The Adventures of Chipper and the Oaf

Coming Home

2008-06-04T19:52:00.000-07:00

As the saying goes all good things must come to an end.............and so it had to be with our year of adventure. We finished off with a canoe trip down the Brulle river in Wisconsin (a place James had visited as a child) and a stop in northern Minnesota to see our new friends Bob, Linda & Jeff. James wanted to do some last mintute fishing and they promised to hook him up. I quickly realized that in this part of the country they give you your birth certificate along with your fishing license. We had a classic 'Grumpy Old Men' moment when Bob asked Jeff if they were going fishing in Merril lake the next day and Jeff became very agitated and told Bob to lower his voice so Walleye Dan wouldn't overhear. The fishing ended up not being so good because the weather was a little cold, but the company was great. They really rolled out the red carpet for their new friends from the south even making us a cool sign for the hacienda.

Last Wednesday we began the sad trek home and were welcomed back into the sweltering heat Thursday night. James waited until 9:00 Friday morning before going to work. Nice to see he really got the perspective he needed from this year off. It has been a whirlwind since then. My sister Juli is here with her family, my sister Janet just had a little girl (Samantha Karen 8lbs 1 oz), we have a foster teenage boy moving in with us for the summer, and we are trying to move back into our house. We are still sleeping in the RV. I'm not sure if I haven't been able to get the bedroom together because I haven't had the time or because I haven't had the desire. Sleeping in the house means it really is over, I'm not sure if I'm ready to admit that. James is keeping a watchful eye to make sure I don't sink into another depression but I think I will be okay. He didn't work Sunday so he could get the pool ready, so that will be my anit-depressant for the summer.

Besides the accomplishment of still being married after living in a 26 ft. home for a year we have also been to 33 states, 2 other countries and 20 national parks. We drove over 35,000 miles and stayed in 90 campsites; including driveways, rest areas, Wal-Mart parking lots, one alley and a ferry dock. We have biked over 300 miles and hiked almost 300 (James swears it had to be more). We have taken over 3,000 pictures (anyone up for a slide show?) and made a ton of memories.

It has been really fun writing this blog and James has enjoyed it so much he is even thinking about taking a writing class at the University this fall. Thank you so much for all of the great comments and encouragement. We have loved the feedback from everyone, but I feel a special shout out should go to our 3 most faithful commentors Tracy, Janet and Tuna. Tracy, thank you again for letting us stay with you and I hope we continue to keep up in emails, we will have to play Balderdash with Tuna the next time you are here so we can have an acronym showdown. Janet, I could say anything about you because you probably won't look at a computer for another year or so, but you know I love you. Tuna, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to faithfully read and comment. I don't know if James would have been able to enjoy himself as much this year if he was worried about things at home, thank you for relieving that burden from him.

We have realized alot of things this year....... if you burn a pie in the RV the smell will linger for weeks, Wisconsn has the most expensive state campgrounds, RV toilets never clog, never hike on a trail in New Mexico labeled difficult, you can survive with only 5 pairs of shoes, Spam is not a childhood food you should revisit, rednecks do not live only in the south, laundry mats are great places to people watch, the backup camera really is a marriage saver, but the most important thing we have realized is how blessed we are to have each other along with such good friends & family.

We plan to continue our adventures, they will just have to be a little closer to home for awhile!

Love, Kim & James

The North Country not-so-Fair

2008-05-22T19:01:00.000-07:00

We are back in winter. At least a typical Arkansas winter. We are up on the u.p. of Michigan and it is nasty and cold, about 42 degrees for a high and overcast with occasional rain and lots of wind. I made the decision to wind our way back home via the northern Great Lakes route and now I am wishing we were just back in humid 85 degree Arkansas. This weather would be great if we had already endured a long, hot summer, but right now it is a tad depressing. The trees up here are just starting to bud out and as you can see in the photo we even found a little snow on the shore of Lake Superior by Painted Rocks National Lakeshore. We are now camping in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Marquette, Michigan. We are going to get up early and haul butt to the Apostle Islands and spend the day in that area of Lake Superior.

We waited in line at the gas station this morning to get some cheap $3.99 gas as it was $4.29 just down the road in b.f. u.p. Michigan. Far enough north that they gig you for gas. We cruised across the Peninsula and kept seeing signs for Pasties, so my gastronomic curiosity got the best of me and I had to stop at the "oldest" and "best" pastie stand. I got two ready to eat and two frozen what I called "pay-stees". "O.K. den, that will bee four pass-tees altogether." They pronounce things funny up here. Mackinac is Mackinaw. I already am thinking these guys are crazy for enduring the winter that doesn't end until June, so the funky pronounciations are just icing. There is apparently a lot of fishing and camping and other outdoor activities up here due to the huge amount of water, but I think I would wait until July or August for my next visit.

We are about done with this year long journey, just one more week. I am going to miss this r.v. and being able to wake up whenever and travel wherever and stay however long. At times I feel excited about getting back to work and sometimes I feel like I am headed to the electric chair. The time sure has flown by, but when I reflect on all that we have done it seems like it should have taken years to accomplish. There is so much to see and do in the U.S. of A. You could spend a year in every state. I have no regrets. I feel very fortunate to have been in a trade and economy that afforded us this trip and twice as fortunate to have a wife that I wanted to spend this much time with and who would tolerate me as Kim does. If fate takes away all my assets (what are left) and leaves me with just Kim I know that all will still be fine.

Talk to you soon

James

Roller Coaster Mania

2008-05-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

We thought we had accounted for all factors……not a weekend, kids still in school, not a major holiday, how were we to know about Physics Day?

We pulled into the parking lot at Cedar Point and were excited about the lack of cars until we saw the number of buses. One car, maybe 4 people, one bus more like 40. We went up to the ticket line and while we waited there for an hour, were amazed at the number of teenagers in line around us. I had predicted there may be a few instances of schools seeking entertainment at the end of the year but this was overwhelming. After we finally got inside we rushed to wait in another line for over an hour to ride the Raptor, a Batmanesque ride for those of you who have been to six flags. We again noticed the massive amount of teenagers and started to pick up on the cues that these weren’t normal teens. They appeared to be having remotely intelligent discussions, they were all dressed fairly normally no baggy jeans or barren midriffs (well it was about 50 degrees). The tell tail sign that these were not your run of the mill teenagers was the fact that we were at an amusement park and no one was even attempting to cut in line. James even commented on how he had renewed faith in the youth and he didn’t understand why I was hesitant to return to work. Not wanting to let us be deceived too long in our optimism the guy in line behind us informed us that we had happened upon Physics Day. The four geeky guys to one cute girl ratio should have been a sign.

For those of you who don’t know Physics Day is a day created by Physics teachers across the nation to boost enrollment in their classes. In exchange for suffering through a year of Physics you get to go to an amusement park at the end of the school year and pretend to marvel at the properties you have been studying all year being put into play. I’m not being mean here we actually saw one girl wearing a shirt that said ‘this is why I took Physics’.

Other than it being a bit more crowded than we had expected we had a good day, thankfully we finally saw the sunshine after days of rain so that helped. We were definitely some of the oldest people there, but that just added to our novelty. I got a good pep talk from the kids behind us in line for the Millennium Force, a ride that starts you off with a 300 ft. drop and keeps you at about 90 miles the rest of the trip. While we were waiting in line a car stalled at about 298 ft. This is where my enthusiasm began to lag. If I had been stuck at the top I’m afraid more than shaka would have come out of my mouth. It was worth it in the end so much so that we went on it twice! I did have to explain to the guys in front of us what ‘shaka’ meant since they had to listen to me screaming it in their ears.

Due to the crowds we weren’t able to ride all 16 of the roller coasters there, but we hit all the big ones. We even rode one standing up. James had to squat a little to get on it but thankfully he made the clearance on all the turns. The ride of the day though was the Top Thrill Dragster. I don’t know if you have ever seen the top roller coaster show that the Travel Channel does but this ride is at the top of the list. You go over 400 ft. in the air at a speed of 120mph. I almost chickened out after seeing the shell-shocked looks on the faces of all the people getting off the ride; even the ones who had looked confident and smug getting on looked as if they had peed in their pants. Since I had been challenged by my 9 month pregnant sister and wanted bragging rites I persevered. I impressed both myself and my husband by keeping my eyes open the whole time. I am so glad I did, it was the most amazing adrenaline rush. I was still shaking 10 minutes after it was over. Even James was a bit rattled. We may be getting older, but we are still young at heart!

Love, Kim

PS the first two pictures are of the people stuck at the precipice of the Millenium Force drop

Niagara...."Thundering Water"

2008-05-18T18:36:00.000-07:00

You don’t have to read all of this. Do as I would do and just look at the pictures and move on to the rest of your day. If your day is spent at a computer then what the hell go ahead and read on.
The local channel 7 nightly news from Buffalo, New York is airing on our little R.V. t.v. They just announced that there has been a woman’s body found in the Niagara River. “They aren’t giving any names or discussing the condition of the body. The sheriff department’s only comment is that it is the season for bodies in the river.” That struck me, season for bodies in the river? Apparently the Niagara Falls is a popular destination for the people who can no longer keep up with their mortgages or are otherwise desperate. They do beckon. “Would you rather go back to fixing air conditioners in hot and humid Arkansas or how’s about just climbing that short railing and taking a nice ride in my cool blue waters?” The Falls are definitely a popular destination for anybody that does not speak English on the North American continent. No, that is not the Arkansas bigot coming out in me it was a true cultural melting pot. Many Asians, Indians, Europeans, some Amish, Kim and myself. O.k., the Amish do speak English, but you wouldn’t know it by listening, they are very silent. I am truly fascinated with the Amish after seeing so many in Pennsylvania and western New York. We saw many buggies carrying kids, lumber, shower stalls you name it. Some Amish seemed to use gas powered implements, but most used horse powered implements and they all dressed the same. All were very quiet and the children very well behaved. They were all lean and muscular from hard work. I am thinking this way of life will prevail in this economy. Aside from the devout religious aspect of their lives I am thinking I could live like this, a simple life of working the land and having just enough. It has to be better than living a life of CNN cramming your skull full of bummer news while you cram your belly full of Pop-Tarts and diet Pepsi. I feel poisoned and worthless, that does it I am going back to the falls. I just have to decide, American Falls for sure death or Horseshoe Falls for a chance of coming through the tumult alive. There was a 7 year old boy who swam the falls after his father couldn’t get the boat motor started at the head of the river where it turns to white water and heads to the falls. I have an idea, don’t ever boat near this part of the river no matter how new or “reliable” your motor is. Upshot is that the boy survived, they pulled his sister out right before the brink and they didn’t talk about the old man in the film, so I am guessing the outcome wasn’t little kid tourist friendly.
What an amazing powerful body of water. Summer flow of 750,000 gallons of water per second over the falls. In boater talk I believe that translates to about 90,000 cfs, which is a lot of water no matter how you state it. Kim and I looked at the falls from all angles. We took the Maid of the Mist boat ride right underneath Horseshoe Falls. We took the Cave of the Winds walk right alongside Bridal Veil Falls, we walked over to the Canadian side and viewed the falls from the other side of the river and atop a Ferris Wheel and we viewed all of the falls right next to the brink.
Almost as amazing to me were the Whirlpool Rapids. We walked down into the Niagara Gorge from Whirlpool State Park about 2 miles to view these HUGE rapids. As a lover of moving water I was awestruck. The water runs at 30 miles per hour with that huge volume and makes tremendous waves and holes. COOL!
Kim will tell you all about the roller coasters at Cedar Point on Tuesday.

Photos: 1.Cave of the Winds walk underneath bridal veil falls. 2. Maid of the Mist boat ride under falls. 3. American Falls 4. Brink of Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. 5. Whirlpool Rapids

Exclusively for Tuna

2008-05-14T15:31:00.001-07:00

As we headed north to Niagara Falls Kim had planned for us to stop at Buckaloons campground in the Allegheny National Forest in the northern part of Pennsylvania. Yesterday I had purchased a fishing license online from the state of Pennsylvania so that I could fish in Keystone Lake at our campground. I didn't catch shaka and was turned off to fishing as I havn't had real good luck in a while. Kim thought that we should camp here at "Buckaloons" before we got into New York so that I could have another chance to use my $35 three day license.

We toured the campground upon arrival and the dark, primitive campgrounds combined with the huge speed bumps every 50 feet had me very disenchanted. I had decided to cruise north and forget the fishing when the campground host flagged us down while we were passing. "Can I help you folks, you look lost?" I felt like saying "No, your huge speed bumps suck and we are bolting!", but instead I said "Just looking at the camp sites. How's the fishing?" He was very nice and imformed me that there was a creek behind the campsite that we were thinking about occupying. I felt the Murie guilt, and decided to stay just because the host was nice and he might think I was ungracious if we left.

I took a look a the creek and decided it might be worth a try. I grabbed my pole and a small tackle box that contained some trout lures and headed up the creek. I tried several small holes and not a bite. Between the rainy weather and the lack of good fishing I was getting bummed. I saw some fins come out of the water in this large hole up river. Carp? Gamefish? Hmmmm? I took a couple of casts and nothing, so I decided to change lures. Wham! A very plum smallmouth bass, as big as any I have caught in Arkansas! Yee haw. I took dozens more casts, change lures many times and nothing, so I was about to call it good. I found a funky jig that I had bought ten of in Minnesota and thought "This one ought to scare them away or really piss them off." First cast I hooked a fish bigger than I have had on in many years and of course it popped the hook. I could have cried. Then I cast out again and hooked the same fish or it's equal and landed it. It must have been a four pounder. It was a big female that appeared to be full of eggs, so I had to let it go with no picture for evidence. I was bummed, but I wasn't going to slay this big, beautiful fish just for bragging rights. I caught five more fish that were all as big if not bigger than any I have caught in Arkansas, so I decided it would be worth going back to get the camera in case this was going to keep up. Luckily it kept up and I caught ten more fish. I caught a couple that I am pretty sure were 3 lbs, but could not get another monster. Don't worry, I am going to try again in the morning. A total of 16 fish and none of them smaller than 15", the biggest was probably 20" and fat as a football. I didn't have my professional photographer with, so these I took of myself. Smallest to biggest. I don't need to hit the crack pipe this evening, I am high on fishing right now. My wife is awesome for picking Buckaloons Campground.

Pittsburgh

2008-05-13T18:40:00.000-07:00

It is funny to me that James was initially against this whole blogging thing and now I can't tear him away from the computer. He is witty and charming so I don't object to him being our primary spokesman. Unless he calls me a geek, which just for the record he asked me to rewind a part of the Goonies he missed due to a phone call, so he couldn't have hated it too much. Also to defend myself over the Amish bakery incident...... we knew the exact location of such a place but James thought it would be more fun to explore and come across one spontaneously. While usually I am all up for adventure, when sweets are involved I say go for the sure thing. After 2 hours of unsuccessful 'exploring' I got a little cranky.

Well we finally got a taste of some of the weather that everyone in Arkansas has been experiencing. We went for about 3 days without seeing the sun and realized that perhaps we would have had a harder time staying happily married this year if we hadn't had so many sunny days. I knew things were getting bad when I found myself trying to coerce James into kayaking the river even though it was above flood stage. Thankfully he didn't listen to me and the sense of stir craziness passed.

Yesterday we went into Pittsburgh. We had to wear our fleece jackets, even though it is the middle of May. The theme for the day was food. James was very focused on having a sandwich from Primanti Brothers restaurant, a place he saw on the Discovery channel. It was some sort of cheese steak thing with coleslaw and french fries on the sandwich, yuck. He seemed to enjoy it and the fries were good (I had mine on the side, not touching the sandwich of course). We then stumbled across a neat downtown market that had all kinds of fresh meat. Just our luck they were having a special on fillet Mignon so of course we had to stock up for the RV. We also checked out the Heinz history museum and took the incline up to Mt. Washington to take in a view of the city. I have to say Pittsburgh was a nicer city than James and I thought it would be. It sits at the confluence of 2 big rivers and has lots of hills and trees. It does sort-of seem like a struggling city, due to the collapse of the steel industry. We had a drink at Mel's bar at the top of the Duquesne incline and heard him lament about the decline of his city and how the 26 year old mayor was running it into the ground. 26 year old mayor? I was just mastering balancing my checkbook at age 26, let alone the budget for a big city.

Today we enjoyed the sunshine and James did some fishing from our campsite at Keystone State Park. Tomorrow we are heading north towards Niagara Falls, shooting for being there before the weekend rush. I am very excited! It is supposed to rain again, but we will already be wet from the waterfall so who cares.

I got a phone call yesterday from one of my former vice principals and it seems as if I might be gainfully employed again next year. I tried to use this information of course to encourage James to stay on the road for a few more weeks, but no dice. It is a huge answer to prayer to have security for next year. I may have to find a safe bike route to get me up to Bentonville as gas prices sky rocket, but it will be worth it because it is a great place to work.

I hope everyone has a great day tomorrow! We will be home soon!

Love, Kim

Rain, Rain go Away

2008-05-11T13:07:00.000-07:00

The rain has sequestered us to the R.V. We are in the Ohiopyle State Park on the Youghiogheny River in Pennsylvania. I intended to kayak the river, but the two days of rain has it flooded, muddy and fast, so I am being a big chicken. Kim is in the back of the R.V. doing pilates or yoga or something to a dvd. She keeps looking up at me and inviting me to join, I think she is delusional about the size of the yoga room back there. "Look Schweetie, Exalted Warrior pose!" "This pose would be great on your back!" "It feels good!" Now she is more than likely going to put on the Goonies dvd. See, it isn't all roses here folks. When it is rainy and cold and you just want some down time to yourself you can't get away to the other side of the house instead you sit at the dinette and try to avoid invitations to pilates. My wife is a geek, uh-oh here she comes, she is bound to peer over my shoulder at any time now. Whew! She went back to the "Theater /Excercise Room". I will pay for these comments, just not right now.

Yesterday we went for a bike ride down a rails-to-trails path that runs down the Youghiogheny River gorge. Youghiogheny is actually pronounced "Yok-e-o-gain-e". It is an indian word for "river that flows in a contrary direction" Ohiopyle is also an indian word for the water falls here. Probably for "water that falls at a high velocity over many boulders". In case you didn't know, a rails-to-trails is where they took an old railroad bed and fill it in with gravel or asphalt to make a bike and walking path. Since there were a lot of railroads in the East there are a lot of these types of paths. It was sunny yesterday afternoon for a spell and the water was flowing everywhere, so it was a very nice time. Today we went and looked at the Falling Water house that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built for a wealthy department store mogul. It was very fascinating. The home was budgeted at 20-30 thousand and ended up costing $140,000. I know some architects capable of overrunning budgets, but 5 times the original sum? I know an architect that thought a project wasn't legitimate unless it went over budget, now I know why he said this. It was given to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy back in 1963 by the only son of the couple and they maintain it now and give tours. The Smithsonian said it was one of the top 28 things people should see before they die, so we decided to check it out. As with all the Frank Lloyd Wright and Fay Jones type architecture I have seen it was comprised of a lot of stone and wood and the ceilings were LOW. Low, low, low. The guide refrenced me many times. "How tall are you? Six foot six. Yeah, see the ceilings in here are six foot four inches and the doorways are six foot two inches. You see Frank Lloyd Wright thought that all men should be around 5' 8" since that is how tall he was and any ceiling above 7' tall was a waste of space." I don't like Frank. This house of stone and wood over the water fall is awesome, but Frank can keep his low ceilings and doorways.

Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

Mary had a little Lamb, two dogs, three turkeys, six cats, 12 chickens, 20 goats, one Huber, three kids and 5 grandchildren that love her very much.

You are our...

encyclopedia, Medical Reference, Psychologist, Best Friend, Financial Expert, College Admissions Expert, Hospital Admissions Expert, Language Expert, and MVGM or Most Valuable Grand Mother to name a few.

I probably wouldn't be on this year long journey if you hadn't instilled the wander lust bug in me by hauling us all over the country when we were kids. I can see that you are doing that with your grandchildren now. You made a lot of sacrifices so that we could have adventures. You still sacrifice so that everyone is happy. We all have learned to be more inquisitive and to be kind to all of earth's creatures including the human ones because of your example. Many a stray critter has benefited from your kindness, including the human ones.

I sure hope you realize how much you are needed and loved by all that have crossed your path.

You are truly one of the most special people that have been placed on this planet and only a handful are lucky enough to know that.

To all the great adventures we have had and all that are yet to come thanks to the most wonderful mother Mary a.k.a. Moomy. I will be sure to have a Meyers and Coke in your honor at 5:00 p.m. your time when I get off the river.

