Somali pirates kill American sailors

Four sailors were killed today. Jean and Scott Adam, Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle became the first Americans to be murdered by Somali pirates. They were sailing the Adams' 58-foot yacht, Quest, several hundred miles south of Oman last Friday when they were boarded and taken hostage. U.S. warships intercepted the pirates as they steered the Adams' boat toward Somalia and attempted to negotiate the hostages' release. Earlier today, for unknown reasons, the pirates believed they were under attack. They fired a rocket-propelled grenade at one of the warships and then killed or mortally wounded all four hostages. U.S. troops moved in, killed two of the pirates and captured the rest.

When I heard this story on the radio this morning while driving to work, I couldn't believe it. As a sailor myself, I have been closely following the piracy situation in Somalia for years. It started in the early 1990s with commercial freighters cruising close to Somalia's shores, but lately it seems that any-sized boat in the Arabian Sea is fair game. In October, 2009, when I heard about Paul and Rachel Chandler, the British sailing couple who were taken hostage in the Seychelles, more than a thousand miles off the coast, I thought that things had gotten completely out of control, but today's tragedy takes it to unprecedented levels.

Farah, the pirates' leader, has vowed revenge on America for his lost comrades and his lost investment in the botched operation, which he claims cost him $110,000. His gall is unconscionable. If there is to be any revenge, I believe it will be by America against him and his comrades. Enough is enough.

Packers win the Super Bowl!

About a year ago, I came to grips with the fact that my cherished L.L. Bean golden retriever baseball cap was past its prime and in need of replacement. I searched the Internet for another one, without success, and went with Plan B instead. As a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan, I thought maybe I could find a decent-looking team cap, but most were downright hideous. Then I happened to see Brett Favre walking the sidelines during the Vikings-Packers game wearing a simple beige cap with the Minnesota Vikings logo on it. I thought, if I could get that cap with a Packers logo, I'd wear it with pride. I found it at the Football Fanatics website, ordered it and have been wearing it ever since.

What does a baseball cap have to do with the Packers winning the Super Bowl, you ask? Well, back in September, when Nan and I were in Isla Mujeres, we whiled away an afternoon drinking margaritas and watching the raindrops drip off the palapas at Chuuk Kay, the new restaurant where our Isla buddy Ventura works. A gentleman at a nearby table was also wearing a Packers cap and we happened to pass on our way to and from the baño. I mentioned that the Packers were looking pretty good this season. They had beaten the dreaded Chicago Bears earlier in the week, a game we had watched at Brisas Grill, where our good friend Juan works, and I was feeling pretty positive about their prospects. He nodded in agreement, so I told him how I really felt: "They're Super Bowl bound!" Maybe it was the margaritas going to my head. He shook his head and said he didn't think there was much chance of that happening. We went our separate ways.

Well, I'm not much for saying I told you so, but boy oh boy! So I'll just say this: "How 'bout dem Packers, eh?! You gotta believe!"

Oops! The Packers actually lost that game to the Bears in September, but the Packers led most of the game and it came down to a field goal at the end.

Cape Horn to Starboard

I recently finished reading my friend John Kretschmer's first book, Cape Horn to Starboard: The Classic Chronicle of Rounding the Horn in a 32-foot Sloop. It had been out of print for a few years, but it was republished last fall with a new introduction and afterword. I have enjoyed all of John's other books, so I was excited to read this one. It didn't disappoint.

In the fall of 1983, when he was only 25 years old, John and his crew sailed a Contessa 32 from New York to San Francisco by way of Cape Horn, replicating the route of the nineteenth-century clipper ships. His youth and relative lack of sailing experience proved to be an asset, as he didn't know what he didn't know, or he never would have considered such a crazy adventure. As John wrote to me in an email message last week, "Rereading the galleys I was amazed at my own audacity, what was I thinking?"

