A long overdue update from Born to Cruise

Yes, I know this update is long overdue. It has been a busy summer and fall for the crew of Born to Cruise. The easiest way to tell you about the last six months is to divide it into 3 parts.

The first part was full of boat work, family and friends. It is always fun to come back to New Bern and Northwest Creek Marina. It is easy to fall back into the routine and feel right at home. We made trips to visit our parents and in between worked on the long list of boat tasks that we had been adding to oue list all winter. There were a lot of projects to be done but they were not as major as the list from our last return from the Bahamas.

At the end of June, we drove Wayne's parents to Columbus, GA for the Miss Georgia pagent. Our niece Emily WON and is Miss Georgia!!! She will compete for Miss America in January in Las Vegas. The scholarship money will be a big help in paying for Emily to go to Law School.

Then we headed to Cary, NC for Brian and Almendra's engagement party on July 4th. Jose and Chella, Almendra's parents, hosted a very nice party in their home and yard complete with some small fireworks. The food was fabulous. Everyone had a great time. We are looking forward to the wedding on July 24, 2010.

After dropping off Wayne's parents in SC we decided to go to Florida. To keep the story a little shorter, we had found out we were eligible for the first time home buyers credit. Whenever we had talked about getting another house, we had talked about Florida because it is warm. We both enjoy tropical weather. In doing research we found that there were some great deals in Florida. We looked at lots of "short sale" homes and made a short sale offer on a house. Then headed back to New Bern. With short sales it is up to the bank to decide if the offer is acceptable and the bank is very slow, we might have to wait weeks just to hear that our offer was not the highest or that it was not acceptable or maybe even that we got it.


When we returned from the trip to Georgia, Cary and Florida we found the refridgerater on Born to Cruise was not working. We called Burt, the local expert, he gave us the bad news that we needed a new one. After getting his quote and checking prices, we decided his expertise was worth it and hired him to take care of ordering and installing the new unit for us. Unfortunately there was a back order on the new fridge. It was going to be at least four weeks before the parts would arrive!!


It was hot on the boat and the A/C was having trouble keeping up. We were waiting for the fridge to be fixed and to hear something about the house, so we decided to take a road trip.


Part 2 - Road Trip - My brother Jay has a lake house in Ogallala, Nebraska where he keeps his sailboat. We had never seen the lake house or the sailboat so this was as good a time as any. We loaded up the car and headed out. It took 3 days to drive to Ogallala with our 600 mile a day limit. We drove through states we had never seen before and enjoyed the variety of the scenery our country has to offer. While in Ogallala we sailed on Lake McConaughy and were there for "kites and castles". Jay and Ginger prepared some nice meals and we had a nice relaxing visit.

After our long weekend at the lake, Jay had to go back to work so we followed him to his home in Nederland, Colorado. Jay's mountain house, as we call it, is located about 15 miles from Boulder, almost straight up the mountain. In July when we were there, the meadow surrounding his home was full of wildflowers and everywhere you looked you saw wonderful mountain views. We spent several days in Boulder and toured the Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory. It was fun seeing "Annie" at the Boulder Dinner Theatre. Rocky Mountain National Park was an enjoyable day of driving up the peaks and down. We hiked every day and took hundreds of pictures.

After a week in the mountains we headed to Texas to see my sister, Sandy and brother, Stuart. They live near Houston. Wayne helped with a few repair projects while we were there. Wayne, Stuart and I visted NASA. The 4 of us also went to an Astros babseball game. The Houston Restaurants were having a charity event and offering a 4 course meal for a set price. The prices were below their normal rates to encourage everyone to try the resteraunts as well as support the charity. We enjoyed three different evenings of fancy dining. After a over a week in Texas it was time to get on the road.

We had not heard anything about our short sale offer, so on our way back we decided to swing through Florida and look at some more houses. Our search started in Spring Hill where we stayed with my Aunt Jan and Uncle Joe. We liked some houses but did not find the perfect one. So we headed back down to Cape Coral. In Cape Coral we made offers on several more short sales hoping one of them would work out. As Wayne was doing an internet search he noticed a few houses that met our criteria in Rotonda West. We wanted to see that area so I called an agent that had one of the houses listed to see if we could get an appointment. We really liked the Rotonda West area. The houses we were looking at were all regular sales. That meant no waiting around for a short sale. We made an offer and it was accepted that day! So we cancelled all of the short sale offers we had pending and got a house in Rotonda West. Our "vacation" road trip ended back in New Bern at Born to Cruise where it began after many miles and a lot of good times. The good news was our fridge parts had finally arrived and Burt had them installed and the fridge up and running in no time. YEAH!

We closed on the house on September 23rd and have been working on it ever since. The house was built in 1971 and needed lots of cosmetic work but it has "good bones" and a great layout. You can see some before and after pictures at this link

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=svBorntoCruise&target=ALBUM&id=5391107443796875281&authkey=Gv1sRgCKzo08GvlYz3yQE&feat=email

We are enjoying seeing the progress and how great it looks as we complete things.

Our original plan was to spend the holidays with family and leave for another season in the Bahamas in January. Right now we are not sure what our plans are. Wayne has applied for some contract jobs and if he gets an offer then we will work and go cruising later, if there is not a job offer then we will cruise in January and look for work when we get back. We are cruisers and will go where the wind blows.