Love, Your biggest critter James

Amish Country

2008-05-09T06:22:00.000-07:00

Either Kim's estrogen is infusing my body from spending every minute of every day with her or I really need to get back to some good ol' macho blue collar work. I am sitting here bawling at the Regis and Kathy Lee show after a good dose of crying to the Good Morning America show. It's the Mother's Day specials you see, a bunch of teary-eyed women including my own have got to me and I'm a little verklempt over here.
We spent the day yesterday doing too much...oh here I go again...Collin Raye is singing to a mother that lost her son and chose to donate his organs..I'm verklempt..here's the topic, the New Deal it was neither new nor a deal, discuss. My tear ducts are dry over here.
Anyhoo, we spent the day yesterday in Amish Country and it didn't disappoint. There were many buggies with big orange caution reflectors on the back. Kim decided to forgo breakfast in the R.V. for the hopes of coming across an Amish bakery by a reasonable hour. This didn't happen and let me tell you Miss Chipper got a little peeved. I had a full belly and I couldn't help but chuckle as we passed by small town after small town without Amish. Kim got pretty pissed at me and I could see that priority one was to feed the girl or the Amish were going to see something they aren't used to. We finally found a nice Deli and Bakery type place in Intercourse, PA. We failed to get a t-shirt or a picture by the city sign in Intercourse and I regret that. The pretzel factory there had a hat that asked the question "hard or soft?" Intercourse, PA, but it was too rednecky of a style of hat. We passed many tidy farms with Amish men guiding horse drawn implements. There were at least three incidents of Amish families playing baseball in the front yard. We stopped at an Amish bicycle store and sure enough they had the parts I needed for my bike, something that six other bike stores couldn't provide. I said "Wow! That's awesome! I have been to six other stores and you guys are the first! Thanks man!" The response, a very unhumored "We keep a lot of old parts around. Anything else?" The Amish are all about work and gettin' 'er done, but not necessarily about humour I guess.
Upon Bill's recommendation we stopped at Cornwall, a small township started in the mid 1700's by a man named Grubb for the purpose of running an iron furnace to make cast iron from iron ore. I learned that a collier is someone that makes charcoal from trees for use in the blast furnace. I did not know what a collier was. There again, I don't read enough. While watching the edumacational film there was an Amish family seated in front of us with about six children. Not a peep! Not a look away from the screen! The older kids kept the younger kids in line and mom kept the baby quiet with silent techniques and dad watched the film intently as if to memorize questions to ask the children later. Wow! It was awesome! After tourist attraction upon tourist attraction with nothing but brats running around us for the last year I have to celebrate the Amish. Hey, I don't care what goes on inside their four walls that makes these kids so obedient, all I know is I don't have to suffer the consequences of what doesn't go on inside their four walls. Very cool buildings and amazing amount of work and forsight that goes into someone saying "Hey, this place looks like it has a lot of iron in the soil. I think I will build a furnace and turn an acre a day of trees into charcoal to melt some metal out of tons of dirt." They got iron out of that streak of dirt until the mid 1970's.
We ended the day in Hershey. That's right, Hershey, PA where all the chocolate is made. We did the free stuff. We did get some souvenirs or as I call it "paying for the privilege to advertise for a large corporation." Donna, I hope that the little M.E. is a youth medium or I am going to cry into this high dollar t-shirt. We ended the day at a restaurant that kinda fooled us. It looked like a Denny's type place attached to a motel and I said "Let's stop there, I just want a salad." We walked in and there was a very dapper black man in a dark suit standing behind a mahogany reception podium. "Good evening sir and madam." I was looking for the green apron clad white trash girl saying "Howdy folks, smokin' or non." I felt a little under dressed in my shorts and "Life's Good" t-shirt. "Err.. uh.. yeah. Table for two please." We had an excellent meal and probably the best staff of the whole year, even if I did stand out against the mahogany, crystal, semi-circle high backed booth and jazz music atmosphere.
Off to Ohiopyle to soak in the Youghigeny River.

photos 1. Amish plumber hauling a shower stall 2. interesting lost and found of the old days-i don't condone slavery, but I thought some of the language was humorous. Let the old dude go, he has had a rough life. 3. old farm house 4.Cornwall furnace 5. Kim entering the chocolate world

2008-05-07T16:01:00.000-07:00

Abe Lincoln is my new hero. He actually always has been my favorite president 'cause he was the Great Emancipator, but I really have rekindled my love for him by visiting Gettysburg. It amazes me that anyone could have thought the Gettysburg Address a bad speech, but there were many critics in the day. My history teacher at the UofA always used to say "the more things change the more they stay the same." That used to bother me as much as "you can't have your cake and eat it too", but now I know exactly what he is saying. Our government and politics haven't changed a bit. Different names, different issues, but the same 'ol crap. One thing I have noticed while in history school over here in the East is that the speeches of the 17th through the middle of the 20th centuries were so much more eloquent. Can you imagine the Gettysburg address by ol' George W.? "Well heck, about 87 years ago the fella's that sat down and started this country here on North 'merica thought that everybody ought to be free and the same. We are now in the midst of a huge war 'mongst ourselves which is testin' whether or not this thing is goin' to work..." watch C-Span if you need more. I can't believe it. What happened to us as a country that we would elect an illiterate. It is hard to find someone who will own up to electing him the second time isn't it? This isn't a political blog, so I won't take a chance on offending.

It is sobering to walk around the battlefield at Gettysburg and think of all of the lives that were sacrificed to prove to us as a nation that we can't let any issue divide us in order to prosper and remain strong. It seems like a huge unnecessary sacrifice of youth, but what war doesn't? Now look at Iraq. "The more things change the more they stay the same." I forgot, I'm not allowed to get philosophical. My apologies to Tuna and Jeff.

R.V. life is sitting in the dining room typing on the computer, getting a beer from the fridge and opening it with a bottle opener from the kitchen drawer, turning on the stereo in the front and not even leaving my seat at the dinette. Tight confines has it's benefits.

Kim is back in the master bedroom vocalizing the answers to Jeopardy. She is accurately adding the "What is.." and the "Who is.." with her responses. She is either trying to stay sharp for her Jeopardy try-out or she is trying to impress her husband. I guess we are all guilty. I feel like such an idiot through 90 percent of the questions, the ones I can't answer, that I have to shout out the ones I know just to convince myself or anyone listening that not all the file drawers are empty. Kim has bad allergies right now so i am hearing siffle.."what is leopard"..sniffle "what are ants"..sniffle, "who is Bill Cosby".

We will be fortunate enough to watch American Idol tonight. I hope the little shifty-eyed, lip-licking, child molesting Catholic priest-to -be, David Archuleta gets the boot. See what a year off will do for you, you will actually care about American Idol. I also can't stand the dread-lock, brain dead, in a constant smoked-a-good-bud stupor Jason Castro, so I hope he goes too. David Cook for Idol or I am never watching another one. Hee, hee I can't wait to text tonight. Just kidding! I haven't stooped that low.

That's my blog of low pertinence. We are headed to Amish country near Lancaster, PA and Hershey to eat chocolate tomorrow, so I am sure Kim will give you a hopped up on chocolate review.

Photos: 1. Fields near Gettysburg 2. North Carolina Soldiers Monument 3. Cemetery with unknown soldier's graves 4.Eternal Light monument dedicated by FDR in 1938 saw around 1800 Civil War veterans attend at average age of 93 and a total of 250,000 attendees. 5.overlook from Little Round Top mountain, which was a decisive Union stronghold

Washington DC Blitz

2008-05-06T16:55:00.000-07:00

Thank you Tracy & Donna for being faithful bloggers. I must admit we have as much, if not more fun logging on to see who has commented than we do writing the actual comments. Tracy, only a former vegetarian would come up with the word 'quinoa'. Donna you are right this will be something awesome to keep. Someone asked me if I was going to make a scrapbook and I said sure, I will print off the blog and stick it in a book. Sorry Meme.

As James said we are ending our time off in a flurry of activity. We may have pushed our agenda a bit too far when we decided to do DC in a day. Thanks to the advice of our friends Corey & Lisa (who live in Charlottesville, Va and I hadn't talked to in 10 years but decided to call up while we were visiting Monticello and ended up finagling an invitation to dinner and had a great visit not leaving until midnight) anyway, they suggested we go in on a Sunday to avoid some of the school groups. Excellent advice. Not only were the school groups lessened, remarkably there were still quite a few, but the Metro was cheaper and the traffic was minimal. We tackled two Smithsonian museums, Natural History and Air & Space. If you haven't been to Washington DC it may amaze you to know that all of the Smithsonian museums are free! Not only that but they were started with a grant from someone who had never even been to America but was obviously concerned about our lack of education. I can't imagine what Mr. Smithson would say if he could see us now.

After absorbing as much information about dinosaurs, rocks, black holes and the Wright brothers (just to name a few) as we could from the two museums we checked out the Capitol building and were amazed at the amount of non-English speakers we encountered. It seems as if there are more foreigners interested in our government than Americans. I guess that could explain a lot about our economy. From the Capitol it was a long walk down the mall to the White House and all of the monuments. We also got to see the helicopter dropping of the President from a weekend away at Chucky Cheese or wherever it is he goes when he takes a day off.

Washington is amazing no matter what you think of our government. It is inspiring to realize that it is a living, breathing institution and it makes you want to be a part of it in some way. You stand on the steps of the Lincoln memorial and can't help but feel if he is looking towards the Capitol building saying ' I'm watching you guys to see if you screw up what I fought so hard to protect'. You walk around the FDR or Jefferson memorial and read their quotes and wonder if we will ever have people who were as passionate about our country and people as they were. You walk through all the war memorials and are overwhelmed by the sacrifice that so many have made for our country. You feel moved and inspired and then an obnoxious teenager cuts in front of in line and the feeling passes. All you feel is disdain for the environment that has breed such spoiled entitlement. Uh oh, maybe I am going to have a harder time going back to work than I thought.

We had a great, if a bit tiring day in DC and followed it up with a busy day yesterday touring Harper's Ferry and going on a 25 mile bike ride, probably not the best thing to do for my allergies. It was a really neat bike path though which was made along an old canal route along the Potomac river. The disadvantage of being at a higher elevation was that it wasn't as pretty, the advantage was the plant sexual revolution hadn't started yet so I could breathe. I am going to quit before the medicine takes a greater stronghold and I start making even less sense.

Love, Kim

Dinos for Max and Zachary

2008-05-05T20:03:00.000-07:00

Hello there Max and Zachary. Aunt Kim told me that you liked Dinosaurs, so I made you some pictures just of Dinosaur stuff from the Smithsonian. One of these isn't a Dinosaur actually, can you tell me which one isn't?

Love you both,

James and Kim

2008-05-05T19:04:00.000-07:00

Are you getting tired of reading this boring blog? There seems to be more entertainment being had by comparing verification words than by my brilliant writing. It isn't easy having the discipline to sit down and update this thing after a long day of screwin' off. I only have about three and a half weeks left of this sojourn, so you will be spelled soon.

We are so overwhelmed with history right now that my brain is about to explode. I can't absorb or recall much anymore, so this is frustration. We are in a KOA right next to Harper's Ferry, WV. If you are like I was before this visit you know the name, but not the significance. It was and is a cute little town on the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah Rivers where rifles were made for the government pre-Civil War. John Brown got the idea that he could raid the town, steal the armaments and give them to the slaves with which to start a revolt. He had already purchased hundreds of pikes with Philanthropic monies from the North, but decided that rifles were needed as well. He invited the famous freed slave Frederick Douglass along for the fun, but Douglass said "No Thanks!" The attempt failed and John Brown was hanged in December of 1859, 18 months later the Civil War started. Most agree that this action by Brown was a catalyst. There is the history lesson about Harpers Ferry in a nut shell.

We had a "nice" time in the Shenandoah park. We have been to just about half of the National Parks in the U.S. now, so we are critics. Shenandoah is packed full of turnouts with nice views of the valleys which I am sure are breathtaking in the Fall. The hikes we went on had some relatively nice water features, but a lot of felled timber and clutter. Recent storms of ice and hurricane winds have tipped many trees and the summer green hadn't come in yet to disguise any of it. I can only imagine how busy this park is in the summers as this weekend saw 90% occupancy already. The main campground was big, clean, and well organized. We got the best spot in the whole place with a commanding view of the valley. I just wanted to say "commanding view", but the sight was really the best.

My little "Schmee" as I have been calling her is sick in the back of the R.V. right now. We had the most beautiful spring weather the last two days, but I am afraid that the pollen is flying and Kim has allergies bad, so she is feeling miserable while this weather is so nice. She is convinced that she is going to be all better by morning, but I'm afraid misses glass-is-half-full is going to be disappointed.

It feels like we are headed to the home station of Fayetteville at warp speed. We have got used to seeing so many things and doing it at our leisure, I could do it for another two years, but the funds have run out, so it's back to work. I will let the sniffly girl blog about D.C. I am getting a headache just thinking about the Smithsonian museums and all we packed in.

Hey, what do you know. My word verification is TAJNTGAL. Tagent gal or Tuna and Julie Need To Get A Life. Just kidding, I know at this point if it weren't for the ACRONYMS you probably wouldn't even log on to this boring @#$!.

Love you-ins all.

James

Jees, I had 8 misspelled words with spellcheck. It would be nice if this had grammar check to save me too.

1. Kim on Rose River log crossing 2. Dark Hollow Falls - Shenandoah 3. Lewis Falls - Shenandoah 4. In light of Kim's prior driving record I was eager to buy this shirt for her, but she said she wouldn't wear it, so I had her model it instead. 5. Catholic church on the hill in Harpers Ferry, WV

Jefferson and Monroe were Slackers

2008-05-01T05:17:00.000-07:00

We spent the day yesterday touring Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's Home) and Ashlawn-Hyland (James Monroe's Home). I had to ask during each of the tours "how much of this stuff is actually Jefferson's stuff or Monroe's stuff?" "Most of it." was the reply. It was amazing that through all of these generations that their homes and their stuff has survived to be viewed by all of the modern generations. Unfortunately we have been mingling with all too much of the modern generation. The last few attractions we have been to seem to be popular destinations for school field trips and I haven't seen a future Thomas Jefferson in the lot. Absorbing all that Thomas Jefferson accomplished is a daunting task. Writing the Declaration of Independence, ambassador to France, President for two terms, Virginia Congressman, inheriting his father's plantation at age 21 and running it, keeping detailed journals of everything he did, political writings, writing upwards of 19,000 letters, he kept a 6,700 volume library, reading in seven languages, being an authority on gardening and crop rotation, art, science, mechanical engineering, law, architecture, building Monticello, starting the University of Virginia in his retirement and yet he still died way in debt, what a slacker. Jefferson said "I can't live without books." I am standing there reading that quote and thinking "I have survived quite well without books, Tom." The male ego in me makes me argue that I could be in the other guys shoes if I wanted, but I just don't want to cause I am happy being me. I can't even begin to set up an argument that I could be like Thomas Jefferson and that pisses me off and makes me feel worthless. Then we go to James Monroe's house. Virginia Congressman, U.S. Congressman, ambassador to France twice, Secretary of State and Secretary of War at the same time, U.S. President, and so on. O.K. there are two guys that I can never aspire to being like and they are practically neighbors. Did our young country afford these guys opportunities at greatness or were they just born into wealth and inherited the opportunities. Have we discovered so much that we no longer need the DaVincis, Einsteins, Gallileos, Jeffersons, Edisons, Franklins and so on or have we just dumbed down and become so comfortable that we don't provide fertile ground for these minds?

Traveling for the last year has made me realize that I am not bound for greatness or riches. I don't have the drive that it takes or the intellect. I get depressed about the condition of our country and then I review history in a place like Monticello and realize that our outlook has always been bleak. We have always been on the brink of ruin as a country, a race or a planet. I am damn lucky to be driving around in an R.V. looking at all of this amazing scenery and history. I have grown up in a time where disease wasn't always at our doorstep and wars weren't fought on our soil. I could be running from a t-rex or a sabre tooth tiger, taking a lead ball to the chest, laying on me death bed with the plague or salmonella due to lack of refrigeration. Hey wait a minute! That is my calling, I keep stuff refrigerated so people don't die! I am the world's salvation and I didn't even know it. I have decided that I am perfectly happy fixing machinery. I need that immediate satisfaction of knowing that I fixed it, it is working now, and the people are happy and they will pay me now! Machinery is either not working right or it is working right, the machines don't have personalities to tiptoe around and they don't lie. I like the problem solving and working outside, so I like my trade. I just hate PEOPLE! I really hate the little brats at these cool historic places. They run in to you, they yell, they don't pay attention to the really pertinent information. I realize that it is the parents and the teachers who allow this behaviour. That is where Kim comes in. It is her job to change the direction of as many of these little shits as she can, she is the teacher. When I look at machinery sitting alongside a building I get a little nostalgic. When a horde of little punks comes roaring down a stairwell towards us I see Kim convulse and little red bumps raise up on her skin. I will be fine, but I don't know about the longevity of my wife. I sure hope she can get back in the groove and help make a difference with our next working generation. Bottom line..."the old lady needs to make some money!" Speaking of the old lady I am going to get some super glue and glue the cell phone to her ear to free up her left hand so's she can do some more house cleaning 'round here. Her sisters tag team the cell phone, right now it's Janet's turn. Good god almighty! Gossip Central around here.

Virginia is beautiful, spring is in full glory here. A thick blanket of small, light green leaves on the trees, dogwoods and azaleas in bloom.
1. Scene of Virginia valley and hills from the Blue Ridge Parkway
2. Mabry's Mill - Blue Ridge
3. Jefferson's bedroom and study ( I wasn't supposed to take pictures)
4. Monroe's house
5. Monticello

Merlefest Mania

2008-04-27T18:23:00.000-07:00

Well we all survived Merlefest and had a great time. My parents drove out from Arkansas to join us for a weekend full of Bluegrass. They have been very gracious to take care of our dog, rent collecting and vehicle storage while we have been gone so James decided to give the old people a thrill and introduce them to their first music festival. My dad loves bluegrass and my mom likes anything you can dance to (I guess that's where I get it from) so Merlefest was a perfect fit. They even got here a day early so James & my dad were able to fish the pond at our campground. Luckily we had steaks in the fridge so we didn't have to depend on them or else we would have gone hungry. Sorry Tuna, once again no fish pictures.

We had 2 days of really nice weather and then yesterday it started off nice and then poured down rain. In less than 10 minutes I went from reapplying sun screen to grabbing my rain coat. After a 30 minute 'frog choker' as any good bluegrass fan would say, the sun came out and teased us for an hour and then it started raining again. Her frustration at the weather caused my mom to let out her strongest string of expletives.. 'well shoot a monkey'. No wonder I don't cuss, I never knew how.

The festival was extremely well run and everyone was so nice, good ol' southern hospitality I suppose. They had free parking with shuttles driven by the boy scouts, well their leaders not the actual scouts. There was also a church group set up across from the shuttle stop handing out free donuts, ice water, and hot dogs. The stages were all run very well and kept on time. They even had a tent just devoted to dance, you could learn how to clog or square dance or watch other people who actually knew what they were doing. The food was even reasonably priced. But the best thing of all was they had these portable trailer bathrooms with real stalls and sinks! Yes, it was a good festival. I do have to say it is a little intense to listen to over 30 hours of any kind of music in 3 days, so safe to say if I don't hear another banjo for a year I will not be sad.

James was so sweet to my parents, making us breakfast and a fire every morning and splurging for the reserved seats so we didn't have to lug chairs or sit on the ground at the main stage, yes he is good to his in-laws.

My parents left today to go see my sister Juli & her family in Savannah. Janet is trying to go into premature labor (she is not due until June 8th) hopefully she can hold off at least until they get home next week. Keep Janet in your thoughts and prayers, even baby nurses get nervous when they have to go to the hospital.

James and I are off tomorrow morning for Virginia. The clock is ticking so the next month is going to be action packed.

We hope all is well with everyone and we will see some of you soon!

Love, Kim

Pictures: Very cool inverted rainbow that came out after someone sang 'I'll fly away' as a tribute to Merle watson (coincidence?), my mom & dad between bands, my mom & I soaking up the sun, Doc Watson bluegrass legend, James banging his knee while trying to take a picture, I just wanted you to see the sacrifices he goes through :)

Chimbley Rock

2008-04-24T07:47:00.001-07:00

After a day of trying to conjure up who the mysterious commenter T.W. was on our blog with their recommendation of Castle Rock, Kim and I figured out it must have been Tony Wing a.k.a. Santa Claus or the local expert on everything good 'ol boy. First of all, Tony, let me tell you that it isn't Castle Rock it is Chimney Rock or might we say Chimbley Rock since we are from Arkansas. Second of all, let it be known that when you suggest something to Kim she then fixates on it, researches it and if she likes the brochure enough it becomes a must visit. This is all fine and good Tony, but you must also remember that I am the one that is your friend and you shouldn't suggest places with 986 stairs going UP! Yes, there is an elevator, but Kim does not take elevators if there are stairs. I have to ask, Tony, did you take the stairs or the elevator hmmm?
It was a very cool place and definitely worth the $14 entry fee and the 986 stairs. My buttocks just recovered. I have to come clean and say that it was a good recommendation, so thanks Tony! And yes, the Last of the Mohicans was partially filmed there and no Julie there weren't any visions of Daniel Day Lewis with his shirt off.

We cruised up the Blue Ridge Parkway to our campsite at Raccoon Holler near Wilkesboro, North Carolina to get ready to see the music festival. Kim's parents, Bob and Karen a.k.a. the IN LAWS, arrived yesterday afternoon and we are all fixin' to head down to check out the pickin' and a grinnin'. B3moosed hasn't commented in a while so I don't know if he is still reading this blog, but I have to thank my father for introducing me to Doc Watson many years ago. I remember stealing the tape and bringing it to Arkansas and then Bill's friend Steve McIntosh stole it from me. Doc is 85 now Dad and still getting with it. I will see if I can find that c.d. and a t-shirt for you to make up for the thievery of 27 years ago. Doc's son Merle died many years ago in a tractor accident and they have this festival in his memory, this is the 20th anniversary of Merlefest. The absolute best in this genre of music show up for this event, so it ourt to be good. If any of you-ins have a problem with my poor grammar and vocabulary you can kiss my ass! I think ass is the strongest word I am allowed to use with out censorship by the Baptist wife.

If you are very lucky, I might include some snippits and pictures from Merlefest in the next blog.
I will let Kim comment on the festival, she will have had her fill of bluegrass and newgrass within the first 2 hours and I am sure she will be ready to vent.
Talk to you soon.
James

photos

1. Halfway up Chimney Rock

2. At the top of the falls

3. Stairs, lots and lots of stairs

4. Linville Falls

5. Tom Dula Hill on Blue Ridge Parkway

Just Some More Pictures

2008-04-23T06:16:00.000-07:00

Here are some more pictures of the Smokies and surrounding area.

