Days 190 – 196: Long Time Apart

John: Piney Narrows Yacht Haven, Kent Island, MD (docked)

Chris: Austin, TX (hoteled)

July 24 – 30, 2022

We are a couple who really enjoys each other’s company. For us, being on Laila – all 42 feet of her – is pretty great. We manage to have space apart on the boat when we need it (and we usually don’t need it). I also occasionally need to lead workshops in person, so sometimes we have to be apart.

I left early on July 24th to fly to Austin to lead six days of workshops. John had to single-hand Lailia to her new spot across the bay. John brought Lailia from Florida to Charleston solo when we first bought her, so this is not a big deal for him.

Austin is one of our favorite places and we have favorite restaurants there, too. The folks who were in my car cohort either were or became Torchy’s Tacos fans – we managed to eat there 3 times during this trip (including on the way from the airport to the hotel).

Our new marina is very close to where our Bahamas friends Casey and Andy have their boat docked. John got to enjoy a cold Bahamian Kalik beer with Andy on Andy’s birthday. John requested that I NOT sing happy birthday to Andy when I called.

Workshop leaders in Austin ride to the workshops in car cohorts – we usually make plans with these folks for any extracurricular activities. I was really fortunate that my group and another group had similar interests so we spent a lot of time laughing, eating, and walking around together. (Shout out to Kurt and Lu who drove, as well as Eve, Sabrina, Katie, Jason, and David who are my ride and Torchy’s friends forever).

Several of my Austin peeps had never seen the bats leave from under the Congress Street Bridge – how cool that we happened to be there when there were three flights. This was an entirely unplanned event that started out as a walk after a giant Texas barbecue dinner.

“Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren’t so different. We saw the same sunset.”

S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

How amazing is sunset? Every day we have a chance to take a couple of minutes to watch the sun go down and reflect on the day (sometimes we are up early enough to watch the sun come up, but not often these days). Even when we are not together, we try to have a sunset moment.

Austin has some really great murals. My IB friends and I were able to watch one being painted on a utility box in SoCo – this was a tribute to Joan Means Khabele, the woman who desegregated Barton Springs in 1960, while she was still in high school.

---

---

Of course, even though we were in a city, I made sure to look for gifts from Mother Nature. These Muscovy ducks were down a trail that led from the back of our hotel through a nature area with a pond.

It’s strange to consider that I will be going to Lailia on roads I don’t know to a marina I have never been in. We have been so water-based for so long that I have few mental maps of where we are and how to get places.

John will need to orient me to the marina and the area – he has been exploring this week.