Heading to Florida in August is a little counter-intuitive – certainly not the typical cruiser destination for that month. However, we had an apointment with a mouse. 

Doing Florida

We joined our daughter's family, Dave's sister, Diane and our oldest grandson for a few days at Disney. Since we were in the neighborhood, we dropped in on Dave's sister Wendy as well.

 

To make the tourist thing complete, we circled by Cape Canaveral's Space Center on the way home. It was our grandson's first visit and it had been several years since our last visit, just before the shuttle program ended. The new exhibits and experiences dedicated to the shuttle and displaying Atlantis were impressive, even to a not-so-easily impressed 13 year old. There were also new experiences in the Apollo mission building that gave more depth to the missions to the moon, including the lunar landing.

Heading Back to Hampton

Our trip home was punctuated by a few stops at RV dealers as we start thinking about “what's next”. Droz had a few recommendations about which ones he preferred. But shortly after dropping him off, we received the sad news that our son-in-law's mom had passed away. Since we had made an impromptu trip to southwest VA to look at a 5th wheel, we turned back east and spent the next few days with our daughter's family as they made arrangements for the funeral and coped with the loss. Despite the sad reason for it, we enjoyed the time together and were thrilled to have a few hours with Cathy's sisters and brother-in-law, who made the trip for the funeral.

As the month was ending, we finally made our way back to Hampton. Back on Orion, we did some thorough cleaning and finished up the Cetol work for the season, just in time for a visit from a prospective buyer. Some coincidence. Dave also infuriated his friend Steve, by quicly resurrecting Bay Dreamer's chartplotter, which had died a few days earlier. The culprit, discovered a few days later, was a bad fuse, which had been degrading over time and finally quit during the Cape Charles race. Once replaced, the chartplotter and the solar panels both were back to working order.

To celebrate, we joined Steve and Linda on an evening cruise to the new restaurant at Old Point Comfort Marina, Deadrise, for some delicious seafood. On our return, we took a moonlight sail under a full moon up the Hampton River. It was beautiful ending to the day.

Despite our best intentions, we weren't able to get Orion out on the water to cruise a little. Once back in Hampton, Cathy first had a commitment to re-make some enclosure panels, which was quickly followed by a visit from Troy and Taylor. We returned with them to Jarratt and spent a week on projects at the Hawkins household. That didn't leave much time on Orion, but it doesn't mean we weren't doing what we wanted to do.

Beasts and Children
Llamas and alpacas. Beavers and otters. Frogs and alligators. With the grandkids in tow, we managed to see them all and more. Hampton has a city park that is a petting zoo, called Bluebird Gap Farm, which we enjoyed one Sunday afternoon. The following weekend, we took the kids to the Virginia Living Museum, where we visited most of the habitats Virginia has to offer, along with the animals that occupy them.

When not checking out land animals, we did manage to get out on the water, enjoying a cruise on the Miss Hampton tour boat. We saw some impressive Navy ships, including the aircraft carrier Harry S Truman and the destroyer John Warner, both decked out for the latter's commissioning the same day. The highlight though was a Los Angeles class sub entering the harbor past Fort Monroe as we were making our way back to the Hampton River. Before and after the cruise, we had fun at a Hampton Safety Fair at nearby Mill Point Park, which had lots of games and prizes for the kids. It was made to order. That night we joined our yacht club for a pool party, which was a fun event and a welcome respite from the day's heat.

Construction Projects

The biggest project on the list for our son-in-law was constructing a 40 x 12 ft kennel. It took several days in some witheringly hot weather, but by the time we left the structure was ready for use. There were several other projects that consumed the rest of the week, but most of the list was done before we left, with the whole family pitching in.