After two great weeks touring in D.C. it’s time to get back to preparations for heading south.  Luckily we did so much work already this summer that the list is rather short.  Our first top is Vane Brothers in Baltimore to have our life raft serviced and repacked. Neno invited us in to watch them open the pod and inflate the raft.

At this facility they service the dozens of rafts brought by tankers and freighters.  This is the only time we think about all the worst things that could happen.  If we should have to leave Makai, the six of us will pile into this raft, after turning on the EPIRB and our SPOT which will hopefully alert the Coast Guard of our position. I’m also ordering emergency rations and preparing emergency water and other such supplies.

From Baltimore we continued on to Buffalo.  Marie had a great time with Olivia, our 3 year old pal, this summer, and Sarah, Olivia’s mom, offered to throw Genny and Marie a surprise formal wear birthday party.

The girls loved having a place to wear their make-up, gowns, heels and crowns.  Marie is a model and Genny is a princess.

The weather is turning cold.  This is no surprise for people in Buffalo, but we’re always confused when we can no longer wear shorts and flip-flops. Jim and Ania invited us to a pumpkin patch, the sun was shining, but the temperature was 50 with a wind chill that made it feel much colder.

Several years back, the kids and I were here just before Halloween. The pumpkins are grown out back and there is enough space for lots of fun.

 

The first thing to draw our attention is the pumpkin cannon.

The kids took turns on this small compressed air cannon.

Can you see that pumpkin flying toward the target?  When it hits the target, the poor little pumpkin explodes into pumpkin pulp.

Next to this pumpkin shooter is a huge cannon that angles up 30 feet from the ground and shoots pumpkins out over the corn fields, over the tree tops and over everyone’s head.  The people all look up as they hear the pumpkin wizzzzzz through the air.

Look at these beautiful ladies with their ice cream.  How can they eat a frozen treat when it’s so cold out.

I love the bumpy pumpkins.

The Pumpkin Farm does a great job with photo ops and also entertainment like jugglers, magicians, and pie eating contests.

The local high schools are invited to compete in a trebuchet contest. Mythbusters used to have a Punkin-Chunkin contest with the trebuchet. Pioneer High School won the highest single shot trophy with 434 feet.

I’m not sure which school used the barbells below, but a few of their pumpkins actually launched behind the trebuchet.

The corn maze was fun to duck in and out of corn stalks.

 

Everyone was happy to be wearing warm jackets.  The sun didn’t compensate for the brisk wind.

We had a choice of two hay rides.  The horses were beautiful, but a little stinky, so we went for the tractor ride.

On the way out everyone selected a perfect pumpkin. The sisters picked a painted pumpkin and Roy opted to get a wheel barrow for his perfect selection.

The World Pumpkin Weigh Off attracted 1500 pound pumpkins.

The Pumpkin Farm also had a petting zoo with goats, ponies, a camel and this little baby yak. They also had carnival rides and treats, but we were pretty busy with the pumpkins, corn maze, hay ride and cannons.

What a great day out with Jim and Ania.  On the way home we stopped for concord grapes and cider.  Concord grapes are the ones Welch’s uses for their grape juice. We ate them all the time when I was a kid. Last night Eric and I went to a wine tasting the Shriners hosted as a fund raiser.  My favorite wine there was made from Concord Grapes as well.

It was a treat to be in town for Sadie’s birthday. Her mom Kelly and I have birthdays less than a week apart. As teenagers we spent our birthdays together and now we either call each other or at least think about each other on our birthday.

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We made new friends on the street and the sisters always have fun running back and forth between the houses.

Instead of spreading out all over the house like we usually do, everyone made their nests in the upstairs bedrooms.  Marie always over packs.  She’ll bring one change of clothes and 25 Beanie Babies, 5 pillows a few blankets and now she wears a sleep mask every night.

Back at the boat, this time Topaz came home with us and the weather is getting progressively more like winter. Eric is working on computer projects like crazy.  I’m finishing up buffing out the boat, cleaning cabinets, collecting supplies, etc.  We made new friends on Tangent, a Leopard 40, with a family just starting their sailing adventure and had a few great dinners together.