Photos

1. Abrhams Falls

2. Mingo Falls

3. Jackson County Courthouse

4. Town of Sylva, NC

5. Cheoah Rapid without dam release water (compare to last blog kayaker)

Cheoah and Other Cherokee Names

2008-04-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

I feel kind of at home with all of these Cherokee names on things. Cheoah, Oconoluftee, Nantahala, Tsali, and so on reminds me of the Western Cherokee names we see in Oklahoma such as Nowatta, Muskogee, Tahlequah, Sallisaw and Broken Arrow. It is so nice that we name all of these towns and wilderness areas with Cherokee names and give them casinos and bingo parlors to reconcile for giving them small pox, lying to them, kicking them out of their lands and relegating them to small reservations and such.

We had a great time in Eastern North Carolina and the Smoky Mountains, but we had to move on. I think that we have to have constant change of scenery or we get bored. We are spoiled and we can't afford to linger or we might figure out how sick of each other we are. We went on a nice hike in the Deep Creek area of the Smokys where we met two men on the path that insisted we drive through the Cade's Cove area as it had some neat historic buildings, so we did that a couple of days later. If I want to see this kind of history in buildings all I have to do is drive out to Tuna's house. Hell, the resident is even missing a tooth to lend to authenticity. It was a nice bike ride though and I have included a picture of one of the houses in case you guys want to see how my brother lives in Elkins. Sorry for the roast there fish, I can't help myself.

My wife is already sawing lumber in the back of the r.v. and she just hit the hay 10 minutes ago. I do love the woman, but I have to refrain from boxing her in the back of the noggin on some nights when I wake up for no reason from a glorious dream only to hear the Homelite gettin' after it next to me. Actually the David Bradley comes to mind, that was the monstrous chainsaw that Huber had that if I remember right had an engine big enough to power a Harley on it. I am sure that my prime time flatulence is no dream for Kim either. We have headed up the Blue Ridge Parkway to go see Merlefest, which is a music festival in honor of Merle Watson the late son of Doc Watson who is now about 80 years old and still flatpickin' the heck out of a guitar. I am going to try and get you caught up with some rapid fire updates now that we have reception.

Pictures

1. Whore frost (Kim's phrase not mine) on the trees at Clingman's Dome in the Smokys. Kim took the picture, which I think is one of the best (rookie luck)

2. Cheoah River rapid

3. Deep Creek

4. Tuna's House

5. Kayaker on the Cheoah

Still in the Smokies

2008-04-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

Well we are still hanging out in the Smokies and still having a great time! We have had a very full week from hiking in the snow to floating down the river. You would have to stay here several years I think before you could even begin to conquer all the outdoor activities. We have covered a whopping 30 of the 600 hiking miles and that is just in the park alone!
We stayed at a campground earlier in the week with a trout stream running through it. We were actually on the Cherokee Indian reservation and they stock the lake with a bunch of fish. They even tossed in a bunch right behind our campsite. It was a little sad to see the fish flying through the air only to land in the middle of a rapid, but of course James was excited to see that many new adversaries being added to the mix. James restrained himself and even though the limit was 10 he only caught what we needed for dinner. It was delicious!
Wednesday we headed back to the Tsali campground to enjoy some more biking and kayaking. Last week when we were here we almost had it all to ourselves and this weekend it is packed, what are all these people thinking? Don't they have jobs?
We rented a two person ducky (sort-of like an inflatable kayak) on Thursday and floated the Nantahla. It was a bright sunny day but the water was cold! James did an awesome job of navigating us so we hit every rapid with maximum spray. We did make it successfully over the falls so I was able to keep up good spirits. The camera man was asleep at the switch so I can't prove to anyone I did it, you will just have to trust me.
Today is another nice day so we will probably go for a bike ride or watch the carnage on a class V river that they are releasing. James knows I couldn't drive the RV back to Arkansas by myself so he is restraining from any life threathening situations. We went for a long hike yesterday so we feel a weird since of entitlement to be bums today. Weird how that works. It is gorgeous here, the trees have finally started to bloom out and it is really pretty. Sort-of like the Ozarks only higher.
I hope that Jeff & Meme made big bucks at the MS garage sale and that the weather was nice for all those who walked in the race for the cure.

Love, Kim

Asheville

2008-04-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

We are sitting in a coffee shop in Asheville, N.C. Kim is drinking her hot cocoa and doing a sudoku. I don't get it. If you have finished a suduko you are done with that chapter in your life and it is time to move on. Crosswords have lots of character and themes and sudokus are just numbers folks! This is the same girl that can sit and play solitaire on the computer for hours on end. I get bored, I must have change of scenery or challenge.
We are enduring this rebirth of winter here. There was actually snow falling this morning with temps right at freezing. It's April for cry eye. Cry eye, pete's sake, my lands, dear me, for the love of pete, oh me, sake's alive and all of those old folks sayings that I learned from my Grandma Mardy and have no idea how they originate. Anyway. I drove around the R.V. campground we are staying at with this old fart that runs the place and he had quite a few sayings too, I just couldn't understand most of what he was saying. I thought arkie accents were thick. "You-ins whant a slip next to the crik ere or you best not be cidin' for the wife lest she whoops your ass. These ere done got sewers, but whatch out cuz the tea kettle's 'bout full and she might cum boundin' up through the pipe on ye!" We got a beautiful spot right next to a set of rapids, so the old fart did me right and Kim figured I had 'cided on a right good spot.
I caught a few trout right out the back door as it were. We are going to feel awfully guilty about playing Nintendo with that crik flowing right behind us. We plan to do a little hiking in the Smoky's tomorrow. I can't believe that I am 42 and just now realized that it is Smoky Mountains and not Smokey. Damn illiterates. I had to spell check illiterate, that's funny.

Photos
1. Dick's Creek Ledge on Chattooga
2. Narrows - Chattooga River
3. Painted Rock Rapid
4. Bull Sluice
5. Me running Nantahala Falls

2008-04-12T14:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry about not keeping up with the blog-a-day promise. I forget that blogging is reliant on good internet connection, which our latest campground does not have. We are down in a canyon surrounded by North Carolina hills in the Tsali Recreation Area. If you are an avid mountain biker you should come here, there are 40 miles of single track trails running through the hills and alongside Fontana Lake. We are only 10 miles from the Nantahala Outdoor Center, which is paddling mecca for the Eastern United States. We stopped and checked out the scene, which consisted of many good looking hippie chicks. I made the comment "maybe I should get in shape and become a raft guide and I could have a mid-life crisis with one of these paddling chicks!" Kim said "do you really think you could do that?" I said "well, of course you have to consider how much money you would lose in the divorce and if it really would be worth it, but anything can happen." Kim replied "I meant being a raft guide!" "Oh, oh, yeah, uh sure." I said. Luckily Kim decided to take my piggish comment in stride as usual.

We biked all but one of the trails with our road bikes. I busted the right brake handle on my bike and Kim got a flat tire, so we decided to back off a little. It is hard enough to slow my bulk down with two brakes, let alone one. I paddled the Nantahala River while Kim waited for me by the falls to watch me run it. I was the only one on the river and when I approached the falls I could see Kim and a few others waiting to see me run them. Of course I flipped over at the bottom. As I was going over I could only think, "please let me get my roll. Lord don't make me swim in front of my wife and her fellow onlookers!" Luckily I hit the first roll of the season perfectly and avoided an embarrassing swim to shore. We returned to camp to find that we were not the only ones in the camp ground anymore and that the new campers decided that of all the 40 some odd sites that the one right next to us was the most perfect. It didn't take long to find out why the man had occupied the neighbouring site, he was the neighboring kind. "Howdy folks! You been here long? My son and I just hiked the Appalachian Trail for a couple of days." It was a conversational barrage for the next 3 hours or three days for that matter. Scott and little John Paul were very nice though and they epitomized a good father, son relationship.

Well, that is all the mega-exciting news for now. I will hopefully get back to you with some pictures of the Chattooga River soon.

Pictures.

1. you can tell Kim is thrilled about holding up another critter for photography.

2. Kayaker getting munched int "the Thing" on Oceana falls.

3. Kim at Black Rock Mountain State Park in Georgia.

4.Tallulah Gorge in the sunlight.

5. North Carolina hills in the morning

2008-04-05T19:04:00.000-07:00

I have looked and pondered the whitewater of the Tallulah Gorge in Georgia from the canyon rim. I have photographed some of the action on the Oceana Falls with my tele-photo lens and I have decided that I am too big a whimp to endeavor this run of river. There are somewhere around 100 boaters here that are doing it. I really don't think that it is the most challenging section of river in the East by any stretch, but it is labeled class 5 and it does contain the Thing at Oceana, which is a 15 foot tall ball of froth that results from the river pile driving down a 50 foot chute onto a rock. After hiking down 496 stairs into the canyon and then having no way out but the river one does not want to have a bad day. It is fun to watch though. They only release this water 5 times a year, the rest of the time it is diverted down a long underground tube to the generation plant and they only let about 50 cubic feet per second trickle through. Today they are releasing 500 cfs and tomorrow 700cfs, it is beautiful.

It has been raining for three days straight, which this area needs, so I am not going to wish it away, but I am longing for the sun again. We have only had about a dozen days of rain in our 9 months off so far, so we can't complain. We purchased a Nintendo Wii at Wal-Mart and we have been bowling and playing baseball in the back of the r.v. We have almost had a couple of disasters from swinging the controls around in such a confined space, but so far we are still married. We explored the "Alpine" town of Helen, Georgia today. It was in a nice setting, a little cheesy though. Evidently the town council voted in 1968 to make this town a little Switzerland to attract tourist dollars and it kinda shows still. We drank a couple of $7 German beers and bought a couple of small things in the Dutch import shop and called it good.

I am starting to sound like a boring high school girl now, talking about shopping and other unimportant #$@! I can't believe that I have been relegated to replacement cussing in my prose. Kim is such a prude and she is convinced that every one of our precious nieces and nephews is reading this by themselves, therefore I am being cool. Here are some pictures of a foggy, rainy Tallulah Gorge. Hopefully I will have some sunny ones soon.

New blogs coming quick now, since we are in beautiful country.

James

Note the perspective change once the kayaker is in the picture of the Thing on Oceana (3rd and 4th pics)

Happy Birthday to James!!

2008-04-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my schweetie!!

What can I say about James that everyone doesn't already know. I love his humor, his strength, his honesty (most of the time I love it), and his generous nature. He makes me laugh every day and never says no to a spoon. I love his intellect and his convictions and I love how much he loves his family. I love spending this time together. I love how he is always calm in the face of adversity when I am usually freaking out. I think it is an amazing testament to his patience that he hasn't left me at a rest area yet. I feel so blessed to have him as my husband and best friend. I also love how he tolerates my cheesiness!

We have made it back into Georgia to the Tallulah Gorge. Tomorrow & Sunday they will be releasing water from the dam, they only do this 4 times a year so James is very happy to be here for the occasion. His birthday present is that we are here, his early birthday present to me is he is not going to tempt the class 4 & 5 rapids so hopefully he can see his next birthday.

I will let him write next time so he can thank everyone for the kind birthday wishes.

Love, Kim

I had to include that picture of him on Easter because he looked so cute climbing in & out of the back of the van.

Southern Living

2008-04-02T18:33:00.000-07:00

Hello faithful blog readers, and anyone who has accidentally stumbled across our adventures.

Speaking of adventure………..we had a very exciting week in my sister’s drive way in Savannah, maybe not exciting but it was fun. James worked very hard on his ’uncle of the year’ title. Shooting off rockets, giving piggy back rides, fixing broken bikes and overseeing intense War of the Monster games. I earned a whole new respect for stay at home mothers everywhere after spending a week with my sister. She starts the day at the crack of dawn to get Chloe & Sophie off to school then spends the rest of the day entertaining a very energetic 4 year old, who just when you are about to start laundry or do some dishes looks at you with her adorable smile and says ‘peas play with me just a little bit’ , then picking Chloe & Sophie up from the bus only to begin shuttling them to softball, tennis, brownies, piano, & church while still trying to entertain Maya and hoping everyone gets homework done. James and I were exhausted just watching the progression of events. We would lure them out to the RV & hop them up on candy just to see how close we could bring Juli to a break down. She is a seasoned veteran so we were unable to phase her.

We really did have a great time. It was fun to be there for Easter and James even went to church without much of a protest. We also got to see my cousin Robin again at Easter and she went to the movie with the girls and I one day. We spent one day in downtown Savannah going on a trolley tour, it was gorgeous because all the azaelas were blooming. We also went to a kid free dinner one night with Juli and my wonderful brother-in-law Chris. Chris and James get along very well, or at least we think they do. They pretty much just played NFL football so I am not sure if they actually had to have any conversations. We also packed everyone into the RV for a fun day at Ft. McAllister state park. It was a little chilly so we were glad we didn’t go all the way to the beach and our bar-b-que turned into a picnic in the RV. The girls were still thrilled because they got to ride in the RV while they were playing a video game, long gone are the days of the back of a station wagon and license plate games for entertainment.

James was so sweet and patient to just let me have some time with my sister and nieces. I told him it was an investment in our future since we don’t have any of our own kids. We may be dependent on our nieces or nephews to care for us in our old age. Hopefully they will remember that Uncle James made them the most popular kid on the bus for a day because of his rocket launching abilities, or that Aunt Kimby played pretend kittens with them for hours. It doesn’t matter, because they are all so sweet and so much fun. Juli is an awesome mom and it is always fun to spend time with her. I am glad that she doesn’t charge me for gum anymore. I take that as a sign our relationship has changed from more than little sister/big sister to friends. I miss them all so much already.

We left Savannah Monday morning and headed over to Charleston, SC. It is a beautiful city and we were able to find a nice campground about 30 minutes south of the city close to the beach. They say Charleston is a walking city and we feel as if we did it proud. We walked all over taking in all the neat architecture. It is very easy to imagine it during colonial or civil war times. I can’t imagine having to wear one of those big hoop skirts in the middle of the summer however, no wonder mint juleps were invented. Tonight we are at a different campground in South Carolina along the Savannah River. We have been greeted with traditional southern hospitality everywhere we have gone and have been trying to maintain a steady diet of sweet tea and sea food.

As an anonymous blogger mentioned Friday is James’ birthday. I welcome any creative ideas of birthday presents for him (PG rated please, kids do read this blog). It is very hard to purchase anything for him since he has all the money.
We hope everyone is surviving all the rain back in Arkansas and all are doing well along the West coast or wherever you may be.
Tracy- Juli & I talked extensively about Yosemite so let us know what we need to do.
Hope to hear from you soon!
Love, Kim

Pictures:
Maya at the IMAX

The Giorgianni family on Easter
James ‘Pied Piper’ Rocket man

My cousin Robin who will be going to Iraq in June

Chloe & Sophie on their bikes

Florida is History

2008-03-26T09:07:00.001-07:00

We are now camping in Kim's sister Juli's driveway outside of Savannah, Georgia. We have the best internet connection we have ever had and the satellite dish was tuned in as soon as I raised it, so we are in good tech shape here.

We had a quick, enjoyable visit with Doctors Chris and Sarah, Kim's cousin and his wife that live in Jacksonville, Florida. Their house is full of fun stuff like a pool table and a Nintendo Wii and a swimming pool and bass pond in the backyard. Chris made us some most excellent steaks and then showed us how to play the Wii. Sarah was on call all night waiting for expectant mothers to burst, but she joined us the next day for brunch. We went to a cool place on the river that was constructed of funky old cypress and cedar wood and decoracted with dead animals for brunch. There were plenty of dead animals for brunch too. You could get anything from oysters to ostrich and buffalo to alligator. They bought brunch too, now I feel guilty.

We headed north to Cocoa Beach to hook up with Juli and her clan. We spent the following day at the NASA visitors center and got hooked on rockets, so much so that I had to go out and buy a model rocket. We are planning the launch for this evening and already there is a conflict. I promised Sophie that she could hit the launch button and Chloe is protesting. If we can't come to terms the whole mission might have to be scrapped until Mission Control grows up!

We should be able to get some nice pics of Savannah in the next couple of days and of course we will share. The azaleas are in full glory right now.

Hopefully I will talk to you soon if all goes well with the rocket launch.

Donna... you are absolutely correct, that picture is so crappy it doesn't even look like us. I downloaded the wrong picture. Ooops! Give the M.E. a big squeeze and kiss for me. Don't squeeze her too hard or a big stream of chocalate, jelly beans and peeps might come spewing out.

Love, James

Pics are of Chris and Sarah -- Chris,Juli, Chloe, Sophie, Maya at Nasa --- Juli and Kids with Astronaut --- Me with bass from Chris and Sarah's pond --- Kim on moon buggy with Chloe and Maya

The Keys

2008-03-22T06:42:00.000-07:00

After testing the brakes of the r.v. through at least a hundred stop lights on the southwestern side of Florida we made our way through the Everglades and down to Key Largo. We arrived at King's Camp to find that the office was closed and no one was around to check us in. We were told by several of the residents to just pick a site and deal with it in the morning, so that is what we did. We watched the sunset on the end of the pier there and had a nice dinner in the r.v. and crashed. This is some boring @#$% isn't it? Anyhoo, we then headed to Key West in the morning. The water on either side of the highway that traversed the tiny strip of land that is most of the keys is absolutely beautiful. It is every bit of the aqua green/blue that you see in pictures. We stopped at Robbies pier and fed the tarpons. You get a small bucket of little dead fishes and try to get them past the pesky pellicans and into the tarpons mouths. These fishes were a good 4 foot long and probably 70 to 100 lbs.

Key west was very cool. It was a combination of old Carribean style homes, boats, piers, bars and restaurants. We walked by Ernest Hemmingway's home, but he wasn't there, so we left our regards and headed to the southernmost point of the U.S. were we had some cruise going susy chick take a crappy picture of us in front of the famous buoy. We then stopped at a rum bar and had a few 2 for 1 rum y colas and continued up Duval st. back to the pier where we started. It is cool to see some of the streets and landmarks that I have heard in my Mom's Jimmy Buffett music for so many years. Kim would just kind of look at me strange when I busted out in lyric. "There's a woman goin' crazy on Caroline St., stoppin' every man that she does meet" What??

Yeah, I would say the Keys are worth the visit, but it is a LONG way down there, so plan accordingly.

NO FISH CAUGHT! Sorry Tuna. Just a few pesky piggy perch.

I am running out of fishing territory, so I will have to switch to snake catching.

I went back through the blogs and caught some comments that were left by people I had no idea would be looking on. Thanks Cat Sanders for checking in.

I apologize for spelling Tracy's name wrong, but your own cousin told me to spell it with an 'e', so it isn't really my fault.

Tuna, I am going to revoke your commenting license if you banter on about acronyms and such while you are tripping on acid.

Kim informs me that I omitted the Everglades. The Everglades were a birder's paradise with a bunch of alligators mixed in. There were glades that went on forever and ever. I don't even know what a glade is. I will include a page of critters from the everglades and that will give you the idea.

Kim doesn't know what a glade is either....all that reading and she is glade ignorant.

We are headed North in a hurry. Prepare for some history lessons as we explore some ancient American townships.

Love James

Trek to Cayo Casta

2008-03-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

Kim and I took a nice little boat ride across Pine Island Sound to Cayo Casta Island. It was a beautiful cool day with lots of sunshine. We lounged on the beach for a couple of hours and then took off on a shell finding expedition. The beach is a beautiful white sand with lots of shells and some sections that are all rough shell particles. We walked a couple of miles and had pockets and hands full of cool shells, when the sudden urge for a bowel movement struck me. This never seems to fail, two miles from the camp and loaded down with shells. I should be having a lovely relaxing shelling session and now all I can think about is making it to the outhouse in time. I manage to duck-waddle down the beach with an ever-increasing pace the whole time doing the silent prayer of "please let the toilet be unoccupied". I side step up the flight of weathered wooden stairs and tug on the stall door, sure enough, OCCUPIED! Now I am in the five minute, seems like an eternity, fight for dignity preservation. Beads of sweat forming on the brow and a new prayer "let there be enough toilet paper." Then I hear prolonged paper reelage a few coughs and the toilet finally flushes, but no appearance of the occupant. Then a sink running, and a few more coughs and finally the door opens to reveal the only frat boy on the island. I hate frat boys! At least there was toilet paper, so the trip to Cayo Casta will end on a good note. We took the tractor ride back to the boat, boarded and headed for Pine Island only to turn back around and pick up a couple of young campers who had forgot about daylight savings. Who, but the same frat boy and his girlfriend. Twice inconvenienced!

Sailing and Partying in Pine Island

2008-03-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

The Larson's (Jeff, Peggy and Kim)
Kimby and Peggy
Potluck at Claudia's
Camping spot on Kim's Canal
Cutter Dog

Pine Island anti-sobriety society

2008-03-19T08:27:00.000-07:00

Well, we were able to escape Pine Island. We found a two hour window when we were sober enough to drive. GOOD GOD! These people know how to party! The average age in this community is probably 60+, but they don't let that stop themselves from throwing back the cocktails. It is common to hear the standard preludes to cap twistage and cork poppage of "it's 5 'o clock somewhere" or "anytime on the weekends is fair game" or "what? It's been a rough day and I am quitting early!" or "I always drink when I'm fishing" Whatever the excuse it is never heartfelt since all of these folks are retired and they really don't give a crap anyway. A good Florida tan will hide the ill effects of all of your bad habits, so go for it!