The feat gained him and his crew instant fame for sailing the smallest boat to date around the Horn. John states modestly in his afterword that their arrival in San Francisco must have occurred on "a slow news day" based on the grand reception they received from Mayor Dianne Feinstein and the local news media and later from Dan Rather and CBS News. When the commotion died down, John embarked on a career as a delivery captain, which is detailed in his second book, Flirting with Mermaids: The Unpredictable Life of a Sailboat Delivery Skipper.

John and I are the same age, so as I read his book I couldn't help but think about what I was doing with my life while John was sailing around the Horn. All I was doing was trying to get a second degree, in engineering this time, and working part-time at a Milwaukee hospital, where I met my future wife, Nan. My greatest ambitions revolved around planning annual backpacking trips with my friend, Dave Beckwith. It all seems so "small potatoes" compared to what John was doing. Maybe, at an unconscious level, that's why my ambitions now are so, well, ambitious.

Life in Isla Mujeres

As a contrast to my post from a couple of weeks ago, Life in Grand Junction, here are my observations on life in Isla Mujeres, based on the month we lived there with our dog, Scout, in September and October of 2009:

The flash of red behind my eyelids wakes me up an instant before the thunder crashes and brings me fully awake. It is early dawn and another thunderstorm is moving through. I hear the heavy raindrops drumming on the awning that covers our rooftop patio. I hear the hum of the air conditioner above the bed and the soft clank-clank of the ceiling fan in the next room. Scout shifts and resettles on his mat next to the bed. I reach out to put my arm around Nan but she is already up.

I smell coffee brewing and think about getting up to get a cup. I hear the startup tone of the laptop and lift my head to see Nan's face illuminated by its glow. Her email account is her connection to home. Careful not to step on Scout, I get up, put on a bathrobe and go out to the kitchen. Nan greets me from her perch on a bar stool in front of the laptop and we comment on the weather. It looks as though the storm will pass soon. The windows are fogged with condensation on the inside and streaked with rain on the outside.

I get a cup of coffee and sit in a wicker chair in the living area with my book, Ken Follett's World Without End. After a few paragraphs, I am engrossed in the story. I reach for my cup several minutes later but the coffee is cold. I look up to see that Nan is dressed for a walk. I look outside and see that it has stopped raining. Steam is rising from the asphalt and from the beach across the street. I put the book down and go into the bedroom to get dressed. I put on lightweight nylon shorts, a beach shirt, a baseball cap and boat shoes. Sensing an imminent walk, Scout rouses, stretches and goes to the kitchen for a drink from his water bowl. I clip him to his leash and we leave our cool, dry penthouse apartment at Color de Verano.

The heat and humidity in the hallway are intense, like entering a steam room. I start to sweat. We hurry down the stairs and out into the street. A light breeze rustles the palm trees along Avenida Rueda Medina. We jump puddles crossing the street and kick off our shoes on the beach. The sand is pockmarked like the moon from the rain. Its thin crust is wet and cool, but the sand beneath is dry and warm. We walk to the water and cool our feet. Four miles across the water, I can barely see the buildings of Cancun through the haze and humidity. Scout wades out far enough to get his tummy wet in the small lapping waves, then leaps back out and shakes water all over us.

We turn north and walk along the water's edge. It is only 7:00 but young men are already out cleaning the beach and positioning beach chairs and umbrellas for the tourists. We wish them buenos dias and they smile. Some gesture to their chairs, though the sun is still low and barely poking through the clouds. Luego, we say. We reach the furthest northwest corner of the island. The water is choppy from the meeting of the currents. Giant black cloth tubes full of sand have been placed here as breakwaters to prevent all the sand from washing over to Cancun. We climb over them and turn east. The water is calmer on this side and Scout wades out far enough to swim a bit and cool down.

Up the beach, in the distance, we see a pack of feral dogs. We do not want Scout to interact with them for fear of a fight or what he might catch. The dogs spot us and start to approach. Nan walks ahead to shoo them away. Off to the right, where a street deadends at the beach, we hear a voice call to the dogs. We see a one-armed man standing next to an old bicycle, smoking a cigarette. The dogs run to him and he rides away with them in pursuit, the cigarette dangling from his mouth.

