozen people interested in joining me there on my boat.

If I have it at Lake Powell, it isn’t much farther to go to Lake Havasu for the winter. But I have a sneaking suspicion that they don’t sell diesel on that lake. And I think it might get boring if the Colorado River is drawn down for the winter and I can’t leave the lake. I could take it to Lake Mead instead, but I think it’ll be a lot colder there. But maybe not. And my boat does have a heater. A good heater.

Homesick

Of course, the main feeling I’m tackling right now is the simple fact that I miss my home. While “homesick” might be too strong a word, I definitely miss the comfort of my own (considerably larger) space. I miss having a dishwasher and a washer and dryer just steps away from my bedroom door. I miss my jewelry studio. I miss my incredible views and my garden and my deck. I miss being able to take my Jeep or truck or Honda anywhere I need to go, anytime I want to go, without having to rely on a taxi.

Home
My home has kickass views and a very large garage.

The closer I get to my trip’s end, the more I realize that I just want to spend some time at home.

But I don’t want to spend the winter there either.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my home. I had it built to my specifications and it’s just about everything I want or need in a home. It’s very comfortable. But I don’t like the winters in Washington state. There isn’t enough light. I’m usually okay until they change the clocks and then I’m miserable, with the sun setting at 4 PM — or so it seems — and my body wanting to sleep at 6 PM. And the Shadow Time.

Although I’ve never been diagnosed with SAD, I’m pretty sure I get it. It starts when we change the clocks and ends sometime in late February. In recent years, I’ve tried to stay home but invariably headed south.

Maybe this year can be different?

Giving the Boat a Rest

Either way, I suspect I’ll be giving Do It Now a rest on its trailer. The good news is that it can fit inside my garage. (You know I have an enormous garage, right?) Although that space isn’t heated, I’m hoping to get away with a minimal winterization, even if it means having to put heaters in and under the boat for the cold season.

But never fear! I have spring and summer plans for Do It Now. I’ll likely launch it sometime in April or early May and spend the spring cruising around the San Juan Islands. But the big plans are taking it north into the Inside Passage, possibly as far as to Alaska. I’m working on getting other Ranger Tug owners in the Pacific Northwest to buddy boat with me for all or part of a trip. Another summer away from home, another summer on my boat. I’m looking forward to it.

And if the bug to buy a bigger boat doesn’t stop nibbling on my brain, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll upsize for 2026. That’s when I’ll start taking paying passengers on 1- and 2-week cruises along the Great Loop.

But all that depends on whether I’m sick of cruising by then. At this point, I’m not sick of it. I just want to enjoy my dirt home for a while.

April 2024

Posted on May 26, 2024 by Maria Langer

Comment

A crazy busy month with another eclipse trip, three very long drives, lots of jewelry making, and homeowner chores.

Folks might wonder why I don’t blog as often as I used to. It’s easy: my life is keeping me very busy.

That said, this post, which is long overdue, will give you an idea of what I’ve been up to and why I haven’t been blogging as regularly.

The Maintenance Saga, Resolved

My Great Loop Adventure

If you don’t already know it, I’ve got another blog where I go into details on my Great Loop trip, which began back in October 2022. It’s called My Great Loop Adventure and I’ve been updating it a bit more frequently than this one. So if you’re wondering what all this boat talk is about, you might want to check out that blog. In it, you’ll also find links to YouTube videos from my trip.

In my last blog post, I whined about having to deal with boat maintenance issues — mainly, getting my boat to a reliable shop that could provide the services I needed when I needed them.

Those issues were pretty much taken care of when I arrived at Eastern Bay/Seven Seas Yacht Services. These are actually two different companies owned by the same folks in the same location. I get them confused. One does the maintenance and one provides marina slips and dry storage. In any case, these folks are very good to me. They worked within my schedule and, on Thursday, April 4, they hauled my boat out of the water for me. While the owner, who was driving the TravelLift at the time, was probably disappointed that my boat didn’t need its bottom painted, I was thrilled. Honestly, the bottom was so clean that I didn’t even think it needed the power washing I got for it. I have a feeling that doing 12-15 knots for hours on end in choppy salt water has its own cleaning benefits.

That doesn’t mean nothing needed to be done. The prop zinc, which I’d had replaced in Florida by a diver, was gone. The other zincs needed replacement. And I still needed regular engine maintenance. All that would wait, though.

They moved the boat into one of their yards and parked it on blocks for a month.

Do It Now on the hard on Kent Island. I can’t see any reason to leave a boat in the water for more than a month if it has to come out of the water anyway.

The Eclipse Trip

Meanwhile, I’d already packed everything on the boat that I no longer wanted on the boat, along with some stuff I’d need for the month. My friend Jason — you may remember him from my “Cruising with a Companion” post (as well as other posts in My Great Loop Adventure blog) — came with his pickup and we loaded everything on board. I had a lot of stuff, including my Lectric bike in a box — more on that in a moment. It’s pretty amazing that I’d had so much stuff on the boat. Jason said it floated higher out of the water with all that stuff off-loaded.

After a great sushi dinner on Kent Island, we went back to his boat — he’s a liveaboard in Washington DC — for the night. The next morning, bright and early, we added his luggage to the truck and headed out on the first leg of a road trip together: to Texas to see the total solar eclipse.

This would be the second time I traveled to see a total eclipse of the sun; the first was back in 2017 and I blogged about it in some detail. I saw that one in a National Forest in Oregon. This one would be on a friend’s 60 acres in Texas, just south of Dallas. My friend Rick, who also worked with me as a cherry drying pilot before I retired, happened to live right on the eclipse path. He was having a party and I was invited.

The drive was long and boring, mostly because the main goal was to cover a lot of miles and get to Rick’s place the day before the eclipse. We took turns driving, each getting about 3 hours or 230 miles in before we’d stop for gas, bathroom breaks, lunch, or the night. The highlight might have been stopping at the largest gas station in the country, a Buc-ees outside of Knoxville, TN featuring a 75,000 square foot convenience store, 120 fueling positions, and 20 EV charging stations.

Yeah. That was the highlight. It gives you an idea of just how dull the drive was.

We started seeing these signs when we were still hundreds of miles from Rick’s place.

We wound up going a lot farther than expected on Saturday, mostly because the closer we got to the eclipse zone of totality, the more the motels started price gouging overnighters. When we couldn’t find a motel that allowed dogs for under $130/night and were just 200 miles from Rick’s place, we decided to just finish the drive.

(Now you might think that I’m being cheap here and I’ll agree that I am. But when I’m in drive mode for a long trip, I don’t like to pay a lot of money for lodging. After all, I’m spending about 10 hours in the room and not doing much more than sleeping and possibly showering. My spending limit is usually about $100/night, which is sometimes difficult when you travel with dogs and some motels want to hit you up for $20 or more per dog.)

Rick was happy to see us early, although we didn’t get in until right around sunset. We set up Jason’s rooftop camper and climbed in for the night. It was cozy.

At Rick’s

I spent the next day working on videos for my YouTube channel. Rick’s home is also his place of business and there was a nice employee lounge where I could get things done. That was after Rick showed us around town and took us to the airport to see his airplanes, one of which he’d sold to a mutual friend in Wenatchee. We had a great breakfast at a local restaurant and went back to Rick’s place. Jason went for a run while I worked. Then we drove around Rick’s property in a golf cart.

Sometime in the afternoon, Rick told us he wasn’t feeling well and he went in for a rest. His grandson, just 21 years old, offered to take us for a helicopter ride. The catch: he wasn’t actually a pilot yet and needed a pilot on board to be the PIC. So, for the first time in nearly a year, I climbed into the front seat of an R44 with a set of controls in front of me. Jason climbed into a back seat for his first helicopter ride. Rick’s grandson — and I can’t remember his name! — did all the flying, showing us around a flat Texas landscape dotted with ranches, residential neighborhoods, and small industrial complexes. The skylines of Dallas and Fort Worth were off in the distance.

Jason took this photo from his seat in the back of the helicopter. I think he enjoyed this first flight, but I wish he could have sat up front.

