ROAD TRIP!

Wednesday May 5th, 2011

Greetings, Tervist, Hola!

I have returned to the US, but the adventure continues!  My plan is to now do a little windsurfing US style!  OK, it’s just a plan right now, and wind has its own idea of when it wants to blow, but a plan is forming…..

Before I got back to Minnesota, it became apparent I would need a mode of transport to get around from Minneapolis, the four hours north to my hometown of Babbitt.  For this trip I had used Jerry, and it worked out quite well.

He had driven down from his home/work-lab in Aurora to pick me up, and to check out some cars he had a mind to look over for a possible replacement to his wife Daniel’s car.  He had found one, and after my airport pickup, we met the owner of one he wanted nearby for a look.

It was exactly what he was looking for, and a nice price, so after a test drive, and a visit to the bank, he had himself a new-used Pontiac Bonneville!  A mirror image to his current car, only nicer!   This was just perfect, as we now had drivers for both, and in a few short hours he had his new car in his garage!  Always nice when things work out right on the timing!

Jerry had been planning to put his wife Daniel’s Pontiac Aztek up for sale, and had offered me the chance to buy it at a nice price before he put it out with a ‘For Sale’ sign in the windshield.  This was like a sign for me to take the Aztek for my transport mode, and I drove the last few miles from his house back to Babbitt in the Aztek..

It took a few days more of driving it, and searching the web for other possible road-trip/windsurf/cycle/camp vehicles in a similar price range before I realized it was the easiest, and best choice.  It is a bit of a pig on fuel, but just big enough to carry the required gear for a road trip from the Midwest to the East coast!

Some clarification… I’m not sure I mentioned it in the blog before, and I’m too lazy to go read it, so a bit of history…

I traveled to Estonia back in 2008, for my euro-world safari, and met a unique woman named Mirjam on the windsurf trip to Greece.  She is the niece of Epp Hunt, the amazing windsurf group leader for the euro-trip, and we got to know each other a bit on the trip, and a whole bunch in a long layover in London.

We became good friends on that trip, and I felt yet another soul-connection with her, like I have with each new Hunt family member I meet!   Along my travels in Estonia that year, I got to visit Mirjam at the family horse ranch in rural Estonia, and was blown away at her aura there!

She is really amazing with horses, and very down to earth with her ability to work hard and get the job done, no matter what hardship gets in the way.  She is stunningly beautiful, but to be honest, I fell in love with her brain!   And of course the old farm-mansion-house she was living in!  I knew I just had to spend some time there!!

Well, I was lucky enough to move to Estonia later that year, and did get to live and work with Mirjam at the farm.  We connected in a very soul-full way over the very basic farm life, and the work with the horses, the construction, and other hard labor.  It was amazing for me, and we bonded as BFF’s after that fall together..

We each went our separate ways after that, she moved to the US to continue working with a great horseman in Virginia State (Somerfield Farm), and I back and forth between the US and Estonia.

So getting back to topic; Mirjam contacted me just before Margi, and asked if I would like to come for a visit/working-vacation this spring.  Of course I jumped at the chance!!  So the plan since just before Margi in Jan. was to go out to the east coast for a couple months of fence building on the ranch and options for some possible east coast windsurfing!

While in Margi the plan formed, and with the chance to get a reasonable price on a used car in the Aztek from Jerry when I got back, I have decided on a SAFARI-ROAD-TRIP!!  Whoo! Hoo!

I will outfit the Aztek with the requisite windsurf, bike, camp gear, and electronics, and be on my way east soon!!  I am writing this as I sit in the auto repair lounge while they prep my car with some routine maintenance and a hitch before continuing the shopping and hitting the open road by the 15^th or so!

I already have my iTouch, Navigation GPS, and parts on the way to convert the factory tunes to something to work with the player.  With the trailer hitch I am also getting today, I will be ready for a bike rack to go on the back, and hope to shop for the rack and bike later this week..  Always fun to get new toys!

For surf gear I am hoping the swap meet here in St. Paul this weekend will be the best place to get some boards and sails, but have a line on some new kit just in case I can’t find what I need this Saturday..  Getting Psyched!!

Stay tuned for updates…

Timo

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