Season Four 2017/18

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Time for a catch up.  A busy summer at home left us yearning for our annual escape to the South.  The big news from the summer:  we sold our Northern boat (Wewena) and moved back into our "dirt house".  It had been rented out for the past several years but this spring the tenants gave their notice to vacate, which forced the decision:  do we sell? rent it out again? or move back in?  None of the options fit the bill perfectly, so we came up with a compromise.

The mission:  to create an apartment on the second story of our good old house, leaving the main floor for us.  We didn't need all the space and that way the house wouldn't be empty while we're away for the winters.  As well, a secondary suite would bring in a little extra income.  Perfect...  but a heck of a lot of work and a great big mess.  It kept us busy all summer.

But alas, the mission was accomplished, the tenants settled in upstairs and a house sitter established in our half of the house...  and we were off, on our way to enjoy winter number four on Gran Vida.

Jeff cut a hole through the bricks to make
a new entrance for the upstairs apartment.

It actually turned out to
be a really cute little apartment

Heading South

Virginia Skyway offered great views!

top down/heat on

We decided to take a scenic route this time, which became even more scenic as we inadvertently had the GPS set to "no tolls".  We drove through many back roads, cow paths and state forests before we realized our mistake. Sure was "scenic" though!

As per our plan, we drove along Virginia's Skyline Drive, a scenic route that is actually a state park which winds through the top of the Appalachian mountains.  There were just enough fallen leaves to open up great panoramic views and just enough of them left to provide some colour.  Perfect!  With jackets on and the car heater cranked we enjoyed a top down drive in the fall sunshine.

 We continued on our drive, stopping overnight to visit friends Mike and Marian (Midas Touch) at their home in Georgia, and then on to St. Augustine to spend a night with Connie and Joe on their boat (Chesapeake).  

After five days of travel, sight seeing and visiting with friends we arrived at Glades boat storage to find Gran Vida moved into the work yard as requested, dirty, but mostly undamaged from Hurricane Irma which had passed by and damaged several other boats in the yard.  Lucky.