We reach the island's northeast corner, where the Hotel Na Balam is located. We used to stay there but we don't anymore. The first time we came to the island, in 1998, the beach there extended out more than a hundred yards from the hotel's beach bar. Now the water is lapping at the roots of the palm trees right outside the bar's stone walls. Hurricanes have scoured away the entire beach. We step lightly along the wall, looking into the open-air restaurant to see if any of our old friends is still working there. We see familiar faces but can't place the names.

We turn south and step carefully over strings of sulfur-smelling seaweed. A man that Nan nicknamed "Mucho Trabajo" during our first visit to the island is raking the seaweed into piles. We wave and say hola. He looks up, smiles and nods, then goes back to his raking. We step over the wooden bridge that leads out to the Avalon Reef Hotel and continue south. The beach ends at an outcropping of volcanic rock. We put our shoes back on and step carefully over the sharp rock. The sun has moved higher in the sky and there is no shade. I feel the back of my shirt stick to my skin. The rock ends and we cross a stretch of pebbly beach and shells, then climb up concrete steps to the embarcadero that runs along the island's west coast. We pass a series of abandoned buildings, cinder block shells of hurricane-ravaged luxury hotels.

We turn west on to the promenade that leads to the island's central plaza. Nan goes in to the mercado across from the plaza for some groceries. Scout and I wait outside in the shade of an ancient willow tree. I am sweating profusely. Scout is panting. Nan walks out with two plastic bags and hands me the heavier one. We continue west toward the ferry dock and then turn north to walk in the shade of the palm trees that line Avenida Rueda Medina and complete our loop of the island's north end.

Hiking Serpents Trail

The Colorado National Monument is practically right outside our back door, but we rarely visit because it is a National Park and dogs are not allowed. As conscientious dog owners, we naturally want to go where our dog is welcome. As a result, we have missed many excellent hiking opportunities.

When my friend John Sasso called me on Friday afternoon to ask if I would be interested in hiking Serpents Trail, which is located in the Monument, my first impulse was to say no. It wouldn't be fair to Scout. But I checked with Nan and she said that I should go, that she would take Scout for his afternoon walk in the neighborhood.

John picked me up at around 2:30 and we were at the trailhead off Monument Road less than fifteen minutes later. As we started out, John explained that Serpents Trail was part of the original road that the Monument's earliest advocate, John Otto, had built in the early 1900s to enable transportation from the valley floor to the rim. It was first used as a pack trail for horses and mules but later widened for early automobiles. The "trail" was considerably wider and smoother than I would have guessed it to be, and I could imagine a Model T rumbling slowly up it.

When we reached one of the higher-up hairpin curves, from which the trail undoubtedly gets its name, John pointed out a sloping shelf of sandstone and said it was a shortcut that would reconnect with the trail higher up. I followed him as he walked the steep, narrow shelf, one foot in front of the other, consciously not looking to the left, where the shelf dropped into a deep, dark crack. As John said, "You wouldn't want to fall here."

We did indeed reconnect with the trail, and a little ways later, the trail reconnected with the paved road that has replaced it as the motorized way to the rim. The first photo was taken at that intersection and shows that there is a significant elevation gain in the forty or so minutes that it takes to hike up from the trailhead. That's Grand Mesa over my left shoulder, almost obscured by a "brown cloud" of air pollution on an otherwise crystal clear day.

We turned around and retraced our steps, including the dangerous sandstone shortcut. Back on the trail, around another endless curve, John pointed out the way to what he calls "Otto's Nipple," a breast-shaped cone of sandstone a few hundred yards off the trail. We picked our way carefully through the snow and up a short vertical sandstone pitch to get to it. In his photo, John almost looks like he could launch into freefall from the summit tip. I took the more cautious approach and sat for my photo, which shows a sweeping panorama of the Grand Valley, including the city of Grand Junction and the distant Book Cliffs. Click any of the photos for full-size views.