Jason and I ate some of the food we’d brought along from our boats for dinner.

Eclipse Day

The next day was Eclipse Day. I took a shower while Jason put away his truck tent. We went into town for coffee and breakfast and to top off the truck with fuel.

My pups found a comfy place to sit inside an outdoor fireplace — before we pulled all those cushions out for the outdoor furniture.

Back at Rick’s place, things started hopping around 8 AM. Rick’s employees, family members, and friends started showing up. Outdoor furniture was moved around, grills were set up, and the employee lounge was filled with food. There had to be at least 40 people there. The only one not around was Rick; he was feeling very ill and stayed in all day.

Rick’s son Chad pulled the helicopter out of the hangar. I worked as the loader for passenger rides. But soon he needed to take a break for fuel and he headed off.

Meanwhile, the weather had been overcast all morning. It wasn’t a surprise; the forecast made it seems as if we had a less than 50% chance of seeing the eclipse at all.

Sure enough, as the eclipse began to happen — the disc of the moon began blocking the disc of the sun — we only caught glimpses through our eclipse glasses as the clouds wizzed past overhead. We could clearly see most of the sky and it did not look good for us. But by the time the moon was half blocking the sun, the sky miraculously cleared. I don’t even know where the clouds went! One minute they were there and the next they were gone.

My view, through a 300mm Nikon lens, of the total eclipse.

We ate and talked and took photos. Music played. And then everything got dark and everyone settled down to watch.

This was my second total solar eclipse. I don’t know if it’s because it was the second or if it’s because someone left the music playing loudly or if its because I wasn’t experiencing it in the beauty of a national forest in Oregon after having camped out in my own camper, but it wasn’t quite as special as the first one. Don’t get me wrong — it was still amazing and I did not regret going through everything I had to experience it. But the first one seemed darker and more magical.

And I can’t say this enough: If you’ve never seen a total solar eclipse along the path of totality, you’re really missing out.

We watched intently until the diamond ring appeared on the other side. There were cheers. And as the landscape around us brightened, everything went back to normal, even though the sun was still mostly covered by the moon and the entire event would not be over for more than an hour.

The helicopter rides started again with Rick’s other son doing the loading. They didn’t last long. Chad claimed there was a power issue on the helicopter and decided (wisely) to stop the rides until it could be checked. The symptoms sounded like a sticky value, but it could also have simply been his attempt to fly a fully loaded helicopter with full tanks of fuel on a 90°F day.

We ate some more and started packing up our stuff. It was just past midday and although so many media outlets — and temporary road signs — warned of high traffic that day, we decided to head out anyway. Rick’s wife assured us that Rick’s condition was not something to be concerned about. She made sure we had lots of leftovers, including her excellent salsa, to bring with us.

We were back on the road, heading northwest toward my home in Washington, at about 2 PM.

The Lectric Bike Saga

I need to take a break in the narrative here to talk about my Lectric bike. I’d bought the bike to replace my MATE bike back in September. It was supposed to be lighter and it was definitely simpler and cheaper. But otherwise it was remarkably like the MATE. This is what happens when your Danish design is shipped to China for manufacture: the design is stolen and every foldable electric bike is pretty much the same damn bike.

This one did not have gears or a good suspension, but it did have fatter tires. I think it weighed the same as the MATE, which I sold to a sales guy at Pocket Yacht for $150. (It had issues, but it still ran and the battery still charged.)

The problem I’d discovered with my new bike was that if the pedal assist was turned on — which it usually is — and I was pushing the bike, say across a street, the pedals would turn on their own. That would engage the power assist and the bike would try to take off. If the power level was set to 1, I could easily hold it. But if it was set to 2 or 3, I could not. This had caused me to drop the bike with my pups in a basket on back on one occasion and had caused me to fall on the bike, hurting my knee, on another.

My old bike had never done this. Obviously, there was something wrong with this bike’s computer or something else. I wrote an email to Lectric with the subject line “Your Bikes are Dangerous” and detailed what was happening, requesting that they send me an updated computer if/when the problem was resolved.

They wrote back and offered to send me a new bike.

I’m not an idiot. I said yes.

And that started the process of getting the old bike back to them. You see, I was in Carolina Beach, NC when all this came down and I needed the bike as ground transportation until I took my break for the eclipse and trip home. I didn’t have the original box so they needed to send me one. Then I needed to get the bike in the box, put a label on the box, and get the box into the hands of FedEx.

And that’s where the comedy of errors began.

I told them to ship the box to Jason, since he’d be picking me up at the boat. They shipped the box to the marina where they’d originally shipped the bike. That would have been okay if I’d known I was going there, but I did not. So they had to ship out a second box, this time to Jason. Keep in mind that these boxes are not small.

Here is one of the pictures I sent to prove that I’d used their packing material properly to pack the bike.

When Jason joined me at the marina — which, by the way, still had the box Lectric had sent there — I packed up the bike. I looked for the label in my email and saw that they required me to take photographs of the way I’d packed it before they would send a label. We had no time for that. So we threw the bike into the back of Jason’s truck and drove it all the way to Texas with us.

At Rick’s place, we opened the box and took the pictures. I sent the pictures. The next day, I got a FedEx label that had the marina as the return address. I was told FedEx would pick it up. Thinking FedEx would go to the marina, I didn’t give Rick the label for printing but pointed out the error. The weekend came and went with no answer. We left the bike at Rick’s; I’d email him the label.

On Tuesday, I was told that the label I had was okay as it was and that FedEx would pick it up at Rick’s on Wednesday. But I didn’t get that message until Wednesday — I was on the next leg of the trip. By the time Rick got the label, the bike had already been picked up.

How could that be? It didn’t have an unused label on it.

But somehow FedEx used the existing label. And instead of sending it back to Lectric in Arizona, they sent it back to Jason’s place in DC, where it was delivered to the marina office.

After more scrambling to get a new label, the bike was finally shipped from DC to AZ. By that time, I was already home and the clock was ticking for getting the new bike before I had to get on my way again. It wasn’t until the day we left my Washington home that they had inspected the returned bike and were ready to send out the replacement. I had them send it to the marina where my boat was, which was the same marina I’d received the original bike and the same marina they’d sent the original return box.

Spoiler alert: It arrived at that marina before I left with the boat in May.

Texas to Washington

The drive from Texas to Washington state was long.

We got to Vernon, TX the first night and stayed in a crappy motel where our next door neighbor played loud music until late at night. I had to call the office twice; the second time, at 11:30 PM, I suggested that the clerk call the police, hinting that if she didn’t, I would. That did the trick.

On Tuesday, we got as far as Page, AZ. I’m pretty sure Jason worked from the car that day, doing meetings and working on his laptop while I drove. We stopped in Albuquerque, NM for lunch at a Mexican place that was authentic and a little spicy. (Jason liked it a lot more than I did.) Our route then took us through the Navajo and Hopi nations, which I’d spent a bit of time in when I lived in Arizona. I was very sad to see that the shop where I’d bough my kachinas had been converted into a coffee shop.

We stopped just before sunset at the overlook on Route 89 just outside Page, AZ. Marble Canyon and the Colorado River are down there somewhere.

With the time change, Jason was starting work very early in the morning, so he had Zoom meetings at the nice Motel 6 in Page where we’d overnighted while I got us coffee and then went down to Wahweap Marina at Lake Powell to see whether they could accommodate my boat in October. I was assured that they’d have a slip for me and assistance getting the boat launched and retrieved.

One of the folks there remembered me from when I’d wanted to buy a used rental houseboat there years and years ago. I told him I’d shed a husband since then. I was now fully in charge of my life and able to have some fun. Putting my own boat into Lake Powell for a month would be a blast — provided the water level came up a little more. (I’m watching this closely.)

We headed out of Page at around 10 AM and climbed into the mountains of Utah. We stopped at a gas station near a summit so Jason had a good cell signal for another meeting. Then on to Bryce Canyon for a short walk and look down at the hoodoos. Then back in the truck for the drive down to Salt Lake and beyond.

We made a side trip to Bryce Canyon — pretty much the only side trip on the whole journey.

