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| Taco Tuesday with the FIA ladies |
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| I should have been out rowing with the Oars |
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| Love these decorations! |
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| Sunset on the walk to dinner at City Kitchen with Tonya, Nancy and Tom, and Renee and Greg. Such a great group of people! Sadly no photos... |
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| Pet sitting for Jasper |
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| So cute and a really good boy! |
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| Where the heck is my family??? |
Nov 30 - moved into the Coastal Cottage (on VRBO), which is super cute. It's 3 bedroom and certainly big enough for me and Zoe. It's comfortable, but I do miss that back yard and porch!
Dec 1 - I arrived here in Beaufort one year ago and stayed for 6 months and was so taken with the town and the people here. It is something I've never experienced in my life. Now being here for over 2 weeks, I'm seriously wondering if I might want to winter here every year. I just feel so at home. But it is time to move onto more exploring in the van.
Today, I went to see Kelvin at Inkspiration Tattoos. I've been wanting a tattoo forever, but I never really knew what I wanted. I used to want a tiger, but I wanted my tattoo to mean something to me, not just be something I like. When dog training, I was going to do paw prints, but that didn't seem quite right. I've always loved dragonflies, having them land on me and just rest there, or flying above me and their wings looking iridescent with the sun shining on them. One day, years ago, I think I watched a single dragonfly above me for 30 minutes at least as it darted around in the setting sun. It was amazing. Anyway, after rescuing the one recently (it was upside down on the top of the water and I figured it was dead. I felt very sad and realized that it might not be dead, so I back paddled and lifted it out of the water on my paddle and placed it right side up in my boat. It did appear to be alive and remained in my boat for the rest of my paddle. When I brought my boat onto shore, instead of flipping it over like I usually do, I left it right side up and a 1/2 hour later it was gone.
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| The one I rescued. |
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| A friend. It's not often they hang around as long as this one did. |
I looked up the meaning of dragonflies and what spoke to me was: Transformation, Living in the moment, Freedom, Changes, Adaptation, Strength, Resilience. All of these relate to the transformation that my life has undergone in the past year. My life now is about living in the moment, the freedom to go where I wish, the need to adapt and be resilient in challenging situations. It all just seems so perfect.
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| This is the temporary to give me an idea. I even love this! |
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| The drawing that Kelvin and I came up with of what will be tattooed on my arm 12/2 |
Last night was Emily and John's Christmas party. I was so happy that I was able to stick around in town to go. What an amazing party they put on with a catered food truck, a band, and plenty of bubbles! I had such a great time once again with these people. It was quite a crowd and everyone is so wonderful! I only took a couple of shots. When I'm writing my posts, I always think that I wished I had taken more photos of the people I spend time with. I'm going to have to work on that!
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| The dancers |
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| The watchers. Who's having more fun? 😄 (Yes, I did join in on the dancing!) |
Christmas parade this morning. I was feeling really emotional as Zoe and I walked into town past all the folks getting ready for the parade. It wasn't really clear to me what it was about, but I can only assume it's about me leaving in a couple of days. Again, I'm looking forward to moving on, but will most definitely this wonderful little community!
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| Waiting to get going |
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| Lots of great decorated golf carts |
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| The Shady Ladies |
It's time to head out for my tattoo!!! How much is this going to hurt?? Someone told me that the forearm is painful and Kelvin agreed, but he said that it's going to hurt wherever I put it, so I should put it where I want it - not that I was planning to change my mind.
12/3 - Well, it hurt more than expected and is much darker than expected. Right now it has Derm Shield over it, a healing bandage that is thin and transparent. The tattoo looks dark and smudged, which sounds like is normal at this stage. It's also a bit pink around it, but that is to be expected. I do tend to react to adhesives, so we weren't sure if we should use it, but I decided to try it and if I reacted, I would remove it and go back to the other method for healing. It sounds like it takes at least 2x as long to heal without the 5 days of the derm shield. Anyway, so far (over a day later) I don't seem to be reacting to is, so that's great!