Now that I have had a little taste of what I have been missing by not hiking in the Monument, I will need to figure out a way to get up there more often. John is an avid rock climber, and he has offered to take me up Independence Monument, a difficult sandstone tower first climbed by--you guessed it--John Otto. I can't wait!

Happy Birthday, Nan!

Mystery Meat

One afternoon last week, I was working in our upstairs home office, with Scout at my feet, when I was startled to hear a loud thump. Scout and I looked at each other, thinking, "What was that?!" We have mourning doves bounce off our windows occasionally with a similar sound, but this thump sounded like it had originated from the front door. It could have been a delivery person dropping a package on our front porch, but Scout normally barks when he hears one coming and he was being quiet. Thinking I should investigate, I went down the stairs far enough to look out the transom window above the door. I didn't see a FedEx or UPS truck idling out front, so I went back to work.

A couple of hours later, I opened the front door to take Scout out for his walk and saw through the glass storm door that there was something unusual sitting on the porch. When I opened the storm door, Scout scooted out ahead of me to see what it was. I yelled at him to leave it and then bent close to see for myself. It was a piece of frozen meat. It was about the size of a pork chop but looked more like a flattened chicken thigh without the skin. I picked it up to keep it away from Scout and noted that it must have been frozen before it landed on the porch, or it would have left a wet mark. I looked up at the transom window and saw a fresh smudge on the glass next to the wreath we hang up there every Christmas. Someone had thrown a frozen piece of meat at our window!

Have you ever heard of such a thing? It's now almost a week later and I have told a number of people this story. No one has a plausible explanation.

Life in Grand Junction

It is a little before 7:00 when Scout jumps off the bed. I hear him plop down at the top of the stairs and let out a soft whine. I roll onto my back and try to gauge the day. It is still mostly dark. Scout whines again. He must have a pressing need. I get up, go to the bathroom and then open the bedroom shades. It is gloomy out, with overcast skies and a new dusting of snow on our next-door neighbor's roof. On the street that runs down the opposite hill to meet the neighborhood's main boulevard, I see the vehicles of early commuters, their headlights off, appearing as shapeless blobs moving slowly down the slippery hill in the pre-dawn darkness. I go into the office to turn on the computer and then give Scout a scratch as I maneuver past him and down the stairs to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. I give him another scratch as I head back up the stairs and into the office to check my email. Nothing new.

As I get dressed, I hear Scout go down the stairs and thump down at the bottom in anticipation of his walk. I follow him down and check the outside thermometer. It reads 14 degrees. Better than the below-zero temperatures of recent days. Must be the cloudy skies, I think. I put on my coat, stocking cap, boots and gloves. I clip Scout to his leash and open the front door. Across the drive of our housing complex, I see our neighbor's Christmas tree lights shining through his patio door and wonder if they have been on all night. Last year, he had his tree up until February. Scout takes an immediate detour onto our snow-covered front lawn and squats to pee. He really did need to go. As I wait, I look at our next-door neighbor's abandoned townhouse. It was for sale; now it is in foreclosure. Two other units in our complex are also in foreclosure, for a total of 3 out of 31. That is nearly ten percent. We never met our neighbor, though we lived next to him for five years. For a few years, we did not even know his name and referred to him simply as Boo, after the character in To Kill a Mockingbird. Our dog takes his name from the same story.

Scout and I walk down the drive to the boulevard and wait for traffic to clear so we can cross. Most of the passing vehicles are pickup trucks, most of them are white, and most have their headlights off. The speed limit is 30, but all are going at least 40. None of the drivers turns to look at us as they pass. We cross the snow-covered grassy median and walk up the bike path on the opposite side. I see deer prints in the thin snow that covers the asphalt. I see prickly pear cactus on the adjacent hillside, half-buried in snow and looking chilled. It reminds me of the school kids I see at the neighborhood bus stop, shivering in their hoodies, nylon shorts and sneakers.

