The 2011 NAC is being hosted in Westport CT, which lies on Long Island Sound. We aren't going this year but our friends Amy and Jeff Linton are so we will be posting Amy's account of the adventure. In case you don't know, Amy is a writer, the kind that earns a living from it. So you will want to check in here frequently to get the scoop.
One note; Amy has including some pics that do not cut and paste very well. "Cut and Paste" is the preferred lazy persons way of stealing, oops, I mean sharing, others peoples work. I'll try to pop some pics in but.... Maybe I'll will include some of my own pics, they will have nothing to do with the story but it might be fun.
This first post will be about the trip from Tampa, Florida to Westport, CT. The Lintons travel right; a Winnabago, about 25 feet, Scot in tow with a dog inherited from Amy's mom. So here goes;
Flying Scot NAC’s
Chapter One: Preparation is 9/10ths of the Law
The Winnie being gassed up, packed to the gills, festooned with bicycles and trailing a stout, well-wrapped Flying Scot, we set off a little after 7 pm on Wednesday, July 6.
We’ve been doing this for a while. Probably 300 road-trips towing a small boat. Even more for Captain Winnebago, who has, after all, been heading out for regattas for thirty-some years.
Nevertheless, there’s always a bit of mad scramble. This time, we almost-but-not-quite-forgot the hand-held radio. About two days from now, I will declare, THAT is what I forgot. We live in hope that it’s not too critical an item. Once, in the Bahamas, I neglected to pack toothbrushes. The nearest store was on Staniel Key, an hour or so away by outboard. The store was rumored be open for business a couple of hours some days a week, so we made the trip. On Staniel, which is all blinding bright rock and skittering lizards and the occasional lush plant, I was delighted to walk into that cool, dark store and pay $5 US per toothbrush.
Even knowing better, I once forgot to pack any fleece for him when he was sailing the Pan Am Trials in Rochester NY in August. For heaven’s sake, the man freezes at 70 degrees. It’s Lake Ontario, a body of water I swam from April to November all through my childhood. It’s always going to be too cold for him. Poor thing. Cold front came through, and in photos he has the expression of one of the survivors of the Endurance expedition.
And why didn’t he pack his own dang gear? Divide and conquer, that’s what we have learned after 300 or more trips: I handle the on-shore logistics, the luggage, the clothing choices; he prepares the boat and the car, does the lion’s share of driving, and never complains.
This time, we are driving to Westport CT, to the Cedar Point Yacht Club where we and somewhere around 70 or so Flying Scots will compete for the North American Championship on a little bit of Long Island Sound.
Captain Winnebago tells me that if it’s going to be really windy, stormy, cold, nasty on the Sound –– then by golly, we are heading to Maine. This is an empty promise. But it works on my imagination anyway. I want to sail, yet I am soothed and charmed by the idea of just haring off into Maine. Us, cozy in our boxy little cottage on wheels, heading into the North woods. Blueberries. Bar Harbor. Ahhh. Alas. Never gonna happen this trip.
We have a new addition to the on-board gang. Aside from the Captain and his trusty snactition (me), and the charming small dog, we have a new GPS. Old Alice did great for years but like so many of us, she got a little forgetful and tired. She seemed on the verge of going Mayhem on us http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=140261009364622
The new gal –– Beatrice, Berniece? we aren't sure yet -– has an uncertain accent. Not quite our preferred British English. As Leslie Fisher says, a British accent goes a long way to making an insult bearable. (Imagine Julie Andrews telling you to go piss up a rope.)
The new GPS gal talks a lot more than Alice. She announces that the exit will be to the left. She tells us the name of the road we’ll be taking. She also, in a shirty sort of way, asks us to return to the marked route. What?? We are pulling into the Starck, FL Super Wal-Mart for the night. “Return to marked route,” she repeats, sarcasm evident in her flat tone.
“Keep your pants on,” Captain Winnebago tells the machine, “it’s time to tuck in for the night.”
Chapter Two
On the Road Again, Naturally.
Saw a pair of bluebirds at the Welcome Center in Georgia: bright, cheerful scraps of denim blue and rust that ––inevitably ––made me think, oh look! Blue birds of happiness!
