The Last of the Parents

 

In the 12 years that Chris and I have been cruising there have been many family occasions - marriages, divorces, grandchildren, and deaths. Over the years we have lost all four of our parents, pretty evenly spaced over the period. The last to go was my dad (he's the one on the left), he died this week. It was long life, making 95 years and while we weren't there at the end, I'm sure he was as cantankerous as ever on the way out.

Paul

Enjoying Bear Town

 

We've been in Bear Town for a couple of months now. The town is actually New Bern, North Carolina. Named after Bern, Switzerland. Bern meaning bear in Swiss. When you walk around town you run into a lot of bears, along with some nice restaurants, tourist hangouts and antique malls.

 My favorite bear is the one in front of Mitchel's Hardware. This is an old style hardware store with rotating buckets of nails, and along with a little bit of everything and someone working there who knows how to find it.

Mitchel's has a great stock of stainless steel screws, getting my vote. It so much easier working the boat to walk a block and half to Mitchells and grab the right bolt or screw, than to dig through mu boxes of miss matched parts. We've been doing a lot of boat work, mostly cosmetics to get ready to put her on the market. Then we'll have to decide what we are going to do (when we grow up).

The town is full of restored and waiting to be restored antebellum southern homes. It was the site of a Union-Confederate battle then ended with the town being in Union hands for most of the war.

Georgia sitting at the dock in New Bern while she gets the spa treatment

A Monarch picture because its summer.

Paul