I have to say that we had an absolutely wonderful time. The people in this community are some of the most kind and friendly folks I have met. Kim and Claudia are so fun to be around. They are so high energy and positive that it is contagious. Kim has no time for friviality and is constantly on the move. Once in a while you can contain him for some one on one. Claudia has a strong enough personality to break his focus and re-direct it towards her when need be, so they mesh perfectly. They both like to excercise, work hard, have their cocktails and go dancing and there is plenty of room for all of that on Pine Island.

We stayed alongside Kim's house by his canal and shared kitchen and back deck with his friend Jeff from Minnesota. We traded cooking and dishwashing duties with Jeff and had many a good conversation with him on the back porch. After a few beers Jeff's Minnesota accent would try and infiltrate my speech patterns and I found myself struggling to keep my o's from stretching and ballooning into big, long O's. "Ohhh, you need a bottle ohhhpener, reeely? I always considered my friend Ed to have a very thick Minnesota accent, but when I talked to him yesterday it seemed normal compared to Jeff's. Jeff is a great guy. He was kind, considerate and full of good laughs, he even managed to get a very prolonged barking laugh from Kim which even escalated to the level two hyper barking laugh and this is something that only my brother seems to manage, so that is the ultimate approval. I hope to see Jeff again and again in my life, he is a good guy.

Jeff's friends from Minnesota, Bob and Linda, came down to stay in Claudia's downstairs apartment for a month. Bob and I went out fishing and had a good day of catching speckled trout. I think the next day was rough though as Bob's face coloration resembled that of a beet from getting too many of those sneaky, through the clouds sun rays. Bob can cuss more than I can and his wife is much like Kim in that she is good at ignoring him or waving him off when need be. I believe Linda is one of the sweetest women I have met and I think she puts up with Bob because under that unpolished surface appears to be a very smart, worldly and maybe even sensitive man. Just Kidding Bob! Great people who really enhanced our already wonderful time.

Our final night we had a cocktail party/ potluck at Kim and Claudia's house. We met several more fine Pine Islanders like Toni(y) and Tim and Ricky. We got to have another get together with those we had already spent time with like Butch and Lynn, Kim Larson's brother Jeff and his partner Mark, Kim Larson's mother Peggy and Claudia's sister Beverly. Beverly is another outgoing barrell of never-a-dull-moment and Kim's mother is quite the peppy, quick, bundle of energy that you would expect to have spawned a son like Kim.

Pictures: Claudia and Beverly, Captain Kim Larson, Kim and Claudia with Butch and Lynn, 1st mate Jeff Herron, Bob and Linda with Jeff

Trials of a Fishing Widow

2008-03-09T18:04:00.000-07:00

Well James has been in Florida for over two weeks now and he hasn't come close to satiating his fishing desires. I guess I should be happy he is addicted to something healthy and productive like fishing as opposed to something like meth, although I think meth might be cheaper. I am amazed at his patience in being able to spend day after day, hour after hour all in pursuit of something he is most likely going to throw back. He laughs at my ability to go shopping for hours without buying anything, but at least in shopping you are able to carry on a conversation and there are usually bathrooms close by. We have had a couple of nice fish dinners but he is still waiting to have a banner day. Maybe tomorrow..............

We are still shamelessly taking advantage of Kim Larson and imposing on his other house guest Jeff. Jeff is a carpenter from Minnesota who comes down for about a month every year to escape the brutal cold and help Kim out a little bit. He is a very typical Norwegian bachelor, but he has been very gracious about James & I intruding on his peace. Our only problem is his accent is so strong James & I are now noticing 'ya' & 'you betcha' slipping into our vocabulary.

Life here is pretty laid back; wake up and go for a bike ride/walk/run, fish/read, happy hour, bed, repeat. It's pretty easy to see why so many people who come here to visit end up as permanent residents. It was a chilly 70 degrees yesterday so we had to break out our long pants.

Hopefully James will have a good day of fishing tomorrow so we will have some good fish pictures for you Tuna!

Happy belated birthday Janet! Thanks for being such a great sister & friend.

Love, Kim

Greetings from the Sunshine State!

2008-03-03T18:16:00.000-08:00

Greetings from sunny Florida! Thank you James and all others for the sweet words about my Nannie. She was an amazing woman and I am glad that I got to spend so much time with her over the last few years. I am always so desperate to move away from Fayetteville that I overlook the benefits of living there. Not only do we have great friends but it is also so nice to have so much family close. I still wish it had a beach, but oh well.

We had a great time in Costa Rica and are so thankful to the Norman’s for letting us crash their family reunion. It was so neat to spend time in Costa Rica at so many different places. We did a decent job of practicing our Spanish but lost it the minute we got home, we haven’t had the opportunity to use it in Florida yet, but maybe if we go to Miami.

We spent about a week in Arkansas after we got back from Costa Rica. We had to visit the tax man and the rivers were up so some kayaking was required. With the good news from our CPA that we had enough funds to continue until June we left Arkansas and headed to Florida via Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. We stayed at a very scary RV park in Vicksburg but thoroughly enjoyed the battlefield park there and a bartender who defined southern hospitality. I wasn’t feeling well and it was raining so we decided to skip heading into New Orleans, even though we found a great campground just across the Lake Ponchetrain (I think that’s what its called) bridge. It was also the day we got the call that Nannie wasn’t doing well so we decided to head on to Florida so it would be easier if I needed to go home.

James was awesome and drove for almost 2 days straight through the rain. We drove through downtown Biloxi and were amazed at the destruction still evident from Hurricane Katrina. Strangely the casinos were all up and running but the houses were still a mess. Bureaucracy at its finest.

After spending the night in a very nice rest area and enjoying dinner out of the vending machine we made it to Kim’s house Saturday just in time for happy hour . Kim is a good friend of James’ parents Bill & Mary. He has a great place here in Pine Island, Florida right on a canal with plenty of room to park an RV. The best perk is he also has a boat which he has given James free reign of, needless to say James did not miss me while I went home. Yesterday we went out on a big catamaran that a friend of Kim’s has and today James and I spent all day on the water, him fishing, me reading. I am hoping the RV and ground will quit rocking by the time I go to sleep.
Life continues to be amazing and my hope is that I don’t take one minute of it for granted. The best way I can honor my Nannie is to have her same joy and appreciation for every day. Of course right now, that isn’t too hard to do!
Love, Kim

Photos: Kim & Melanie Norman in front of their house in Costa Rica, James & I in front of Volcan Irazu, James showing why he doesn't read, Kayaking the Mulberry

In Memory of Pauline Garner

2008-02-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

I am sad to report that Kim's Nanny Pauline passed away. Kim flew from Florida to Arkansas on Sunday to be with her family for the memorial and burial.

Pauline was a woman that in no way had the easy life, but in every way had a good life. She was the most up-beat senior citizen I have ever met. Despite dealing with severe arthritis, the loss of her husband, a heart attack that left her with 15% of her heart function and other health issues, she had time to get her G.E.D. while in her eighties and volunteer at the hospital and just be a joy to be around. Pauline will always be an inspiration to me and I am quite sure that she passed down her chipper personality to my lovely wife, so I thank her sincerely for that.

Pauline didn't have to stop at the Gates of Heaven to check in, they saw her pre-approved express pass and waved her on through.

We will miss you always Pauline and will play Hand and Foot in your honor at every Christmas gathering!

Kim will definitely see you soon. If you could talk to St. Peter on my behalf I would appreciate it.

We Love You.

More Manuel Antonio Pics

2008-02-01T08:36:00.001-08:00

Mom and Bill Head Back to Arkansas

2008-02-01T08:28:00.000-08:00

We saw the folks off just a little while ago. Mom insisted upon getting a bus back to San Jose, so I wouldn't have to drive. I picked up a little bug in my tummy and spent the last 24 hours between bed and toilet. It still feels like little volcanic eruptions going off in my digestive tract, but I am able to walk around without feelling too bad today. I felt bad that the last full day with Mom and Bill that I couldn't be any fun, but at least it waited 'til the last day.
This morning we were greeted by a group of Capuchin monkeys at about 6:30 a.m. I had to be the dork and feed them a banana or two or three. The word got out and soon there were many. Capuchins, however, are not as friendly about receiving food-stuffs and get pissy if you don't have enough for all. We had one that was missing his upper lip that was very concerned about his portion or lack there of. He kept coming on to the veranda and trying to throw off our belongings. Then he peered through the screen door for a couple of minutes with that funky upper lip and his teeth showing, it was like a Hitchcock film.
We did get some cute pics of a mom and her baby and learned that the monkeys definitely know how to pose for food.
We have had a great relaxing time here at Costa Verde and now it is time to head south to the Osa Peninsula where my friends Kim and Melanie Norman have been so gracious as to offer to put us up for a while in their home away from home there.
We may be out of communication for a week, so don't be angry if there isn't an update. Hopefully we will have the mother of all updates then.
We love all of you. Thanks for the comments (Donna, Tracey, Tuna, Julie, Janet) Kim really likes to read the comments.
Talk to you as soon as we can.
James and Kim
P.S. No I didn't threaten Kim to make her hold the beetle. I suggest the act and then let her biology teacher guilt do the rest. My mother found the beetle and collected it in her glasses case for show and tell.

2008-01-30T12:58:00.000-08:00

First photo is find the Kinkajou. Oh he is sooo cute.
Next two are the White faced capuchins
Fourth..don't leave your bag unattended on the beach.
Lastly..Mother and cutest baby sloth in the world.

Goat Lady takes to the Trees

2008-01-30T12:47:00.000-08:00

Gosh it's Hot! Abomnibubble snowman is a little uncomfortable today. Must be 90 +. However, the cervezas are still cold coming out of our little mid-size fridge. It is a very tough life we have here. Wake, eat breakfast, two hours of grueling mid-morning to mid-afternoon activity then a siesta, then happy hour, then dinner, then a happier hour, then bed by 9:00 p.m.
Folks are horizontal right now, so is Kim. Mom, Kim and I went on a canopy tour today. This one differed from the first one in that the tour was through the actual trees and not on top of them. We rapelled, swung like Tarzan and did many ziplines. My mother was tough as usual. She did everything like a champ and was twice the median age of the 15 people in our group. You can always tell when my mother is having fun and/or is excited because the oratory gets more dramatic and is usually filled with a cuss word or two. We came home to find Huber holding down the Costa Rican rocker on the veranda of the hotel room. The view is beautiful and the trees full of critters, so why not.
We learned yesterday that Kim's Granny Pauline is very critical after surgery on her stomach. I don't think that Kim can totally enjoy herself with this in mind, so unless there is a marked improvement in Pauline's condtion we may try and get home early to be with the family. Pauline is one of the most amazing people I have had chance to meet. Her spirit so bright in the face of ilness and adversity and her mind so sharp despite her 87 years of age. Maybe monkey pictures will help, that's all I can offer from down here.

Love the ones your with.
See you all soon.

Love James and Kim

Critter Page - Lizard Edition for Tuna

2008-01-29T13:33:00.000-08:00

One day of lizard hunting Tom! Soooo... Maleh!

Top one is a yellow headed gecko.

Next one down is a adult Jesus Christ Lizard

Then juvenille Jesus.

Then we have a Black Ctenosaur followed by a big Black Ctenosaur. The big one hangs by the pool and he does NOT take any B.S. ie. tail grabbing. Tail grabbing gets a vigorous tail wiggling followed by whip around and mouth open. Then this guy just stood his ground. I will have to have leather gloves for this critter. Many green geckos and anoles around too, just kind of small and bland.

Jesus Christ is very fast and I had to settle for zoom for now, I hope to improve pics on this amazing lizard, but through the woods and vines will have to do for now.

Well, everyone is at the pool having fun, so I am going to join. Sitting up here on the veranda at Costa Verde has revealed, capuchin monkey, three toed sloth and many birds. Bill is wearing out his binoculars. Last night a black figure flew into a palm frond that brushes up against our vernada on the fourth floor. It shook the palm frond, but I couldn't see what it was, so I grabbed the 3 d-cell Maglite from my duffle bag and walked to the railing in the hopes of illuminating the creature. When I turned the flashlight on I saw two red eyes surrounded by black staring right at me It was almost enough to make me drop the light. It was the undaunted stare of a black and white owl. Very Cool! I have some cool monkey pics and very cool sloth pic that I will download tomorrow.

Talk to you then.

James

Critter Page .... Yeah!

2008-01-27T15:29:00.000-08:00

Lovers....Mated pair of Scarlet Macaws

Coatimundi.... Spanish For Trash Can Invaders

Fer De Lance -- Agressive Poisonous Snake.

Spirited, Proud Horse

Salmon Bellied Racer .... Non-Poisonous

Update from Costa Rica

2008-01-26T12:24:00.000-08:00

Buenas Dias from Costa Rica! We have had another awesome week here and can’t believe that our trip is half way over. I can feel the sympathy from here. We ended our stay at Rancho Leona by going to a discotecque type party with our hosts. The music was good but they had dancers on stage so no one else was really dancing. I didn’t want to be the dumb gringo (since we were the only gringos) out there breaking protocol so I was trying to be content chair dancing. There was a DJ and I almost had to forcefully restrain James from going up and clocking the guy because he kept interjecting a car horn in every song.
We did decide if he whipped out the jake break noise we would leave. About an hour after we got there everyone started yelling and a parade of sorts with 2 drummers, one headressed old guy and 6 scantily clad chicas came dancing in and started leading the crowd in a series of conga lines, limbo and various other dances. I couldn’t figure them all out but I had fun trying!
We left La Virgin and drove over to the Arenal Volcano. It is an active volcano and on clear nights you can see lava tumbling down the side. Alas we were not granted a clear night but we did hear the rumblings and see some of the smoke venting during the day. It was very cool to be so close. We stayed at some neat pequeno cabinas and had nice neighbors who even invited us over or happy hour. James’ highlight of the whole area was coming across a Fer De lance as we were hiking in the national park. Thankfully it was busy chasing down dinner so it just gave me a heart attack and moved on.
My adrenaline was already high because we had just come from the zipline/canopy tour. It was the highlight of my whole trip!. I had to wait 8 yrs to go and it was sooooo worth it!!! I fulfilled my lifelong dream and was able to see what it was like to be a monkey, well actually it was probably closer to a bird. We started off by taking a gondola ride up the side of the mountain, it didn’t really dawn on me until we stepped onto the platform how high up we were. There was another group getting ready to go and seeing them fly off the platform and quickly turn into a tiny dot got my heart racing. We were in a group with 6 other people and our two guides gave us some quick instructions and we did a practice zip line (it was about 10ft. off the ground and 40 ft in length). My panic started to subside a little because it was easier than it looked to hold the position they told us was muy importante. After practice it was onto the real thing and before I could chicken out I was on the cable and flying through the air screaming “Shaka“ at the top of my lungs. The guide asked James to translate. It was the most amazing feeling! We were over 700 ft in the air flying across hundreds of feet of cable. Once I opened my eyes there was an amazing view looking out on the volcano and a huge lake. I safely made it to the other platform and my hands were shaking from the rush. James came next and I got to watch our 150 lb guide trying not to look scared as James’ came hurdling toward him at about 40 mph. One guide hooked you up as you took off and the other one helped you stop on the other side. As James was being hooked up the guide told him “don’t kill my friend”. We went across 8 more cables and it only got better and better. If James would have let me I would have gone again as soon as we got done. We are definitely going to take his mom, Bill hurt his back so flying through the air is probably not a good idea.
After Arenal we took a bone jarring ride up to Monteverde to the world renown cloud rain forest. It was really beautiful and actually chilly. We didn’t see many animals in the rainforest but the foliage was amazing. There is a neat little town up there and we stayed at a nice little inn with an amazing restaurant. We also went to a serpentarium and had our own guide. James was impressing the guy with his snake knowledge and we just happened to be there when they were feeding the boas, yippee!
We picked up Bill & Mary yesterday and are spending the next few nights at this nice place in Jaco beach. We are hoping a few days of rest and rum will help Bill’s back. Who knows the zipline might actually snap it back in place.
I hope those of you in Arkansas are staying warm. Tracy I definitely think you should bring Annabelle here, she has to be 8 to do the zipline, but you don’t have to wait that long. Forrest would also love all the orchid gardens.
Sorry this is so long, the peanut gallery is giving me grief about my novel. The sad thing is I have actually left a lot out, this place is amazing!
Love, Kim

James flounders down the river

2008-01-19T12:35:00.001-08:00

Last night was not a good one at the Rancho. There was a cocky amerian punk that got a room down the hall and he was sick with a stomach bug. He stomped around the halls to the bathroom and slammed his door several times in the night. He wasn't thinking of anyone but his self. The local cat mascot Petunia was either having sex under our floorboards or was fending off a potential suitor. The trucks were engine braking down the highway through town all night and to top it all off Kim was snoring. Jesus Christos!!! Despite the lack of sleep I went for a trip down the river.

Well, I am out of practice for sure. I had to gut an old Perception boat so that I could squeeze my fat ass inside it. Yanked out the thigh braces and the padding and the foot pegs, but I fit in it and Miguel, the guide, and I dragged our boats from the back of the lodge to put in on the Sarapiqui. The river is very low, so it was a boulder garden. Miguel weighs 100 lbs soaking wet and I am 280 pounds paddling a river barge. Miguel is a very shy, dark skinned Costa Rican who speaks hardly a lick of English. He does know his way down the river, so I followed close. This section is an easy class three and other than picking paths through many boulders it was easy, but I still managed to swim on the first good rapid. All the water slammed into a rock bank on the right and I geeked out and leaned away from the obstruction and insta flip. I couldn't roll the boat as I lacked practice and the boat lacked thigh braces. I swam my disgraced bulk to the shore while Miguel was just biting his lip trying not to laugh. After a couple more miles, Miguel spoke his first word of English.."Sooperrrmon" and disappeared over the horizon. "Superman, what the?" I could only try and keep up with the blue feather that was Miguel in his Pirhanna kayak heading into the offsetting waves that made up Superman. It was fun and wasn't worthy of such a grandiose name at these water levels, but it was a good adrenaline rush. The rest of the river was more of the same with a few spots where the river pillowed up on a bank and was ready to flip an out of practice gringo, but I prevailed. Miguel managed to speak one whole sentence "you have done class four before?" I think he was so unimpressed with my performance on this class three run that he was trying to discourage me from going up river to the class four. No worries, I was humbled and I am not going to classe quatro tomorrow.

As we headed for the takeout I saw something falling from the sky and SMACK into the river. A large green lizard or what looks like a mini-velociraptor swam-ran through the water to the shore looking startled and indignified. It was a Jesus Christ lizard and he had just fallen from about 80 feet up in a tree. Good thing he was over water, now I see why the locals thought this might have been the fate of our iguana.

Kim has had a good Kim day reading and now she is napping. The inn keepers have kept her company and she has identified the rare critters we saw yesterday. We are going to a local party tonight with the managers. There has been a car going up and down the main drag broadcasting what sounds like loud radio commercials on local hispanic radio. Kenn, the manager, told us they our advertising a town fiesta, so we are going to go.

I have to thank my buddy Mike for telling Kim about bot flies. "Oh yeah, they are everywhere in the rainforest and they burrow into you skin and lay their larvae, and ten days later you have a huge larva growing under your skin." Now kim gets a bite on herself and it is a definite bot fly bite. Last night she pointed out her two day old mosquito bite and said "I think it's coning!" "Coning? What are you talking about?" I said. Kim says "feel, it's three dimensional, I think it's coning?" "It's a bite, they all are three dimensional!" "But this one's getting higher quicker!" Happy to report that the bite is flatter this morning and Kim does not have a botfly larva "cone" growing on her arm. Thanks Mike!

I will let Kim report next time, I have been greedy....I like to b.s.

Love,

James

Dia uno en el rio sarapiqui

2008-01-18T16:19:00.000-08:00

Hola,

Oh what I would give to be able to speak Spanish right now. We aren't in a really huge tourist area and most of the local store owners know nada English. I feel like a complete retard. "Ahh, eeeehh, rrrrrr" then I look at Kim for some help and all I see is a cranium full of biology files and a junior high Spanish file drawer that is rusted shut. We make a good ol' ignorant American pair.

After dinner last night we came back to the Rancho to find that our "rescued" iguana had indeed died. Riggo had set in and you could pick him up and hold him horizontally by the tail. Dunno what happened, but it was sad. Seth, the brother of the manager, buried him this morning. Sacrificing proper burial rites to laziness he chopped the iguana's tail off and laid it by his side, so that he wouldn't have to dig the grave as long.

We had a nice breakfast with the other guests at 8:23 sharp Tico time (8:00 sharp in the developed world). Jeff the gay, vegetarian bird watcher kept Kim's attention with his flamboyant, gesticulative banter. Sweet guy, but lord he could talk. If you know someone that is in the closet, send Jeff in there with them and they will come flying out begging for salvation.

The other two guests were from Belgium. Dutch Belgium they said ademantly. They spoke Dutch, French, Spanish and English. I was feeling bad enough that I couldn't order a package of oreo replicas from the local store to stuff my fat face with, then these two freaks of nature came to breakfast. The kid is 15, but a little strange. He asked in a slow, methodical English, which I could tell his multi-lingual tounge was battling with, if I would like him to beat me at a game of chess. Bug-o-the-minute landed on me just now and I did my internal quiver. I wish I could do like horses and such and quiver my skin to shake these insects off me, but instead I just spaz and let out a "what in the god damn....aaaggggeeeeehi-a-hi-a-hi" Geckos, frogs, and bugs abound on the patio at night.

After breakfast we went on a walk up one of the dirt lanes and found it to be much like some of the abodes in Arkansas. I thought it a waste of mb to take digital pics of such similarity to the rural area that my own family lives in, but I did for comparison sake. We found a cute little snack store about a 1/4 of a mile up the road. Life is very simple here. Very little glass or even screens in the building. The manager of our hotel let me use his Mac to print off an e-mail and it was right next to a huge lofted opening. Wait a minute .... FROG! Be right back.... he's mine!