The top of the list for this week is provisioning.  The sisters and I went to the nearest Costco, 45 minutes away.  We started the shopping spree with a classic hot dog special at the food court and then with each of us pushing a cart proceeded to spend many hundreds of dollars.

We went up and down every aisle, looking at each item.  If it’s something we use, how much will we use in 24-30 weeks.  That should take us to Hawaii, if we make it that far.

Don’t forget the kibbles!

It took two days to pack 30 bottles of spaghetti sauce, 20 packages of Mac and Cheese, enough soap to keep everyone’s body squeaky clean and of course there are the paper products.  At the end I just couldn’t bear to face the 150 lbs of flour.  By the weekend I was refreshed and transferred the three 50 lb bags into 30 ziplocks along with Krusteaz, brownie mix, and sugar. Yes that does look like a lot, but this year we used all but two ziplocks of flour.  I made playdough for the girls today with last year’s flour so we can start on the fresh stuff with our next loaf of bread or pizza.   I still have to go to BJs, a smaller warehouse store but close by the marina, just before Makai pulls out to load up on freezer items, produce and dairy.

Everyone is also excited about our new grocery carts.  Our first season the kids and I wandered through the streets of the Caribbean Islands with one cart and several bags. Last season we ordered another cart that turned out to be half the size we expected, but it was still helpful to buy a watermelon and fresh milk available in the Bahamas. Recently I saw these beautiful carts for $20 from Whole Foods.  I was so excited I bought two.  One for Roy and one for Genny, Marie gets the small cart from last year and I’ll take the old one.  Maybe no one will have to carry bags this year.

The one thing in D.C. we wanted to do but missed out on was a White House Tour.  This tour is arranged by your House Representative.  If you are planning to visit D.C. send an email to your representative with the dates you’ll be in town and they will arrange the tour. No reservations were available while we were staying in town, but luckily Solomons is only an hour and a half away and Becky invited us to stay overnight. We walked through about 10 rooms on the ground floor.  The halls are lined with photos of famous people that visited the White House and the rooms display portraits of Presidents and their wives. Everyday around noon, the last tourist leaves and they roll the carpets back out, store away the ropes and stanchions and leave the house back to the first family.

Becky lives about a mile and a half away.  We’ve stayed there a hand full of times and just love to hang out with her and Dave. They made us our favorite dinner of burgers and fries, a glass of wine and Dave brought the kids pumpkins, popcorn and caramel apples.

I think that this is Topaz’s first visit.  Becky took us down the street and around the corner to the only patch of grass in the neighborhood for Topaz to sniff.  Later Dave took her for a walk.  We kept her downstairs so Becky’s cats could keep their privacy without a dog snooping around

I’ve never carved a pumpkin in the dining room of such a pretty city house, normally its outside where pumpkin guts could freely drip on the ground.

Marie used an interesting hole punch to make leaves on a vine and Genny followed a pattern for a witch on a broom.  Roy had me scrape the inside because he was involved in a book.

Afterwards he carved out a classic jack o lantern.

We lit them and decorated the front steps.

Fall in in full bloom in Maryland, next time we go to New York, the branches will be bare.

Topaz hasn’t been on Makai since June and when she left us Makai was in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.  One minute she hops in the van and the next she’s in southern Maryland.  Even after her excursion to Becky’s house in D.C. she knows her home and cuddles up on the couch.

Halloween is just a day away, Roy left his pumpkin to decorate Becky’s porch and scraped out his New York pumpkin here on the dock.

The plan has been in place for several weeks now.  Emily and Abby got out of school early and their mom drove them down to their boat in the marina to trick or treat with us in Solomons.

With everyone dressed up and ready to trick or treat we pass through the pub and hit the streets.

A great time was had by all.  The weekend has been cold, rainy, windy and miserable.  But the girls had sleepovers and spent the whole day in their jammies.

Topaz wishes she could go for her daily bike ride, but it’s just too miserable out there.  I did stand in the parking lot and let her chase leaves as they blew by.

We only have a few more tasks then back to Buffalo to wait for Eric to reposition the van back to California.