Sweet Home Indiana

* Now or Never motor vessel– Melbourne, Florida *

* Crew – Columbus, Indiana *

It is amazing how quickly one can assimilate to what seems a prior life.

That is what being at home seems like after having been aboard the Now of Never for the past ten months with just a couple of quick trips home (Tasha more than David and Remy). Some days it feels like we’ve been gone forever, other days like we just left.

This crew has regained the rhythm of the dirt life in just a couple of weeks.

We’ve been on our journey:

10 months / 304 days / 70 travel days / 6 states / 3342 miles

Our April log shows us traveling 290 miles by boat, 438 miles shy of the 728 miles we thought we would cruise. The 728 miles would have taken us 17 cruising days and over 80 cruising hours. Instead we drove 990 miles home in less than 15 hours. The slow pace cruise is a little more fun!

We are happy to have a home to come to. While our plans for our multi-year journey did not include us returning for more than a few days here and there, we did realize with Remy’s age, we might need to come home for a longer stay. At one time in our planning, we had contemplated going all in, selling almost everything including our home, and living on the boat full time with no dirt home. We are so glad we went the route of downsizing and having a place to come home to. We realized we didn’t want to part with all are belongings (we parted with a bunch) and having a home has been a Godsend. We can’t imagine us needing to get off the boat like we have and not having anywhere to go (the kids are thankful too!). We have transitioned so easily to home, though miss our adventure and our boat.

However, we left the warm, 80-degree weather, and we had snow one of our first days at home!

Snow is something we really didn’t miss this winter. Our preference is temps in the 70’s, but 80’s or snow, we choose sun! We have experienced glimpses of spring in Indiana!

Our first week included taking care of Remy and taking care of a few “home” things – things for the house and the tax man. And now we have gotten into the rhythm of just being home.

Tasha has been burning up the roads to Cincinnati to visit with her mom.

David worked on finding money (haha) to pay the tax man and has been working on our yard (our long absence has been hard on it) and other projects around the house.

Remy has been enjoying seeing many of her friends, playing with her toys she had to leave behind, stretching out, and taking naps in every room of the house!

We are pleased to report she is doing well. She continues to thrive in the company of friends (4 and 2 legged) and has harassed us daily to go to the park or the creek.

She has swam year-round in the creek and this trip home has been no exception, a brisk day to us, a perfect day for a dip for her! She has traded in watching fish and dolphins for rabbits and squirrels. We appreciate everyone’s thoughts and prayers; they were heard, and our girl is doing great! The two-month countdown is on for her 15^th birthday!

We have had the opportunity to catch up with a lot of friends in times of sorrow and joyous occasions. A dear friend passed away our first week home. We were glad to be home to gather with family and friends.

For a happier time, we headed south to the river to join in on the Thunder over Louisville celebration with our former home port dock mates. Thunder is the annual kickoff to the Kentucky Derby and includes an air show and the largest fireworks show in North America. The festivities take place on the Ohio River. We have attended Thunder on our boat for years.

We joined our dock mates on the river in downtown Jeffersonville (directly across from Louisville) for the pre-festivities including the practice air show. It was great to see the old gang and Remy thrived with her beau Gunner and all her other friends. The river has always been her happy place and it is still today. We picked her up in Brown County (Remy is a rescue) almost 14 years ago and took her straight to the boat. She quickly bonded with her brother Tucker and his best friend Jake and the three goldens enjoyed their time swimming and playing at the marina. Still a favorite of hers.

The thunder air show is one of the neatest we’ve ever seen, and the practice day doesn’t disappoint. We were not able to get good photos of the air show so I reached out to our photographer friend, Theresa Lewis-Frith of Frithfotos, and asked if I could share some of her air show photos. She did an incredible job (as always) catching the breathtaking aerial show practice. It was just a spectacular day on the riverfront! This all-day lively event sure had us a tired dog on the way home that night.

At home, David hunted down Rotella T-4 diesel motor oil at our local Walmart after coming up empty at Rural King. The shelves at Walmart were empty like they are almost everywhere, but way in the back he spotted three boxes – SCORE! Just what we needed! We are happy to not have to try to track this down on our trip and then find a way to haul it back to the boat. We keep reading of many boaters struggling to find this on the loop (another casualty of the supply chain woes).

The Now or Never requires 9 gallons to change the engines. David changes the engine oil every 300 hours. Upon our return, this will be the second oil change since we left home, sitting in Florida for months has saved on engine hours and fuel.

We just started discussing our return to Melbourne, the Now or Never, and our journey, and wouldn’t you know, a couple of things came up that we need to juggle at home before we can return, so it seems we will be home a bit longer. We hope to be back cruising by late May. The crew is disappointed by the delay as most of our friends and loopers, are at minimum a few weeks ahead of us now and by the time we return a month or more. This will have us cruising on our own, like last summer, and not having the interaction and company we all so enjoy from other loopers. We also will have to deal with the heat (can be hard on Remy and a boat) as we were hoping to be in the Chesapeake by June. Spring is in full cycle in the south, the temperatures are increasing daily. Our previous plans would have had the crew and boat in North Carolina by now. We also pray Remy will continue to be strong enough to handle being aboard.

While disappointed to be away from our journey, we certainly are enjoying time with our family, friends, and stretching out a bit. Nothing beats the therapy of being on the water and we’re anxious to return. We have a few more weeks of walks to the park with Remy before we continue our Great Loop Adventure. Thanks for continuing to follow our journey, blip and all!

Cheers!  David, Tasha, & Remy

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