On October 16 I served my last day of active duty in the Navy. Now we’re on to the next step of our journey to being cruisers. We’re making a cross country trip to see family and friends before we leave for Mexico at the end of November.

Our first night we stopped at Natalie’s Dad’s house in Arizona. He and Pam were out of the country traveling to Italy, drinking wine and eating fancy cheese.

We spent our next night with Pier 32 400 dock neighbors Tom and Dee at their house in Montrose, Colorado.

Our third night was spent in Aurora, Colorado with my Navy buddy, Jeff. He stayed with us in 2012 when we had just bought Astraea and were replacing the portlights. We visited an awesome microbrewery, Dry Dock Brewing. They had a delicious Apricot Ale and their seasonal pumpkin beer, Imperial Pumpkin, was the best we’ve very had.

Next we continued east and stopped in Columbus Ohio to have lunch with Natalie’s college roommate Jaime and meet her newborn son.

We continued on to Pittsburgh, PA where we stayed with Natalie’s friend from High School, Lindsay. We toured around Pittsburgh, rode the Dusquene Incline and ate sandwiches at Primanti Brothers.

We diverted south to Knoxville, MD to visit with Natalie’s sister Nicole and her husband, Karl, and their daughter, Elena.

We had fun eating delicious, hearty and healthy food (Nicole is a registered dietician) visiting and helping with farm chores, slopping the pigs and working on the roof.

We made a last minute decision to divert to Ft. Dix in New Jersey to see my sister, Lizze. She just returned to the states from serving in the Army in Afghanistan.

Finally we made it to our first endpoint, my parent’s house in Loganville, PA. Movers brought our extra stuff from San Diego and we’re storing it in my parent’s basement while we’re cruising for our (sometime) return to a land based life.