Well for the last week the kids and I have been doing a different kind of “Cruisin”. We left Maine rather suddenly in November, convinced that if we stayed even another day we would regret it and rightfully so. I personally was sure that if we didn’t leave immediately we would be too late and get “frozen” in place. In the end we left Maine in a bit of a rush knowing that when we got to someplace warmer we could park the boat and come back to wrap things up. This, finally was the week.

At the end of last week we arrived in Beaufort NC from the Oriental after a pretty easy transit. One of the kids on our new friends boat Gromit told Nicole that we would start to see dolphins at mile 200 in the ICW. Sure enough, if you can believe it, just as we passed the 200th mile on the ICW we realized we had an official escort of a small pod of dolphins off the starboard bow. Nicole and Paul were ecstatic and I have to admit that it was cool. As we pulled in to the dock Nicole asked me “Mom, are those real palm trees?”. There was a feeling of satisfaction that we had actually finally made it to that “someplace warmer” we were looking for.

And so, having arrived at “someplace warm” we decided to trek back to Maine. On Saturday morning very early the kids and I loaded up the car and headed back to Maine. We left around 7:30 am and arrived in Philedelphia around 7:30 pm. That was truly a long day of crusin’. We stayed with one of my many cousins and his family and despite being exhausted we enjoyed the visit immensely.

The next day we headed on to Maine leaving around 9:00 am. I was incredibly nervous about driving through New York City. The trip the day before had involved a number of missed turns some due to our inexperience but even more due to the terrible visibility due to snow we had from Virginia to Pennsylvania. It seemed that every sign we needed to read for 300 miles was blanketed in snow. I kept asking Paul, “Does that say 295, or I95?” It was quite reassuring to start out Sunday morning in clear weather and in the day rather than in the dark.

We made it through New York much easier than I anticipated as Paul did a great job navigating and once we got to Connecticut it was a relief to start to recognize landmarks. Paul drove home into Maine and the kids and I actually cheered when we crossed the bridge between Maine and NH.

Funny as happy as we all were to be back yet it seems odd to be away from the boat, which seems more like home than home now. I know that Paul is incredibly happy to see Claire. Nicole got to visit her school for lunch and lunch recess and see all of her friends. The very best of luck happened when we got a school snow day on Wednesday. Our district is rather stingy in handing out snow days so it was a great opportunity for the kids to spend the whole day with friends. We dug up some snow pants and extra boots with the help of the neighbors and the kids sledded and rolled around in the snow until they were wet and tired then came inside to wait for their mittens and hat to dry so they could go back out and do it again.

In the end we got everything accomplished that had to be done and we managed to wrap things up and pack into the car for the return trip south. We will miss the neighbors and the dog and Paul started missing Claire two days before we left but we are eager to get back to the boat and continue our adventure. Now that we have some idea of what’s ahead it’s easier to look forward to it.