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Diane's DiaryApril 29 Thursday Larry went into NYC today to buy the scuba gear we wanted while I took the car up to our old neighborhood in Yorktown for the day. I wanted to see how our furniture in storage is plus do some shopping. I left my parents house at 9am without even taking a shower, as I knew I had lots to do. He was going to also have lunch with Heidi. I was actually glad to go to Yorktown by myself, as I knew I had lots to do and it would go much faster if I were by myself. The first stop I made was to Arthur Ave in the Bronx to pick up some Italian goodies at some of the stores we used to go too. I bought some fresh mozzarella cheese, had a good old NY egg cream, and got some fresh ravioli. I started heading up to Yorktown by 11am so I was making good time now. My first stop was to our storage unit. All the stuff looked OK but I didn't get the OK to get another 10% discount on our storage units for another year. Matt promised to send us an email concerning the discount with the week. It's costing us a lot of money to keep the stuff in storage but at this point we have no other choice. We can't sell it in the storage unit, as you can't get to anything. It really was not worth it to even have the units at all but we are stuck with them now unless we just want to discontinue paying in which case they will sell our things for almost nothing. I stopped by our old house and it was difficult seeing it. I really liked the house especially after the big renovation we had done and do miss it. I especially miss the space we had as a lot of times I feel confined in the boat and don't have my own privacy. In our house, in addition to the master bedroom, we each had a spare bedroom that was our own to mess up anyway we wanted. Anyway, they took out most of the landscaping we had in front of the house and replaced it with other pieces, which I didn't care for. Oh, well, it's not my house anymore. I didn't see anyone out on the block to speak with but we were never that friendly with our neighbors anyway. I also stopped at BJ's (I borrowed Aunt Mary's card), the fabric store, Wal-Mart, and Sears. Sears didn't have the tool Larry wanted but they did call the White Plains store and they had it. So, I stopped to see Penny and Steve, our car mechanic, as long as I was in White Plains and then stopped at Sears to pick up the tool for Larry. I hit rush hour on the Hutch Pkwy since I left White Plains at 5pm. Larry and I had the fresh ravioli I bought for dinner when I got back to my parents and it was very good. April 30 Friday Another busy day - we had to finish our shopping, than drive up to Ct. to drop the car off. Once we leave the car off, we won't have transportation anymore so we had to finish all of our shopping today. So, we left the house at 10am and went to Home Depot (another time!), West Marine (to pick up the items we ordered that came in), Radio Shack, Front St. Bakery, the bank (to get cash to bring back with us) and than back to my parents to drop everything off. We had a quick lunch and left by 1:30 to drive up to Hartford. We needed to be at the car store by 4:30pm to get the tires changed. It's a 130 - mile trip that took me 2 hours the last time but who knew how long it would take during a weekday. Anyway, we were making good time so decided to stop at Stew Leonard's to get a hot fudge ice cream. Unfortunately, after we got back to the Merritt Pkwy we hit lots of traffic and didn't know if we would make it to the store in time, but, luckily we did. After we got the tires changed, we drove to Al's house to spend the night. He is a friend of Joe's and offered to let us stay overnight in a spare bedroom. That was very nice of him, as we really didn't want to spend the money to stay in a hotel. Joe came over too and we all had a nice bar-b-que dinner. I bought a Front St. crumb cake and that went over really well for dessert. We all talked until around 11pm and than went to bed. May 1 Saturday In less than 24 hours we will be back in Ve. again. We have mixed emotions about going back. Yes, we love our country but the cost of living has gotten very high. We notice everyone has to have the latest and greatest gadgets and all the newest clothes. We cruisers wear some of the same old clothes we have had for a long time and no one seems to care. I do miss seeing all our friends and family again but they all live such busy lives they barely had time to see us. I guess it was the same when we were here but we just notice it more now. We had breakfast with Al and Larry helped him with his computer. I called Annette and spoke to her for some time while Larry was helping Al. We left Al's house at 11am and had to stop at a store where Joe had gotten a boat part for us that he hadn't had time to pick up. We than drove to White Plains to leave the car off at the car mechanic and took the Metro North train into NYC. We walked over to Penn Station and took the LIRR back to RVC. We got back around 5pm and were absolutely exhausted. Dad picked us up from the train station and we drove back over to West Marine where another boat part we ordered had come in. We than packed for the rest of the night but both of us were just exhausted. It will be nice to get back to Destiny and