Frog pic included, they have a lot of cool ones down here.

Went for a leisure float with Miguel the non-English speaking guide. Kim was better at finding the wildlife then Miguel. She spotted howler monkeys and little wild pigs. We saw a bunch of water-dwelling birds. Tomorrow I am going down some white water.

Supper next door tonight, last night we ate at this very cool, tree house like place next to the river. It had big slabs of burlwood for tables and we were pretty much by ourselves. It was very dark, everything is dark here, electricity is too expensive to waste on mood lighting or signage, kind of cool.

Talk to you tomorrow, I will try to get some good river pics, but I don't have a dry bag, so two trash bags and caution it is.

Pura Vida from Costa Rica.

Loud chirping.....another frog maybe?

Rio Sarapiqui in Costa Rica

2008-01-17T14:51:00.000-08:00

Finally we are in Costa Rica. Kim can tell you it has been a painful 4 weeks of stagnation in Arkansas. It really sucks to sit around and do nothing you know. Poor baby!

I am sitting on a very quaint patio of the Rancho Leona on the Rio Sarapiqui. We are spending a whopping $24 a night, so we don't have the amenities of a four star resort, but the managers are great and we are chatting with the one other guest right now, he is a retired math teacher from Massachussets and he has Kim engaged in convo whilst I type on the laptop.

We spent two nights at the Selva Verde Lodge 'cause we couldn't find the management at the Rancho Leona on the way through the first time. It was very nice, but it flattened my wallet significantly, so we came here today. We met a very nice couple from New Hampshire and had a fun night of rum and cokes and Imperial beer last night. We were sitting at the bar getting a Spanish lesson from Jose' and up comes one of the employees. "You guys want to see a big snake?" "Oh hell yeah!" is my half drunken response. We all took off at a run walk down the long covered pathways to the bungalows where one of the security guards was pointing a flashlight and saying "Fer de Lance". Can we get a double "hell yeah!" I was almost drunk enough to grab it's tail and yank it out of the brush, but Kim was already on me like a pit bull owner telling her dog not to bite. "James, back off. James. James! Don't get so close." "Well hell, can't I have a close look at least?" After a while it came out of the brush and we got a look at it's head. Muy Peligroso! Back to the bar with the snake lovers adrenaline pumping. We had dinner and went up to our bungalow. Fate would have it that our new friends had moved to the room next to us. Their previous room had a parade of termites through it and they asked to be moved. We sat on the back side of the building, knowing how the sound traveled in the complex. We had a couple more drinks and chatted for half an hour when one of the other residents appeared from around the corner with a very agitated look. "Could you hold it down, me an my 81 year old mother can't sleep and we have to go bird watching at 6:00 a.m. I am getting very, very upset!" First instinct is I am paying $140 a night for this place and it is only 10:30 , so whatever!, but we just said "sorry, we will hold it down" and we chatted for a few more moments at a whisper and went to bed.

We moved to the Rancho Leona today. It is on a swift part of the river and it is very quaint. We found an ailing four foot long iguana and brought it back to convalesce on the patio. We are about to go to dinner at the Rio Bar for $4 a plate and $1.25 a beer. Tomorrow we go on a rubber ducky tour of the river, so I will send you pics.

Yesterday we hiked the trails and grounds at the La Paz Waterfalls. It was a tropical river paradise for sure. Pics included.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Damn, I picked the same picture twice, but it took 45 minutes to upload, so I am not going to change it.

More Christmas Pictures

2008-01-11T07:23:00.000-08:00

Here are some Christmas pictures from Silver Dollar City. As you can tell it was a little cold but we still had a great time. My parents had season passes and the rest of us were able to get in free because people were handing out free passes like they were candy. My brother in law Chris was amazed that they were being given away and not sold. He's from Pittsburgh and doesn't understand how scalping just wouldn't happen at Silver Dollar City.

We saw a couple of shows and rode lots of rides. My niece Chloe went on her first upside down roller coaster and Sophie and James rode some awful contraption that looked like the tilt-a-whirl and boat put together. Janet rode the frogs with Maya and Zachary and almost went into early labor because they were a little more exciting than she thought they would be. My mom was also a trooper because she had to walk around all day with a plastic balloon taped to her face to help keep her from having the bad nose bleeds she had been having. We all enjoyed the food and the hot chocolate tasted great on such a cold day.

We are leaving Monday for Costa Rica and will try to send an update.

Take care! love, Kim

Home for the Holidays

2008-01-06T12:45:00.000-08:00

Well it has been a very long time since our last post and we have no excuse except that we haven't really been doing anything exciting enough to write about. I don't mean that it hasn't been great being home and seeing everyone but parking in my parents driveway is not quite the same as being in Yosemite or on the Oregon coast.

We left the Texas gulf the first week of December to spend a few days in Dallas with our friends Beth & Lee. We were a little delayed because the car had a flat tire. We aren't really sure how long we had a flat tire because we discovered that a car in tow doesn't really feel all that different with or without all wheels inflated. James was awesome and got it fixed in no time, the only lasting damage was the 20 fire ant bites I got from standing on the side of the road admiring his work. We made it to Dallas safely after stopping to get a new tire for the car in San Marcos which also happens to have a giant outlet mall, see every cloud has a silver lining.

We finally got to meet Barrett, Beth & Lee's adorable little boy who was born 7/7/07. What an easy birthday to remember! I also took a quick side trip to Houston to see my Brother and niece. We made it back to Arkansas just in time to attend the Hagers' Christmas party, which was fun and also to start helping out at the Angel tree.

James immediately jumped back into working, mainly helping Tuna out and finishing up some loose ends from this summer. Juli, my sister who lives in Georgia, and her family came into town for the week of Christmas and we were very busy with all the kids and celebrating Christmas eve with the Murie's and Christmas Day with the Joneses. We also had a mini-family reunion with my mom's side of the family at the Jones center (no relation, just a nice free place to have a party and ice skate) and then went to Branson for two days with my parents, and sisters and their families. Silver Dollare City on a 35 degree day with 5 children and 50,000 other people may sound like torture to some of you, but we had a great time. We had a nice New Year's Eve with our friend Mike, my cousins Robin & Chris and Chris's wife Sarah. Big Smith was at George's and we danced our way into the New Year. We went over to our friends Andy & Angela's house to watch the hogs shameful defeat on New Year's Day.

With the constant activity coming to a close on New Year's Day, I began to go into a tailspin of depression desperate to get the RV back on the road. Poor James didn't know what to do with me because I would burst into tears just from seeing the tow bracket on the car or anytime I entered the RV. You would think the fact that we are going to Costa Rica for a month on the 14th would be enough for me to look forward to, but I am ashamed to say it didn't help at all. All I saw in my head was a giant clock with our allotted time off ticking away and us just sitting here in Fayetteville frittering it away. While I was wallowing in despair with free cell and chocolate my sweet, wonderful husband was out being responsible by working, and getting our taxes ready and doing repairs at the rent houses. Instead of slapping me upside the head for being selfish and spoiled he was very patient with me and even tried to understand my blabbering when I couldn't understand it myself. I have never been so depressed and I think James already has a standing order of Prozac for me for when we come back for good.

I think a big part of my problem was I saw us going back so easily to how things were before we left and I don't want that. I don't want James to work 60 hours a week and every saturday to be a workday. I know we can't travel and live in the RV forever (well the grown up part of me knows that) but I hope we make a concerted effort to appreciate our lives more and appreciate each other more. I feel so thankful that I have a spouse I want to spend time with and whom I get along with so well. I hope that we can find a balance when we come back home between our old life and our RV life.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and your new year is off to a wonderful start!

Love, Kim & James

Pictures: James' last fish at the gulf, flat tire, Kim & Shelby, Beth & Barrett

More Pictures from Texas

2007-11-27T12:35:00.001-08:00

Picture 1: James feeding the dolphins at Sea World. He did let the other kids have a chance too.

Picture 2: Jeremy, me, Bee & Julie watching the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade in the RV living room. There were actually 4 more people on the other couch if you can believe it.

Picture 3: Another tarantula picture for Janet. These things were all over Big Bend. It was a very unique park and not at all like the rest of Texas. The best part was soaking our feet in some hot springs right along the Rio Grande.

Picture 4: Me holding a lizard James found in Big Bend. He didn't trust me to get the right aperture on the camera so I had the pleasure of posing with it instead. What is aperture anyway?

Picture 5: Maragret Beth & Emily running to the ocean for the first time. They had so much fun playing in the waves and the rest of us enjoyed using them as an excuse to make sandcastles. Thankfully we had 3 very nice, warm days before the gale force winds took over!

Big Bend and Texas Gulf

2007-11-25T20:05:00.000-08:00

Hello from the Texas Gulf!
Kim is in the back of the R.V. watching some cheese holiday musical movie. She wanted me to watch with her, but I’d rather die, so I am updating this blog. We have just seen off the last of my family from Arkansas, my brother Tuna left this morning. We had planned on a two day straight fishing marathon, but mother nature had other plans and shot a nasty cold front our way. We got soaked with wave spray from the 30 mile an hour constant winds stirring up the water over the jetty rocks and were only catching junk fish, so we quit and played Playstation games for the rest of the day yesterday. It rained so hard last night and the forecast was for more of the same, so Tuna left for home and I can’t blame him.

We met up with my family in San Antonio. My mom had scored 8 free tickets to Sea World from one of Bill’s connections at Anhueser Busch and was ready to play Super Grandma for a few days, so she rounded up all the grandchildren and their parents and headed for Texas. Kim and I had completed a three day visit to Big Bend National Park in South Texas and headed to San Antonio to meet with everyone else.. I was greeted by two dozen or so head butts to the sternum and stomach by Emily Rose. E. Rose is the youngest of my sister Julie’s and John’s children. The good lord decided to untie Julie’s fallopian tubes at the tender age of 40 and the product is a curly blonde headed whirling dervish Nacho Libre wannabe. The powers-that-be gifted E. Rose with strength, stamina, and a strong will, so that she can survive her older siblings, two of whom have a mean streak a mile wide. E. Rose is cute, so that she can avert the potential wrath of the adults that she frustrates with her temper and tenacity. Little Emily is propelled by a 24” diameter spool of 200 yards of NASA super-alloy spring steel self wound at night with the calories she consumes from Sprite, pizza, juice, and other family vacation fare. This mechanism only affords the E about 10 seconds of attention to any given stimulus. Next in the room to greet me is Margaret Elizabeth. M. E. is the next oldest at 7 years. She ran into the room and power hugged me and gave me a kiss. I haven’t been a good enough uncle to deserve this treatment, but she is a sweetheart. M. E. looks like Donna’s mini-me. She is the spittin’ image of Donna and must be parented very well. She is smart, polite, fun to be around with just the occasional sassiness. Jeremy, Little John and Bee are old enough that they don’t cut me any slack or affection, they just put up with me.

Sea World was as much fun for me as it was for the kids. The killer whale and Dolphin shows are great and the roller coasters were a surprise. The weather was almost hot, so we dried off quickly after getting soaked by the river raft ride. Jeremy won a huge stuffed sea turtle at the arcade by flipping three frogs into their lily pads. Bee was enthralled by the dolphins and Little John actually smiled while riding the roller coaster. Everyone took turns riding herd on the E. Rose, We took off for the quaint fishing town of Port Aransas and made it there by 11:00 p.m. where Tuna and M.E. joined Kim and I in the R.V. at the campground on the beach and the others stayed in hotel rooms that my mom had booked for them.

Tuna caught the first big fish on the jetty, a 36 inch Red Drum or Redfish. It was a battle for a while, but he brought it in without incident. The following evening Big John, Tuna and I all went out on the pier and night fished for shark. After about two casts I brought in my tackle only to find that I was tangled in someone else’s fishing line. I started to untangle the beautiful purple tinted line when simultaneously I felt stinging on my hands and heard John yell “Portugese Man-Of-War”. He said it so quickly I had to rewind the tape and listen in slow motion replay. “Porch - You- Geez- Man - O - War!!!!!!” I looked down onto the railing to see the oblong purple balloon that I had dreaded for years since my childhood and quickly dropped “the fishing line” that belonged to the purple jellyfish. The boy in me was sure he was going to die a slow torturous death, but the man in me does all the talking and he assured Tuna and John that aside from the stinging and swelling I was fine. I casually baited up again and cast out, all the while wondering what fate would befall me. Tuna all but insisted on an E.R. visit. In a matter of minutes I had hooked a shark and forgot all about the stinging. I caught 5 or six sharks and John caught three before Tuna could even hook one. I felt this was just desserts after he caught the only big Red the day before. The man-o-war left his tentacles on the railing unbeknownst to John and Tuna and they both got a dose of him on their forearms before the evening was over. Tuna wiped his mouth with his sleeve and got a numbing dose of man-o-war on his lips. We left the pier with three sharks, cleaned them and put them on ice.

Jeremy had spent the night recovering from too much sun and missed out on the shark fishing. Julie seems to miss out on all of the fun, so we took them with us the following night to try our luck again on the sharks. The first big cold front of the year was bearing down on us, so we tried to get out as quick as possible. There was a 20 mile an hour warm breeze coming from the southeast right off the ocean and it was 75 degrees. We got our lines in the water and I hooked a small shark. I gave the shark to a Mexican man and re-baited my hook. All of a sudden the warm ocean breeze went dead calm. Tuna and I looked at each other and said “here it comes” simultaneously. Within 10 seconds we got hit by a 50 mile an hour or better cold wind from the North. It was blowing poles over, scooting tackle off the pier and blowing the tops off the white caps back into the ocean and up onto the pier. At that instant Tuna’s line took off into the wind driven mist and his pole doubled over. God had put the biggest fish of Tuna’s life on the end of his pole while driving a huge norther right into our serene Gulf evening. This combination was evidently more than my brother’s rationale could handle and the next 20 minutes was pure chaos culminating in a temporary loss of dignity. Tuna barked out orders and laments and proclamations at everyone in earshot. Early in the fight he was sure that the fish was too much for his tackle, then no, no it wasn’t and everybody needed to stand back. “Get my red bag dude, before it blows off the pier, get the landing net, get out of the way, go this way, oh forget it, he’s gone, no he’s not, don’t tangle the net rope, cut the rope, cut the rope, wait, wait he’s gone, no he’s not, get out of the way” and so on. He disenfranchised all of the onlookers, but I understood. The little boy comes out in every man when he gets the big one on. I stayed with him, because that’s what brothers do and then we make fun of him later. Julie, John and Jeremy scrambled and got all of our gear off the 200 yard long pier and back to the truck while Tuna and I did our best Laurel and Hardy fish landing routine to the laughter of a couple of punk teenagers who were out enjoying mother nature’s wrath. Finally the big Black Tip Shark curled it’s 52” body into our crab/landing net and I was able to haul it up onto the 25 foot tall pier. At 55 pounds this was Tuna’s biggest fish of his 43 years and I think he was entitled to freak out a little. Now the rain started pounding down and we each took a side of the net and hustled the shark to the truck. Julie, John and Jeremy met us there and we said quick good-byes after Julie and I made fun of Tuna a little. I imagine the shark fishing would have been awesome that night and Jeremy or Julie would have been the next to hook one if the weather had just held off for a couple more hours. As it is we have a great story to recall every Thanksgiving.

I am sorry this blog rambled, but I do love a good fishing tale. I also love my family despite all of the funkiness. We are definitely dysfunctional, but it is an open, outward dysfunction that we all discuss and critique on a regular basis. Thanks Mom for all of the adventures you have inspired and the goofy siblings you have provided me. We are still a team after al these years. Julie, I miss you and your giggle and good humor already. John, I had a great time hanging out with you, you are officially in the “circle of trust”. Tuna, screw you! I am going to catch something in the next few days to make you jealous. Your long history of Texas fishing one-upmanship is starting to piss me off!
P.S. Tuna thinks the shark weighed 80 pounds, he is full of it.

Las Vegas/ Arizona

2007-11-20T14:36:00.000-08:00

Pictures: My aunt & uncle, construction in Vegas (picture taken for my nephews), me in front of Bellagio fountain, Volcano at the Mirage, Larry & Uncle Carroll.

Hello everyone! We were doing so well at the regular updates and then we slacked back off. I will blame it on James of course since he is the primary documentarian. I know that is probably not a word, but since I haven't worked in so long my brain is starting to turn into mush. Probably not much sympathy out there I would imagine.

Thank you again for all the comments. We are both really looking forward to being home for the holidays and seeing everyone. Only a few more weeks! I'm sure my parents are torn about us coming home, it means having to give up their driveway but it also means they don't have to deal with our dog and rent house for a little bit. The neighbor had a mishap and ran her car through our fence. My poor dad has been trying to keep the renters at bay so they don't go over and attack the poor old lady while we are waiting for it to be fixed.

Here are some pictures of our trip to Las Vegas and then to visit my uncles. We had a great time in Southern Utah but were a bit canyoned out so we went back to sin city for a few days and to visit my dad's brothers. Between the buffets, my aunt's cooking, and my other uncles knowledge of every good/greasy spoon in the four state area, we ate very well and probably negated all of our hiking. So much for a dramatic 'Biggest Loser' homecoming. We also got to hear some good music at a neat little venue in the back of a guitar shop. All in all it was a good time and worth not seeing the other 2 national parks in Utah, 4 out of 6 isn't bad.

More coming soon!

Great Hikes- Angel's Landing/Navajo Loop

2007-11-07T21:35:00.000-08:00

James & I have been on some great hikes so far on this trip. We figured it up the other day and think we have crossed the 200 mile mark. Here are some pictures that James took of two great hikes we have been on recently. The first two pictures are from Navajo Loop in Bryce and the last three are from Angel's Landing in Zion.

I should have realized from the name that Angel's Landing would be pretty high but I didn't think you would need either wings or the faith of an Angel to get to the top. James kept telling people I was in a fear of heights detox program as they would walk by and here my string of shakas. Usually the extra hours are added to our hike because of James stopping to take pictures but this time it was to keep my from having another panic attack. What happened to that little girl who would climb up a tree to get a better perch on the top of the roof? I guess as you get older you realize how much it would actually hurt if you fell.

Grand Staircase of Escalante/ Capitol Reef

2007-11-07T20:25:00.000-08:00

Hello friends and family! After hitting my head on the TV three times yesterday James is getting worried that I might be losing my cognitive abilities from being on vacation for so long so he decided I needed to write the blog this time. I am proud to say I have not hit any overhangs since Palm Springs, and that didn't do any damage, so at least maybe I have finally learned that lesson.

We wrapped up our tour of southern Utah's national parks by visiting GSENM (Grand Staircase of Escalante National Monument, now you know why the abbreviate it) Capitol Reef and then heading back to Zion. We didn't make it to Canyonlands and Arches, but we figured 4 out of 6 was pretty good.

GSENM is a massive area and most of it is pretty remote. We managed to find a neat and most importantly cheap campground right next to a nice hike to a waterfall. Even though we were down in the middle of a canyon we finagled a decent enough satellite connection to watch the hogs beat whoever it was they beat Saturday, sorry dad, you know I never was a big sports fan.

The next day we drove the back roads from Escalante to Capitol Reef and got stuck in the middle of a cattle drive as well as taking in some amazing scenery. After this trip I am determined to relearn all the stuff I supposedly knew as a Geology major. It is amazing to wonder at the forces that have carved such unique areas especially these all so close together.

After spending the night all alone in the middle of this 2 million acre park (I'm sure there were other people relatively close by but it certainly didn't seem like it down in the middle of that empty campground) we decided to head back to Zion and 'civilization'. After you have been on the road for almost 4 months your idea of civilization is a campground with a dump station.

We stopped at a state park on the way back and went for a nice bike ride where James reminded me that no matter how far I hike he can still kick my butt on a bike.

I am daily amazed at this amazing trip we are on. Some days I feel guilty for not taking this time to learn a new language or teach homeless children how to read, but then I feel overwhelmingly blessed at just being able to have my happy, healthy, wonderful husband back and that is good enough.

Thanks for all the comments, hopefully James won't have to threaten anyone again to keep them coming!!

Love, Kim

Bryce Canyon

2007-11-02T14:42:00.000-07:00

Rapid-fire blogging compared to what we have been doing. Three days...three blogs. We are camped on the rim of Bryce Canyon. It is about 8000 feet up here. The air is thin, dry, clear and cold. 22 degrees for a low last night and the old Lazy Daze was down to 38 degrees inside. I know what you are thinking, the better part of 100K and no heater? Yes, we have a heater, but it is so noisy when it cycles on and off that it wakes you up, so we just use three comforters and turn the heater on in the morning. Our campground is virtually empty, which is a radical change from all of the other campgrounds we have been in.

We took a 4 mile hike yesterday and an 8 mile hike today on the Fairyland Loop trail. It was much like a fairlyland with spires, castles, funky creature like rock formations and vegetation. Zion and Bryce are a photographers dream, at every turn there is some different shading or coloration and a combo of vistas and weird erosions. I have included some of my 500 pictures I have taken. I am still learning, but this trip has been a great school. It also helps to read the manual, which I finally did last night.

Kim is outside in the 40 degree temps reading. She wants to go to some more points of interest after we have done 10 miles of walking today and gone to the visitor center. She kinda pisses me off, but what's a man to do. She finally showed a small sign of James fatigue today on the trail, "do you always have to get right in front of me to fart?" "Oh, I'm sorry did I...?" "Well yeah, if the sound didn't make it obvious the smell sure did!" I guess I need to try and abstain every once in a while just to prove I still respect her, but I thought that was one of the fringe benefits of marriage.