We stopped for fuel in Bountiful and wound up buying what would be dinner at a DQ there. Although I’d been hoping to get to Burley, ID on I-84, we wound up at Tremonton, UT at another Motel 6. If you travel with dogs, Motel 6 is an easy option for a relatively cheap hotel along the way. All Motel 6s allow dogs and they don’t charge extra. The trouble is, they range in quality, and you never really know what you’re getting until you get there. This particular Motel 6 had been an old, family owned motel in excellent condition that had been converted to a Motel 6 franchise. The rooms looked like Motel 6 rooms inside and the quality was generally pretty decent. I’ve been in better and I’ve been in worse.

The next day, we were on the home stretch. After breakfast at a coffee shop, we headed out again with me at the wheel while Jason worked. We covered miles quickly, but it was still a long day. It was around 4 PM when we drove into East Wenatchee. We made a few stops for groceries, Thai takeout, and a handful of other supplies and drove the final 10 miles up to my house.

It was good to be home, but it was very good to be done driving.

Two Weeks at Home

There were three main reasons I’d come home in April:

I wanted to remove large items from the boat and stow them in my garage. This included the Honda 2KW generator I’d had on board since buying the boat but had never used. It also included a ton of extra linens and clothes and jewelry making supplies that I simply didn’t need on board.
I needed to get my irrigation system up and running for the summer. Yes, I live in Washington State but the entire state isn’t as rainy as Seattle. The entire east side of the Cascade Mountains is high desert with a climate very similar to Flagstaff, AZ. The natural vegetation is sagebrush and bunchgrass; I had planted trees along the road and had a lawn that all needed watering. Every autumn I blow out the system for the winter and every spring I get the system running again and make sure all the drip nozzles are dripping.
I needed to make jewelry. I had sold much of my jewelry inventory to a new wholesale client on Bald Head Island and had very little left. I needed to make new inventory and then get some of it in the hands of my Winthrop wholesale client and a gallery in Ellensburg I sell at. I also needed some more inventory of a brighter, seaside nature to sell to new clients along my boat travels.

So that’s pretty much what I did while I was home.

Here are four of the pendants I made while I was home.

Jason worked on weekdays while I mostly worked in my jewelry shop. He also helped me get my irrigation system running smoothly — it was great to have someone better able to climb down the steep areas next to the road to check and change the drips. On weekends, when he was off, he either went to visit friends in Yakima or in the Seattle area or did other things on his own. He spent a lot of time working on his truck in my garage to install some lights in his camper; I think it was a bit of a luxury for him to be able to do that in the shade, off a city street. One day we took the Jeep out, got a personal tour of the Rocky Reach Dam, and explored a mountain road between Wenatchee and Cashmere. I had lunch with my friend Kriss one day and we met up with other friends at their home or for dinner in town on other days. Jason even came with me to the neighborhood coffee gathering once.

One night, we dined on cheese, crackers, and other goodies in my living room. Great food, great company. What else could a person ask for?

My big disappointment came when I was trying to arrange a trip to Winthrop with my fellow artist friend Cyndi. The same shop buys both of our work and I was hoping to make a big sale to them. But they were on vacation for the whole week and I was unable to meet with them. So all the new jewelry I made eventually got loaded into the truck and brought back to the boat. At least I had a lot to bring with me.

The Trip Back to DC

We had arrived at my home on Thursday, April 11. On Saturday, April 27, it was time to start the drive back.

Why such a short trip? Well, I got my Captain’s license back in October and I had two clients waiting for Ranger Tug training in the Baltimore area. Both were very interested in getting the training done soon and one was already disappointed that he had to wait until I returned. These were paying gigs and if there’s one thing a freshly retired member of the gig economy loves, it’s paying gigs. So I was highly motivated to get back quickly.

Jason was motivated, too. Working from the car wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t a good solution. And if we left on Saturday, he’d be able to split the driving with me for the first two days, rather than leave 75% of it to me while he worked enroute.

My house was absolutely spotless when we left.

So after giving the house a final cleaning, we got into the truck and headed out.

For some reason, we thought we might be able to make the trip in just three days. That notion was swept aside at the end of the first day in Bozeman, MT. We’d gotten a late start and then were delayed at lunchtime along the way. But we were determined to get there in four days.

The next stop was in Sioux Falls, SD. I think that’s where Jason found us a La Quinta for the night. Much nicer than any Motel 6, although it cost a bit more, too. I don’t think they charged us for the dogs, although they should have.

Then Indianapolis. Another La Quinta. This one had a nice Japanese restaurant across the street and we treated ourselves to a good sushi dinner.

Finally Washington DC. Our last fuel stop was in Frederick, MD, where Jason took over the driving for the final stretch. I can’t tell you how good it was to pull into a parking space and know that we were done driving.

What a pleasure to spend the night on a boat and wake up on the water.

Would I ever make the drive again? Yes, of course I would. But would I do it in four days? Hell no. The next time I make a long, cross-country drive, I’ll do it at a much more leisurely pace, taking in the sights along the way.

I should mention here that we put more than 7000 miles on Jason’s truck.

More Boat Service Woes

Meanwhile, a few things were going on with the boat, which was on the hard on Kent Island in Maryland.

First was the total failure of a marine electrical contractor to get his shit together for my solar upgrade. He’d had an entire month to come up with a proposal, get it approved, order the parts, and get the work done. He’d dragged his ass on the proposal, claiming that he was waiting for me to complete and sign a form I never got. In mid month, he sent the proposal and “resent” the form. I approved the proposal and sent back the completed form with a 50% deposit. We established a date to get the work done — which would be right before I returned. Then, when I was somewhere between Sioux Falls and Indianapolis, I got a call from one of his guys saying that it would be 10 days before they could receive the solar panels. That would delay the job by more than a week. By this time, I was having trouble imagining them actually getting the job done at all. I told them to cancel. Then the boss called and said they could get the panels quicker from Amazon and install them with only a few days delay. I looked up the panels on Amazon, realized they were upcharging me more than 100% for parts, and told them not to bother and to refund my deposit.

I got my money back and nothing was done to upgrade my solar setup. I’ll get it done when I get the boat back to Washington state.

At the same time all of this was happening, the guys I’d hired to detail the boat had noticed that one of the trim tab parts was messed up. He sent me a picture. I sent the picture to the yard. They said they don’t know how they missed it. Yes, they could fix it, but it might take time if the system needed to be bled. I told them to get started; I wanted every part of my boat to work the way it should.

Returning to Do It Now

All this affected my plans when I returned to the boat. Originally, Jason was supposed to drop me off at the boat on Thursday. (We’d gotten to DC on Tuesday.) But now I had to start shuffling things around. I couldn’t drive my boat to Baltimore to meet my clients if the boat wasn’t ready to go. We also had bad weather in the forecast and it wouldn’t be good for doing the training I’d planned for that weekend.

I shuffled a lot of stuff around and, in the end, decided to get a one-way car rental to drive myself to the boat and then be able to commute by land to the clients for their training. The money I got from them would cover my expenses.

But by then it was May and that’s another story.

On Adventure Travel

Posted on March 24, 2024 by Maria Langer

Comment

Adventures come in all shapes and sizes. I really am on one now.

Catching you up…

If you’re not aware that I’m on a year+ long, mostly solo journey in a 2019 Ranger Tug R-29 CB along America’s Great Loop, you might not know what I’m talking about in this post. This 6000+ mile trip to circumnavigate the eastern US by boat has taken me the better part of fourteen months (so far) with stops in 13 states. Because I took last summer off and then backtracked from Annapolis to Key West, I’m only about halfway finished. You can read more about it in the blog where I’m supposed to be telling related stories, My Great Loop Adventure.

Lately, as I meet people along my Great Loop travels, I’ve been told repeatedly that they admire me or what I’m doing or both. They seem to think that traveling mostly solo in a well-equipped, small but comfortable trawler along well-established waterways in the United States is some sort of special feat or adventure.

(I suspect their comments are rooted in old stereotypes about women and how we’re considered adventurous for doing any travel alone. After all, would they be making the same comments to a man in my place? And they definitely don’t say anything like this to me when I’m traveling with a companion. But I digress.)