just have a day to rest! Larry also called his brother to say goodbye. May 2 Sunday We both got up early around 7am though we lay in bed for a while. Larry continued packing and by 9am we had 3 duffel bags packed. We knew we were allowed 70lbs in each bag so were carefully weighing the bags. Aunt Mary stopped by to say goodbye. Ramona, a friend of Ray from S/V Drivers Wanted, stopped by to pick up some solar panels we had brought home for her. Since this was my parent's house, we couldn't even invite her to have a drink so we felt bad but it wasn't our house to offer her any hospitality. She had driven in from Hampton Bays to get the package. Under all this new tightened security we have now in the US post 9/11, we were afraid to send it by mail since it could be deemed "unacceptable" material" so that's why she came to pick it up. I didn't think the PO would accept it for delivery. Anyway, Mom made a wonderful breakfast of bacon and eggs and bagels. Guess this will be our last real bagel for a long time! We finished packing and were all ready by 12:30pm. The taxi was supposed to come at 2pm but arrived at 1:40pm. We were just as glad it was early as we heard you need to allow extra time at the airports as there are extensive security measures in place and extra time is needed. Since we had lots of luggage that possibly might need to be searched, we wanted to allow extra time. Anyway, we hit no traffic at all, were at the airport at 2 and arrived at the gate at 2:30pm - over 2 hours till our flight. We had no problems at all. Our flight was only half full and went very smoothly. It was even a half hour early! Unfortunately, our flight was early but another flight was late so we arrived with 2 other planes - not good as there was long lines at Customs' luggage pickup. Giulio unfortunately was not there to meet us so we just took a taxi to the hotel - we knew the price but had to negotiate it, as they wanted more. We were in the hotel room by 10:30pm. We relaxed for a few minutes and ER was on TV so we watched that before going to bed. Our AC was extremely noisy and we had to shut it off or we would not have had a good night's sleep. I got a terrible night's sleep anyway. May 3 Monday I woke up several times in the night and just did not get a good night's sleep. We had a wonderful breakfast of the Front St. pastries we bought from the US. We walked to the bus station to buy tickets for tomorrow and than walked over to Sambil Mall. We walked around for a while had lunch and came back to the hotel around 2pm. We just relaxed reading and watching TV until Giulio came at 5:30pm. We all went out to TGIF for dinner and were back to the hotel by 8pm. We watched TV for a while and went to bed. It was good to be back in Venezuela. May 4 Tuesday We were both up before the alarm rang at 7:15am. We watched "The Practice" on TV. It used to be one of my favorite shows so I was glad to see it. We had the wonderful Front St. pastries for breakfast. We both wanted to get to the bus station early as we had a lot of heavy luggage to move around. We had to pay $5USD more for the extra baggage. Anyway, we had an uneventful trip back and we were both happy to see Destiny. Elias did a terrific job varnishing the galley and some other spots and the boat really looks terrific now. Now we just have to put the boat back together again! Since we had no food at all in the refrigerator, we just went to the restaurant in the marina for dinner. It was good to be back home again! May 5 Wednesday- May 8 Saturday We were both still tired from our trip. I went shopping on Wednesday, as we didn't have any food. No lomito, eggs or other meat so don't know what's happening right now however these were the staples Chavez set price controls on so imagine it has to do with that. We spent the next several days trying to put the boat back together. I had to clean the cupboards and put everything back together again in my kitchen. Larry also did lots of boat chores. We shipped our windlass from the US so it probably won't be here for a few weeks. I brought back English muffins and fresh waffles, as we can't get them down here so it is nice to have some good old American food. I'm glad we bought that toaster now- we have certainly gotten our moneys worth from it! It was well worth the $10USD price to have some toast again. The weather is still hot and we had to get used to the heat all over again. I'm glad we bought that AC several years ago - it would be just unbearable without it. May 9 Sunday Happy Mother's Day We had arranged to have flowers sent to Mom and Aunt Mary before we left the US. I called them both today but only Mom was home. It was good to speak with them anyway. Larry went sailing with Norm on his huge 80-foot boat Pawnee. He wanted to check the boat systems out before he left. We all thought he was just going out for a few hours but it turned out it was all day. I would have gone too but I thought it was only a few guys going. It turned out he had a bunch of people going. I did some emails in the morning, and than played dominoes in the PM. I scored a 360 - not bad but not great either. I made homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs for dinner but Larry didn't get back from the boat trip until 6pm so we just had a late dinner. |