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HEY, HERE WE ARE AT QUESTER'S PAGE 7 OF THE PICTURE GALLERY
The Taoist thought of the day:
Duality. Lao Tzu pointed out that all qualities in the world possess meaning only by the existence of their opposites. Something can only be big if there is something else that is small by comparison. "Good" exists in the world so long as "evil" exists as well. One cannot do without the other.
My mother was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and we drove to Florida. We stopped in Sante Fe on our way back.
My cousin Dick lived there. I grew up with Richard and always looked up to him. He was with the U. S. state department and was posted in Nigeria, Moscow, and Rome before retiring. We loved the western flavor of Santa Fe.
In 1990 Trudy decided to go visit her mother back in Sarawak for a month.
I began a building project before she left.
My father had once built a chicken-coop that was more like a little house. I wanted to see if I could do a small shed. I did and we use it still. Did you notice the two mattresses that could come out when needed?
After three years in San Francisco Bay, we were ready to install water-makers and radar for trips to San Diego and finally down into Mexico.
On our sail south we made it in to Oceanside, California for I thought I had motor and steering problems. Next we sailed into San Diego Bay.
Here we are enjoying ourselves.
Our 7 weeks time back in Tucson went rapidly.
Although we enjoyed being around my son again, it was also great being back with our boat in Chula Vista.
Our marina had a great swimming pool and also a jacuzzi that I grew to love.
San Diego had a great zoo and also an attraction called SeaWorld. What could be more fun than feeding an orca?
I'll tell you what.... getting into the water with them.
Only in a dream can one jump out of the audience and do a grandstand stunt like this.
Yes, living for some years around San Diego can be thrilling. What a beautiful place to live on one's own boat and dream the dreams of the totally free.
What could be more beautiful than using our boat as a writing platform and playing in the flowers. Would we finally get our boat in shape for an extended trip south of the border?
I actually took a 36' sailboat with two others down to Porta Vallarta. It was to give me experience in Mexican waters.
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During this time
my three granddaughters were growing older and becoming more and more beautiful young ladies.
Speaking of becoming more and more beautiful,
who could resist appreciating a great swimming suit!
Little Michael was born and growing up in Corpus Christi. On our way back from visiting my mother in Florida, we stopped and visited Trudy's brother
We couldn't resist visiting since Trudy's mother had come over from Malaysia to care for young Michael while his mother, Beehoon, went back to her teaching job. Trudy's mother was homesick for Malaysia. Trudy thought we might bring our boat to a port nearby so she could see her mother several times a week and make her stay more pleasant. We went back to Chula Vista, moved our boat to a boatyard and took down the mast and dodger.
With the boat taken apart, we loaded it on an 18 wheeler semi-truck trailer.
Thus, we were able to "sail" down Interstate 10 at 60 mph even going through Tucson on our way to Texas. After six PM the boat had to be parked in a truck stop until morning. We climbed up and slept on board since it was our home. When we stopped in Tucson for the night, my son and my daughter plus her family never bothered to drive out to the city limits and see our Rose of Jericho "docked" in a truck stop.
Trudy's mother was in Corpus Chrisi for a year caring for little Michael.
What did she do to occupy her time? When she wasn't sewing together quilts,
she actually used her "green-thumb" to grow some record-breaking cabbages and other vegetables.
Our marina was about thirty minutes drive to the eastern side of Corpus Christi Bay. Trudy's sister Susie came all the way over from Australia to visit her relatives here and is on the back of our boat in this picture.
We still had to spend time in Tucson with the school district.
Here you see what Tucson artists do in their spare time.
Nothing like getting all dressed up and going out for an evening.
When we got back to Texas again it was time to do a haul out and grind down the rust for repainting. Trudy got quite good at getting rid of all rust. To commemorate Columbus getting himself over on this side of the Atlantic,
Corpus Christi decided tourists would come to see some replicas that Spain offered to lease. We sailed out to see their delivery. Two made it, the Nina and Pinta.
What did we do besides hauling out our boat and repainting it? Fishing from the docks was easy.
Obviously we weren't writing our books all of the time.
I must admit we did eat a lot of fish, but it was free for the catching.
I only hope it was the "brain" food that people think fish is.
My daughter Pamela had Sammantha, a baby girl that was slowly growing up.
She came out from Maryland to visit us for a couple of weeks. Our marina home at Port Aransas is actually on Mustang Island. We do have horses here in Texas...
We knew she loved horses almost as much as her mother had before she began her college course of study. Her major would make her an expert at writing computer programs.
We finally got her off horses and out for a sail.
In 1995 we left our boat and went over to Malaysia for a few weeks.
We did find some strange looking things on our vacation.
Some of the things we encountered were real eyeopeners.
The very next year our first book came out.
Trudy wrote it and I merely edited the manuscript, but we did have the experience of holding a booksigning event at a couple of local malls.
Once again I was invited to return to the stage and do some acting. The
Odd Couple
was a favorite movie of mine, and I enjoyed playing one of the characters on stage. Our community theater in Port Aransas put on plays on an outdoor stage. It was a unique experience to say the least.
With Trudy away for another month in Malaysia, I hung around with people who worked with some of our local politician.
I couldn't resist having one of my friends click off a picture of us clowning around in the city offices.
Another visit back to Tucson,
and again our local artists are doing their thing on the sides of buildings. Since we were doing books on Chinese dragons, I thought this shot appropriate.
Before the growth gets too thick on our boat-bottom, I always managed to
come up with another tank of air. That's what is needed to dive down and do the scraping. Here you see the outfit needed to do the job.
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