Busy October

We made it back to Gypsy’s Retreat on Lake Eufaula. Within a couple days we had started finishing the staircase. The builder we had hired to help with the house really screwed up one external wall and the insulation in the roof, leaking into the house, and would never answer any calls to help us out. This required us working with two other people to fix what he did wrong. He also did just a shit job putting in the stairs, unfinished, that required me to redo the staircase. We finally finished that and it turned out pretty good, don’t you think. We will sort out things with him, Doug Odum, in court in December. He should just stick to raising chickens. LoL

Some friends of our that live in Georgia, a couple hours north, had just finished their book, “Dis Big Pella Walkabout“.

What a story they have to tell. David and Emy Woodburn spent years on the road, traveling the world and raising their young daughter. That is amazing in itself, but they road around the world with a motorcycle and sidecar. David is from Australia and Emy is from the Philippines. Several folks were in attendance at their house. They mesmerized us with stories and readings from the book. It’s going to be an excellent read.

The days were warm and the lake, inviting. Our spare time was spent floating in the lake as our boat just drifted beside us, music filling air. One weekend our kids from Chattanooga came down for a day on the lake and some smoked meat. It’s always fun to host family and we really enjoyed our time with them.

Our next three weeks were spent on the bike again. We were scheduled to speak at two excellent event about our motorcycle travels. The first was the BMW RA rally, near Asheville, NC, and the second was the Overland Expo East, in Virginia. Both of my talks went well. It seems fewer and fewer people want to hear about international travel at Overland Expo. Event attendance was up while attendance at We will miss all the events in the US next year, so maybe we’ll have something fresh for the following year. Rain put some dampeners on the BMW rally as it seems so many are scared to ride in the rain. The word hurricane attached to the rain didn’t help. The weekend wasn’t bad as we were able to camp under cover, even though it wasn’t really even necessary. The OEE had fantastic weather for the three day event and was well attended. Both were a little early for leaf change but you could see the reds, oranges and yellows starting at the higher altitudes. Like always, it was great seeing friends that, many times, you only see at these events. When Overland Expo was young, we all tended to gather in Arizona. So many good times and memories were made there. Since those days it has spread to four events across the USA. Unfortunately, most of the motorcycle people, a really small number compared to the thousands of cage travelers in attendance, only make maybe one. It seems to be losing the backing for motorcycle folks. We will see if the motorcycle community just fades away in favor of other, smaller, events.

A week after returning some Australian motorcycle friends, Billy and Trish, stopped in at David and Emy’s. We rode up and had a fun day visiting and catching up. They are back on their motorcycles and headed south for a few years. Hopefully we’ll catch up with them again in South America.

Our son and his wife that live in Florida had asked us last year is we would sit with our granddaughter while they went on holiday, a Mediterranean cruise. So, here we are now towards the time. Since the kids were going on a cruise, we thought it would be fun to take Lucy on a short cruise to the Bahamas. Last Friday we all packed up in the car and headed to the airport to drop of her parents, then on to the port to board of Carnival cruise aboard the Liberty. We had a fantastic time seeing shows, dancing on deck and wandering around Nassau seeing the Queen’s Staircase then finding a tiki bar with a beach. The Queen’s Staircase is a walkway of 66 steps in Nassau. It was carved out of solid limestone rock by 600 slaves between 1793 and 1794 to create an escape route from the fort above and is a major landmark of Nassau. In the 19th century they were named in honor of Queen Victory who ended slavery in the British Empire. The number of steps represent the number of years she reigned. On the way back to the boat Lucy was getting tired and ask such a city girl question, “Can’t we just Uber?”.

This was all followed by Halloween, All Hallows Eve, Dia de los Muertos. We had fun doing all the activities with her, but it was a long weekend. Then Melanie got to celebrate another trip around the sun. Love you, Babe!

Cheers, and next week, back home. So much more to plan.

2WANDRRs