The Avocato

What the hell is wrong with me?  Grown man, 44 years old, posting pictures of sandals and shoes and shit.   Flip flops and string?  Come on.  Stop it. Ignoring that, Lola and I both received our backpacks yesterday.  My little green and black Osprey--which she named Kermit tonight over veggie burgers, french fries, darts, and a tight six piece brass/double bass/banjo/percussion/piano band at the Bull and Bush Pub in Glendale--was delivered to me by the UPS man in the morning.  After that we put the top down on Roscoe and took the thru-city route to REI, deciding that this was the day the she would pick her pack after a few weeks of trying various models on.  Backpacks can seem great on paper and on the internet and get great reviews for comfort but if they don't fit well on you then they might as well be made of porcupine quills and battering rams. Step one:  It feels good in the store or it doesn't feel good in the store. The store ...

It is too much to ask for a single product to be perfect for all situations, evidently. There are some things I have been looking for in a camp sandal or shoe: 1) Weighs very little, 2) Is comfortable, 3) Doesn't break the bank, 4) Doesn't take up too much room, 5) Can be used with or without socks, 5a) If socks are used they do not have to be specialized--I'm looking at you Injinji, 6) Can be used for stream crossings, 7) Dries very quickly, 8) Any fool can make them, 9) Is somewhat durable when not abused. I know, I know...I don't need to take camp sandals with me on a thru hike, but I'm gonna...maybe. You don't have to but I want to. So this is for those of you who also wanna. Because I could not find anything on the market, I made some. Here is how they came to be (I feel like an unshaven and slightly smelly Martha Stewart right now): I thought old school Tevas would do the job, but they are 13 ounces for a pair. Too heavy.  Crocs ...

Good news!  Lola is on board for the Colorado Trail thru-hike next summer. When I first suggested the idea she said she would be interested in doing a few segments of the trail, maybe two weeks' worth.  Over the past few days she's become kind of excited about the thing and, as of today, wants to at least attempt the whole thing with me. John has yet to commit. But what about our dog, Milo?  What do we do with him while we are hiking? (I am pretty sure that I have neglected to mention that Roxy, our first and best dog, died last November.  It devastated us as much a losing a dog can, which is not a little.  She died of a particularly swift and nasty anemia that put her fuzzy little black and white dog body at odds with itself.  Less than 48 hours after the diagnosis we had to put her to sleep.  This of course was after the veterinarian had raped us for all the money he could get.  Two sad months later we adopted Milo, who might be part Cataho...

Best. Summer. Ever.  As the kids say.  And it's true. I quit my job in February and in April signed up as unpaid crew for a five day ocean sailing voyage delivering a 50' Beneteau monohull sailboat from Charleston, SC to Annapolis, MD, which I have already written about.  That was just a warm up for the next big trip, though, which was an epic three week boat delivery on a Bavaria 50' from the British Virgin Islands to Bermuda to Maine.  A week after returning to the states,  John, my wife, our new dog Milo and I hitched the DaySailer (which we finally got around to naming:  "Reservoir Dog") behind Roscoe and drove down to Port Mansfield, Texas for a five day sail northbound along the Intracoastal Waterway in an annual event called the Texas 200.  John and I sailed while Lola and Milo hung out in Austin for a few days before meeting us at the finish line with Roscoe and the boat trailer.  It wasn't a race, but rather an "endurance event."...

DAY 1: I arrive at the Charleston airport around 1:45 pm on a Wednesday in April, 2014.  This will be my first multi-day offshore sailing voyage.  After a call from the boat captain, I learn that another member of the crew has arrived, too.  His name is  Jerry.  He is 39 years old and like me has never been offshore. We meet outside and share a cab to the Cooper River Marina in North Charleston. The cabbie doesn't know where the marina is, so we navigate from the backseat with our iPhones. We unload, unchain the gate to the marina, walk down the concrete quarter mile long dock (which turns out to be drivable, but is only one car wide with a turning area at the end).  There are some beautiful sailboats there and some not so beautiful. Southern Accent , a 2006 50' Beneteau Cyclades is ours.  A lot of plastic and fiberglass but it looks strong. The new owner and a delivery skipper were taking it to Annapolis from BVI via Dominic...