The Great Preparations for The Great Plan

Our long-standing plan to do The Great American Loop is becoming more real by the day. As I write, the plan is to get started from Long Island early in June. Yes. 2016. The work to get there, though, has been tremendous.

In our New York house we have all of the accumulated stuff from 35 years of married life, plus college, plus some childhood keepsakes, plus some hand-me-downs. Almost none of it has a place on Carousel. Deb has been working long days for months now to clear out our stuff; shipping some of it to Florida, making many trips to the Commack United Methodist Thrift Shoppe, arranging for multiple pick-ups by charities such as Big Brothers and Big Sisters,  and dispersing Girl Scout leader resources all over the County. Mike has been selling lawn equipment, shop tools, unneeded boat stuff, and household items on Craig's List and eBay. We should have started earlier.

Even with all of that hard work, the Real Estate agent that we are going to use to sell the home keeps saying "less clutter." Some painting and carpet updating that we should have done a while ago has just been completed this past week and outdoor work is waiting for climate change to subside. Like all sellers, we are hoping for the right buyer to come long quickly.

Neither one of us has been able to walk away from work. Even though Deb retired in November, her work keeps asking her back and she keeps accepting. The checking account likes that.  Mike's intention of slowing down is just not happening with his planned last work date of "sometime in March" now scheduled for June 3, He also has a few more international trips in the making between now and then.

We are also working our way out of commitments at Church and Deb is extracting herself from her Girl Scout troop.  (BTW, she will be receiving her GS 50 year pin in Chicago later this week).

Maggie's college graduation is in May. She is job-hunting and looking for the next big step; which adds some interesting drama to the schedule for all of us. We are so proud of her accomplishments.

Both sets of Maggie's grandparents will be in Pennsylvania for her graduation celebration.Then, Deb's parents will stay up north with us to embark on Carousel's first leg with us. That first leg will involve wandering around the Hudson River, the New York Canal System, the Finger Lakes, and Lake Champlain from June into July.

So, then, there is Carousel. She is still "on the hard" with the winter cover off, with launch expected any day now as the weather allows. If the house would sell quickly, we will move aboard early. Expecting a daily workout for her engines this summer, we are having our mechanic (John at Green Marine Services) give them some extra love and care, we need to update some of the electronics for compliance for our excursion to Canada, we have delivered and stowed several car loads of necessities for our live-aboard experience, and we have had a great relationship with Brewer Stirling Harbor Marina in working with our Great Plan. Naturally, we still have some upgrade projects that would be nice to complete before embarking.

So, it is a pretty busy time but, at the end of the day, we are excited to be getting this close!