McCall, Idaho USA …
Excited to ring in a new year from our winter wonderland here in McCall! We managed to have -15F nights and barely above 0F days, followed by rainy days, all within the span of a week as this season’s crazy winter weather wreaked havoc across the country. Sophia spent tons of time with her friends, taking advantage of great skiing weather once winter came back to normal here in the mountains. For our part we enjoyed having our good friends Tom & Di visit for a week over the holidays – much laughter, wine and sarcasm throughout! They even endured our tiny home when they had to sleep on the couch for a night, vacating the guest room to Sophia and friends for her 15th birthday sleepover celebration. Our two plus weeks with Sophia went fast, and before we knew it she was being dropped at Boise airport for her return flight back to New Jersey.
Looking back on 2022, it was mostly a lot of packing, moving and driving! When we added it all up, between July of 2021 and August 2022, we managed to move domiciles five times – and that does not even count the three months we spent living in our truck camper as we drove across the country three times. Sure makes living aboard a boat feel palatial by comparison.
The first half of the year we finished out our time living in Boise, taking full advantage of life in suburbia. Harley joined a hockey league to supplement his team play up in McCall and overall upped his game play. He now proudly declares that he has played hockey in all eight decades of his life, since he turned 70 this year (if it gives you any idea of the caliber of teammates, representative team names were the Relics and the Leftovers). In a divergence from the recent past, despite playing more games this calendar year than he has in decades, he managed to not lose any teeth nor break any bones, albeit some minor stitches were required to re-attach an ear lobe.
Sophia finished up her 9th grade year in style. She attended her first formal dance, participated on a school sponsored backpacking trip in Grand Gulch, Utah (she referred to it as a death march, since they hiked 32 miles in four days, ran out of food and water, and barely slept), earned her outdoor leadership certificate (just to be clear, the teachers “organized” the backpacking trip!), and became quite competitive at her local Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu club. Once school wrapped up in Boise, she squeaked out as much quality time with friends in McCall, going white water kayaking camping, helping her friends run their “boba” drink stand, swimming in the lake and biking about town on explores.
And then the cross-country trekking began in earnest. Comically (ironically? crazily?) we moved out of our home in Boise back to McCall over a process of six weeks, then spent two weeks sorting our garage which was pretty much full of all the things we had moved from the boat last July. Now we carefully unpacked the boat things, sorted, and re-packed to haul a subset back to Kailani. While we were not certain we would sail Kailani again, we knew it would be good to be a short few hour drive from Sophia during her first semester as a boarder.
And so we spent the fall on the east coast or driving to/from, visiting Sophia on select weekends. Along the way we visited family and friends and spent a good amount of time further upgrading Kailani. Harley is most proud of changing over Kailani’s battery bank to lithium. We also revamped our wind generator, changed some of the electronics, sewed all new hatch covers, and sewed a new set of solar panels to the bimini. We are still awaiting a few parts, but for the most part Kailani is ready to sail! Or is it sell?
In terms of cultural explorations, it was great to visit Washington DC and take a few days to wander the Mall and visit various Smithsonian museums. Prized gems, rare ancient coins, moon boots, Julia Childs’ kitchen, model sharks and lions and tigers and bears, oh my! We had incredibly gorgeous weather for this touring with Sophia over her Thanksgiving break, and it was powerful to take in all the memorials and glance over at the White House. Another highlight was going in to NYC to see Phantom of the Opera on Jen’s birthday weekend. She flew out to California for a couple visits to see family and friends. There is certainly a different spin on Christmas decorations in the palm tree laden state!
A visit to the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades was a nice cultural diversion too. While we are always keen to divert some time for history and art, on this visit walking through the villa and gardens especially brought back fond memories of taking Sophia there when she was six. It was the first museum she ever visited, and she spent hours explaining the significance to us of all the stories represented by the Greek and Roman ancient art throughout. What a journey we have been blessed with as a family.
We enter 2023 hopeful for more adventures as a family. We are thrilled for Sophia blossoming and growing into a lovely young woman, and are excited to see how this next year evolves for us all.
Anchor Ranch
McCall, Idaho USA
