Greetings,

Another fun and active month on DREAM AWAY. I have the October Maintenance Log on the web page so you can see what I have been doing for the last month on DREAM AWAY.

As you can see from the date of the update and today, several days have passed. I had the update ready on November the 3rd, but had extreme difficulty uploading all of the files and pictures. The ftp client I have used for many years, Transmit would not upload all of the approximately 200 files in the update.

There was approximately 30 files that would not upload using Transmit. I tried using the ftp command on a UNIX terminal window on the Mac OS-X, but that failed also. I then tried a web based ftp client and that also failed. Since I have Windows XP running as a virtual machine on my Mac, I decided to give it a go.

Of the approximately 30 files that would not upload directly from any ftp client on the Mac OS-X, about 20 of those files uploaded using the Windows ftp client. The other 10 files would not upload at all. I took the ten files to a Windows 7 PC, and using that Windows ftp client, I was able to upload the remaining files.

Now I seem to have a complete update, but I still have no idea why I had this upload problem. I am open to any suggestions from any of you who are network guru's! I am sure I will have a similar problem when I attempt to do an update at the beginning of December.

Our good friend Alan came over for a few days from League City, Texas. He came over via the Amtrak Sunset Limited. We have used that mode of transportation several times to go back and forth to Houston from Delcambre, and really like the convenience and the price. One way is about $40.00 for a senior, and you can sit and watch the world go by. When it is me, I spend a lot of time reading and working on the computer!

I got Alan to work, and we made a major start on the hard dodger I am building to replace the soft dodger. We got the pieces for the base and the uprights cut from the Strongwell Extren fiberglass plate. I had purchased some of this plate on my last trip to Houston. This stuff is amazing, and I have used it a lot on DREAM AWAY. You can follow what we did to glass down the plate to the doghouse as the base for the hard dodger in the October Maintenance Log.

While Alan was here, we attended the 24th World Champion Gumbo Cookoff in New Iberia. It is quite a festival, and there are many teams from this area, but also teams from around the country, and even some international teams. We sampled several of the Gumbo's, but the one I really liked was a pork and ham gumbo from the G-Men Team from St. Louis, Missouri. I even bought some to take back to DREAM AWAY.

Alan did not have to take the Amtrak Sunset Limited back home to League City, Texas. We drove him back, because we had to drive to the Freeport Municipal Marina, in Freeport, Texas, to pick up a shower trailer .

I will give you some background on the why, where, and how of a shower trailer. The North Pier Marina, where we presently live, and actually for whom both of us work, does not have restrooms or a shower facility. They are planning to build a building on the premises that will have these facilities , but for right now, they are not available.

About six months ago a couple on a cruising yacht, IMPETUOUS, stayed at the North Pier Marina on thier way to Florida. The couple on this boat, Connie and Wayne, were wonderful folks and we really enjoyed their company. On their way back to Texas, they decided to stop in again at North Pier Marina. They spent about six days with us, and during that time they mentioned that Freeport Municipal Marina had a three stall shower trailer they were going to sell.

I will not go into the whole story, but we won the shower trailer when the City of Freeport put it up for auction. Now you know most of the story of why we were going to Freeport, Texas, to get a shower trailer.

We dropped Alan off at his boat after having lunch with him and Cheryl, and our friends, Pam and Steve. After we said our goodbys, we headed out to Rosharon, Texas, to spend the night with Wayne and Connie off of IMPETUOUS. We got to Connie and Wayne's house, and had a great time visiting with them.

Next morning, it was off to the Freeport Municipal Marina to hitch up the trailer. We had to do some official stuff to get the shower trailer transfered to the Twin Parish Port Commision, and we had to get a five day "license" for the trailer so we could tow it back to Louisiana. We got all of that completed, then we drove back to Delcambre.

Just wanted to put in a word about small worlds! The current director of the Freeport Municipal Marina is someone we actually knew from our living at Watergate Marina. She lived on a sailboat there. While we were at the Freeport Municipal Marina, we ran into an old friend, Billy, with whom we had lost contact over the years. Billy is living on a power boat at the marina. Billy and I worked together at Digital Equipment Corporation starting in 1977.

This month we also had a visit from our cruising friends, Iris and Terry. They are still cruisers, they have just changed their mode of cruising. They sold their sail boat after going half way around the world, then bought a barge to motor the canals in France. They sold the barge and now have a huge motor coach (RV) so they can cruise the highways here in the USA!

We had met them for lunch as they were heading east to Florida to pick up thr RV a couple of months back. Now, they were heading back to Texas in the RV and stopped at an RV park in Abbeville. We had a great visit with them and enjoyed a meal at Shucks, and then had them over to DREAM AWAY for a meal of Shrimp and Cheese Grits.

On the last Sunday in October, we drove to Intracoastal City to support one of the fishermen in the Delcambre Direct Seafood Program. They are Cheryl and Big Al Granger off of the shrimp boat MISS BRITTANY G.

That morning they had Kimberly Schlapman from the Kimberly’s Simply Southern cooking show on board. Kimberly is also a founding member of the Little Big Town Band which was doing a show in Lafayette. Kimberly wanted to go out on a real shrimp boat and see how real Cajun shrimp gumbo was made. When the MISS BRITTANY G arrived back at their dock with Cheryl, Big Al, Kimberly, and the film crew on board, there was still plenty of gumbo left. I had two bowels of gumbo before we departed!!

This same week, we drove into New Iberia to visit the Konriko Rice Mill. We had talked about going to the Konriko Rice Mill many times but just could not seem to find the time to do it. We enjoyed the tour of the oldest rice mill in the United States, but the film they showed as part of the tour was outstanding. It was a Cajun history from the Expulsion to present day in 20 minutes, a great simple introduction to Acadiana.

Overall, it has been a good month, and I am making good progress on the hard dodger. The weather is getting cooler, and as long as it does not get too cold, I will be OK.

I hope this update finds you all well, and that life is good.

If you find any issues with the update, or on the web page, please let me know via email.

regards,

jimk

Member Seven Seas Cruising Association

WEB page http://www.dreamaway.net