That got me thinking a little bit differently about the trip. I do have to admit that it is quite an adventure.

What Makes This Trip an Adventure

There are lots of things that make this trip an adventure.

First of all, I’m piloting a boat that was brand new to me when I started back in October 2022. Not only did I need to learn about all of its systems and how to keep them in working order, but I had to build skills so I could safely dock, anchor, and use locks — sometimes with challenging currents, winds, or both. Although I had a companion on board for the first 44 days of the trip, I went solo for months after that so I needed to be able to do everything by myself. I made some mistakes — or should say I had enhanced learning experiences? — along the way, although (fortunately) none were catastrophic. Over time, I got a real feel for how the boat would move in most situations and just how powerful (or wimpy) my bow and stern thrusters could be when I needed them.

(I love the look on the faces of dockhands when I pull into a slip so slowly and smoothly that I can hand a line out my window to them on the dock and then get the boat to a stop before they even fasten that line. While it’s true that not every docking is perfect like that, more and more of them are. If my arms were longer, I’d be patting myself on the back every time.)

Then there’s the sheer length of the trip. The route I’m on is more than 6,000 nautical miles — that’s 6,900 statute miles for average Americans and about 11,000 kilometers for the rest of the world — much of which is on waterways I’ve never been on: Lake Michigan, the Inland Waterways, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, the Gulf of Mexico, the Okeechobee Canal and its lake, and most of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. Later, I’ll do the NY Canal System and part of the Erie Canal to visit Lake Champlain and eventually the Trent-Severn Waterway in Canada. My only preparation for the Great Loop trip was a total of 10 weeks traveling with two other captains in their boats — covering a total of about 1500 nautical miles of the route — a bunch of reading, and a handful of webinars which were mostly narrated PowerPoint presentations, few of which had much useful information.

Although the route is pretty much well established, it does have variations and side trips are possible. So there’s no single set of directions I could follow — and I probably wouldn’t want to follow someone else’s directions anyway. I had to learn how to consult nautical charts, facilities information, and reliable weather information to plan each day’s journey. In all honesty, I had a lot of experience doing that from the many very long cross-country helicopter trips I did over a 20+ year period starting way back in 2000. But although planning was similar for these trips, it was just different enough to be a challenge. Instead of just worrying about where to get fuel or spend the night along the way, I now have to worry about fuel, water, pumpout, groceries, maintenance, and where I can tie up or anchor out, sometimes to wait out a storm. I’m not spending a day or two making a long trip; I’m now spending months on a trip.

The Captain’s course I took in April 2023 fell quite short of the kind of real-life information and experience a person needs to do a trip like this. It seemed more concerned with knowing lights and day signals on other boats than actual boat operation. For a week, I sat in a classroom to fulfill US Coast Guard training requirements and although I passed all four tests, I seriously doubt I’ll ever use more than half the information presented there — and most of that is either common sense or stuff I already knew from a lifetime of casual boat operations. Still, combined with my boating experience, CPR/first aid training, and medical exam, I became a certificated OUPV boat Captain in October 2023, supposedly qualified to be paid to teach skills to other boaters, move other people’s boats, and take up to six passengers on cruises.

Dealing with the Unexpected

But I think the thing that really makes a trip like this an adventure is when something unexpected happens that makes me change my plans radically. Such a thing happened on Friday.

I’m early on my northward travels — early when compared to the other folks traveling along the Great Loop. Most of them tend to linger in Florida as long as they can, soaking up the sun before rushing through the “boring” parts of Georgia and the Carolinas. I’m ahead of the pack because I have a deadline: I need to be at Colton’s Point just off the Potomac River by around April 4. That’s where my boat will be pulled out of the water to get its bottom cleaned, inspected, and possibly painted while I head west to see the solar eclipse and then spend a few weeks at home prepping my house for the summer. The eclipse takes all flexibility out of my travel plans. So I left Florida early, lingered in the places I liked, and hurried through the places I’d already seen and did not want to visit again. (Remember, I started in Annapolis, MD after taking the summer off for my last season of work and I headed south for the winter — all the way down to Key West. I’m now northbound again with a whole new crop of Loopers.)

That’s how I found myself getting ready to enter and cross several large bodies of water on the Atlantic ICW in North Carolina: the Neuse River, The Pamlico River, and the Albemarle Sound.

Trashed Cabin
Securing ALL loose items before getting into rough water can prevent a mess like this.

The Neuse River really kicked my ass last year. With an outgoing tide and incoming wind, the 1-2 foot forecasted waves manifested themselves as 2-5 foot waves. I couldn’t speed through them because they were right on my bow and the crashing down after each peak was unnerving, to say the least. So I had to do the 12 miles or so from Oriental at about 5 knots. Each of my dogs puked twice and I got close once. When it came time to make the 90° turn into the Bay River, I couldn’t do it — doing so would have put those big waves on my beam and there was a real risk of filling my aft cockpit with water. So I had to “tack” my way into the turn like a sailboat riding against the wind, zig-zagging until I was far enough into the river to shelter me from those big waves. The whole ordeal took more than 3 hours and I still had to get across the Pamlico River and up the Pungo River to Belhaven. At the marina, I spent an hour picking up everything that had been tossed on the floor of my boat’s cabin and cleaning up dog puke.

Neuse River Route
Here’s a general look at the route I had to take to get down the Neuse River and then into the Bay River.

(I need to mention here that it’s always a good idea to have a boat that can handle rougher conditions than you can. My boat is literally sea worthy — it is built to handle ocean conditions. It had no problem dealing with the Neuse River.)

I picked a better day this year. It was rough with 1-3 foot waves, but the wind and current were behind me. I was able to keep my speed up and get through it all, without making a zigzag turn, in a little over an hour. The Pamlico and Pungo were both kind to me, too.

From Belhaven, I have to go into the Alligator River-Pungo River Canal. I can then stop at the Alligator River Marina at the mouth of that river about 40 nautical miles away from Belhaven or continue on across the Albemarle Sound, which is the biggest body of water before I get to Chesapeake Bay, north of Norfolk.

There are two ways to get from the mouth of Alligator River across Albemarle Sound to the Norfolk area of Virginia:

The Virginia Cut is favored by larger, faster boats, as well as boats with deep drafts and/or tall masts. It’s a combination of natural waterways and canal cuts that go through Coinjock and Great Bridge. There’s even a lock at Great Bridge. That’s the way I came south in October, mostly because I wanted to try the prime rib at Coinjock, which everyone raves about. (I was not impressed.)
The Great Dismal Swamp is great but not really dismal.
The Great Dismal Swamp Canal is favored by slow cruisers, including most Loopers, I think. It’s a slow route that runs from Elizabeth City through the Great Dismal Swamp’s canal and two locks. There’s a 5 mph speed limit in the main canal, which is also very narrow and shallow at some points. That’s how I came north last April and I absolutely loved it.

Two Routes
Here are the two different routes from Alligator River to Norfolk: green is the Virginia Cut and red is the Great Dismal Swamp.

I had already decided to go through the swamp. I loved it so much last year, I couldn’t wait to do it again. In fact, it was going to be the highlight of my trip north. With weather moving in on Saturday and apparently no other Loopers nearby to compete for the limited dock space at the rest area in the middle of the swamp, I felt pretty confident I could get a second day in its peace and quiet, hanging out on my boat until the rain passed through and I could continue north on Sunday.

So I left Belhaven on Thursday and did the 70+ nautical mile trip up the Pungo River, through the Alligator-Pungo Canal, down the Alligator River, and across Albemarle Sound. The two rivers were choppy, the canal was nearly dead calm, and the sound was a bit rough, with 1 to 3 foot waves. It wasn’t much worse than the Neuse had been the day before, but I could not go directly across the Sound to the Pasquotank River because I’d have to put those waves on my beam. So I kept a more northerly direction, putting the waves about 10° to 20° off my starboard bow. When I got about halfway across, the swells eased up — they were wind generated from the north, after all and I was getting closer to land. At that point, I was able to make my turn, go up the River, and stop at one of Elizabeth City’s three free docks for the night.