I noticed that my loyal commenter yellowfin is slacking and that just hurts my feelings. Janet has slacked off too and she needs to be reminded that I have some pictures of her when she was trying to win a certain contest that I might be inclined to post in this pseudo-public forum.

Jeff Hagers can kiss my buttocks as he is surely criticizing my abhorrent grammar!

Love you Jeff, Kim is talking to you on the cell phone right now. Your baby is absolutely adorable!

Pics of Zion

2007-10-31T18:52:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures of Zion. We hiked to an overlook and up a river canyon.

Yet another Critter Page

2007-10-30T19:36:00.001-07:00

2007-10-30T18:39:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Zion National Park

We are camped out in the entrance of the park. We are watching 'The Biggest Loser' on NBC and I am typing away on the laptop. Meanwhile the neighbors have a campfire going and their smoke is wafting in through my window. Campfires and tents, how quaint. I might have to go have a word with them, this is really upsetting. Oh now they're getting the marshmallows out, I'm going to puke.

Backtracking a little, we spent about 5 days with my Dad and Stepmother in Palm Springs, CA.

Palm Springs is a city in the desert built on top of an underground aquifer. There are lush green yards, palms and golf courses everywhere. If you are an old Jewish gay golfer you are at home in Palm Springs. Actually, any one of the above descriptions are in the demographic here. My stepmother is Jewish and my dad is er uh ...well, he doesn't play golf and he ain't gay. The folks home here is beautiful. Lush green yard with tall hedges, pool. hot tub. and the obligitory orange tree in the front yard. The smoke from the San Diego fires blew offshore for a couple of days and then came onshore to haze up the Palm Springs area. We hiked in painted canyon and Joshua Tree National Monument and had a couple of nice dinners and chats with my folks. The smoke came, so we left and headed to Las Vegas. We spent two nights in the Oasis R.V. park, which has 1000 sites or so. It has two pools, hot tub, workout room, theater room, and all the amenities. After a nice meal and a small amount of gambling (I won a whopping $80.00) we took off to Zion.

We had a great hike today up an eight mile trail. We got to go through some narrow canyons and alongside a creek. I took too many pictures. It is beautiful here with the fall colors and the low, autumn sun dancing off the canyon walls. The pizza we had a while ago was beautiful too. Pesto, canadian bacon, mushrooms and feta cheese ... numskie. Kim is playing solataire and watching the Biggest Loser, now that's good ol' American multitasking. She is more tired than I am, that is new. It is tough being chipper, saying "morneen" to everyone on the trail and "good afternoon" or "hello, how are you" to everyone on the way down. Tomorrow we hike up the canyon by wading through the river, I can't wait.

Talk to you soon, James

Happy Birthday Tuna Fish!

2007-10-28T23:06:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Mr. Feeshman!

Yes, indeed it is Tuna's 43rd birthday. Old bastage! The only bad thing is that I trail you by 1 1/2 years, so I am sure to reach your milestones about as quick as you do, HOWEVER, that being said you are still an old bastage! Grey haired, bad backed and kneed, goiter, gout, arthritis and hemmorhoid havin', memory losin' old fart with sudden moles. The sad thing is that you still can outwork most 20 year old dudes and in this day and age of obesity you are in better shape than most 20 year old dudes as well.

It is a miracle that you are still alive through the falling off stair wells, dams, bicycles, skateboards and riding around in fast cars with no brakes and the general bad luck, but here you are! It has been a journey. I doubt you would give it back, maybe tweak it a little here and there, but not cash it in. It has been good to see you enjoying life, raising your daughter and most of all taking care of my b.s. while I goof off.

The main reason it is good to have you around is FISHING! You are my best friend and fishing buddy. Since you have been ruthless about my small fish I had to include this picture of you being very serious about the minnow on the end of your line here. Silly rabbit 4 oz. walleye are for kids. Anyhoo! Happy Birthday Tom. I miss you and love you and hope to see you in a few weeks catching fish in Texas.

By the vy Tom. We are staying in the Oasis R.V. park in Las Vegas. It is huge. We cruised around the downtown area this afternoon and I won a little here and a little there, enough to afford the seafood buffet at the Rio. It was "a very nice". We swam in the pool and got in the "Hattub" as Will Farrell would say. Yes, there were rude oriental girls snatching up the crab claws at the buffet, but there were plenty left for the old lady and me. Hate to rub that in on your birthday, but we were celebrating in your absence.

Monterey Bay/ Santa Cruz

2007-10-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

While James did a great job detailing our awesome trip to Yosemite, we did skip over Santa Cruz & Monterey. I do have to say I was so glad he like Yosemite (of course who wouldn't) because I had talked it up so much. He was so great about letting me play tour guide and indulged was a regaled him with stories of past family reunions and he also tackled the cables of Half Dome like a pro while I was having an anxiety attack realizing we were 4,000 ft. about the valley floor on a rock ledge.

However, before we went to Yosemite we had a great week in the Monterey Bay area. So please indulge me as I backtrack................... I hadn't been to Santa Cruz since I briefly resided there about 15 years ago when I was 19 (am I really this old?) so it was fun to go back and wander around. I forgot what a neat town it was and how much fun it was to live in an ocean front town. I managed to find my old house and also took James down to the boardwalk. Unfortunately the roller coaster wasn't running so it was pretty dead and seemed nothing like the scenes from Lostboys.

My cousin Tracy lives in Santa Cruz with her husband Forrest and their adorable little girl. It was fun to hang out with them and my Aunt Cyndie and Uncle Mike were even visiting from Bella Vista so we got to see them as a bonus. Tracy & Forrest have a nice house right by hiking in the canyons and with plenty of room for a greenhouse for their orchids and of course most important a place to park the RV. We have quickly gotten over any manners we once had and will happily leech anywhere we can.

We went to the Monterey Bay aquarium one day which is by far the best aquarium in the country, well at least of all the ones I have gone to. We also took Uncle Tom's advice and rode our bikes from Monterey to Carmel along the 17 Mile drive, some of you golfers may know about this route for those of you who are unfamiliar it is the home of the Pebble Beach golf course along with many multi-million dollar homes. James and I found a fixer-upper in Carmel, 800 sq. ft. only 1.6 million. We thought about it, but you know who would really want to live that close to the ocean? ME!!! Oh well maybe we could get about 50 people to all go in on a vacation home, any takers? The ride was beautiful and fairly flat so the 34 miles didn't seem so painful.

We have had a good week in Palm Springs and will tell you more about that later. We are leaving tomorrow while we can still see and the lung damage is minimal.

We hope all is well with everyone back home and are looking forward to coming home for Christmas.

I almost forgot to wish Max & Tuna Happy Birthdays!!!

Love, James & Kim

2007-10-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

"Gosh it's hot" I feel like the abomnibubble snowman on Bugs Bunny. We are in Palm Springs at my father's house and it is about 90 degrees. After avoiding summer for four months we aren't used to the heat. The R.V. likes it. It was made in southern California, so I believe it was designed to work best in sunny heat, solar panels charging, exhaust fans a cruisin', and tinted windows blocking the sun. We aren't immersed in smoke from the fires, right now the San Diego fire smoke is blowing offshore, so we are clear and sunny with fresh air here.

We finished a week in Yosemite on Sunday. Kim has been aching to get me in Yosemite for years now. This whole trip she has been focusing on getting to Yosemite. Of course I wanted to see Yosemite, it is one of our foremost National Parks. When your wife has a cute, sort of mousey voice you tend to get tired of the word Yu-sem-it-teee, so I wanted to put this portion of the trip to bed for that reason if no other. We camped in yet another dark, wooded campground in the valley, but what an incredible valley it is. There are sheer granite cliffs rising up on three sides with meadows and the Merced River in the middle. There were herds of deer and even a bear or two to be seen mingling with the tourists. The tourists were a mixture of Germans, Swiss, French, Canadian, Japanese and some Americans. The weather was very nice, the fall colors in full glory and the pace was busy, but not overwhelming. The first evening we took a walk to the Mirror Lake or should we say sand pit since after the long dry summer there was no water left. There we saw a cute little black bear scrounging for food and climbing a tree.

We took several small hikes preparing for the biggy to Half Dome. Kim has been talking about Half Dome since I met her 12 years ago. Half Dome is a 17 mile round trip hike with about 1000 stairs chisled into the granite along Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls and Halfdome itself. Let me assure you I was not rubbing my hands together in anticipation of this hike and to complicate matters Kim had us both on the South Beach Diet for the last few days. I had half of an omlette, two cheese sticks, two celery sticks, two lettuce wraps and chicken and broccoli for food on the two days preceding this hike. Kim had the same menu. When we were half way up the mountain Kim allowed me to have a clif bar and some crackers. Kim had a clif bar and crackers.

Have you noticed a problem? You can't fuel a Prius and a Suburban with the same quantity of fuel and expect the Suburban to make it the same distance, it just doesn't work. Needless to say, I ran out of fuel at mile six. I was shaky, faint and queezy and felt like I couldn't go on, but I could see the disappointment in Kim's face, so I took a lot of small breaks and finally got to feeling better when the Clif bar kicked in. The Park Service had dismantled the cable stairs to the top of Halfdome and all that was left were the cables. I climbed half the way, but my legs were too tired to make it on the steep part of the cables, so I couldn't quite summit, dammit. The French and German freaks marched right on up, I'm sure that they were laughing at the fat American. Our society is gross, we are out of shape, careless and complacent as a whole. I hate to say it, but that is what our travels have told us so far. Too many fast foods, processed foods, sugars and junk being advertised and crammed down our throats, but damn they taste goood! I want a Carls Jr. patty melt and french fries so bad right now, but Kim would order the Caeser salad and a diet coke and I would look like the greasy chinned fat bastard, so I can't do it.

We took a hike to Glacier Point two days after Halfdome. It was a sixty swithcback, 4.8 mile, "why did I marry this little ....." to the top. At the top there was a parking lot, gift store, tour buses and a thousand tourists, but a beautiful view of the entire valley and mountains. It didn't seem fair that we busted our butts just to share the view with all the lazy folks that drove, but it is nice that all the HUGE people get a view as well. We stopped at the Mariposa Grove of giant Sequoia Trees on the way out of the Park and headed to L.A. to get the warranty items fixed on the R.V.

We spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Covina. There was a security guard riding around and we checked in with her. She told us to approve it with the manager of the store. He said no problem. I still didn't feel real secure, it's the L.A. area after all, so I didn't sleep. Free accomodations, but no sleep. The next day we took the baby back to the factory it was made at. The people at Lazy Daze aren't really friendly, but they do take care of you. They fixed the four minor problems with the "coach" while we went to breakfast with uncle Carroll. When we left the restaurant Carroll realized that his car had been entered by a stranger and his registration had been stolen. Two words folks "Los Angeles". High cost of living, high taxes, high temperatures and high pollution, not to mention the fires. Yeah, but Disneyland and the ocean and WHATEVER!

We went hiking in the desert yesterday up narrow canyons in the Painted Canyon area. I led us down two long, dead end canyons that tacked on an extra five miles to our hike and forced us to walk by moonlight down a two mile canyon to the car. Chipper? Not exactly. Kim doesn't like uncertainty, but come on people, we are on an "adventure" here. She is hanging out by the pool with my Dad right now, we spent the day doing errands and burning up Joni's laundromat with our two tons of laundry. It's a nice campground here at Dad and Joan's. We have a pool, hot showers, laundry facilities, cool nights and warm days, great food and a hot tub. We should stay through the winter, but we are headed to Utah instead.

San Francisco Pictures

2007-10-10T08:22:00.000-07:00

Chinatown, Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Crowd at festival, anything for a good seat

Northern California

2007-10-09T22:38:00.000-07:00

We'll I guess it is my turn again! Just to reply to a few comments.......Shelley, I will take you up on any offers of free food. We have had a harder time sticking to our budget than anticipated. We haven't resorted to fried bologna yet, but James better be on his best fishing game this winter. And Tuna I appreciate you supporting your brother and you may think that since he said all those nice things about me I should cut him some slack. He promised a month long moratorium on pushing my buttons, but it lasted about 2 hours. It's a good thing he's so cute.

Once again we had a great time in Oregon. The good weather followed us to Northern California where we enjoyed the Redwoods and some more beach time. It is amazing to think that anyone could have looked at a 300 ft tall, 20 ft in diameter tree and just think about coffee tables and toilet paper instead of being awestruck with the magnificent beauty. It is such a shame that there are only a few old growth forests left in the world, let alone the US and some of them still aren't protected. Okay, I am off my soap box and back to the blog........ We decided to take scenic highway 1 down to San Francisco and didn't realize this decision would cause James' stress level to mimic those of his mid-July Viking Refrigeration levels. You're right Mary, vacation is not supposed to be so stressful. For anyone who hasn't driven Highway 1, yes it is gorgeous, but there really were times where we could not only see the entire car on the other side of a curve, but also part of the RV. James did great driving the rig as usual while I got to enjoy the view. Okay, so maybe he should be allowed to mess with me a little, it's only fair I should have a little stress in my day as well. We stopped by one of the three redwoods left on the coast that you can drive through. Of course we didn't fit so we just had to take their word for it, I think maybe a miata might have made it, but probably not any American made car. We also found a cheap campground right on the ocean. I was in heaven. As we were continuing down this curvy highway the next day we saw a tree that had fallen across part of the road that looked to be on fire. We made it past just before they blocked the road off for several hours. We felt fortunate to have made it past and be able to make it to San Francisco in time to sit in rush hour traffic. Actually it wasn't that bad, of course I'm saying that because I didn't have to drive the rv/car combo in 8 lanes of traffic.

James did a great job of booking us at an RV park just south of San Francisco. We were only about 10 minutes away from Golden Gate park and were able to make it in & out of the city fairly easily. Our weeks of blissful compainableness were shattered when we spent almost an hour trying to find a parking place, thankfully the 2 mile walk to the festival cooled us both off enough to start speaking to each other again. We were here for a music festival called 'Hardly Strictly Bluegrass', sounds like fun to some of you and tortue to others I know. The amazing thing about this festival is that it is all free. One man puts it on as his gift to the city, and this is a big gift; 5 stages; 60 different groups and plenty of port-a-potties. The weather was beautiful so my banjo tolerance was high. There were well over a hundred thousand people and over half of them looked as if they had just come from a Grateful Dead concert. The people watching was just as entertaining as the music. I really did enjoy some of the music, Guy Clark, Gillian Welch, John Prine and Emmylou Harris just to name a few. We met up with my Uncle Carrol, his friend Don and my cousin Rick at the festival. They all know the city pretty well so after the concerts they led us to some good sushi and pizza.

Yesterday we decided to save our marriage and took BART (Bay area rapid transit) into the city. We got off at Union Square and walked through Chinatown to Pier 39 & Fisherman's Wharf. Again we were blessed with great weather and almost made it to Golden Gate bridge before the fog set in right at sunset. San Francisco is such a neat city with so many interesting neighborhoods. It is also the home of Ghiradelli chocolate and sourdough bread. How could you not love this place? We had hoped to go to Alcatraz but didn't realize California schools are closed on Columbus day so there was no room left on any of the tours. I guess when you have no chance of a snow day you take any holiday you can. Today was declared chore day by James so we washed the car & RV which of course means it is now raining. Tomorrow we are headed down the coast to Santa Cruz to visit my cousin Tracy and see if the commune I briefly lived in is still standing.

Hopefully everyone in Fayetteville still has their eardrums intact after this weekend! Thanks for all the comments and staying in touch. It is good to hear from people at home. To all my friends at school I bet you guys never thought you would see the day when you actually wished for craft fairs. Don't worry, Thanksgiving isn't too far away!

Love, Kim

2007-10-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

View out of Bandon Pier to River Bar
Big Lebowski Rock
Kim Showing The perspective of the big Redwood on the ground
Arch Rock on Oregon South Coast

2007-10-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

Good day from the Oregon Coast. We are enjoying a typical evening in the R.V. Kim is reading a book while James goes stir crazy. Fat man in a little house, fat man in a little house. Tommy Boy fans will get the line. I spent an hour in vain trying to dial in some t.v. via satellite or antenna, but NO. I then picked up the guitar for a while and now I am typing on the blog. Kim is very content in the back of the r.v. under the 12 volt reading lamp. Kim is just content in general. It can be a challenge living with the eternally chipper. James says "this rain is a bummer." Kim says "but look at all the sunny days we have had." James says "$3.89 for gas, they're smokin' crack." Kim says "think of all the times we paid less than $3.00!" James says "This guy is a (bicycle horn)!" Kim says "he might just be having a really bad day." She is always sunny! It is tough to hang with, so I decided to stir the hornet's nest, as it were. Yesterday morning I engaged a rather hard corner coming out of the campground and the fridge door flew open, spilling it's contents onto the floor of the r.v. Kim jumped out of the passenger seat immediately to deal with the mess. I don't know if I was trying to drive home the importance of latching the door correctly (3rd time Kim has failed to do so) or I was just venting a little cabin fever steam, but I decided to take the next two corners really hard, rolling fridge contents and Kim around the floor. Let me assure you there was a consequence for this moment of indiscretion. When I finally stopped the rig, I walked around and opened the side entry and quickly closed it. I caught a glimpse of what I was pretty sure was the devil sans pitchfork and decided to keep it stowed inside the r.v. for a few more moments. Jekyll had turned to Hyde and I was not going to turn 'er back too easily. My pleas for a kiss went unanswered, my promises of chocolate went unheard, only time took care of this one, and of course an admission of utmost guilt.
We have made our way to Astoria, Oregon. Yes, Lewis and Clark made their way here to end their long journey in quest for a east- west trade route via the river system. This is where the mighty Columbia River hits the wild Pacific Ocean and creates one of the most hazardous river bars in the world. The wake where the two bodies of water hit is often 10 - 14 feet high and the river is miles wide here. Astoria was a huge salmon canning town until good ol' mankind raped the waters free of good salmon runs. HOWEVER, the most important fact about Astoria in Kim's mind is that the Goonies was filmed here, she insists that the house you see pictured along with this blog is the Goonies house. The first person to accurately confirm or deny this claim will get a prize. (t-shirt, jelly, nature sound c.d. or shot glass or something touristy like that) We went up to the Astoria Column and you should be able to tell which was the column in these pictures. Kim and her columns. Well , it was cool and there was something along the lines of 2387 stairs to the top. I felt like Fatty Mcghee when I made it to the top, "Yes, the view is beautiful, just don't ask me any more questions until I can get my lungs stuffed back inside my chest cavity."
The maritime museum in Astoria is awe-some. For all you Arkansas rednecks, maritime has to do with boats and oceans. It was very well done, so much info on fishing boats, dugouts, coast guard boats, sloops, schooners, and battleships that it almost made my head explode. We were in there three hours, I need to upgrade my hard drive to 80 gig 'cause I absorbed so much information that my brain locked up and now I can't remember any of it. I do remember that an astrolabe is a very ineffectual instrument for navigation and that being a coxswain on a Coastguard boat means you have big brass ones and I'm not talking astrolabes. The coxswain is a coastguard sailor or captain or such. The risks those boys put themselves under to save a couple of white trash fisherman on a Saturday salmon and beer junket is commendable. If you like oceans and boats, go to this museum!
Off to Newport. Take two rings, one smaller than the other with a net tying them together. Strap a piece of dead flesh to the bottom and throw it in the bay. Wait for 20 minutes and pull it up. Sift through the contents, usually too small or wrong sex and you have the all-consuming sport of crabbing for Dungeness Crab. I went out for 14 hours and caught four keepers (male over 5 3/4 " across carapace) I still had a blast. The people you meet and talk to are very nice and sometimes interesting. I left the pier at 11:00 p.m. with my four keepers to the jeers of the locals "if you're going to leave 'cause of a little rain, you'll never be able to fish in Oregon!" I reckon this is the only time I could come home at midnight with the crabs and it would be o.k. with Kim. I cooked them right then and we ate right then, they were delicious.
Crater Lake, or shall we say pea soup lake. We went towards the interior of Oregon to see the acclaimed beauty of Crater Lake. We stayed at a very nice campground on Diamond Lake, caught the sunset and it was perfect. It rained all night and we woke to a 48 degree R.V. We stayed in bed until at least 9:00 a.m. and then big snow flakes started to fall. I don't know what kind of primordial trigger this tripped in Kim, but she saw the flakes and kind of freaked. "We need to leave, we need to leave now!" "What, it's 50 degrees out, it's not going to stick!" With that bit of logic, she calmed down. We gathered up at our usual pace. Kim went to take a shower and I proceeded to empty the fridge. Three egg omelet with leftover Canadian Black Forest Ham and Tilamook Sharp Cheddar, and sliced.... oh come on I ran out of Bistro menu adjectives for my mushrooms. Anyway, it was a true gem of an omelet, perfectly cooked. I reached for a plate and in my haste knocked the jar of spaghetti sauce out of the micro pantry/ dish cabinet onto the floor. No forgivey. Cabooshgi! Sketty sauce on every square inch of the kitchen and my clothes. Fat Bastard haste gets me again. I had it almost all cleaned up before Kim got back from her shower. We found sauce bits for a couple of days after, but no lasting damage. We drove to Crater Lake, the higher we got the harder it snowed. When we got to the entrance gate and showed our get out of jail free card (80.00 annual park pass that has paid for itself twice now) the park ranger said "your best chance to see the lake is on the East Rim." Not a good sign. The lake was completely fogged in with snow and mist clouds. The visitor center ranger said it was going to snow for two days. We boogied back down the mountain to Ashland. It was a Bohemian little town where they have the Shakespeare festival and an very pleasant park with lots of cool foliage. I can see why my Uncle Tom the green thumb recommended it. We spent the night in a noisy rest area and headed back over the mountain to Gold Beach. I had decided earlier to take this route because it appeared to run along the Rogue River. My father said this was a pretty drive as he remembered. This drive was 65 miles of steep, very windy, one lane at times, rock slides in the road at times, nowhere to turn around remote road. It took three hours to drive 65 miles. We got to Bandon, Oregon where we found a nice campground in the sunshine. The surf is big from the storm that came ashore yesterday. We walked to downtown Bandon, which is picture book quaint. There are seafood shacks next to a perfectly maintained wharf area. We walked down the pier and met several nice old couples. One couple was from Grants Pass, Oregon which we had passed the day before. We told them the route we took to get over to Gold Beach. The lady said "Oh my god, are you crazy? In an R.V? Do you not know how dangerous that road is? There have been two families stranded on that road. One family got there R.V. stuck and they were up there for two weeks and only last year a Man died trying to walk out of there!" It was then that we realized she was talking about Mr. Kim, the man all over CNN last spring break who got off on a wrong road and got stranded with his wife and child. After burning the tires from his car and exhausting all resources he died trying to go for help. I remember asking myself last year "how in the hell could you get off the beaten path like that and then die trying to get help?" If we had had a quick coastal range snow storm and slightly colder temperatures. Let me tell you, there are no road numbers posted on this road, but the maps show it as a viable route from Interstate 5 to the coast. Sobering, no wonder the three people we passed looked at us as if we were just crazy. Kim's whole paranoia about snow kind of made a little sense. Women pick up on crap like that, so they can protect any babies they might have. It is info stored in the uterus, but good info nonetheless.
We had dinner tonight at a pizza place in Bandon. We have had seafood a lot lately and decided to give it a break until lunch tomorrow. After dinner we walked back to the pier to check the crab net I had left in the water. As we approached the pier I saw a freshly trailered fishing boat. In the dark I could make out the sign on the side of the boat. 'Memory Makers' Fishing Guides. Without surveying further I went into a spiel. "Memory Makers, yeah right! What, the memory of freezing your ass off out on the high seas, puking over the edge, and not catchin' jack squat!" Not realizing that the guide and his wife were only 10 feet from me cleaning their fish in the fish cleaning station. "Oh, hey. How's it going? See ya got some there" I said feeling like a jackass. "These are what they call King Salmon" said the short, grey-bearded man. He had a very gentle voice and I could tell he would accept my barrage of fishing questions, the usual where at?, what bait?, how deep?, how big? etc. He answered all of my questions without hesitation. I informed him I was from Arkansas and would never be a threat to his fishery. I asked him about the "Memory Makers" name to smooth over my previous embarrassment. "Oh, we take terminally ill children and their loved ones on fishing trips to try and give them lasting memories", he said. A wave of heat passed over my face and all I could think was "Please Lord, let me have bamboo shoots shoved up my fingernails by a hundred Chinamen for eternity, just don't let him have heard what I was spouting earlier about his slogan." My mom says I was born with my foot in my mouth, I guess at 41 years old I am still choking on my toes.
Well, I have rambled on. Kim is asleep. You would think by looking at her right now that she is awake and enjoying her book. She is on her side still holding the book in an upright position, but I know she is sound asleep. There is a 90% chance if I ask her "good reading" or "awesome book, huh?" she will come to, turn a page, mumble an answer and act as if she was never asleep. It is the cutest thing, but kind of selfish of me, so I think I will just carefully slip the book from her hands and turn off her reading light. My mom is right, I am lucky to have found such a sweet person.

