USA

Long time, no write…Sometimes it seems that life does not inspire you to write so you don’t. As it turns out, funny things do happen and they are worth sharing but you are not sure whether they have the “guess you had to be there” rating. First and foremost we are so happy to be back with Mark. I am so blessed because I get to live the motto of successful relationship numero uno : half the work, twice the fun. We did get to meet the families that started a web site called RVfamilyfun. It was great for the girls. They both made new friends and we got to see how people figure out how to do this and make a living. Sponsorships for RV suppliers…they reminded me of the movie RV, two families, two RV’s for two years. Very nice people traveling in very nice RV’s. The next park we stayed at was Highland Hammocks in the center of Florida near Sebring. It was bit of natural untouched raw Florida. At the time we were there, they were having a Scamp (a type of pull trailer type RV) convention and there were about a 100 of them there. Seabring is the home of the 12 hour endurance car race, kind of like Le Mons in France. We found a great wireless internet cafe there. Olivia and Dad went to the CCC museum and I heard all about what they did and when later that day.

We are staying in mid Florida now at a Corp of Engineers park on a river by a lock. Everyday we get to see beautiful boats go by and there are tons of birds. The people seem to be very relaxed and very friendly. The night we arrived, our neighbor was in his RV playing a guitar so I went over outside his window and strummed after he did. I could hear him asking his wife in a deep southern drawl if she had heard anything. He strummed again and I strummed again. Hmmm he says. He comes out and looks around on my side and there I am, smiling and holding my guitar. He was very nice and we played some more together that evening. The next evening he put together a jam session at one of the sites and tells the story about the first time a woman serenaded him outside his window…a little tall tale but a great story. Mariah and I had fun playing music with campers, none of which are younger in age than 70 but very young at heart. Not much else happening here.

Mariah is doing her schoolwork faithfully and Olivia is practicing her banjo. ( Roger please send me a summary of the work needed to go through Shoo Fly Shoo, thanks). I did have a great mom moment the other day. Olivia has grown very fond of all the “gray beards” and makes friends all over the park. Yesterday she asked me for my song book and I said I would bring it wherever she wanted but couldn’t just let her have it. She took me, my guitar and the book to a woman who played the dulcimer and there were a group of people sitting there chatting. Olivia said “Mom, would you play this? (Big Rock Candy Mntn). So I started to play and she sang the whole song and then sang about 10 more for the group. I was stunned, pleased, proud, excited and overwhelmed. Not only did she sing on key with perfect rhythm but she had style. A great mom moment and the best part was the woman, whose name is Naomi, taped it. To me, that is better than brass baby shoes! We will be heading to Naples to stay with the wonderful woman who we went horseback riding in Alafia with. We look forward to seeing her and doing some riding. Miss everyone near and far.

Mark’s funny for the day: Our children are becoming “Road Scholars”.
Pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/fdeters

The promise of a new day and great hope arises in our hearts. Dad has booked a plane ticket back to us so gladness is the emotion of the day. The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze me. Take today for instance. It was a day of school for Mariah and in our search for WiFi we found a restaurant called Crispers. I needed power and the manager brought out a 100' extension cord just so I could do my internetting. He ran it across the floor so I could sit at a table and work (& book Mark's ticket). After I was done, I made use of my past and looped the cord so it could be stored neatly and conveniently for its next adventure. I was very grateful.