Thursday's Trip
I covered more than 70 nautical miles on Thursday to get across Albemarle Sound before weather moved in on Friday.

This was perfect — or so I thought at the time. The weather for the next five days would get progressively worse with peak winds at gale force speeds on Sunday on Albemarle Sound. One of the weather models was predicting 10 foot waves. If I hadn’t crossed the sound when I did, I’d be stuck at Alligator River Marina for five days. And trust me: that’s one place you don’t want to get stuck at. But I was sitting pretty at Elizabeth City with the nice calm waters of the swamp ahead of me and an easy path to Norfolk. I even made reservations at the Hampton Town Docks for two nights starting Monday.

The locks on the Great Dismal Swamp Canal only open four times a day on a specific schedule. I was in no hurry, so I decided to shoot for the 11 AM opening. It would be a 2 to 3 hour cruise, depending on my speed. I wound up getting off a little later than I planned — almost 9 AM — so I had to do the trip at about 8 knots to get there on time. I used Aqua Map for trip planning and it told me exactly what time I’d arrive every time I changed my speed.

It was a pleasant cruise on the river which eventually shut down to a straight canal called Turners Cut. There were a lot of downed trees, but none of them blocked my path. I slowed down for the few houses along the narrowest part of the canal.

I called the lock 3 miles out. No response. Too far. I called again a mile later. This time there was some static as someone tried to respond. I kept going. When I called again about a half mile out, the voice came through clearly: “The lock is closed until April 1.”

What?

I looked at Aqua Map, which always shows Waterway Guide navigation alerts. The woman at the lock — or at least listening to the lock frequency — said there was a Notice to Mariners about it back in December. Maintenance. But I could not find any notice about it on Aqua Map or Waterway Guide.

At least not at first. As I instructed my boat’s autopilot to follow our track in back out, i combed through the Waterway Guide website. Sure enough, if I set the Explorer feature to display alerts (not locks or bridges or marinas), it was there. Literally, the last place I looked — and not a place I’d normally look. After all, navigation alerts normally appear right in Aqua Map. This one did not.

It was March 22. I was not going to wait 8 days for the lock to open. I couldn’t wait. I had a deadline. I had to get to Colton Point by April 4. I needed extra time in case weather on Chesapeake Bay delayed me. I couldn’t use up all my spare time waiting to get through the swamp.

Dealing with the unexpected.

It looked like I’d have to go back down to Albemarle Sound and take the Virginia Cut. But I couldn’t do it that day. And I couldn’t do it until the weather cleared out. In the meantime, I had to find someplace to wait out the weather, starting with the big rainstorm expected overnight and into Saturday.

I worked Aqua Map and found Lamb’s Marina. I remember someone telling me about staying there and how it was pretty good. (I later discovered that it had been Kim on Pony last year.) I called. Did they have room for me for at least 5 days? Larry, who I suspect is the owner, said to come on in.

And that’s how I found myself staying at a combination marina/trailer park in Camden, NC, waiting out the weather, enjoying amazing hot showers, and hopefully getting stuff done. Like this blog post.

Aerial View of Lamb's Marina
I sent my drone up after the rain stopped on Saturday. My boat is on the left side about 1/3 to the end of the fairway.

On Adventure Travel

Well, this story went on a little bit longer than I expected and I’ll probably plagiarize it for My Great Loop Adventure blog. I wanted to use it as an example of how unexpected and unplanned problems can make a trip more of an adventure and challenge.

I love challenges — I think part of me lives for them. But I won’t say I’m glad this happened. I really did want to go through the Swamp and visit the museum in there again. And maybe do a dinghy trip up one of the intersecting canals.

But this snafu reminded me that things don’t always go as planned and I need to be flexible to move on from setbacks. Although there’s a slight chance I can get back on the river and maybe into the Sound tomorrow, Wednesday looks a lot more likely. There are definitely worse places to be stuck — ask me one day about the Alligator River Marina or Rosamond, CA.

These unexpected challenges is what reminds me that I really am on an adventure. Maybe next time someone tells me that they admire me for what I’m doing, I’ll remember the real challenges, take the compliment, and thank them.

Returning to Do It Now

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Maria Langer

I finally make the long cross-country trip back to my boat.

I booked my flight back in June, using miles to get the best deal and best seats for the Wenatchee to Seattle to Washington DC (Dulles) trip. I got confirmation that yes, for the third time in a row, my pups would be able to fly together in their large kennel in the belly of the plane. They’re sisters and have never been separated and I’m not about to separate them on what would be a 9-hour ordeal through baggage claim.

It’s All Good — Until It Isn’t

My most excellent neighbors, Sandy and Gary, took me to the airport Friday afternoon. I had two medium carryons, one of which holds my entire jewelry inventory, and a little back pack with my laptop, iPad, cables, and snacks. To be checked was my enormous folding wheelie bag and the dog kennel.

The Alaska Air counter staff weighed in that big wheelie bag and I was thrilled to see it was only 49.8 pounds. (Over 50 pounds and they start charging even more than their already outrageous baggage fees.) That was one worrisome detail removed from the stack of them in my mind. I produced the dog health certificate, which I’d gotten (as required for checked dogs) a few days before. But counter staff didn’t touch it. They had a problem with two dogs going into one kennel.

Alaska Air Doesn’t Care

Alaska Air Chat
Here’s the chat with June confirming that my dogs were reserved on the flight, “one kennel with 2 dogs.”

Long story short, the Alaska Air ground crew didn’t care that I had confirmation on my phone in the form of a text message from their Customer Care folks. They didn’t care that I had done this three times before with departures from Seattle, St. Louis, and Dulles. They didn’t care that I only had one kennel and that the dogs had never been separated and that I had car reservations in Dulles for that night. Or that my house sitter had moved in and and I’d have no where to sleep that night. Frankly, they just didn’t care about how their interpretation of a rule was going to — forgive me — totally fuck up the travel plans I’d carefully made way back in June to avoid the kind of surprises they were throwing at me.

Well, that isn’t fair. Two of the women and one of the men working there did care. But the one that looked like a witch and was apparently in charge of saying NO didn’t give a damn at all. Gotta follow those rules. If they were puppies they could ride together in the kennel. But not adult dogs, no matter how much room they had to move around or how well they knew and behaved with each other.

But if I could get a carryon animal carrier and fit both of them in it, well then I could carry them on board with me.

Amazing that Alaska Air cares more about its idiotic and illogical rules than animal welfare.

Although the folks at the counter originally told me that they’d rebook my flight, the witch gave me a slip of paper and told me to call reservations myself. Did I also mention that she threatened to call the “deputy” if I didn’t leave the airport? Seriously. Alaska Air customer service at small airports is apparently run by small minded, power hungry people.

I called reservations and waited for someone to answer. It took a long time. I managed to get my flight booked. It cost me another 10,000 miles. I was assured that the dogs could ride together in the main cabin with me if they fit together in the same carryon.

But I’d also been assured that I could put them together in a larger kennel in the belly of the plane and that hadn’t gone so well.

The New Dog Tote

Fortunately, my neighbor was still in town. Her husband had driven down in their other car so they let me have the truck and told me they’d pick it up later at my house. They had errands to run.

I did, too. I had to go to Petco to see if they had a carryon that both of my dogs would fit into. The one I had at home and had used with Penny the Tiny Dog would definitely not be big enough for my two girls. I actually had doubts that I’d find one they did fit into.

In the end, I found a decent little Sherpa brand bag with enough floor space for the two of them to lie down side by side. The rules said nothing about the dogs being able to move around in their carryon, although my girls could move around a little. All it said was that they had to completely fit with no body parts or fur sticking out and they couldn’t be in obvious distress. They did and they kinda sorta weren’t. But they were definitely not happy about it.

I stopped at Mission Burger in Wenatchee — highly recommended! — and got the new Thai Style Wings — not so recommended, but good enough. (Pro tip: If a place has “burger” in the name, buy the burger.) I took it home. I texted my house sitter to make sure he was still coming that day. He was. That meant I was sleeping on the sofa in my jewelry studio. (Thank heaven for the garage bathroom!) I went home.

