Into the ICW (Intra Coastal Waterway)
BIG MOMENT! We have entered the ICW! I right of passage for folks poking their way down the East Coast. Real hardcore sailors with nice boats can’t be bothered by this piddley “ditch” as it’s referred to but we’re PSYCHED to be here!!!! The exploring and sightseeing is awesome:)
We left the Chesapeake via Norfolk and Portsmouth. As the gym teacher (in all its 80’s stereotypes) it’s my job to get the girls moving. In Portsmouth, a mile hike to the grocery store through sketchy areas of town checked all the needed boxes 1) am dog walk, 2) am kid walk, 3) grocery shopping and 4) exploring the city. The heavy backpacks on way back home in the sun helped. The kids were pissed when they watched other crushers unload their Instacart loads at the dinghy dock. Life is real hard for my kids, I feel for them. They’re also getting a bigger dose of folks with various levels of untreated mental health mixed + poverty + lack of housing than they would get in Freeport.
We loved Norfolk & Portsmouth. We found great dog park at the world head quarters of PETA. Ben had to leave his baloney sandwich back in the dinghy, so we didn’t get in trouble.
Pickles had her first Dog Overboard event in Norfolk Harbor, (from the dinghy) took it like a champ, maybe you’ll be more careful in the future?
Halloween became a marital issue due to our lack of untreated mental illness aboard this boat! We finally got a shit together and figured a plan. Uber to a larger town from our middle of no-where location. No Ubers of course. We found a nice enough looking small neighborhood (only one around) on the map and headed out to see what we could score. No other treaters which was a major bummer but we made some older folks SOOOOO HAPPY and they unloaded their bowls of candy on the girls. It wasn’t what the kids had envisioned but making those people happy was pretty cool. Really made us miss the Halloween in both Stratton and So. Freeport! You all know how to DO IT!
We’ve been enjoying the swamps, all the really cool new flora and fauna.