The bike path ends and we turn right onto a residential street. There is no sidewalk so we walk on the left facing traffic. I keep Scout close as vehicles pass. Their headlights are off. The drivers do not make eye contact. The street ends and we are in the desert, walking along a double-track. I unclip Scout from his leash so he can run free to find his pooping spot. He gallops up the track, rolls in the snow, gets up, shakes and takes off again. I see him go into the spinning, squatting hop that signals a poop and reach into my coat pocket for a plastic bag. I bag the poop and tie the ends. I turn and look back at the last house before the street ends. Sometimes I see the woman who lives there glaring at me through her kitchen window. Sometimes I see her Christmas tree lights shining through the shades. This year, they have been shining since before Thanksgiving.

I clip Scout to his leash and we continue along the desert track as it loops around to meet up again with the bike path. The sun begins to show through the clouds to the east. A light snow begins to fall.

Christmas in Aspen

For the holidays this year, Nan and I are house and dog sitting for our friends, the Vaughns, in Aspen. They are in Costa Rica with family and we are looking after things back home. Their dog Hannah and our dog Scout get along well, romping in the snow together and competing for our affection, so the Vaughns are happy to have us stay here instead of having to board her.

Normally, one would expect to pay top dollar to spend the holidays in Aspen, so it was an unexpected surprise to receive this generous invitation. We have made the most of it, dining at a favorite restaurant on Christmas Eve and skiing on Christmas Day. It has been surprisingly quiet wherever we go. The restaurant had several open tables and there were no significant lift lines at the ski areas. During the years when we lived here, the holidays were always extremely busy, with "a head on every pillow in town," as we used to say. The poor national economy and the local emphasis on real estate profits over quality tourist experiences seem to have taken their toll.

The four of us spent Christmas Day with our friends, the Andersons, who live at the base of Aspen Highlands. The guys skied most of the day over at Buttermilk so the kids could play around in the terrain park on the Red's Rover trail. The photo of Jon is from the West Buttermilk chairlift's halfway point loading area, where we waited in the only lift line of the day.

Later, Jon and I caught the shuttle bus back to Aspen Highlands and met Nan, who had earlier taken Scout and Hannah for a cross-country ski up Maroon Creek Road, for an end-of-day top-to-bottom ski run. I wanted to get a good ski photo of Nan and me, and Jon suggested the new Ski Patrol hut at the top of the mountain for its amazing views. The sun was low in the sky and directly behind us, but Jon's photo turned out nicely, with the sun's flare coming from between Pyramid Peak and the Maroon Bells in the distant background.

The three of us skied the leg-burning thirty-six hundred vertical feet back to the base and then hobbled over to Jon's house for après-ski. When Jon's wife Lori, their kids and assorted guests finally returned from skiing, we all toasted the holidays and sat down to a wonderful Christmas Dinner.

Speak of the Devil

     Edward possessed an unusual talent. He could summon people at will—but not like a king could summon one of his subjects to the throne. Edward’s talent was more subtle than that. In fact, it was mostly unconscious. If Edward was daydreaming, as he did frequently, and happened to think of a person from his past, then within a few minutes, days or weeks, that person would make an appearance of some sort in his life. For instance, Edward would pick up the phone and hear a familiar voice: “I was just thinking of you,” he would say. Or he would wonder what an old acquaintance was up to and then open a newspaper to find an article about that person.
     For Edward, many of these incidents were happy coincidences, but not all of them were. Sometimes that article in the newspaper was an obituary. Edward had a dark side, and he would dwell on the bad experiences in his life more often than was normal. With his special talent, the results could be disturbing.
     Once, several years ago, he was on a backpacking trip with some friends, who were also business associates, in the Colorado mountains not far from his home. As they hiked up the trail, they discussed some of their worst business experiences, and Edward told them about the time his Christmas had been ruined by a client who refused to pay a very large overdue amount before closing his business for the holidays. A few minutes later, who should come walking down the trail past them but that very same client. Edward was thankful for his baseball cap and sunglasses, and for his friends reacting with waves and greetings but nothing more.
     When they were safely out of earshot, the friends stopped and confronted Edward. “How did you do that?” one asked.
     “Do what?” Edward replied.
     “How did you get that terrible client of yours to show up on cue like that? Did you know he would be out here?”
     “No,” said Edward, looking down at his boots. “Things like that happen to me all the time. I think about somebody and there they are.”
     “Speak of the devil!”
     “You mean that old expression, ‘Speak of the devil and the devil appears’?” asked Edward.
     “Exactly! You’d better be careful who you think about if you want to keep things like what just happened from happening all the time.”
     The friends saw the look of concern on Edward’s face and started laughing to lighten the mood. One said, “Don’t worry about it! It’s not like you know any axe murderers!” They drank from their water bottles, adjusted their packs, and continued up the trail, with Edward bringing up the rear.
     As he hiked, Edward thought about what had happened and replayed in his mind all the similar occurrences that he could remember. There were many. And the bad feelings about them far outweighed the good. He resolved that he would try to prevent the devil from appearing ever again by living as fully as possible in the present and not thinking about the past.

