Hello Crimson Kathryn! We missed you

The day finally arrived and on Nov. 8th, the US Land borders opened for those of us longing to get back to our boats. We were eager to head south and ended up leaving Kingston 2 hours earlier then planned on Nov. 9. We left at 1pm and arrived at the Thousand Island border crossing in about 30 minutes. We were very worried about the wait time at the border and we were watching it very closely on Nov. 8. Some crossings reported wait times of 3 hours or more so we were ready for anything. Fortunately, we breezed through the border – no one ahead of us in line and after all the questions were answered, we were on our way!! Oh so easy!

The drive down was good – not too much traffic (except around the usual places) and even the Washington bypass went smoothly. Our biggest challenge was driving overnight. We both became super tired around 2 am and then again at about 5 am. But we powered through and made a few more stops to stretch our legs and wake ourselves up.

All was going great until we got to Georgia!!! There was about 2.5 hours left on our drive when the tire pressure warning came on. Sure enough we had a rear tire losing air..fast!! Fortunately we were close to an exit with 3 gas stations. We pulled in and Mark changed the tire. Of course to get at the replacement tire, we had to completely empty the back of the car!!! The tire didn’t take long to change but we needed to fix the old tire (or replace it) because the temporary tire is just that..temporary. Okay, now we’re on the hunt for a place to fix the old tire! Fun!

We ended up at Darien Tire and Lube in Eulonia, Georgia. The tire couldn’t be repaired but they sold us a new one – mounted it, installed and balanced it for a really good price and they did all that in about 1 hour.

We made it to Reynold’s Park by noon and went straight to the boat. Crimson Kathryn looked great but man was she dirty!!! Lots of green mold on deck (from stagnant water) and rotten leaves. It will take a bit of scrubbing to clean her up but we have the time!

We checked into the Airbnb around 3 pm after a very short grocery shopping trip to Publix. We’ve now had dinner and a bit of bubbly to celebrate! We’ll be heading to bed early tonight and starting the cleanup job tomorrow! Yippy!!!