Cruise to Port Aransas pt3

We arrived in Port Aransas after sailing 3/4 the way and motoring the rest. We saw about two dozen dolphins and a few followed us for a while along the way.

Once there, the YC has a pot luck and there were a bunch of colorful baby boomers with all sorts of stories, there weren't any people less than twice my age, but I still had some interesting conversations.

When I got in a conversation about where I live and I said, "Philadelphia".
Someone said, "I'm sorry."
I realized they were just ribbing me but I repeated, "Philadelphia."
They then explained that they heard me, but they say, "I'm sorry" every time someone says anything other than Texas.
"No, I like living in Philadelphia."

As this was before the election, someone brought up Sarah Palin. Not because of any particular political belief or persuasion but rather out of the need to share an interesting fact which I had recently read, I felt like bringing up the interesting point that her husband might not be able to get security clearance because of his previous association with the Alaskan Independence Party. Nearly everyone I've met down here, which is a fairly small subset of society consisting of mostly friends of my parents and baby-boomer sailors, loves Sarah Palin.

Eventually, after establishing that I was not attacking Sarah Palin, an older Texan told me about Texan independence and that he was very proud that Texas was the only state that was an independent nation before it was admitted to the Union. I forgot to put on my diplomat hat and felt like correcting him that technically California was briefly a country as the Bear Flag Republic, albeit for less than a month. In retrospect, I feel like a jackass because the Republic of Texas was a nation for over a decade and recognized by multiple countries.

I ended up in a conversation with a retired government agent from a non-US English-speaking country who had some interesting stories of rerouting flights, terrifying third-world hotels, and deporting people around the globe.

Meanwhile, we were serenaded by a Jimmy Buffet look-alike (& live-alike) who lived aboard a sailboat at the marina singing Jimmy Buffet and folk songs and playing guitar.

This whiskey & rum dispenser was on a larger and interesting looking limited-production Taiwanese sailboat.