Music & Morgans

So it's been a while, things have been a little stalled out around here due to work - always gets in the way of plans to sail away, but it won't for long! But there's always stuff to report when you're hunting for your future floating home and restoring a 1975 VW. 

This past weekend the bus took center stage in Downtown Portsmouth on a GLORIOUS Saturday afternoon as we celebrated our good friends Liz and Dale who are moving from Portsmouth to Houston. We arrived in the bus with a cooler fulla jello shots, a corn hole/bean bag toss set and sleeping bags (just in case we imbibed a bit too much). We were able to get the bus a primo parking spot right in front of Liz & Dale's house. 

Of course we had to pop the top! 

Now a while ago there was a "snafu" with the bus' stereo deck, as in, Tim pilfered it while she was dead to put into his Corolla and then sold the Corolla with the deck still in it! So we got another system from a friend and for whatever reason (i.e. Tim's installation) it NEVER worked right. We would get the mysteriously frustrating message "Mecha Error" every time we put any CD in and forget the radio reception - never worked. Thing is the bus is pimped out with a pretty sweet speaker set-up. We actually got a few extra dollars in the loan we got to buy her so we could pimp her out with a sub-woofer (SHH! Don't tell our bank!). When she's working right, she BUMPS! But she hasn't been at her full capacity for a few years now, we rely on each other's riveting conversations, Timbo's singing, his "snare drum" playing and once in a while a $20 boombox we bought from Walmart. However, there is this strange and in certain circumstances (almost all) tremendous thing about the dysfunctional stereo - it only plays the CD "Pass the Peas" by the JB's. 

I mean SUPER funky stuff from James Brown's backing band from the 1960's?  YES PLEASE! Especially for bean bag toss, beer drinking and hanging on the sidewalk of Downtown Portsmouth on a sunny Saturday afternoon. 

More than we'll miss Liz & Dale, we'll miss these wings! :) 

Dale is a MASTER griller, no, not that sissy gas crap, Dale uses charcoal and yes, the man from Baton Rouge grilled YEAR ROUND in New Hampshire. You could smell Dale's famous wings from blocks away in February. The bus' awesome little side cocktail table made a perfect spot for us to put the wings while we played corn hole. We had numerous passer-by's who wanted to see the bus, toss a bean bag, have a wing and one dude even took a tour of the bus because he was looking for "alternative housing". The bus was in her glory, bumping funk music, being admired and serving as the scene for a really, really good time. More camping plans were hatched for a couple of weeks from now and music festival season is back! 

After that fantastic afternoon we decided it was time to buy the bus a new stereo. So Sunday afternoon we ventured to Best Buy to get the girl a new stereo deck. It has all the bells the whistles - USB connection, AUX input, Pandora, lights up 4 different crazy shades but best of all it plays the JB's CD plus the Willie Nelson and the Toots and even The Band.   This weekend we're taking her to Cape Cod for Memorial Weekend and Toby and I really looking forward to not having Timbo sing the entire way down Route 3! 

And...the boat search continues! 
We are planning to check out a 1982 41' Morgan Out-Island 416 while on the Cape. We are VERY, VERY, VERY excited about this boat and have been waiting since mid-March when we found it on Yacht World to see it. The marina where she's moored wasn't operational until Memorial Day and we need to get the launch to shuttle us out to her. From the listing (we have to take that with a grain a salt) she has a lot of what we're looking for - center cockpit, substantial rigging, solid craftsmen ship, wide beam. She also "looks" like she's been very well maintained. 

We have another story about our first Morgan Out-Island experience that we'll share next week when we have this boat's debrief. 

STAY TUNED! CAPE COD HERE WE COME! 
(did I mention we were excited?!) 

How pretty are her lines?!