     Edward’s strategy worked well for him while he was awake, but he could not control his thoughts as he slept. His brain, deprived of its normal daydreaming, would work overtime at night, creating vivid dreams and horrific nightmares. Edward would breathe a sigh of relief on mornings when he awoke with no memories of his dreams. When he did wake up remembering them, he would jump out of bed and busy himself with his morning routines to put them quickly out of mind.
     Early one morning, when it was still dark, Edward awoke suddenly from a dream so intense that his ears were ringing and his heart was thumping in his chest. He rolled over and tried to fall back to sleep, but there was no hope of that. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the dark ceiling, replaying the dream in his mind:

     A classmate from childhood had somehow gotten in touch and invited him to her home for Christmas Eve dinner. It was snowing as he walked up the sidewalk to the address she had given him. Her adult son was bent over shoveling the front walk. When he saw Edward approach, he stood up and introduced himself. They entered the house together and removed their coats and boots in the front hall. The rooms were decorated for the holidays, but there was no one in them. Sounds of cooking and young children came from the back of the house, behind a swinging door at the rear of the dining room to their right. The son gestured to the living room on the left and told Edward to make himself at home. He said he would let his mother know that Edward had arrived and pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen, giving Edward a glimpse of a young woman that he guessed was the son’s wife, seated at a table with their children.
     Edward walked through the arch leading to the living room and looked around. The room was comfortably furnished, and the walls were lined with built-in bookcases full of books and music CDs. He walked over to a shelf of CDs to see if he shared her taste in music. He was noticing the abundance of classical music when he saw her enter the room from the corner of his eye. He turned to face her and she stopped, still a few feet away. She was just as he remembered her, but her hair was shorter and more auburn in color. She wore a sparkling silver gown and matching shoes that made her glow in the room’s soft light.
     At a loss for words, Edward asked, “Do you still play cello?”
     “No,” she said. “I play the piano now.” She gestured through a door off the living room, where Edward could see a grand piano with its top open. “I’ve been looking for a guitarist to play duets with.”
     “I play guitar,” Edward said.
     She stepped closer and took his shoulders in her hands. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. As she turned to pull away, Edward took her by the shoulders and kissed her softly on the mouth. “I love you,” he said. “I’ve always loved you.”

     That was the moment when Edward woke up. Somewhere in his subconscious mind, he still harbored feelings for this woman he had not seen since their twentieth class reunion, almost fifteen years ago. He also knew that given the intensity of his dream about her, she would soon appear in his life. His special talent would see to it. But he had been suppressing it for so long, he was no longer confident that it still worked. He needed to find her and tell her how he felt. He couldn’t wait for the talent to make it happen.
     Edward rolled out of bed and went into his office to turn on his computer. He tried every search engine and every networking site, but there was no mention of her. Finally, he found an address that might be hers. He wrote a quick letter saying that he had been thinking about her and asking her to get in touch with him. He put the letter in an envelope and hurried to the post office to mail it before he lost his nerve.
     Days passed and turned into weeks and months. The letter went unanswered. And the devil did not appear.