Bandon is a cute place. The people here all seem to be retired and friendly. There is a whole community of crabbers, they come down to the pier around 9:00 a.m., come and go around meals and such and leave around 5:00 p.m. Everybody looks out for each other's stuff and they all act as if they have know each other since kindergarten. They are nice to me, but I'm not old enough to be included in the old fart's circle of trust. After 12 hours of crabbing I caught at least a three hundred crabs and only one was a keeper. I am officially done with crabbing for this year!

We headed down to the Redwoods today(October 3) There was beautiful coastline to be seen in Southern Oregon. I am quite sure that I found the spot where the Big Lebowski ends. For those of you that have seen the movie it is the spot on the coast where Walter (John Goodman) throws the ashes of their deceased buddy and they blow right back into The Dude's (Jeff Bridges) face. Here The Dude says "Everything's such a (model tee horn)..ing travesty with you Walter. Its that spot. I have included pic on the next page. Can I get a confirmation? We don't have the dvd.

The Redwoods are huge, but the Park isn't so awe inspiring. Don't plan a week long trip, but definitely see these trees on your way to Oregon or something. We are camped now in an expensive, no amenity campground in Northern California. One of us will update in San Francisco.

Hop on your Harleys and contribute to the noise pollution on Dickson St. this weekend.

Love, James

Another Critter Page

2007-09-29T10:26:00.001-07:00

Sea Otters, A fistful of toads, a mouthful of weeds, puffins?, Rocky

More Washington Pictures

2007-09-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

James & Aunt Yvonne, Roche Harbor, Fecal Freak, Dacus Family, Pike Street Market

Olympic Penninsula/ Seattle

2007-09-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the pacific northwest! We made our way out of Canada and into the Olympic Penninsula. It was cloudy and rainy so we decided what better place to go than to the rainforest! We found a campsite close to the beach and walked down to see some seals and maybe dolphins playing in the water. I thought they were dolphins, James thought I was hallucinating. We then headed over to the Hoh Rainforest to do a little exploring. The temperate rainforest is a unique ecosystem that only occurs in a few places in the world. The Hoh rainforest was an amazing place with huge Douglas Fir, Spruce and Cedar trees, covered with moss and giant mushrooms. We really enjoyed hiking around, but headed straight for clam chowder to warm us up after being out in the cold rain all morning. Sorry to those of you in Arkansas who are still suffering under 80 degree temperatures. We found a great lodge right on the beach, Klaloch (i think) and filled our bellies. So far we have decided they have the best clam chowder, this is high praise trust me we are sampling several.

We headed back up to Port Angeles (where we had come across on the ferry) to do laundry and hope the fog had cleared enough so we could see the Olympic mountain range. We found a nice RV park right on the water and headed up to Hurricane Ridge. James' Uncle Tom had told us it was an amazing place to get a view of the Olympics, I am sure this is true 20 to 30 days a year. We had missed the sunny window so we rode up the mountian engulfed in fog taking Tom's word for the fact that there were mountains around us. We did see some pictures at the visitor center at the top so we knew that Tom wasn't crazy. Figuring we had put it off long enough we headed back to town to find a laundry mat. We found a clean enough looking place with, surprise surprise, an espresso shack nearby. For those of you who have never been to the northwest you do not understand how dependent they are on their caffeine. In Port Angeles, a town of about 20,000 people they have 3 Starbucks and 50 other espresso shacks. Jeff, you would be in heaven. We loaded up with the best white chocolate latte I have ever had and then I made some phone calls and James spent the time being harassed by the local paranoid schizophrenic. If you haven't been to a laundromat lately you are really missing out.

The next day we headed to Seattle to spend a few days with James' family. We stayed with his Uncle Tom & his wife Sissy and also spent some time with his Grandma and Aunt Yvonne. Tom & Sissy were very gracious hosts and had an awesome dinner waiting for us when we arrived Tuesday night. The next day was gorgeous and we took the ferry to San Juan Island and rode our bikes almost all around the island, about 30 miles. It was a great day and a beautiful place to ride bikes. We stopped several places along the way, Roche Harbor for lunch ( good clam chowder), and two state parks right on the beach, one with a lighthouse.

Kim instructed me to finish this blog. She is eating breakfast after running several miles on the beach. She was looking in the mirror last night and made the comment "I'm getting fat!" Me, being the practical sort, responded with "indeed." I am holding steady on my weight, but Kim is trying the 'when in Rome' philosophy and when Rome has a 300 lb. fat bastard in it, you are going to gain weight. Anyway, I am finishing this blog.

Either the ran is good for your complexion or they are huffing formaldahyde in Seattle. My grandma is 90 and looks 70. She is going to be upset that I said anything more than 30 if she reads this. My uncle looks like he could be my brother and my aunts both have smooth, pretty faces.

My uncle Tom took us to the Boeing factory after having lunch with my Grandma.

Boeing fun facts: 1. 86 acres under one roof. 2. kick out 19 twin aisle planes a month. 3. The new 787 Dreamliner is made of composite material instead of steel and gets 20% better fuel mileage.

We took a day with Yvonne to check out Seattle. We toured the underground, which shows just how screwed up Seattle's founding fathers were. We went to the aquarium, Pike St. Market and Iver's on the wharf for lunch. The next day we toured the University of Washington campus with Tom and Sissy and checked out the flagship REI store. We ended the day at a Greek festival where we ate several greek foods and felt like we were on the set of My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2.

We had a wonderful visit and headed out Sunday morning for a visit with Kim's cousin Drew, his wife Irene, and their two little girls. They toured us around Fort Lewis where Drew works as an Army Major in the chemical abatement area. They fed us snacks, wine and dinner, which was very nice of them and sent us on our way to Mt. St. Helens.

We will talk to you soon, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to critique my writing or how boring all of this #$%! is. I have to reel in my foul language, I have been informed that not just my brother is reading this blog!

2007-09-20T22:51:00.000-07:00

More Pics Just for Max and Zachary

2007-09-20T22:39:00.000-07:00

Ferry Leaving port

Sea Plane Landing
Lazy Daze on Ferry

Salmon in salmon run

Aunt Kimby next to very tall tree

Vancouver Island

2007-09-20T16:50:00.000-07:00

B.C. is HUGE! It is amazing to think that we have driven for 4 days and have only explored the southern portion of the province. Canadians seem to take their parks seriously. They are well organized and the campsites are clean, maintained and big. We could spend a whole summer here and not even see it all, so it is hard to decide what to do and where to go. We decided that we should trek over to Vancouver Island. Vancouver Island looks small in comparison to the B.C. mainland, but it is 400 miles long and 100 miles wide. We got up at 7:00 a.m. to get from our campsite at Porteau Cove to the fairly launch at Horseshoe Bay north of Vancouer by the 8:30 departure. We got in the relatively short line and made our way to the toll booth. The lady asked "how long are you?" "Err, uh, ahem, I...." "I'll get my measuring tape" she says and pulls out a rolling spool on a stick. "Oh, you wont need that, OH, OH, the r.v. and car." I am embellishing of course. She measured the whole assemblage to be 43 feet long, goes back to the booth and punches the figures into the computer/register and says "one hundred and seventy dollars." HELLO! Rickin' Frankin' R.V. towbar, car combo blues again. She said " you can go get coffee in the village, but make sure you are back here by 8:15." Kim looked at me and said "I thought it was 8:15". I had set the clock an hour later than it really was, so we were actually there an hour ahead of time. Robbing Kim of an hour of sleep is one thing that could sway her sunny disposition, but she forgave me when we got back and saw the long line that we would have been at the end of if we had indeed showed up at 8:15. There are only a few spots for big rigs, so we probably wouldn't have made the 8:15 ferry without my mistake. We were entertained by the German polka troop on the 90 minute ferry ride to the landing at Nanaimo Bay on Vancouver Island . They had two accordian players and 8 couples dancing in perfect sync. It was fun, I want to learn to polka. We drove off the ferry, gassed up and headed up the coast. We were headed to Campbell River where I heard the salmon were running. We stopped in town and talked to the local fishing store. The kid behind the counter said the rivers were full of Pink and Spring Salmon and loaded me up with the proper flies to catch them. At this point I could have run to the river without regard to anything else in life, but to catch fish. Unfortunately I had retrieve the r.v., find a campsite and get my fishing gear together. I finally got on the river by 4:00 p.m. I had no luck for about 2 hours, then one of the locals told me "if you don't have enough weight to get to the bottom, you will never get a bite." I put on a couple of small sinkers and fished for another hour. Kim came to visit and within 5 minutes I had a bite. It lasted for 2 seconds, but I could tell it was bigger than anything I had ever hooked on my flyrod. Kim left one minute later. This is proof that she gives not a hoot about fishing. Gentlemen, I ask "would you leave a fishing spot as soon as you saw someone get a bite?" Go figure. Thirty minutes went by and then I thought my line had caught on a rock again. I gave a small tug, and the rock bolted! I didn't want to lose this one so I gave the hook a double set. The fish shot out to the middle of the river and hovered in the current. I pulled as hard as I could and could only budge it a little. It then shot up river faster than any fish I had ever hooked. Of course the whole time I am having a silent dialogue with myself that went something like "wholy @#$% please, mother of god have mercy, let the boy land the salmon, I'm a good guy, I deserve to at least see the salmon." Nothin' doin'. The fish shot down river using fin and current power to strip line so fast I couldn't hang on and the hook popped. I didn't stand a chance. The Brit next to me said "you don't stand a chance against a big spring with a small rig like that!" The French Canadian on the other side of me gave me a good hole to go to up river where I could catch pink salmon on my little flyrod. I went up river and within 10 minutes had a great fight with a 5 lb. Pink salmon that was still very siver in color, which meant good eating. I caught another fish and headed back to camp. The second fish was darker in color and the flesh wasn't that good, so we didn't eat it, but the first fish was delicious. The next day I convinced Kim to come with me up the Quinsam River, where I caught several fish and spent a few moments within 50 feet of a blackbear and her two cubs. Kim caught the whole thing on video. It was a true B.C. moment.

I hated to leave good fishing waters and go sightseeing in Victoria, but we had a pseudo schedule to keep. We stayed at a campsite outside of Victoria and ventured in the next day to tour the city on our bicycles. Bike touring is such a good way to see things. You go at a great pace, cover quite a bit of territory and burn off calories, so you can gorge yourself on local fare! Being mister preparidness, I had to check with the ferry operators to see when we needed to be in line in the morning to get on the 10:30 ferry. I asked the guy at the entrance booth "what time in the morning do we need to get here to catch the 10:30 ferry?" He answered "about 7:30 tonight." I hate r.v.'s "7:30 tonight? For Tomorrow?" "Yup." "Can we stay in our r.v. inside the fence here?" "yup." Free camping on Victoria Harbour, I love's the r.v. We tooled around Victoria, biked around the point and across the city on the Galloping Goose bike trail, it was cool. We went back to the campground, loaded up the r.v. and drove back to the ferry line by 7:30 sharp only to find another 30 cars ahead of us for the 10:30 a.m. sailing. When we got to the entrance booth, the two young guys running the show started shaking their heads. "Any room for an American pig in an r.v. trailering a car?" I says. They either liked my candid humor or couldn't stand to see a huge be-bearded dude with puppy dog eyes. The asked "can you separate your vehicles quickly?" "yes, we can." "O.k. park the r.v. in lane two, the car at the head of lane 3, we aren't supposed to have room for you, so if someone asks, you had reservations." Those guys were awesome. They were real friendly and hooked us up. I told them they represented Canada well. We were allowed to come and go from the fenced confines of the ferry line for the evening, so we went back into Victoria and did some shopping and had a few beers. We had a nice long conversation with the German man in the little Fiat r.v. ahead of us in lane 2. He was on a four month trek of the U.S. with his two kids and wife. The Euro is strong against the dollar, so he said travelling the U.S. is relatively cheap. The next morning we made our way onto the ferry without a hitch, witnessing the poor stiffs that were already filling the 3:30 p.m. ferry line. Good bye to B.C. and all it's beauty, but thank god for the U.S. and it's lower prices.

Vancouver Pics

2007-09-18T00:28:00.000-07:00

Beautiful British Columbia

2007-09-17T23:19:00.000-07:00

One week into Canada and my wallet has almost reached 29.92 inches of mercury, in Refrigeration talk that is a perfect vacuum. Schnikies! $8.00 for a beer, $13.00 for a hamburger, $7.00 for a pack of sliced cheese, $4.00 to do a load of wash not including the $2.50 for the dryer. The U.S. dollar has become weak and is now about 1 for 1 to Canadian. For you beer drinkers, a six pack in Banff was $11. I sound Jewish, I get it from my mother apparently. I take that back, she bought a very expensive tank of gas (5o gal. at $4.80 a gallon).

Despite the high prices, Canada is beautiful! We trucked out of the tourist havens of Jasper and Banff on to the nearby National Parks of Revelstoke and Glacier. These parks are neverending glacier capped granite peaks. The glaciel streams run all summer and get swifter with the heat of the day, most of the mid to late summer Canadian water comes from the glaciers, which are going to be gone in about 100 years or less. Scary! We camped right alongside one of these amazing streams in the Canadian Glacier National Park. The campsite was on the Illicillewaet River in the old growth forest. There were grizzly bear trail closings abound, but we took a short walk to The Meeting of the Waters (picture included) and along the old Canadian Railroad track. We took a short hike in Revelstoke to the top of the mountain where there was virtually a 360 degree panorama of Canadian Rockies. The next two days the four of us traveled through the valley country, which was full of farmland. Peaches, apples, honey, milk, cherries, corn and much more offered at dozens upon dozens of roadside fruit stands. We stopped in Penticton where we waited about an hour and fifteen minutes for our lunch, I guess the 6 patrons in the restaurant was more than they were used to. The stop in Penticton did afford us the chance to get a picture next to a HUGE peach. As we drove by I said "James and the Giant Peach!" my favorite kids story that my mommy read me. I miss my Mommy! Kim misses her too. She defends Kim to the hilt and keeps me in check. I believe one dialogue went as follows: I said to Kim "sometimes you can be such a dingbat!" Mom says to me "no she's not, she is sweet and you are lucky she puts up with you, you stupid #$%@!" That's my mother. Our friend Kata from Hungary said her mother would cuss her for five minutes straight and not use the same word twice, 'cause they had so many cuss words in Hungary. My mom was Hungarian in a former life. She is taming down, due to Grandmothering, but occasionally she can floor you. Kim doesn't particulary like cussing, but when my mom is directing it at me it is just fine.

We stayed outside of Vernon in an R.V. type campground overlooking Kalamalka Lake. The lake was crystal clear, which is the theme in B.C. Kim and I swam in the cool water and we all took hot showers in the morning. Free dump station too. We like dumping our sewage for free, I need to remember not to wear my sandals when dumping sheite, maybe none has ever got on my toesies, but I always feel like it does and worry about it for the next few hours. I am an anal geek in bluecollar bearded guy clothing. I almost got a good ol' Huber full moon on video camera and the timing would have been one for the record books, but alas Huber is a damn Grandpa and held back from the actual drawer droppage and just faked it as he climed into the upper bunk of the Lazy Daze. I have to hand it to the old farts, they loaded up into the bunk every night, didn't get up to pee and actually seemed like they enjoyed the cramped confines. It is nice to have parents that you can hang out with in a small r.v. for a week and actually regret sending them off to their airport hotel when it was over. We spent another night alongside a creek in Manning Park which is back into the mountains from the fertile Okanagan Valley. We cruised into Golden Ears Provincial Park the next day, so that we would be close to the Vancouver airport. We took a short hike to the Alloutte Lake then drove Mom and Bill to their hotel. Bill treated us to a very nice seafood dinner and we said our goodbyes. We went back to our lonely R.V. The next day I put up the souvenir coffee cup my mother had bought at a bakery near Lake Louise and I missed her already. I love you, you Moomy!

Kim allowed me to fish in the Alloutte Lake the next day. I didn't get my act together until 5:00, but I actually caught a nice trout and a couple of other weird fish. The bites were getting more frequent close to dark, so I pushed it right to dark. If you think the old growth B.C. forest is dark in the day, try finding your way back in the night with a l.e.d. flashlight that is operating on .002 volts of dead batteryage. I'm a big, tough, mountain man dude, but the dark woods doesn't give a shit about that. I made a few wrong turns and the panic was about to turn severe when I finally found an old rotted bridge that marked the trail to the campground. Trying to find your way around a 400 site Hobbit Village in the pitch black with nothing but campfire lights, trees and the odd laugh or two was a bit freaky too. When I finally made it back to the R.V. with my one pathetic trout and my headlamp putting out no more light than a ripe zit, kim was so full of genuine hugs of relief that I realized she really must love me.

We went towards Whistler the next day. Whistler is where the 2010 winter Olympics will be held. They are frantically trying to complete a huge road enlargement project, so the construction was continual for about 30 miles. We stayed at Alice Lake Provincial Campground, which was a smaller version of the Hobbit Woods of Golden Ears. It was nice, but the fishing sucked, so I voted for a move to the Porteau Cove campground that we had seen along the way. It was right on the ocean sound. We scored a primo spot on the beach there. The next day we went to Vancouver and rode our bikes around the town. It was a spectacular day of tourism. We went to the Grandville Island Market and around Stanley Park and to the treetop suspension bridges of Capilano Park. We had one of the best days I have to recommend a trip to Vancouver.

I have rambled and Kim is long asleep, so I will sign off and tell you about Vancouver Island in the morning.

Love to all, and yes, we kind of miss Arkansas and all of our buddies. Fall is a great time to be in the Ozarks suck it up cause those hardwood forests kick butt when it comes to color, these forests have size, but not the color.

