From Grumpy's Garage

 My family and I have been stranded in Montana for almost a week, now, waiting for repairs on our  Miles City Hotel & Suites , the nicest hotel in town. They feature an indoor pool and spa, guest laundry, a hot breakfast, and, in their words, "ultra hi-speed Wi-Fi." (Fast Internet was an important feature. As a Google engineer, I live and die on Internet access.) truck to be completed so we can finish our road trip and return home to Seattle. We've been staying at We expect our truck to be all fixed late this afternoon. As I consider our departure tomorrow morning to resume our road trip, I got to thinking about this home-away-from-home here at the hotel. I've had a few occasions to chat with Cheryl, the general manager here at the hotel. She covered the 3pm-7pm shift on the front desk this past weekend. From talking with her and the other front desk staff, I gathered that the hotel had recently given up its Holiday Inn franchise. Holiday Inn was being too picky a...

Over the last couple of days, I've noted on Facebook and Google+ that we've been having car trouble. We had to make an unscheduled stop in Montana to repair the engine after overheating and blowing head gaskets. Yesterday we checked into the nicest hotel we could find in Miles City while Deluxe Motors tracks down parts and gets the truck ready to travel again. (We chose the nicest hotel because we wanted this to feel like a detour on our vacation, not a prison sentence.) Stephanie and I just got out of the spa 45 minutes ago. While we chatted there, we took stock of our situation. We agreed that we have absolutely nothing to complain about. The radiator overheated in the most benign of places, the small town of Forsyth. While it took a couple of hours to find a repair shop that could work on the truck immediately, then arrange a tow to that shop 45 miles away, we did most of that "fingers doing the walking" from an air conditioned waiting room of a nearby tire shop in...

As my Summer Sabbatical Vacation (yes, in my mind, that's a proper noun) winds down, I cannot help but take stock: did I achieve my goals? What? Achieving goals while on vacation? Vacation is time to relax, to just enjoy the people your are with, the places you visit! You don't need no stinking goals! (Apologies to The Three Amigos.) Ah, but there's the paradox. The goal of a vacation is to have no goals. In fact, you can't even  go  on vacation without goals. 1. Pack the luggage. 2. Load the car. 3. Point the car toward your vacation spot. 4. Don't get a speeding ticket. These all start as goals, as objectives. As you achieve them, they turn into completed tasks. But I digress. Getting back to the goals of my Summer Sabbatical Vacation... I had several goals for this trip that started on July 2, 2015. Among them, to explore some of the smaller islands on the Maine coast, taking Second Wind possibly as far as Vinalhaven Island in Penobscot Bay. I started that cruise...

Mooring in Flanders Bay at the end of a cruise Stephanie and I cruised to Bar Harbor for lunch yesterday. It was a lot of effort for a burger and crab salad. We had planned to do it on Tuesday, but the sky was so gray and heavy with fog that we postponed the trip. While I enjoy sailing in almost any weather, Stephanie doesn't. We carried the kayak down to the water's edge at about 8:45, about an hour before low tide in Flanders Bay. I brought the only paddle because I wanted Stephanie to enjoy the cruise and let me do the work. A light breeze blew from the west as we paddled out to Second Wind. Getting the boat ready to sail was a comedy of minor errors. I forgot to lower the kick-up rudder while I was still in the kayak, when it is easier to do. Tying a slippery hitch onto the mooring was harder than it should have been. I forgot to unhook the boom end from the backstay before raising the mainsail. But we got it figured out an...

1em; text-align: right;"> margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"> Second Wind (on the right), moored near the neighbors' boats in Flanders Bay, Sullivan, Maine Yes, this looks just like Seattle weather. I had considered taking Stephanie on a day cruise over to Bar Harbor for lunch today. But the skies are a thick gray blanket, a high fog that sometimes comes down to touch the water. Not a good day for sailing with my sunshine-loving bride. Instead, I'll work on a few boat projects that have been waiting for my attention. While the winds are relatively calm this morning, I can experiment with the new reefing points I had installed on the Genoa jib. I'd like to see what I can do to reef the Genoa from the cockpit. (By the way, I highly recommend The Sailor's Sketchbook, by Bruce Bingham . It's full of great ideas. I once was browsing through it with a three-year-old in my lap. I had him ...