Mote aquarium home school day. It is no surprise that Florida is a state with an abundance of aquariums. With the Gulf of Mexico on one side and Atlantic on the other and plenty of wetlands, swamps, estuary's, bays, etc, it is a water lovers paradise both fresh and salt water. It is also perfect situation for the study of man's affect on the environment because there are way to many people here and competition for space is becoming increasingly fierce. The mission of Mote is do research and then to disseminate the information as quickly as possible in hopes of making the ever growing population aware of it's impact. There are the typical bells and whistles of aquariums but they are used to lure the unsuspecting patron into understanding the role they play in the game. I mean game. They have a huge interactive screen with touch screen monitors so you can play and see the result immediately. But I digress…I lucked out and found in one of the local papers'events calendar that Mote was having a home school day so off we went. The facility had different classes for different ages. Olivia learned the basics about sharks (Mote's specialty) and dolphins. Mariah spent the morning doing activities that demonstrated Florida's ecology and watched a demonstration on coral reefs. One of shortcomings of home schooling is the worry of no lab for the science courses so imagine how tickled I was when in the afternoon Mariah went over to one of the research labs and dissected a bonnet head shark. I had no idea that was what she would be doing. She came back grossed out but excited. For the next hour, I was regaled with tales of slimy shark innards, stomach contents (sharks eat crabs, who would of guessed?) and cute boys (yes, there were teenage boys in the group who were equally grossed out). That was the best reward for our money but we also got t-shirts and a curriculum package for studying the rainforest of Panama (lucky for Mariah she has already been there). We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around looking at the fish, turtles, dolphins and playing the interactive ocean theatre. It is going to be difficult to top that day but we will try. I must really be getting into traveling mode for I had my first lost in time experience when a RV pulled up to our campsite and asked us when we were leaving. I said I thought tomorrow but I had gotten mixed up on the day so we had to see how quickly the girls and I could pull together and pull out. We did it in 40 minutes not panicking. They really are getting the hang of this. We are off down the west coast to Koreshan, a religious utopia that finally went under because one of the basic tenets was celibacy. The girls and I had our firedrill pack up again. We were staying at a private campground when the office staff came over and asked if we were staying another day. We said no and they informed us check out time was 12 (it was 12:10) – whoops again and they say lightning never strikes twice. We were gone in 20 minutes. The girls are getting very good at getting going. Tonight we have been invited to play for the Koreshan ghost tour. It is nice when you practice and someone offers you something for your playing. Mariah's fiddle really brings 'em in. Holy mackerel batman, we made money playing for the ghost tour patrons. It is one thing to play for people who specifically come to hear music and quite another to play for total strangers that you really don't have a clue whether they like music or not. Needless to say we were well received and it was great fun. We even made a bit of pocket money. Friday evening, we had no idea that people would give us money and so the only vessel into which they could put some was Olivia's bicycle helmet which she had carelessly tossed on the ground next to us. Some people put in change and we didn't realize it and it fell through the holes in the helmet on the ground. Now we understand the meaning of "my bucket's got a hole in it, can't buy no beer"!. The next evening we left Mariah's fiddle case open and that was better – no holes. The ghost tour was an interesting way of presenting living history. There were people dressed in period costume, having conversations as if you weren't there about events in the community. It was very well done. Sunday the some of the volunteers did a bread baking demonstration using a dutch oven. Great bread, now I want one so I can try. We are now at a beautiful park called Ft Desoto which was voted America's #1 beach by Dr. Beach (how do you get a name like that?). I want to be Madam Beach so I can test all the beaches in the world and have people pay me for my opinion…dreaming. Anyway the beach is very pretty and the campground has lot's of squirrels for Olivia to chase. Mark comes back tonight (Whoopee!) so I may not be able to write for awhile but will try to keep you informed.

Our test run is definetely working out some bugs. Rooster, the kids and I are traveling the beautiful sw mountains of New Mexico. We spent the first night on Elephant Butte at the South Monticello point campground almost by ourselves. Incredible moonlight on the water and just a few bugs to remind us we were camping. I am really enjoying the small size of the Airstream kitchen and the stove and oven work great.
She pulls like the ads say. We choose to go over Emory pass to our next destination which was a private hotspring a friend invited us to. It is here we discovered that Dodge automatics are not the best so we will be spending some time in Alb getting it replaced - shoot. The hot springs were great. The road between San Lorenzo and Deming is worth the drive. If you go that way take yourself to the City of Rocks, it is a geologic maze. Great in the moonlight I am sure and also take kids, they will love it. We are in Silver City today where we did laundry and shopped a bit. This weekend will be spent with musicians in Glenwood, yummm my favorite. Hope the winds are warming your spirit too!