Promotions, Crab Claws and Travels.

Before we left AL, the Boy began a fierce and cheerful campaign to be promoted to Able Seaman. His efforts involved learning to swim under water, doing all things without murmuring or complaining, and hardest of all for our Boy, laughing at himself. His smiles, and "I will gladly do that for you!s" have paid off. The Boy is a Boy no more. He is officially A.B. 2.

The A.B.2 takes a moment to reflect on his years as the Boy.

Then he is overcome by the joy of it.

It has often been noted amongst the crew that we are fed much better when we are "roughing it" out on the road. The Admiral has superior tastes, and when we are traveling with him, we attempt to satiate his delicate appetite. Naturally, most of the crew does not object to this. Sadly, there are times when my tastes do not coincide with the Admiral's, and I have to recourse to Peanut Butter sandwiches and bread and cheese dinners. Which leaves me plenty of time for picture taking.

The Admiral's first home cooked meal since...um...his last home cooked meal.
A.B. 1 defending his crab claws. The crab claws were requested by the Admiral.


Did I mention that the 1st Mate really loves crab claws?

The Admiral demonstrates proper crab dissecting techniques.

Now on to travels.
We have left Thedford behind and moved our camp on to Alliance, NE, 120 miles down Highway 2. Both Alliance and the drive we made today are familiar to us, but it never gets boring. The Sandhills of Nebraska offer so much to look at. Today, the crew and the Commodore are convinced that a bird we saw was a golden eagle. Maybe it really was an eagle. The Highway-2 Scenic Byway cd narrator claims that it is possible. Maybe it wasn't an eagle. Quite frankly, it doesn't really matter what it was. It might have been a hawk. It was beautiful, and we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the beauty. That's all we're really looking for on this journey.

Trees, a rare sight in NE.


Trains. Not a rare sight at all and On and On and On....
the whole reason we are out here.

A.B.2 got this picture of the cows grazing.
And a great shot of the windshield wipers.