It’s refreshing, going along I-95, to see LIFE wildlife. Some years ago, my sister and I made the run from Florida to Clayton, NY towing a U-Haul. The trip was one long Ab-X workout: we found everything hilarious. My sister (Sarah Ellen Smith Artist...http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sarah-Ellen-Smith-Artist/176965461051) does a great line in journals; for that trip we kept a road-kill diary, thick with descriptions of road-jerky, possible possums, skunk strips. Outside Wilkes-Barre, PA, something larger than the run-of-the-mill butterfly and dragonfly thunked on the windshield. I looked up, startled. “Tinkerbell,” my sister said matter-of-factly, pointing to the smear.
The Captain and I are trying not to keep track, but these trips have their deathly highlights. This one started with a big black pig that went to dirt along the road to Ruskin, with a flight of black vultures like dirty angels gathered to sing him home. A mysterious soft thump might have been a bat at dusk last night hitting the side of the Winnie. While I was typing, Captain Winnebago spotted a rare family grouping of armadillo road-kill. Usually they seem to find their way solo to their ends.
On Thursday, July 7, we split tacks with I-95. Since our top speed is around 65, we figure it’s worth an extra hour or two to take a calmer, longer route North. This way, we avoid Washington and then we miss the majority of Jersey. Last time we took the Parkway (or was it the Turnpike?), the road was so bumpy and rutted that we scraped the skeg of the Lightning. Nice –– and had to pay for the privilege of jouncing along that road.
Instead, we are swinging past Charlotte –– ooh! I say, I saw that same amusement park from the air last week –– and following 81 for a while. We’ll hang a right at some point to get to the Atlantic. But for now, it’s this friendly-seeming highway along the hills. If I-95 is the preferred corridor of serial killers (drive it solo in an unreliable sedan once or twice and you’ll agree), Route 81 is a stomping ground for amateur highway-drivers. Folks who talk to you at rest-areas. People who stay right unless passing. People who point at the hills, the cows, the vistas, as they zip along the pavement. This particular route number seems like home to me, even down here in tobacco barn country.
The Winnie is chugging up the hills with a will so far. The gas bill is staggering, and the new GPS gal, Berniece, has the unsettling ability to tell us the dollar amount it costs to get to a waypoint. Yoiks. Jeff listened to Out Stealing Horses by Per Pettersson while I wrote. We had snacks. Lilly slept and neglected to eat her breakfast until dinnertime.
Berniece did a fantastic job of finding us a berth for the night: Buchanan, Virginia is near the Jefferson National Forest. The Middle Creek Campground is a mere six miles from the highway, along a lovely twisty road. Ahh. Electric hookup. Fishing pond. Wild berry brambles, lightning bugs and bats, and nearly perfect rural silence.
FSNACs Day 3: Lots and lots of driving.
We saw our first woodchucks today. I know –– woodchucks? But it’s not a species we see in Florida. In fact, the first time Captain Winnebago saw one, years back, he was theatrically astonished: “Look, a little furry creature! Bucked up on its hind legs!” Can he possibly be serious?
So many state lines today, July 8. We listened to podcasts of the excellent radio program called Radiolab (http://www.radiolab.org/) and watched as the skies darkened with storms over Maryland. And stayed dark all the rest of the day.
We got five or so CDs into Grave Surprise by Charlene Harris. She wrote the Sookie Stackhouse books, but this is a darker, more suspenseful mystery series.
As we drove through our narrative and atmospheric haze, a flattened galaxy of red giants appeared through the distance: brake-lights. Eschewing our normal Stoic approach to traffic, we bailed immediately. The GPS gal, Berniece, had to have her voice dialed down to zero (“Make a U-Turn. Turn left. Turn right! Ahhh”). In revenge she kept moving our estimated time of arrival one hour out. At one point we were fifty minutes from our destination, but alas, the brake lights appeared and we had to wait it out. Then it was an hour, an hour, an hour from the current time. We were in…the twilight zone.
Still, I write this from the driveway of Josh Goldman’s house. We arrived unscathed, if a little tired of the aggressive drivers (“Bitches!” the Captain was moved to exclaim over and over with no regard to gender). Great to see John Cook’s smiling face at the Cedar Point YC. Excellent to crack an icy chiller and walk the little dog in the misty rain.
Measurement starts tomorrow at 9. We hear the Goughs broke an axel on the Jersey Turnpike. In the left lane. Nightmare! But only four hours worth of delay, which, all things considered, is not bad. And they didn’t get shot. We look forward to hearing about that.
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