11/19/15 Thursday

What a whirlwind week of visiting and visitors. Today Stacy and Ken Miller were here, having spent last night with us.  They were our 3rd and 4th overnight visitors this week, cousin Dale being the 2nd, and cousin Kay being the 1st. Patsy, Gary, Mary and Denis visited, as well.

We all woke up early (5 AM) and pretty immediately decided to go back to sleep. Maybe Ken stayed up to do a walk about and meditate as the sun rose. All were up around 8 AM for coffee, cereal and "what's the weather going to do today" and "what shall we do today" conversations. Ken and David went on a rescue mission to try and find Dale's medication that was mistakenly put in the trash from his car. SUCCESS! The dumpster diving paid off in a big way. Stacy and I called our college friends, Alana, and Ann and did some catch-up time with each of them, as well as our own catch-up time.

The men returned and we watched it start to rain. "Let's walk on the beach." "Let's get some food first." So, heat up the leftovers. And then it really rained...buckets...so we took off to complete some errands - Thank you, Ken and Stacy, for driving us lots of places. We do take advantage of "wheels" when they come with our friends. Buckets and buckets, maybe swimming pools of rain by the time we got back to the boat. I suggested that maybe we wouldn't go for a beach walk. It would be hard to tell where the sea water began and the rain water started.

The boat to our right is abt 6' away, diagonally in front of us is abt 14'
WET

Back in the cozy warmth of Grace we had tea and cookies and our friends gathered themselves to leave. Out into the downpour.

David and I sighed. It has been a delicious week of friendship and warm sun with a little rain that must fall... I guess. We're feeling blessed with this time and opportunity to visit in such a lovely place. And we're both ready to continue our southern journey and spent much of the evening, pre- and post-dinner reading charts searching website for marinas and anchorages, and reading reviews on Active Captain planning our next couple of days and speculating where we might be at Thanksgiving. We're trying to orchestrate our next stops to meet up with cousin Conni and Al for a visit and a mail retrieval. Perhaps that will be at Carolina Beach though that is a bit of a hike for them. Will call tomorrow and discuss possibilities and options. Trying to leave beautiful (and cooling) Beaufort by 10 AM.

Onward.