I had a late lunch upstairs in my kitchen, cleaned up after myself, and opened a few windows to air the place out — it still smelled from that morning’s deep cleaning. I got online and printed out the pet policy for Alaska Air so I’d have documentation for what their policy was if they tried to say I couldn’t bring the dogs on board. Then I retired downstairs with my pups for the evening.

I needed a plan C. I booked a rental car for a one-way drive from Wenatchee to Chester, MD where my boat is. The price was remarkably good — cheaper than the plane ticket. But the drive would take four full days. I did not want to go there.

My neighbor texted and told me to keep the truck for the ride to the airport in the morning. I could pick her up along the way and she’d drive it home. At 4:15 AM for my 6 AM flight? I asked. Sure, she told me. I’m usually up by then. Wow.

Second Go

My housesitter moved in with the help of a friend. At about 7:30, he texted to invite me to dinner. I was already under the covers on the sofa so I turned him down. I watched some YouTube videos and drifted off to something resembling sleep.

I never realized how loud the cat door is until that night. I had already suspected that my cats liked to hunt at night. Now I knew they did.

I was up from around midnight to 2 AM. Then a little sleep until 3:30. I woke up, got dressed, did my bathroom thing, and fed my pups. I spent a lot of time taking the contents of one of my carryons and stuffing as much as I could into the other. The dogs were my second carryon. The one I’d be taking now weighed a ton and it did not have wheels.

We all went out together through my new back door. The motion sensor lights in front of my garage doors lit up one after the other as we walked past. My girls did their number 1s, but I didn’t have time to coax them to do more. It was already past 4:15. My neighbor’s lights were on. I loaded up and headed up to their house.

Sandy climbed into the passenger seat. I drove us to the airport, nearly giving us whiplash along the way with the brakes that seemed very touchy in the cold morning air. At the airport I walked the girls again, trying to get a number 2 out of each of them. Lily performed, Rosie did not. Rosie is the dog that has to sniff an area for 10 minutes to decide whether it’s worthy of receiving her poo. There was no time for that.

When I got back to the truck, I discovered that Sandy, who had taken my luggage out of the back, was wearing her slippers. She recommended that I put the dogs in the bag before going inside and I was with her on that. I backed the two dogs in. Lily immediately started scratching on the front screen, but I calmed her down. If she appeared to be “in distress” inside, we were sunk and I really didn’t want to drive 2650 miles in a rental car.

Inside, I had to sit on the floor next to the carryon to keep Lily calm while we waited on line. The witch was at the counter but disappeared, perhaps when she saw me. We both knew that the previous day’s fiasco was her fault; she could have just taken the dogs in their big kennel. No one would have gotten into trouble. But things were different now. I’d be making a complaint to DOT about Alaska Air’s policy shift and what it had cost me.

Instead, I stepped up to the counter where one of the helpful women was working. She weighed my bag and, for some reason, it was a pound lighter — I hadn’t changed a thing inside it. Then she confirmed that I had two dogs in the bag, told me they’d probably be better off on the plane with me, and took my credit card for the $100 dog carryon fee. This was a $50 savings over putting them in the belly of the plane. The savings got better since she apparently forgot to take my money for the checked bag.

Pups In A Bag
That’s Lily on the left and Rosie on the right. It sure is tight in there.

We walked to security and the girls had to come out of the bag so I could carry them through the x-ray machine. They examined the contents of my other carryon, which was a mess of jewelry and electronics. I was briefly worried that they’d confiscate the silver and copper sheet I’d textured and added to the bag the night before — it did have some sharp edges, after all — but they didn’t seem interested. I put the girls back into the bag and went into the waiting room to wait. I put them on the seat next to mine; Lily seemed calmer when she could see me.

Wenatchee to Seattle

About people traveling with dogs

Okay, so here’s a tip when you see people traveling with dogs: Leave them alone.

First, they’re probably stressed to the max. Traveling with a pet is crazy stressful. So much could go wrong.

Second, they don’t want to travel with their dog but they have to. Their dog has to be where they’re going and that’s why their dog is with them at the airport.

Third, they’ve got all kinds of worries on their mind. Is the dog handling its confinement okay? Has it done its business or will it stop and squat in the middle of the terminal? Do they have what they need to clean up such a mess? Is their other bag crazy heavy? And is the dog going to stop in its tracks and refuse to move (again) because it’s terrified of the big, clunking wheelie bags zipping by?

Chances are, these people just want to be sitting somewhere, preferably on the plane nearly to the destination. (Or, better yet, at the destination with a nice cold/strong drink in front of them.) They don’t want to stop so your kids can pet the dog. They don’t want to answer questions about the breed and how old the dog is. And they definitely don’t give a shit about your rescue animal or your husband’s cousin’s dog that looks just like yours.

Traveling with my dogs is one of the most difficult, stressful things I do. (Alaska Air sure knows how to make it more stressful.) I have to assume it’s similar or maybe even worse for others.

So when you see someone at the airport with a dog, just hold your tongue and give them space. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it. I know I do.

Wenatchee’s airline service is limited: just two flights a day now and both go to Seattle. We have a little jet; we used to have turboprops. But we also used to have four flights a day in the summertime. (Remember, Alaska Air doesn’t care.)

When we boarded, the flight attendant at the door greeted us warmly and peeked into the bag, making cooing noises. She was clearly expecting us.

Of course there was a woman in my seat when I got to 12D. She offered me her seat in 7D and if I hadn’t already put away my crazy heavy bag over row 10, I would have backtracked and taken it. But she moved and I slid in, sliding the carryon with my pups inside it under the seat in front of me. It fit nicely.

Dog Carryon
Lily and Rosie in their carryon bag under the seat in front of me.

The flight crew did its flight crew stuff. I noted the emergency exits. We taxied down to the end of the runway and took off toward what looked to me like a full moon.

The flight was uneventful, as every good flight is. We climbed to about 12,000 feet to cross the mountains and descended. The airplane made a sweeping turn to the north, giving me a good look at Mount Rainier poking up above a blanket of clouds. Then we descended through the clouds with the woman behind me fretting about how much she hated flying and groaning when the plane hit the runway harder than usual, bounced, and landed again. We were on the ground by 6:40 AM. Sure beats the 4-hour drive.

Mt Ranier at Dawn
When we turned to the north, I got a nice view of Mt. Rainier behind us.

My girls didn’t stir until the airplane started to taxi in and the passengers started getting restless. That’s when Lily started whining. This is a pretty new thing for her — maybe about a year now? She does it in the boat when I’m trying to dock. It’s very annoying.

I got us and my super heavy bag off the plane. At the door, that same flight attendant told me how much better it was that my dogs could fly with me instead of in the cargo area. She’s been briefed on the troublemaker after all.

I had to take a ramp down to the tarmac and then follow a pathway with more ramps up to the terminal. It was a long walk and mostly outside. I put my pups down, zipped open their bag carefully, got them both on short leashes, and started the walk into the terminal.

They were excited to be out of the bag, walking as far ahead of me through the terminal as fast as their little legs could carry them and the short leashes allowed. We’d landed at Gate C10 and I knew there was a “Pet Relief Area” on the far side of Terminal C, so that’s where I headed.

We walked right by the man with the two Bengal kittens on a bench and stopped near a fake fire hydrant and a stinky patch of astro turf. My girls looked at me as if to say, “You expect us to go there? No freaking way.” Rosie looked absolutely forlorn. They thought I was taking them outside or maybe even home. Nope. We were in travel mode and the quicker they caught on, the better off we’d all be.

Without any success on my mission — to get a number 2 out of Rosie — we walked back to the food court. I dumped my crazy heavy bag and their dog carryon at a table near the coffee and bakery booth and got on line. A latte and an apple fritter. I took it back to the table. While I ate, I moved heavy stuff out of one carryon into the dog carryon, lightening it up for the walk to Gate D5.

Seattle to Dulles

I took them to the pet relief area again with no success. The man with the kittens was gone. I’d seen him in the food court wearing the kitten carryon on his chest.

