Road Trip!

Hey - let's get in a tiny rental car with 2 cats and drive 18 hours north!  Wanna come? Yeah, the kitties didn't either. Actually Jack was fine, as usual (he's had many vet trips).

Zura, who's only been in a car a couple of times, was less nonchalante about it. We were serenaded for about an hour before she found a spot on the dashboard or rear hatch for the next umpteen hours.

When we left around 7pm, it was in the 50s in Key West. By the time we got to Orlando, the temps were down to 45 degrees. It took nine hours to traverse Florida - no traffic - that is one loooong state. In Georgia we were looking at 37 degrees. When we saw 34 on the car's thermostat, we were fighting over who was going to fill up the tank  - brrrrrrr. It's your turn; no it's yours! Tell me that's not snow (it wasn't). Whose idea was this?

We tried to do the shifts the same as we used to do on Jacumba. Michael would take 8pm to midnight and I'd get the rest til dawn. Here's the thing though: the sun comes up earlier in the Caribbean. During sails, I was relieved around 5:30am. No problem. We're much farther north now, so the sun didn't come up until 7:30. Hmm, that wasn't quite fair - I ended up driving a straight 8 hours (Michael falls asleep at the wheel, there were no other options). Oh well, Michael got his due when we hit the first traffic of our trip just 8 miles from the Virginia state line. Hrmph. We lost about 40 minutes crawling the 20 miles to our desired exit. Are we there yet???!!!!  Yes - at 1:30pm we pulled up to the house. Yay, we're here!  We weren't quite done though, because we still had to empty the car and then bring it to the rental car place. I was quite happy to hand over the keys (we'll pick it up again in a few days; it was cheaper this way).

I was also happy to have the sun go down so I could go to sleep. Zzzzzz. And then we woke up to this (well I did). Ahhhhh.

On Sunday, I managed to pull off a 12-mile run in record time and, for me, in record cold (45 degrees).  Monday the weatherman suggested rain was coming, so it was time for a beach walk (4 1/2 miles). Or a skip (you stay warmer that way).



Hard to believe how calm it is (and no seaweed smell).



I love houses on the beach. If we could just move this to somewhere that's 82 year-round...

The kitties have to stay in one section of the house because there's a puppy (Tico), resident cat (Gossamer), and bird (Skye). I did introduce Jack to Skye, but you can see he wasn't really impressed. He was more interested in what was going on outside. Who dat?

I do let the furballs out every once in a while, they can prowl around on the roof of the downstairs deck. Shall we take bets on how long it takes before one of them falls off? (Graceful they're not.)



They don't last long before they get cold. This applies to Michael and me too, but we're not this cute when we cuddle.



It's nice to be with the mom for the holiday for a change. I hope the rest of you are where you want to be and with who you want to be with. Merry Christmas!