....................--- From Home Back to the Boat ---
.................--- Blanding, UT to FL via PA/CT ---
................................--- Feb. 21 to Mar 10, 2011 ---........................................
Our trip back to the boat in Florida began on Feb. 21st when we made the ....
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... 300 mile trip from our southeast Utah home in canyon country down to Albuquerque in our trusty '99 Buick Century that use to be my mom's car.
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We past Shiprock, NM and went on to Farmington, NM where we had lunch with friends of ours there. Farmington is 135 miles from our home, but our major place to shop if we need to go to say a Home Depot.
After lunch we went on to Albuquerque and got a room at a Motel 6 near the airport. The next morning we left the car at a long term private lot and took their shuttle to the airport. Our flight was delayed about 3 hours due to the fact the plane was stuck in Chicago where there was a snow storm. Finally it arrived and we then took off late for Chicago where we were going to connect with a flight to Allentown, PA which was near Ruth's daughter's house. We didn't think we were going to make the connection, but arrived in time to make the long walk from one side of the airport to the other for the next flight, which good for us, had been delayed on its departure. We got in about 11 p.m. and got a ride with Jane to her house.
Then we retrieved our Suburban from a storage yard and a day or so later went to Conn. to visit my sister and her family. Then we returned to Jane's to visit for a couple more days.
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While there we drove north an hour or so to see NASCAR's Pocono Raceway. We are trying to visit as many NASCAR tracks as possible. This was Ruth's idea and has been pretty neat. On our trip to Vegas to get married and then on to Calif. we visited Las Vegas Motor Speedway, California Motor Speed way and Phoenix International Speedway. So Pocono was our 4th track.
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After seeing the speedway through the fence we returned to Jane's and then on Sat. March 5th we drove from PA to Bristol. Now Bristol isn't exactly on the short way back from PA to FL if you know your geography.
We have been looking at possibly getting a larger boat for a couple years and spending more time on it, keeping our MacGregor during the period of foolishness. I'd found a 32 foot Endeavour that the last two owners had spent a ton on and weren't going to get their money back due to the present market. It looked great on the Internet and the broker forwarded a survey that had been done a couple years earlier and it looked good also. Only problem it was outside of Huntsville, AL on the Tenn. River by Rogersville, AL about 500 miles out of our way. We finally called ahead and made arrangements to see it on Sunday and if still interested having the owner take us out on it on Monday. So we were off to look at the boat.
After driving in a lot of rain, but beautifully country we got a room in Bristol, TN for the night with plans to leave early in the morning so we could hopefully make it to the boat early in the afternoon.
If you are a NASCAR fan you will know that Bristol is also home to the Bristol Motor Speedway.
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We arose around 5 a.m. the next morning and made a slight detour by the speedway in the dark.
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It was dark, but the speedway had a very surreal look to it and we were glad we had driven by. We drove to Huntsville and then on to Rogersville, AL and looked at the Endeavour 32. They had given us the combination to the companionway lock. It wasn't anyway near as nice as the Internet pictures or 2008 Survey. Quite disappointed we then drove on South of Birmingham, AL and got a motel room in a nice ‘non’ chain motel for the night.
The next day, Monday, we drove on to Gainesville, FL and got a motel room in a Motel 6 and then on Tuesday drove to Englewood, Fl and got a room in another ‘non’ chain motel. This motel was about 8-10 miles from where the boat was in storage and about the closest one and right near a Walmart and a Publix where we could stock up with food and other items.
That night we meet Michael and Kim at our boat in All American Covered Boat
Storage. We had meet on the Internet on one of the MacGregor boards and they lived east of Tampa. We had a nice visit and returned to the motel only to be awaken by someone banging around at our door around 2 in the morning. Of course the room phone didn'twork, but we finally got the desk on the cell phone and the person outside finally moved on, but it wasn't a good night's sleep.
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Above is a map, via SeaClear II, showing the route of the entire trip from March 11, 2011 to May 2, 2011, a little over 400 miles.