We went to gate D5 to wait another hour for our flight. The girls jumped right up onto the seat next to mine and went to sleep. Or at least Rosie did. Lily is not likely to sleep in strange surroundings.

Dogs in Waiting Room Sleeping Rosie
The girls got comfortable on the chair next to mine. Rosie fell fast asleep.

They eventually started to board us. Of course, I had to offload everything I’d put into the dog carryon bag so I could get the dogs back in there. They seemed to accept the inevitability of the situation. I zipped them in and put the shoulder strap for their bag over my shoulder. One of them started shaking — probably Lily.

I was in boarding group E and I boarded with group C. I was prepared to tell them that I needed more time to seat myself, which was no lie at all. The middle seat person was there already and had to get up so I could get in. I wasted no time settling in. The girls were already relaxed in their bag. I was amazed at how well they’d taken to it — not that an 8-pound dog has much of a choice.

Another flight crew did its flight crew stuff. The plane taxied down to the south end of the runway. By this time — 9:55 AM — it was full daylight on a very cloudy day. We took off into the sky.

Once we’d climbed above the clouds, I enjoyed the breathtaking views of Mt. St. Helens, Mount Rainier, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Hood. Until the woman text to me asked me to lower my blinds because it was so bright and she’d had eye surgery. (Why couldn’t she get a window seat and control her own blinds?)

Mountains from Plane
From left to right: Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood (barely visible in the distance), Mt Rainier, and Mt. St Helens.

Progress
You can use the free limited Internet to track your plane’s position in flight.

The flight was long and boring. I’d forgotten to bring a pair of ear buds so I couldn’t watch a movie — which normally makes these flights go so much faster. I did write this whole blog post — up to here, at least. And I got a chance to stew about Alaska Air’s policies and how I felt kind of screwed over by this episode. Did I mention that I had pre-purchased lunch on the flight I couldn’t get on, thus throwing away another $10 on this fiasco? I had to buy a deli snack pack for this flight, which was high on carbs and salt and low on nutrition. A bloody Mary gave me the veggie serving I needed. And, between glimpses out the window that forced the woman in the seat beside me to shield her eyes, I napped.

We’re about an hour out now — I can follow our progress on the Alaska Air home page that appears with free limited internet. I can only text people with iPhones (via iMessage) and I’ve already bothered enough of them.

An hour left. If only I could stretch my legs out…

On Whiners

Well, I decided I wanted to spent the last half hour of the flight lookig out the window so I opened the shade. The woman next to me immediately started whining about how inconsiderate I was and how it was a medical problem and how I should just close the blinds. So I told her I’d been considerate the entire flight and I paid for a window seat and I wanted to look out the window and if it hurt her eyes, she should just close them. She she got up, bothering the woman on the aisle to do so, to ask the flight attendant if she could change seats. I tried to explain myself to the woman on the aisle but she didn’t care either way and didn’t want to hear it. But the woman behind me said I should have left my blind up for the whole flight because I’d paid for that seat and if I wanted to spend the flight looking out the window I should.

Well, the whiner came back to fetch her things and got a middle seat on the other side of the plane two rows closer to the front. I opened both of my window blinds — did I mention I had two of them? — and spent the remainder of the flight sucking the view through my eyes.

Later, in the terminal, as I was letting my pups out of their carryon, the whiner came up to me to tell me how inconsiderate I was. I told her she was an idiot and if she had eye problems she should have had dark glasses or a night shade and that because she was an idiot I didn’t want to talk to her about it. So she told me the flight attendant had my seat number — I guess we’re back in high school? I’m left thinking that I was seated next to a childish moron for the flight and that if I’d opened the shade earlier I could have gotten rid of her earlier. Lesson learned.

Finishing Up this Tale

I’m not on the plane anymore. Now I’m on my boat in Chester, MD after a long day of cleaning topped off with a martini — with ice I had to bum from a boat that just came in — on the command bridge for sunset. So I’ll make this short.

We found our way to the outdoors where neither of my pups would do their business on pavement — no grass around — but I did manage to find a free luggage cart so I didn’t have to carry that crazy heavy bag anymore. We went to baggage claim and waited. The moron with the surgery eyes was nowhere to be seen, but I was ready to tell her what an idiot she was again if she did show up again. My giant 49.8 pound bag was one of the last off. I put it on the cart and went outside in search of the rental car van.

Of course, the van driver made me put my pups back into their carryon.

I waited about 15 minutes to get my car. Enterprise had two guys at the desk and each time they finished checking someone in, they’d escort them outside to their car. At one point, no one was at the desk. It was idiotic to handle rental cars like this at an airport.

They gave me a boxy little Kia. It’s cute and easy to park. I loaded everything on board, including my pups, and went in search of grass. I found some at the Atlantic Aviation building. Atlantic is an airport FBO — I used to park my helicopter at the one in Deer Valley north of Phoenix. They had lots of grass. I let the girls out and they did some number 1s for me. They we piled back into the little car, I set my phone up with the stereo, and told Google Maps to direct me to the marina where my boat was waiting. It told me the ride would be about an hour and a half.

At the Boat

It was longer because I hit traffic. We got to Chester around 8:30 PM. I stopped at the supermarket to get some food, but mostly milk for my morning coffee. And coffee in case I didn’t have any on the boat. I have priorities.

Then we went to the boat. I found it parked alongside the dock where they stage boats for the TravelLift. That’s the machine that pulls boats out of the water. My boat was probably the last one it had hauled.

Things at the boat didn’t go as smoothly as I thought they might. First of all, I quickly realized that I had no DC power. Most of the boat’s lights are DC and none would go on. The refrigerator is also DC so if I didn’t get the DC power working, my milk (and yogurt and salad, etc.) would go bad. I used the flashlight on the phone to look for a circuit breaker to check. My brain, after 14 straight hours of sometimes very stressful travel, had switched off. I texted a friend in Washington with the same boat. He called. I was just thinking about the thing he told me to check first when I answered. Of course, it was that: the master switch for the House and Engine battery banks had been turned off, probably by the crew who had installed my new Garmin stuff.

I chatted with my friend for a while as I fed my pups. By this time, it was well after 9 PM — of 6 PM Pacific Time. As I hung up, I looked around the now lighted boat. The place was an absolute mess. Had I left it that way? I remembered stowing a lot of stuff inside that had been outside but found it hard to believe I’d left it so bad.

I didn’t care. All I cared about was getting the bed made so I could go to sleep. I took my pups for a walk — finally getting the numbers I wanted out of them — and we all went back to the boat. They settled into their bed on my bed. I settled down with a cup of water and my iPad. I was asleep before 11 PM local time.

And I slept great.

Deleting the Duplicates

Posted on June 23, 2023 by Maria Langer

As I try to get my 43,000-photo library under control, I find photos from my life.

This isn’t one of the duplicates, but it is one of the oldest photos in my Photo Library. Shot in 2002 with a Canon Powershot 300 camera, it shows my first helicopter, a Robinson R22 Beta II, parked in my hangar. That is an authentic 1800s stagecoach behind it; I got the hangar, in part, because I agreed to store the stagecoach. That same stagecoach is now on display at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg, AZ.

I’m in the midst of a big project to downsize my computer setup. For years — heck, since I started computing in 1984 — I’ve always had a desktop computer. When I began writing books about how to use computers in the 1990s, I added a second desktop. And then a third when I started writing books about Windows. After a while, those extra computers turned into more practical (and space saving) laptops. When I started traveling, the Mac laptop went with me. Eventually, I stopped writing about windows and ditched the PC laptop. But that left me with a desktop and laptop Mac. (And an iPad, but that serves an entirely different purpose.)

I’m traveling more and more these days and my current Mac desktop — a loaded 2007 27″ iMac — was giving me a lot of trouble. Slow performance, weird error messages, system lockups. It definitely needed help, but since I mostly used my laptop — a stripped down 2021 13″ MacBook Air — I just didn’t get around to tracking down the problem. The only thing I really used the iMac for was video editing and when I got burned out doing that, I hardly used it at all.