I started doing some van prep work today. I removed the last of the water so I can fill it with fresh reverse osmosis water from Sheila and Mark. Yay! I had been using the water from the van for drinking as much as I could until it started to run out. I'm not sure how I'd know if anything was starting to grow in my tank and lines, but keep wondering if it needs treatment with vinegar or bleach. For now, I'm just going to fill it again and hope for the best!
I have had some sap spots on my van that are probably from when I was in Maine in October and I finally got them off today. I had tried using olive oil when I was at Sue's and got some of it off, but definitely wasn't terribly effective. I was going to try gasoline today, but I really like the idea of the olive oil, as I suspect it doesn't hurt the finish 🤞, so I tried that again today and with some finger nail scraping, I got it off. One spot isn't as clean as the others, but a big improvement. I'm glad to have that taken care of!
I opened the toilet today and noticed a lot of condensation. I suppose that makes sense due to the rain and just general humidity here. Tomorrow, I'll take it out of the van again and dry it out. I had been thinking it would be dry because I haven't been using it, but the enclosed space and the heating and cooling of the van has apparently been creating lots of condensation.
I found myself a bit grumpy today. I guess I was feeling really ready to leave as I didn't have any plans. Well, I did, but they fell apart as everyone bailed. I ended up visiting Nancy, one of these folks who bailed because she was on a boat last night that ran aground and she went flying into the hull. She got very bruised up and probably cracked some ribs.
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| Me and Zoe on Nancy and Tom's boat. |
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| I like the way Zoe is just watching the world go by, but the photo above catches her cute face! |
I guess I felt sad that the others bailed when I'll be leaving in two days, but I've seen them several times, so it's fine. I think I'm ready to leave as I've done a lot of visiting. I've been quite busy since I've been here and in reality it is nice to just chill. BUT, I really wish I had that porch to sit on, though I know Missy and Merle wouldn't mind - especially if they weren't there. Right now, I'm just not very good at just sitting.
Tomorrow I have Jasper duty from 8-2 and will be prepping the van and doing laundry. I hope to leave by 10 on Tuesday. First stop is Fleet Feet in Wilmington for new sneakers. Since arriving back in Beaufort (after about a week), my plantar faciitis in my left foot started up again (which hasn't bothered me since I left here...), along with what felt like shin splints in mostly my left leg, but a touch in right as well. I realized that I got these sneakers in April and have been wearing them quite a bit. They're only supposed to be good for about 300 miles and I typically walk 25 miles/week +/-, so I should replace them every 3-5 months. I think that walking here is hard on my legs and feet because it's all pavement, unless we go to Fort Macon. However, my left leg was really bothering me and I started to worry that I might have another DVT in that same leg. In addition to the sole of my foot and heel and the shin, my leg was hard and swollen and painful above my ankle, which didn't dissipate when elevated. BUT, it was feeling better than it had been (DVT likely to get worse) and this was all in the front of my leg, which seemed odd. My calf wasn't hard, nor did it hurt. But I was still worried. I think my health share would probably deem this as a preexisting condition, so I would have had to pay for everything. Thankfully, I called my friend Jack, who is a retired radiologist. He told me that since it's in the front of my leg, where there are no deep veins, I could rule out a DVT. Jack gave me such relief from my worries and probably saved me thousands of dollars by keeping me out of the ER. Wow, that all started from me mentioning my plans for getting new sneakers!
After Wilmington, I'm thinking Charleston again as I wonder if I didn't give it a fair chance last time, then Savannah, which I loved. I think that holiday decorations will be beautiful in the cities. I'll probably overnight in Savannah. Prior to Savannah, I'm thinking I might overnight in Beaufort, SC. After Savannah, the plan is to go to Jekyll Island and meet up with Marta and Annie. I hope to stay there for at least 3 nights, but we'll see. Of course, I'm likely to arrive on the weekend, which makes it difficult to get a site at the campground. 🤞
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