Tackling the travel to do list

St. Thomas 10/2010. Hope to be there again soon!

    I won't lie to ya, the upcoming travels sometimes have me slightly fraught with concerns.  Not even laid back, beach combers like ourselves can always just go with the flow. Every so often even the saltiest beach bum has to make a list and check it twice- or at least we felt the need to do so for this trip.

    There is so much to prepare, a monstrous to do list. And of course, on top of all the boating preparations, the mundane stressors strike! For example, this month, of all months, my tags need to be renewed for my little red truck. Really? Couldn't have timed it better if I tried! Oh well, we needed to head back to N.C to sort through some stuff in the storage unit, namely to retrieve my scuba gear. 'Cause there is no way I'm headed to the crystal clear, blue water, near so many world famous dive sites, without my dive stuff.  Also important to grab are Jay's tools... the build must go on, even at sea!

Giving kisses. My parent's doggie, Stewart, & one of our salty dogs, Blue

   Another slightly irksome issue rears it's ugly little head in the form of a nagging question; nags us everytime we set sail to a new location.  How are we going to get our vehicle back from our marina in Charleston, when we are all the way in southern FL without spending a boatload of dough?  The answer presents itself, this time, in the form of my wonderful and ever generous parental units.  See, my folks live in The Villages, FL (it's like Disney World for the retired, still wild, and golf afflicted), and they love to travel.  Well, I agreed to take on their dog, whom I adore, when they go to St. Martin (my family's favorite Caribbean destination... they are going without us kids though! Oh, the agony!).  Well, as luck (or my lack of attention to details) would have it, both our month long trips coincide.  So now I will be traveling with my sweetie, our two dogs, my parent's puppy, my kitty cat, and 1/18 of my shoe collection (the rest of my shoes are still being held hostage in my storage unit).  But the trade off is my parents will be coming to stay for one last hurrah in Charleston before we all depart for said vacations, dropping off their pooch and driving my truck back down with them.  So that gets the truck half way home so to speak.  We are one big, happy, boating family!