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| Crazy wind and smoke clouds northern New Mexico, then southern Colorado. |
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| Traffic to the north disappears into the mist. |
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| Heavy smoke from fires in northern NM smear the sunset in Trinidad, CO. |
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| Trinidad, CO |
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| Heavy winds from the southwest bring the smoke into Colorado. |
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| Kelly VI route from ABQ to Denver |
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| A nice walk near Colorado Springs. |
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| Found this in Ned Kelly's Pub, Littleton, CO. |
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| Denver Childen's Museum along the bike trail to downtown. |
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| An Eagles' song keeps playing in my head! |
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| Like many towns, Winslow has numerous murals. |
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| The famous corner includes the "flatbed Ford." |
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| A brief bike ride provided my tour of Winslow, AZ. |
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| When passing through Gallup, NM Kelly VI got a bath. |
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| Grants, NM makes a Big deal about old Route 66. Pics from my trip across the entire Route 66. |
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| A brief bike ride in Grants. |
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| Then on to ABQ, NM. |
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| This ride follows the Rio Grande River through Albuquerque. |
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| That's the Rio Grande to the right. |
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| Just finished a great ride. |
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| Flagstaff train station |
My next commitments were to my son in Denver and my fraternity brothers in Crawfordsville. I promised (threatened?) my son with a brief visit, then on to Indiana for the annual reunion, called the Big 'Bash.
My route took me north to Flagstaff, then east through NM and on north to Denver. I'm avoiding the highest elevations as it is still serious winter with possibly thick snow in the mountain passes. Best to avoid those when driving Kelly VI.
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| Riding the bike trail included a short segment of the original Route 66. |
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| This classic landmark along Route 66 was briefly closed for a change of ownership when I passed through here in 2020 while following the entire Route 66. |
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| Inside the Museum Club |
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| Luckily, it was Friday when I stopped by. |
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| No photos from April 8 as Oasis returned to Longboat Key, enroute to Sarasota. |
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| And the sailing proved to be excellent! |
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| Brad settled into his post forward. |
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| Security proving to be a non-issue, Randy relaxes for the entire sail south. |
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| Rob, on the other hand, decided to work. Here he's scrubbing the salt off Oasis's forward windows. |
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| Admiral Steve takes the wheel as Brad and Rob enjoy the sailing. |
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| With superb weather, the crew sailed Oasis the length of Sarasota Bay. |
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| Small sailboats skittered everywhere off downtown Sarasota. |
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| Rob finally relaxing as Oasis settles on her anchor. |
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| Beautiful sunset at the Sarasota Sailing Squadron anchorage. |
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| The Oasis crew takes a layday to enjoy the sights of downtown Sarasota. The day began with breakfast after a dinghy ride ashore and an Uber ride. |
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| A free, public art show made for a wonderful morning. |
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| This statue celebrates the famous photograph of the WWII sailor who grabbed a nearby nurse for his first kiss ashore following the end of WWII in NYC. |
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| Bayfront Park in Sarasota hosted a huge display of various large posters encouraging diversity. |
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| Notice the bird on the branch? |
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| The afternoon featured a nice ride and tour around most of downtown Sarasota. By the end of the tour the Oasis crew were accomplished "Segwayers." |
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| The arts are a big deal in Sarasota. This artist is preparing sidewalk art for the city. |
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| We always seem to have fun! |
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| Dinner at Owen's Fish Camp. |
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| April 11 began normally enough until time to raise our anchor. After 45 minutes of trying every trick known to CaptMurph, the anchor refused to budge. That power boat is Sea Tow. We called them to see if they could retrieve Oasis' anchor. After another 45 minutes, it was no go. The crew was still chained to the bottom. |
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| While the efforts were underway trying to unhook the anchor, the Sarasota Sailing Squadron was racing their small boats. |
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| This Optimist was one of many that sailed close by Oasis. |
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| The SSS Sunfish fleet. |
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| There were even a few of these guys, flying ABOVE the water on their fancy sailboards. |
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| Sea Tow returned with additional gear to get Oasis freed of the bottom. That's the local Sea Tow franchise owner jumping off Oasis' bow with breathing gear so he can see what is holding Oasis' anchor. He discovered that our anchor had wrapped itself around an abandoned mooring anchor. A check with the SSS confirmed that there were probably a hundred of these abandoned mooring anchors so we were almost guaranteed to hook one. Sea Tow succeeded to free Oasis and we departed, albeit several hours later than planned. |
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| With another terrific weather day, we sailed north the length of Sarasota Bay. Our original plan was to anchor at Cortez but as we were running out of daylight, we anchored off Longboat Key. |
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| Dinner again at Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant & Pub |
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| Keith enjoys the Pompano fish. |
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| Sandhill crane |
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| Oasis in the Longboat Key anchorage. |
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| April 12th, our final day aboard Oasis. And the sailing was SUPERB! |
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| This monohull was sailing the same direction as Oasis. And what do you call this situation? . . . a Race! Of course, the crew enabled Oasis to win! 😊 |
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| CaptMurph captured the sailing in a video. |
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| What a great sail into Tampa Bay! |
