Our Hair is on Fire – Key West, Florida USA, January 17, 2025

We have been trapsing across the USA like crazy the last few weeks and I realize the last update we were enjoying Hawaii.  So, let me catch you up on our crazy life since we have travelled over 5,000 miles flying across the USA twice, driving it twice, and now we just bought a boat.  Yeah, it has been absolutely insane.  Let’s start here.  We wrapped up our time in Maui after spending a relaxing 5 weeks hiking the lava fields, snorkeling with the turtles, visiting the lavender farm, and seeing the top of the volcanoes.  A return to Hawaii at some point will be inevitable and we loved it!  We found out the tickets we had were able to be changed to allow us more time in Hawaii, so we didn’t fly back to the mainland till December 10^th. 

We spent two days in Venice Beach, California, which is essentially like going to a freak show.  I think it may have been a cool place at one time but now it’s like going to see a parade of carnies at the state fair.  Sadly, it has a lot of sketchy people and homeless.  One of these homeless people slept under our truck!  (Yes, Avis gave us another winner of a eco model car – an F150.  Try parking that is an overpopulated city.)  Flying into Los Angeles was not only cheaper but enabled us to go back to the RV, clean her out, and get her ready to be left for the next month while we headed back east to visit family for the holiday.  A couple days in California was enough and off we went flying to Jacksonville, Florida to stop #1 in Jekyll Island to see my parents.  We spent a great week with them then hopped in the car and drove north to Ohio to see our daughters.

We had planned to spend 3 weeks in Ohio to visit my sister and our daughters.  Daughter #1 was in from Spain, so we were happy to coordinate seeing her in addition Daughter #2 drove down several times from Cleveland, and Daughter #3 drove over from Newark.  All in all, it was nice to have the family in the same spot again we simply missed Daughter #4 on this trip. 

After a chilly few weeks, we were ready to get back to the sunshine and managed to get out of town just before the first major polar vortex and snowstorm hit Ohio.  Glad we missed this!  We went back to Jekyll Island for a few days then Hubby scheduled for us to go to Fort Lauderdale Florida and look at a couple boats.  Yes, we are going to go boat shopping again.  We got the bug and have decided the RV just isn’t going to be enough. 

A broker contacted Ron and offered to show us two Leopard 40’.  They were the owner’s version and two feet bigger than Mariposa, so we jumped at the chance since this is definitely the model we were eyeing.  These two boats were overpriced but we wanted to see if this model felt right and then we could shop for a better deal on one we could actually afford.  We actually put in a low-ball offer on one of the boats only to find out two very important pieces of info after doing so.  #1 – the broker lied to us and told us the boat was not a charter boat and Ron found out through one of the forums he follows that is most certainly was.  #2 – The windows were screwed in when they replaced them and this is a very big no no.  Ron got confirmation from a couple of his friends who have been surveyors by showing them the photos.

Then to top it all off, 15 minutes after the owners accepted our offer, Ron found the exact same model boat for sale for less money and better equipment that is actually not a charter boat.  Our buddy broker neglected to even tell us about this one and the same brokerage is the seller as well.  Now the fun begins. 

Our tickets to fly back to California were scheduled and now there are several huge wildfires within 5 miles of the RV.  Lovely.  First off, we had to fly back to Los Angeles and get the RV out of there assuming we were able to even get to it.  Luckily, we were able to save her and immediately picked it up and started going south.  During this time we had decided to back out of our current boat offer and had reached out directly to the owner of the lower priced boat to schedule a showing.  Except, it’s in Key West, Florida and this meant we would be crossing the USA for the fourth time in a matter of 6 weeks.  Here we go!  The next 6 days were spent in a collection of Cracker Barrel Parking lots and truck stops driving across the USA.  We managed to be back in Key West by Wednesday, January 15^th and we had a showing of the boat that afternoon.  The boat is in great shape, well maintained, and had tons of equipment the last (more expensive boat) was missing.  It has a water maker, radar, AIS, cookware, linens, a helm enclosure, everything!  The only items we need to add before taking off are a life raft and it has slightly less solar and battery power than our original Mariposa.  So, we made an offer and by Thursday it was accepted, and we were now on our way to doing a survey before closing on it in mid-February.  The boat is beautiful, and we are both very excited that we may get to be in the Bahamas again very very soon.

In the meantime, we enjoyed watching the Buckeyes win the Rose Bowl and the Cotton Bowl!  We are in a nice but very expensive campground in Key West right now.  We plan to stay to recover a bit from the extremely long drive Ron just did to get the RV here and we want to watch the Buckeyes in the National Championship game against Notre Dame.  So now you see how crazy it has been, and we have been on the move constantly the last couple of months.  We realize we are insane but there is certainly never a dull moment, and the adventure will continue!