Sound the retreat!

     That's it. Blow the horn. Pack it in. We temporarily concede defeat! Old Man Winter has won this round.     As anyone living on a boat will understand, we pay pretty close attention to the weather reports, and this week has been no exception. It's March. February seemed to be winding up to be the end of winter, the temperatures were climbing and the snow was gone. We took all of Kyrie's winter coverings off and now she looks like a proud boat, instead of a whale skeleton, and we were all looking forward to the coming of spring. 

     I think this change in weather is our fault. We did our spring dance--you know, just like washing your car ensures that it will rain the next day, apparently taking a boat's winter clothes off is just like the groundhog seeing his shadow--six more weeks of winter! And this is no joke.

The weather report is calling for highs in the low to mid-20s and lows in the single digits, finally warming up to a high of 31 by Friday. Kyrie's systems can keep us warm and dry down to about 25, and then there's too much moisture put out by a family of five breathing all the time and not much ventilation because we're trying to keep all our heat in!

After waking up Saturday morning to frozen windows and a temperature reading 22 degrees, with the sun shining already, Joe and I made a phone call to his parents and decided to sound the retreat. It is just too cold for us to be on Kyrie this week. We packed up clothes and school books, shut almost everything down, lifted all the mattresses up, and closed her up. 

Kyrie, enjoy your rest this week. You are a fantastic boat and we love living on you, but it is weather like this that makes me so grateful to have family in town that don't mind the five of us barging in and taking over their house for a week. I admit that when I look at a thermometer and see 2 degrees on it, I am very glad to be in a house this week. I am rather looking forward to cooking meals that we just can't cook on the boat, like pot roast, because my oven just isn't big enough and I don't want to put that much moisture from the propane burning into the boat's interior. The kids enjoy having space to run around inside and the fact that they can be a little bit louder.

Hopefully, this cold spell will break soon and we can go back home to Kyrie. Until then, we'll accept our temporary defeat and enjoy the warmth and conveniences here.