Christmas Letter 2010

Christmas 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s hard to believe we’re almost through the first decade of the new millennium. Fears of Y2K seem quaint now compared to the real difficulties we all face these days. If anything, all the economic and political uncertainty has strengthened our relationships and made them that much more important: We’re all we have.

The year saw us still doing our fair share of travel. We continued our recent spring tradition of sailing with our friend, Capt. John Kretschmer, aboard his 47-foot sailboat, this year sailing from Bocas del Toro, Panama to Isla Mujeres, Mexico over two weeks. Nan and I flew into Panama City and spent a night at a hotel located at the Pacific end of the Panama Canal, right next to the appropriately named Balboa Yacht Club. The next day, we took a puddle jumper over to Bocas, on the Caribbean side, and met up with John and the rest of the crew. We sailed north for two days to the tiny island of Providencia, a Colombian island off the coast of Nicaragua. From there, over three days, we rounded west and made landfall in Roatan, one of the Bay Islands of Honduras. We spent a pleasant few days there, touring the island with a friend of John’s, and snorkeling in the crystal waters off the West End. We sailed north again, heading for Lighthouse Reef and its Great Blue Hole, but the seas were rough and we couldn’t risk the reef’s dangerous entrance, so we sailed overnight to San Pedro, on Belize’s Ambergris Caye. Our final passage took us past Cozumel to Isla Mujeres, our favorite place in Mexico. In two short days there, we raced around touching base with all of our local friends, distributing birthday gifts and fond greetings.

As soon as we returned home, I flew to Baltimore to inspect a sailboat for sale. Capt. John met me and offered his expert advice. A few weeks later, I was the proud owner of a 1980 Valiant 40 cutter, now named Whispering Jesse, in fulfillment of the dream I established in my blog of the same name almost six years ago. A week later, my sailing buddy Kevin met me in Baltimore and we sailed the boat down to Solomons, Maryland, where refitting work is being done to prepare her for bluewater passages. If all goes as planned, a small crew and I will set sail in March for Savannah, where my folks have a vacation home, and spend some time sailing with family in local waters. From there, Isla Mujeres and other Caribbean destinations beckon, as preludes to a trip around the world, but plans are still being formulated.

Nan’s mother, Mary Claire, is 87 now and still living at home, cared for by Nan’s younger sister, Amy. Over the summer, Nan made a few trips home to Manitowoc to spend time with her mother and give Amy a break. She timed her trips to take advantage of running races in the area. Nan has carried on with her running pursuits, racing almost every weekend through the spring, summer and fall, and usually placing in the top three in her age group. When she was in Manitowoc in October, Nan was joined by Amy for a trip down to Milwaukee to run in a lakefront event, their first race together.

I made it home to Wauwatosa just once this year, as a side trip on my way to Solomons to check on the sailboat’s refit progress and spend a weekend with my friend Curt and his family in the DC area. Sister Jane and her sons were in Tosa from Seattle and sister Susan’s family lives across town in Shorewood, so it was almost a family reunion. The actual reunion took place later in the trip, when everyone traveled to Chicago for the reunion of the Allen clan, my mother’s relatives. Close to a hundred showed up for an all-day barbecue and reminiscence.

Nan and I returned to Isla Mujeres in September. We had planned to stay for two weeks but cut our trip short due to terrible weather caused by hurricanes Karl and Matthew, which struck well to the south in the Yucatan peninsula but still managed to cause massive amounts of rainfall where we were.

Our card photo this year was taken at the eleventh tee of the Redlands Mesa Golf Club, where we have been members for three years. It’s located within easy walking distance of our home, so the photo gives a good idea of where we live and the views we enjoy of the Colorado National Monument. The golf is pretty dramatic, too, like playing at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

The holidays are Nan’s and my time to let you know how much we care about you, even if this letter and card are the only communication you receive from us all year. Know that you are always in our thoughts. Here’s to a warm and wonderful holiday season and a prosperous New Year!

Love,

John, Nan and Scout