So, we headed for the club to pack away the boat but were interrupted by yet more precipitation from the lingering low, and had to take shelter in Mike's truck. We eventually just covered up the boat during a lull in the rain, and left it for the next day.

The VW Golf saga, part 4: By 10 a.m. Tuesday, Marc was on the phone and the look on his face still boded ill. The part had arrived but the mechanic was having trouble with things breaking under the dashboard and did not wish to continue. We could try a VW dealer in Orlando or go with the dreaded possibility that Marc had raised: by-passing the heater. Marc got out the yellow pages and was soon talking to the service department at a VW place in Orlando. The decision was easily made. The VW guy wanted $800 US up front before he'd even look at the car... so, by-pass the heater it was! Another call to Tires Plus who promised us the car, complete with by-passed heater by 4 p.m.
 
But at least the sky had cleared and the air warmed up. So Mike and Dotty took us to a unique establishment, the Spillway that had been a favourite haunt of our friend and fellow Wayfarer, Bob Brown, who was tragically killed in a plane crash in December. We toasted Bob's memory which will always be a bright spot in Marc's and my lives, and then tried the hot dogs, a specialty of the house. While we loved Bob, we were unable to say the same for the hot dogs and decided that future toasts to Bob's memory can better be celebrated elsewhere.

 It was a fine drying day, and soon Marc was able to roll up our antique mainsail. Which reminds me, it was certainly gratifying to hear rumours that some of the C Scows were virtually outraged when they discovered that an old boat with pretty ragged sails should be doing so well in the Wayfarer Class. Even Marc, who sometimes grumbles about our old, worn out sails that weren't even new for the 1995 Worlds, smiled when he heard this.
 
Meanwhile, a nice little sailing breeze had sprung up and Marc volunteered to give Mike a taste of what it was like to sail a Wayfarer with a crew.

The Golf saga, part 5: The car was indeed ready by 4 p.m. The radio (and of course, the heater) no longer worked but there was one piece of good news: They charged us less than $60 for all their troubles. Nice guys!

Now that Mike and Dotty were certain this would be our last night with them for this year, Mike announced the special treat he and Dotty had been saving up to make our final evening with them special:

Mike got out the barbecue and made us a sumptuous feast of country ribs and pork complete with Mike's secret sauce. It was the best dinner we had during our whole two-week trip! Wow! Thanks, Dotty and Mike - for everything! After that, nothing could make the evening any better, so we hit the sack early. Besides, we were planning to leave at 6 a.m. in hopes that mostly daytime travel would reduce the no heater discomforts.

Even though we tried to be very quiet, Mike was up to see us off. A quick check to see that we hadn't forgotten anything, and we were off with a grateful wave goodbye to Mike. Turns out the check was a bit too quick but Dotty and Mike hope to bring the T-shirts and other items we forgot to the Cottonwood Regatta, April 26-27. 

With our sleeping bags and Uncle Al's long underwear within easy reach in the back seat, we set off across the Florida countryside towards I-75 which would - God willing - take us all the way to Detroit. Before the sun rose, it was still pretty cool and our breath began to fog up the windshield. To our relief, we discovered that the fan still worked and that we would not have to use the plug-in that we had bought in case of need the previous day. After driving through frost decorated horse country for about an hour, we hit I-75 just as the sun was rising. It appeared that we would get lucky with a beautiful day!

Since it was still pretty nippy both outside and inside the car, we decided to eat breakfast at the first advertised Denny's we came across. That happened around 9 a.m. Fortified with bacon, eggs, toast, hash browns, juice and coffee, we exited to find a much warmer day, one that soon allowed us to roll down the windows and enjoy our last day of Florida warmth for this year.

The dear old girl purred along at 100 km/h for hours on end with never a complaint - not bad for a dear old girl that had spent most of her 360,000+ km. towing SHADES. It was, we are happy to report, a pretty uneventful day's driving - until we were almost out of Georgia. In the stop and go traffic of a late afternoon construction zone just south of Tennessee, the guy behind us went when he should have stopped, and there was a sickening crunch. We virtually leapt from the car to see how badly our mast and boat had been damaged. Astoundingly enough, there was no sign of damage to mast or boat, not even to the delicate and hard to get masthead sheave cage. There was however, a mast-shaped hole in the grille of the vehicle that had hit us. Talk about fortunate! The mast must have hit a really soft spot in the grille of the car. We all agreed that there was no need to call insurance or police - much to the relief of the couple in the other car.

A couple of hours later it was getting cool and dark as we drove through Knoxville, where we hoped to keep alive our tradition of eating in at least one Outback Steakhouse.

As luck would have it, we got the last available room in a whole row of hotels booked for some kind of convention - and The Clubhouse Inn & Suites was right across the parking lot from an Outback. Marc even got a couple of free drinks at the Manager's Reception while Al was showering before we wandered across to dinner. With another 6 a.m. departure planned, we made it an early night.

The next morning at we woke up to below freezing temps and Al put on his long johns before going down to scrape the frost off the windows. A disturbing turn of events: our trailer lights appeared to have mostly given up the ghost. But we decided we couldn't afford to try to find a place that would fix them and decided to drive extra-cautiously but go it was! Marc ensconced himself in his sleeping bag in the passenger seat, and we were off. For the first 3 hours, we had to run the fan and periodically crack open the windows to keep the windshield from fogging over, but by breakfast time, we were nearly into Kentucky and the sun was finally starting to get above most of the mountains.

Again we lucked in with a sunny day which soon had the inside of the car comfortably warm. Shortly after noon, we began to see clouds on the northern horizon, perhaps a harbinger of the -15ºC that was supposedly covering Ohio, Michigan and Ontario where they had just finished a juicy winter storm. But the fates were kind to us and we only got intermittent cloud cover and hit lovely sunshine as we joined the 5 p.m. rush hour across the bridge to Windsor.

A quick stop to reacquaint ourselves with the joys of Tim Horton's, and we were set to make a mad dash for Toronto. Just under two hours later, it was virtually dark as we were approaching London. When it began to snow, we quickly decided that it would not be wise to continue with windshield fogging and without trailer lights - not to mention without heat. And there before us, was the Hwy 4 exit with a Best Western beckoning to us.

Luck was still with us. They not only had lots of rooms but also a very nice Italian restaurant on the premises. After a quick shower and phone calls home to explain the delay in our ETA, we went to the rather posh restaurant where they didn't even (deign to) notice that Uncle Al was dining in his socks since he'd forgotten his sandals in the trunk and didn't want to wear the snowboots he'd been wearing all day. By the time we got back to our room, we were ready to sleep after a long day. But there was one last item to further brighten a pretty decent day: there was a phone message from one of Marc's housemates, Carl, who said he'd be happy to come down to London that night (two hours from Toronto!) to tow our SHADES home with his truck, if needed. Well, we didn't need - but what a lovely, kind thought! And we fell asleep happily with forecasts of a mostly sunny, if cold, day tomorrow, Valentine's Day, dancing in our heads.

The next morning, we slept in so that we would miss the Toronto area rush hour and get more warmth from a sun that was higher in the sky. By just after 8 a.m., the classic team (above) was ready to make what would be its final run! And by 10 a.m. we were back in Oakville on a crisp, cold morning. The mast went back into its plastic wrap on trestles in the backyard, and SHADES went back into hibernation in the garage. It had been a sensational and most worthwhile trip, a trip Marc and I plan to repeat in 2004!

And by the next day, Al had lucked into a new 2003 Golf, complete with heater and a 50% higher mortgage. The new car gets her trailer hitch later this morning, Thursday, March 7th.