Now, as I plan for an extended journey on my boat, I started to think long and hard about why I actually had a desktop computer. I loved the big screen — and the second 24″ monitor set up beside it — but it certainly would not fit on my boat. Besides, did I need it? Apple had just released a new 15″ MacBook Air with a faster processor and SSD hard disk. After a lot of thought, I realized that a machine like that could probably replace my current laptop and the desktop computer that was giving me so much grief. When I learned that Apple would give me a $500 credit toward the purchase of the new computer if I traded in the old one — which had only cost $1,000 two years before — it was a no-brainer. I took the plunge.

Moving the Files

Unfortunately, the problems with the iMac came to a head as I was getting ready to make the new computer purchase. I’d connected my iPhone to the iMac to manually copy the 3000+ photos I’d shot during my 5 months on the boat from December 2022 through April 2023. For some reason, about half the photos were copied to the iMac and deleted from my phone and I couldn’t get the iMac to take the rest.

Insert long boring story about troubleshooting here. Actually, no. You don’t want to read it any more than I want to write it.

One of the duplicates: my dog Rosie, front and center, while Lily’s attention is elsewhere behind her. This was shot at Roche Harbor in September 2022.

I eventually used Disk Utility to determine that there were directory issues on the iMac’s main hard disk. It would need to be reformatted to be fixed. By that time, of course, Finder had stopped working and I couldn’t do a damn thing on the iMac, let alone open the Photos app to see if the missing pictures were actually there.

I had two backups. One was a Time Machine backup, but I didn’t trust its integrity enough to rely on it for restoring my data. The other was a SuperDuper! backup that basically duplicated the disk. It was a few days old and I couldn’t remember whether I’d made it before or after copying those photos.

Understand that I wasn’t very worried about the rest of the data on the computer. My important documents either live on or are backed up to the Cloud. I mostly use Dropbox for the important stuff, but I had some other stuff floating around on various other clouds that I had free space on. I also had very important stuff backed up to my web server at my ISP.

It was the pictures that concerned me. Judging from what was missing from my phone, it looked as if trip photos from December through at least February were missing. The only place they currently existed was in the Photos app library on that sick iMac hard disk. (If they were there at all.)

I was worried.

Insert more geeky computer-fixing tasks here. No, not really. I’ve already written more about this than I wanted to.

End of long story: I was able to copy all of my Home folder to an external hard disk. So I now had three backups of my data and could move forward to put them on my new MacBook Air, which, by this time had arrived and already received files from my old laptop. That old laptop was already in Apple’s hands.

As I still struggle to understand how the Photos app on Mac OS works with my iPhone to collect photos behind the scenes, I did the simple thing: I copied my 500+ GB (not a typo) Photo Library file from the backup to the new computer’s Photos folder. When the disks stopped whirling, I wound up with a 43,000-photo library on my new computer.

And that entire computer is backed up throughout the day every day to the Cloud. (Yes, I’ll add Time Machine and SuperDuper! backups when I start traveling and have sketchy Internet access.)

This was one of the first duplicates, from 2006. It’s an aerial view of the confluence of the Colorado and San Juan Rivers over Lake Powell. If the water levels get anywhere near this high again by next year, I’ll be putting my boat in the lake for a few months in autumn 2024.

Deleting the Duplicates

Here’s an image from Photos showing some duplicates. I’ve already gotten rid of at least half of them. These photos are from a cruise to Alaska I took back in 2019 on a 70-foot, 90 year old wooden boat.

And that brings me to what I really wanted to write about here: deleting the duplicates. You see, the Photos app has a feature where it’ll go through the database of photos and videos and identify duplicate images. It then displays them side by side and offers a button (that looks like a link) to merge them.

Of course, I didn’t know how it worked at first. When I clicked the sidebar item labeled duplicates, Photos dutifully began looking for duplicates among the 43,00+ images. I waited. Nothing happened. I had chores in town so I left it to do its thing.

When I returned, the computer was sleeping. I woke it up and did some other stuff before I remembered the task I’d given it. I switched to Photos and saw that it had found more than 2,000 duplicates. That’s when I learned that I’d have to go through them one by one to delete them. I settled down with my dinner to start the task.

And that’s when I started seeing my life flash before my eyes.

Well, not really. Not in that dramatic you’re-about-to-die sort of way.

Instead, it was random photos, in chronological order, from my past. It started with aerial shots I’d taken — or maybe my wasband or a client had taken? — from my old helicopter over Lake Powell in 2006 and progressed to various photos shot since then. Some of them were great snapshots of amazing places while others were mundane photos of my dog or a sunset or builders using a forklift to bring huge sheets of sheetrock through the door on my deck into my home under construction. They were snapshots of my life, taking me through the years.

This is the David B, a 70-foot, 90-year-old wooden boat I cruised on, with just 3 other passengers, from Bellingham WA to Ketchikan AK in 2019. I captured this image with my drone.

I don’t know why some photos were duplicated and others weren’t. I do know that there are more duplicates in later years than in earlier years — but then again, there are also more photos from later years. The photos from 2006, for example, would have come from an actual camera. I had a Canon G5 digital camera in those days; my Nikon was a film camera. It wasn’t until my trip to Alaska in 2007 that I finally bought my first DSLR. And even then, those photos would have to be manually added to iPhoto (in those days) on my Mac.

What the hell?

It’s hard to believe that I used to write books about using Mac computers when I barely have a clue about how the “new” Mac OS features work. Truth of the matter is, when I stopped writing about Mac OS, I stopped updating the OS regularly. I became a mere user, and not even one who cared about running the latest and greatest version of the OS. My iMac is still running Maverick; I resisted upgrading to that as long as I could.

What does that mean? It means that there are a lot of Mac OS features that I simply don’t use or understand these days. How Photos and my iPhone work together is a perfect example — they’re obviously doing something together that I don’t know about. I’ve come a long way — mostly down — from knowing how everything works. It’s weird and it bothers me a bit, but in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter. I spend far less time in front of a computer than I did for the 20+ years I wrote about them.

And that’s kind of nice.

But nowadays, almost all the photos I take are taken with my iPhone. Why not, right? It has a great camera. I take photos every day — sometimes dozens of them. I suspect that in more recent years my phone started uploading them to iCloud which then somehow put them on my iMac. Or maybe when I got home and was connected to the network and my iMac was turned on, some sort of transfer happened. I don’t know (and yes, that bothers me.) When I manually added them using a cable — yes, I’m old school — I got duplicates.

Anyway, the plan is to remove all the duplicates first and then go through all the photos, delete the ones that are crap, and pull the ones I don’t need off my computer for storage on some sort of archival media. Probably hard disk drives (duplicated, of course) and/or CD-ROM discs. The goal is to get that 43,000+ photo library down to a more manageable 5,000 photos. And I suspect that’ll take a long, long time.

Until then, I’ll enjoy this look back through the last 10 to 15 years of my life, which have been full of travel and adventure and all kinds of new and exciting things.

The last of the duplicates is this great sunset shot from September 2022 at Roche Harbor. It was my first trip in Do It Now, a two-day cruise from Olympia and San Juan Island for the Ranger Tugs/Cutwater Rendezvous. This photo was shot the evening before I started the trip back to Olympia, just me and my pups.

An Eclectic Mind

Web site and blog for Maria Langer, writer, video producer, jewelry artist, boat captain, and helicopter pilot. Blogging since 2004.

Tag Archives: travel

Winding Down My Travels

Some thoughts on Cruising

What’s Next?

Homesick

Giving the Boat a Rest

April 2024

The Maintenance Saga, Resolved

The Eclipse Trip

At Rick’s

Eclipse Day

The Lectric Bike Saga

Texas to Washington

Two Weeks at Home

The Trip Back to DC

More Boat Service Woes

Returning to Do It Now

On Adventure Travel

What Makes This Trip an Adventure

Dealing with the Unexpected

On Adventure Travel

Returning to Do It Now

It’s All Good — Until It Isn’t

Alaska Air Doesn’t Care

The New Dog Tote

Second Go

Wenatchee to Seattle

Seattle to Dulles

On Whiners

Finishing Up this Tale

At the Boat

Deleting the Duplicates

Moving the Files

Deleting the Duplicates