Headed Back to Storyville!

Storyville in the anchorage at Hog Island, Grenada

Yes! That's right. We are getting really excited about our visit back to Storyville for several reasons. Mainly because we miss her and we miss our life on the water.

It's been a tough and emotionally draining six months that we've been back in Texas. My mom passed away in June after a long illness. Fortunately my family and I were able to care for her at home (with the help of hospice care) and that was a blessing as she was terrified of having to go to a nursing home. Still, the emotional drain of watching someone you love waste away is very difficult. Thank God that I have the best husband, friends and family in the whole world. When times were tough I always knew I had a shoulder to lean on or to cry on or to laugh with. Whatever I needed at the moment and whether they were near or far.

I feel so blessed to know that I have people who love and support me. And they are everywhere! One of the many reasons for that is our cruising life. I truly felt the love and support from my cruising friends and other friends that we have met along the way and I know how fortunate and blessed I am to have all of these awesome people in my life. Thank you all for your love and support.

As I mentioned in my last post, we've had some decisions to make this year. When we come back to Texas for a visit we almost always stay with my mom. Well, now that we are preparing to sell her house we started thinking about what that would mean to us and our visits. We are lucky that all of our children and grandchildren live in the same area so we know that we will be returning here every year. In fact, we have decided that we like the idea of returning here in the summer. It's hurricane season and we plan to leave Storyville under the care of Richard (our Grenadian family) during the summer and return to Texas to visit with our family here. So...... we decided to buy a land yacht.

When we starting thinking about our options this was the only one that really made any sense to us. It seems that we have become gypsies and cannot fathom planting ourselves in one place without the option to travel. We are addicted to the traveling lifestyle. Not to mention that we have also discovered that we really prefer living in small spaces. We are working really hard not to accumulate too many belongings since we have already been through the process of paring them down once. It seems that living on land (and also dealing with so many of my mom's possessions) has us once more dealing with an abundance of "stuff". It really is an ongoing battle.

Land Shark????

Anyway, once the decision was made we shopped around and decided on a 2003 Winnebago. She is in good shape, but of course, she needed a little work and some upgrades. Troy has been working hard on getting her ready for us by installing new flooring and a new airconditioning unit (after all, we will be living in Texas, in the summer - so A/C is essential). This week we are working on moving into the RV before we return to Storyville for a visit. It's been a busy week but we are both really excited about our new home - we are working on a name for her. What do you think about "Land Shark"?

We are also really excited about returning to Storyville. We miss her, our life on the water and our Grenadian family and cruising friends. We will be helping celebrate the marriage of two of our Grenadian family (Alesha and Bruce) and we can't wait to see what a Grenadian wedding will be like. Plus, Luna can't wait to get back to the beach. We will be back on Storyville for the month of October, then back to Texas to have an estate sale, get the house on the market and get other business taken care of. It's a busy time for us, but we are hoping that things will slow down soon and we can figure out just what normal will look like for us.

Luna can't wait to get back to the beach!