It was so nice to sleep in our own beddie in our own house last night.  But I still have this question:  When your bed is as big as a football field, why does the Captain still take his half out of the middle?  That is probably one of those unanswerable questions that many wives ask.

We had a very busy day today.  Ralph worked on taking down the hurricane shutters and getting things put back in order in the yard and the garage.  I worked on bringing in all the clothes and foodstuffs from the boat.  We were both quite tired and decided to go out to dinner to one of our favorite eating haunts in Cape Coral, Mel's Diner.  Mel's is a great place where everything is homemade and delicious -- we had turkey dinners and Ralph had rice pudding and I had key lime pie for dessert.  I nice way to end the day.

We are sharing a car now until Ralph flies to NJ the end of the month to get his car which has been at his parents' house since we began living aboard.  Tomorrow morning he is going to his fishing club meeting and I am going to yoga at the gym....and I have the car because afterward I have major grocery shopping to do.

So here are our final statistics for this leg of The Great Loop:  We have traveled 4,681 miles, 768 engine hours, 174 days, 119 of those days were traveling days, and 1 night at sea.  We locked through 151 locks, we stayed at 46 free docks, 78 paid docks, and anchored out 49 nights.  We consumed 1,315 gallons of diesel fuel, visited 128 cities, 11 states and 2 countries.  We also traveled 2,200 miles by car from MS to NJ and back.

Here are some of the things we learned:

*  We have a lot of "stuff" -- and we could easily have taken 1/3 of the clothing we packed and I hope to remember this when we do the final leg of the Loop in the spring of 2013.

*  I lost 3 pounds and Ralph lost 2 pounds -- so bakeries and ice cream spots are good!!  

*  America is a beautiful country and to see it by water has been exceptionally wonderful.

*  We've been blessed to meet a lot of fun and happy fellow boaters, gracious hosts and hostesses, and friendly folks in every town who were welcoming and helpful.

*   And this is for Charles Culotta:  We learned that you must always take a spare Morse cable, because you will break one -- and we did.  And now we carry a spare. :)

*   We learned that it was fun having Striper the Wonder Dog as a traveling companion. She is great on the boat -- hates the car.  There's nothing quite like a warm puppy. 

*   Every sunrise and sunset is different and we are blessed to enjoy God's handiwork. I will never forget the spectacular sky the night we made the Gulf crossing -- totally awesome.

Here are some of today's photos:

Striper is such a sweet little dog -- she just bobs and weaves!

Clothes with the exception of the hanging things -- we took way too much!

One-third of the food still on the boat

Ralph opening the house, removing the hurricane shutters

Washing the windows and adjusting the hurricane shutters

Stripping the boat bed

All the hanging clothes -- way too many!!

More food to be packed up and brought inside

Our Red Ty plant looks better than ever!