Bye for now, James

Canada-eh (Banff & Jasper)

2007-09-17T22:04:00.000-07:00

Well Banff & Jasper National Parks in Canada were as beautiful as we thought they would be. Unfortunately we were not the only people who had heard of their beauty. We knew it was going to be crowded when we barely got a reservation at the 1,000 site campsite in Banff. It was packed! Thankfully the parking lot campsite wasn't as bad as we thought it would be, we actually had a nice view and some good neighbors. We were only about a mile from downtown, again their weird park/city system may be something we could get used to, so we were able to walk around and battle the crowds without having to have fought for a parking space as well. James finally broke out in hives so we decided to head back to our patch of asphalt. The next day we went on a hike and a bike ride and ended up kicking both of our booties. I realized that I may be able to beat James up a mountain on foot but put him on a bike and it is I who eat his dust. We were barely able to drag out early enough the next morning to get to Calgary and pick up Bill & Mary, we were actually a few minutes late but we quickly found them a Tim Horton's (a coffee chain in Canada) and all was forgiven. We toured them around Banff a little and showed them their new deluxe accommodations. I have to say they handled the ladder to the bunk like pros and I only heard one head conk all week. Sunday we put on our battle gear and went to Johnston Falls and Moraine Lake. At Johnston Falls we were actually able to score a parking place, but at Moraine Lake we added about 3 miles to the .5 mile hike around the lake by parking so far away. It was insane. There were cars and people everywhere. We quickly oohed & aah ed at the glacial lake and raced back to the safety of the RV for rum & cokes and Mary's yummy chicken parmigiana. The next day was Monday and we assumed alot of the people would be leaving since it was the end of the holiday. Apparently the park assumes this same thing because about 1/2 of the campgrounds closed promptly at 11:00 that morning. Thankfully we were on the road headed up to Lake Louise & Jasper at this time so we didn't have to suffer the shame of being kicked out of our campsite. Lake Louise was as gorgeous as we had heard, it is a glacial lake so the color is this amazing blue or green, depending on where the sun is hitting it and reflecting off the 'rock flour' in the lake. We drove up towards Jasper and dropped off the RV in the Columbia Icefields parking lot because we had the brilliant idea that we would go just a little way up the road and secure a campsite. We were not aware of the parks labor day shut out system and ended up driving all the way to Jasper without spotting an open campsite. We made the most of it and toured Jasper stopping at a yummy pizza place along the way. We came back to the icefields parking lot and realized it was also an overflow camping spot. So for the low price of $10.00 we spent the evening playing cards at the base of a glacier with the place all to ourselves. The next day we headed out of the Banff/Jasper area in search of beautiful, but perhaps a bit more peaceful places.

Waterton-Glacier

2007-09-17T21:07:00.001-07:00

Well James finally decided to let me take a turn again so I will try to be as witty and entertaining as he is. (I know that's bad grammar, sorry Jeff & Mary). We just got back from Canada but I am going to back track a little first and write more about Glacier, which even after all the amazing places in Canada is still at the top of our list. Before I get too far into our adventure update I would like to say thank you to those who are reading this and leaving comments. We love to hear from people back home and it has been great to hear from friends and coworkers. I am not sure about blog etiquitte so I don't know if we are supposed to comment on your comments about our comments. Anyway, we love hearing from everyone.

Back to the task at hand.........................Waterton-Glacier was the first international peace park (I think it might still be the only one actually) because it encompasses land both in the US & Canada. I think about 2 million acres in the US and 30,000 in Canada. I know its petty but I think since more of the land is in the us it should be Glacier-Waterton, oh well. what kind of an ambassador would I make. We spent most of our time in Glacier because we realized in Wateron Canadians have a strange habit of having towns in the middle of their national parks. It can be conveinent but also a little annoying. We already posted some pictures of Many Glacier which is on the east side of Glacier but for my mothers sake as well as anyone else who has a fear of heights I have to post some of the "Going to the Sun" road. When we first got to the park they told us we couldn't take our RV all the way over this infamous road and we were a little annoyed because it meant to get to the other side we had to drive an extra 60 miles. When you are barely getting 10 miles a gallon this is a big deal. After we drove the narrow, windy, road we would have driven 600 miles out of the way. The road was barely as wide as our RV and had a sheer drop off almost the whole way. We drove it once and then opted for the shuttle the rest of the time. We did have a nice big campsite in Glacier and I got to attend a church service right on the lake. We rode our bikes some and James got to do some fishing. On the drive up along Flathead Lake in Montana we passed about 100 cherry stands and finally found one we could pull our huge load through, so I also ate myself sick on cherries in amidst all of our hiking. I know James has commented on the amount of hiking we have been doing but we have also been doing our fair share of eating & drinking.

We made it across the border easily enough with Mr. Roboto as our appointed customs agent. It was one of the few times James has not been on the verge of getting strip searched when going through customs so we were very polite and didn't comment on the agents lack of personality. Waterton was nice enough, as I said there was a town in the middle of the park so it wasn't quite what we were used to. We did see about 20 big horn sheep parade through town, I guess they think its silly to have a town in the middle of a park too. We rode our bikes up to their big fancy hotel and almost tortured the tour bus group by joining them for high tea. We decided we were a bit too unkempt (the wind had blown my hair into something akin to Medusa) and went back to town for ice cream, see I told you there was lots of eating.

Critter Page and Top 10 What We've Learned

2007-08-29T18:04:00.000-07:00

Mountain Goats, Mountain Sheep, Bear from afar, Deer in Camp

Top 10 What We've Learned So Far

10. One Year Will Not Be Enough
9. The Flashy Red Lazy Daze Gets Lots of Comments (good purchase for ego)
8. Dial-up internet sucks when blogging
7. We really do get along even when couped up in a 200 square foot home
6. But, it is also fun to have visitors (just to make things even more cozy) Erik
5. Whoever labels New Mexico trails is in really good shape (easy isn't)
4. Mountain hike backpack should contain fleece, raincoat, lots of food, lots of water, camera, lots more water not just two bottles of water, camera and trailmix.
3. Coleman propane griddle is great investment.
2. Traveling with your own bathroom is awesome
1. Overhang or clearance height is a good thing to check (kayak meets Glacier Entrance was the latest lesson) Kayak and car = 7'1" not the 7' sign height.

Kata's Page

2007-08-29T17:16:00.000-07:00

We said if we met cool people that we would feature them in our blog.
We met one. Kata is from Hungary and lives in New York State. She came to West Glacier Park for a vacation by herself. Kim and I were taking a shuttle bus to the trail head of a hike that we wanted to do. There were only three other people on the bus when it dropped us off at the Lake McDonald Lodge. We heard Kata speak a little back at the station and new she "twern't from around here". We took off in opposite directions to find the trail head and ended up meeting at a junction in the path where we found out that we were all going to the same lake. Kata thought we were on our first hike together and needed space, but I informed her that I was just along for the exercise on my wife's Thin the Fat Bastard Program. She joined us up to the lake and we had great conversation. She is a nanny back in New York. She came to Glacier after researching it on the internet. She had friends that were going to come with her, but they finked out at the last minute. We did the 9 mile round trip hike to Snyder Lake and then Kim dragged us up to Avalanche Lake where we met Steve. Steve was an engineer from Florida. He was on a two month trip through the west and was almost on the same path Kim and I had taken. We all hiked back to the trail head together where Kim, Kata and I all hopped on the shuttle bus back to camp. Kim and Kata made me feel like a heel when they asked if I had invited Steve to happy hour at the Lazy Daze bar (oddly enough they only serve rum and coke there). We got back to camp, hopped in the car and chased Steve down with flashing lights, horn honking and swerving, he must have thought we were absolutely nuts. We all had a few drinks together and stayed up until Kata's English started to waiver a little and we knew she was tired. She went back to her hotel with plans to meet Kim in the morning to tour the park some more. Kim and Kata toured Glacier while I fished for Cutthroat Trout in the Flathead River. We all drove over to East Glacier together the next day. It was beautiful. Kim didn't take Kata's big blisters on her heel or my general lethargy for an excuse and marched us up one of the most beautiful hikes I have been on. Grinnell Glacier is 5.5 miles almost straight up the mountain and is worth every step. The scenery gets better and better as you go until you are at the base of the glacier with ice bergs floating in a lake at its foundation. On the way down the mountain Kata tried to teach us some Hungarian words and promised to put us up in New York and make Chiken Parikash for us.
We took Kata back to East Glacier to catch the Amtrak train to Seattle for her flight home to New York.

We have made a good friend. Kata is a testament to "Just Do It". She came here to learn English and speaks very well. She is eager to learn every strange word that might come out of your mouth. She saves her hard earned money and travels the U.S. She is independent, but very friendly and we were sad to put her on the train, but happy to have made her acquaintance.

We miss you Kata. Talk to you soon.

Idaho and What We've Learned

2007-08-29T16:44:00.000-07:00

Good Day!

We are sitting in an internet cafe' in Waterton Lakes Park in Canada.

We are pretty much out of Cell Phone range for a couple of weeks unless you have an emergency, I am sure it will cost a bunch to call from up here eh?

We went through Idaho from Wyoming to visit my old friend Stasia. She is still working her butt off at Old Chicago Pizza in downtown Boise. We found Stasia at work and had a few drinks with her. Later her fri.. , bud.., lov.., er uh partner Sarah met up with us. Sarah is great fun and cool. We went to dinner at Bardenay, which is a distill pub. Instead of beer they make liquor. We had some of there house rum with dinner. It was very different, but I can't say I would take a bottle home. We spent the next day riding our bikes around Boise. Boise is a really neat town by the way. Where Stasia lives there is a coffe house, a bar, an ice-cream and candy shop called Goody's within half a block. Stasia calls out a howdy to half a dozen people every time we walked somewhere. We spent the next two days just eating and drinking and gaining back any weight we lost on our hikes. We had a very nice dinner with Glen and Callie who are good friends of Kim's family. They showed off their sweet accommodations as faculty in residence at one of the dorms on campus of Boise State, where the Blue football field is only 1oo yards away.

We have been away for a month now. I can say that I am sleeping much better without the stress of running an a/c business in the summertime in Arkansas. I haven't had problems with canker sores and I am thinking clearer. I have quit drinking diet beverages 'cause my buddy Mike made me promise I wouldn't after he saw a documentary about aspartame on the Independant Film Channel. This might contribute to my clearer thinking. It is good to meet new people and see new places, it makes you feel alive again.

Pictures of Stasia and Sarah and also Stewie, Stasias Beagle with enough spaniel in him to make him a freak about fetching and pointing.

Top of Targhee, Checkered Garter Snake, Deer, Alvin, Amphitheater Lake

2007-08-22T09:46:00.000-07:00

even more pics

2007-08-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

More mindless brain fodder.

More Pics of Wyoming

2007-08-21T16:57:00.000-07:00

My picture posting has been funky, I will get better I promise.

James

Erik Stays Too Long (not by choice)

2007-08-21T15:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, indeed we made it to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to spend some time in the old Murie family haunts of the Teton Mountain Range. We stayed two nights in the Gros Ventre campground, a huge national park campground with 300 sites and a dump station, which is handy when the shitter is full Clark, which it was. I spent an hour or so having a happy hour beer with Bob next door in camp site 117. Bob was a heavy equipment operator from the oil fields of Alaska. He had a stroke in 2003 and was spending his time bach'in it in an Ambulance that had been converted to an R.V. He was a handy dude with an intolerance for children and too much hustle and bustle. He left early the next morning for a more remote campground near Dubois. Gros Ventre is pronounced Grow-Vont and Dubois is pronounced Dew-boys. You can use hack French when your a cowboy or a redneck from Arkansas, but only some of the time apparently.

The next day we had to be at the Jackson Hole airport at 12:09 p.m. to pick up Mr. Erik Shollmier. I have known the freak for several years now and I still am not confident of the spelling of his last name. Erik is a good friend, he is always in a chipper mood, much like my wife. We took a quick tour of String, Leigh and Jenny lakes in the Teton Park along with a short hike. We figured a three mile hike earned us pizza at Mountain High Pizza Pie in Jackson. After stuffing ourselves we went back to camp where we introduced Erik to his bunk bed in the front of the R.V. The next day we trucked over the steep Teton Pass to Grand Targhee Resort on the Idaho side of the Teton Range. We were introduced to our camp site by Mark, a very friendly local working the event gates for the three day bluegrass festival. We ended up with a primo spot that overlooked the tent campers and was next to the water,bathrooms and had a wonderful view of the mountains. We were able to crank out the awning and set up a greeting station for passers by. This greeting station was manned mostly by Erik who welcomed people with a fine, Southern "what's happenin' " or "it's all good in the neigborhood brutha!" depending on how much alchohol had been consumed. Kim tried to kill me and my buddy by taking us on a 3 mile hike straight up about 1600 feet or so. Erik was a good sport, but I did notice he declined the next offers for hikes. Lots of good music, food and libations for the next couple of days with a grand finale of Robert Earl Keen and grilled steaks.

We went back over the pass after the festival and found a nice camp site 5 miles up the Gros Ventre river. It was right on the lake and quiet. We had a nice evening and retired early, so Erik could get his rest for the next day's flight home. We dropped Erik off at the airport at 11:30 to catch his flight and headed to the Snake River Canyon so I could kayak. At 12:30 we got a call from Erik, "guess what? The ticket you got me is for next Tuesday!" Whoops! We turned back around and picked Erik up again. He was in good humor about my stupid mistake. I guess that's why I'm a heat 'n air guy and not a travel agent. We took Erik to the Snake River and rafted it in a small, non self-bailing raft. It was fun and uneventful. The Snake River is big and swift, but not too technical. We did avoid going through the Big Kahuna at the urging of Kim, probably for the best. We would have either swam or had a bathtub for a vessel.

We were obliged to have more pizza and beer at Mountain High to help Erik over his trauma.

The next day Erik got off to Arkansas and we headed up the mountain for a 10 mile hike to Amphitheater Lake. We spent Thursday in Yellowstone and packed up our nice camp the next day. Off we go to Boise, Idaho to see our good friends Stasia and Sarah. Later.

James and Kim

Colorado

2007-08-15T16:37:00.001-07:00

Hello from Jackson Hole, Wyoming!

I am not writing about Wyoming, but we are at a Mikey D's using the wi-fi so that we can update the Colorado portion of our trip. I just typed for half an hour and lost all my typing to my ignorance of this rickin' frackin' blogging sheite.
We trekked through northern New Mexico which was beautiful arid western farmland. Rolling hills, pine trees, cactus and other mixes of mountain and desert. We stopped in Pagosa Springs, Colorado for lunch alongside the San Juan River. It was a really nice tourist town without the auspices of needing to have a butt-load of money to live there. Get over my cursing, I can't stop, it's not me to stop. I love eating at hippie-outdoorsy type cafe's especially along a river. The veggie tacos were good exceptin' for the hot sauce that brings you real close to satan. I think of Dana Carvey when I type or say "Satan". Anyhoo. We cruised through Durango, Co. It was packed. I guess the PBR event going on there (not beer, but bulls) had it a little more busy than the regular tourist traffic. We only stopped for the gassing up fiasco. All of the gas stations were tiny. We had a small marital spat that ended in my saying "do you want to drive this !@#$ing thing!. That shuts Kim up quickly, she is terrified of driving the R.V. with car in-tow through a gas station. It really isn't that bad, but for now I have the leverage. We landed in a camp site north of Durango 40 miles at five o' clock p.m. The camp host informed us that the sites had been filling by 2:00 every day for two months and we were very lucky. He was a talkative chap from Siloam Springs, Arkansas. He patrolled all 40 or so sites with a golf cart and was all too helpul. He gave me an escort bacwards against the one way arrows through the camp ground as this was the only way I was going to pack our rig into the "last" camp site. He informed us that in site 3 was another Fayettevilleian. I was too shy to explore, but found out in the morning that it was Mark Porter, I have worked for him several years and know of him since I was 13. What a small world. We had a small chat, then we stole his site. It was overlooking Lake Haviland and was much nicer.

The next day we took the Mazda to Silverton and Ouray. These passes are steep, curvy, and guard rail deprived. I have to admit I was a wee puckered looking down, straight down, 300 feet to certain metal crunching, gas tank exploding, burning and bleeding to death, with Kim at the helm of my ship 0' destiny. At that moment we passed a guy standing behind a Dodge Caravan with an overgrown skateboard leaning on the guard rail, putting on a helmet . "Turn around Kim, I've got to get a picture of this! Hellooo, I'm very serious over here. Turn around!" Too late, a blue and white flash zooms by followed by the tan mini-van. We caught up with them at the bottom. He was proud to have me take a picture of him with his "street luge". He was glad were were excited "cool" instead of excited "pissed" about his escapades.

Silverton was cold and rainy, but we waited around for the Durango-Silverton narrow guage train to come into town. Steam engine hooting was cool. The local brew pub was very quaint, the local town drunk was sitting next to me philosophising and reliving his mining camp days. We had a "ripper" with chili for a snack. It was a deep fried hot dog, with canned chili and fake cheese. This is nasty even by my standards, but I did eat it, simply 'cause I didn't want to offend the Bartendress that reccommended it you know.

We trekked north to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Central Colorado. It was high desert, but the nights were cool. Kim is "Killin' " me. A hike a day will keep the fat bastard away is her motto. We hiked around the rim of the canyon and looked way down in there to the rushing Gunnison River. There have been many a precarious slash steep drop to canyon bottoms so far. I have discovered that Kim is a frady cat when it comes to these situations. I have assured her that I have not pulled any large life insurance policies on her, so no biggy. I could handle the scrutiny of the local sherriff, but I don't know about 20/20 or city confidential. The hike along the Curecanti Creek in the Curecanti Park of the Gunnison was the most favored so far. It was beautiful, steep and terminated at the Gunnison River in the deep Canyon. Pictures Included.

Morning bike ride, 14 miles along the rim. "It is level it will be easy." Yes it starts at 4264 feet and ends at 4257 feet, it's what it does between that is key! Holy Schnikies! I am out of shape! Kim is killin' me. She did want us to fill out wills before we left, things that make you go Hmmm? Off to Flaming Gorge Park in Northern Utah.

Flaming Gorge is very nice. It has higher mountain campgrounds and lower desert camp grounds. It is a big resevoir on the Green River. Below the Dam the Green River has beautiful clear waters and lots of trout and trout fisherman. "Oh, we must hike down in." It was like looking into a trout aquarium, 1000 trout, 20 trout fisherman, no trout on hook = smart trout.

North to Jackson Hole, Wyoming talk to you then!

New Mexico

2007-08-07T11:51:00.000-07:00

Our first night of RV life was spent at a rest area almost out of Okalhoma. Considering we left Arkansas so late I was very proud of James for driving so far without nodding off. Some of you may know about his little problem with narcolepsy. We decided to stay at an RV park in the mountains just outside of Taos. There were some nicer camping spaces farther away but we thought it might be nice to be close to the city. We have already realized that our biggest problem on this trip is going to be deciding where to stay. Some places have tons of options and others have so few you don't know if you should take the first thing you find or try to find something better, risking no availabilty. The place we ended up at at was called the Enchanted Moon and managed by Jim, a catfish noodler from Oklahoma. It was a pretty site in the mountains and was a convienant place for visitng Taos and the Rio Grande. We did some hiking and exploring around the Rio Grande national park and learned that you should never believe a trail sign that is marked easy. We know we aren't in the best shape of our lives but a 500 ft descent in less than 1/2 a mile on a rocky trail is not easy.

New Mexico was beautiful because they have had so much rain this summer and of course it rained while we were there. They have had so much rain recently that the rivers all looked like chocolate milk. They were still tempting to James of course.

We are quickly adjusting to RV life and wondering just how long it might take us to get annoyed with making the bed every night and taking it down every morning. We have also realized that you can't get cell phone reception in remote beautiful places, I guess a cell phone tower would definitely negate the beauty. We have also realized how much we missed cable and are eternally thankful to Mary for hooking us up just in time for shark week!

Leaving Arkansas

2007-08-07T11:36:00.000-07:00

Well we finally made it out of Arkansas! Our goal was to leave before August and we left at 6:00 on July 31st. Several people stopped by to wish us well and my nieces and nephews even made signs. We realized how blessed we are to have so many good friends and family. Of course people could have just been so surprised that we were actually doing this, since we have been talking about it for years, that they had to see it with their own eyes.

It took us longer to get out of town than we had initially hoped. When we came back from Minnesota we had to wait awhile for the hitch but thanks to our new friend Glenda at Roadmaster we got the prototype for the 08' Mazada and she even found someone to put it on for us. James has mastered the 53 step process for hooking it up, but I am still struggling. You can definitely tell which of us is the mechanical master in the family. The good thing about waiting for the hitch was I got to spend some time with my sisters (my sister Juli was in town from Georgia with her girls) and James was able to finish all his work and do some fishing. We were definitely ready to get on the road so it made me not quite as teary as I would have been if we had left earlier.

Willow River

2007-07-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

Boundary Waters Revelations

2007-07-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

I want to start my first input to this blog by stating that I feel it is a little arrogant to believe that other people could actually give a rat's buttocks what we are doing and I have mixed feelings about this "blogging", but I have been assigned the task of updating on this go around, so I am going to do my best to make an exciting venture for us actually sound exciting for anyone who might check up on us through this web page.

We left Arkansas without the R.V. due to the fact I couldn't get all of my chores done in time to take off for good. We had a July 10th entry date to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Northern Minnesota and could not change it, so we took off in the new Mazda Tribute to d nortlands of Minnesota. We got a late start, so we had to stop for the night in Iowa. By pure chance we chose a very nice town in Northern Iowa called Clear Water Lake. We went the wrong direction off the Interstate and stumbled into the downtown square, which happens to be right on the lake. There were several nice restaurants, families playing in the square, lovers kissing on the breakwater and an assortment of boats sailing in the sunset. We had a nice dinner at a busy pizza place (pizza is always my default dining choice) and headed to our motel. When we approached the motel check-in drive through area I noticed that the overhang was lower than normal, but decided I could clear it with bikes atop the Mazda. I remember remarking to Kim "after years of driving that service van, I know my clearances!" That remark was followed by a "screeeehhhhh, clunka, punka" and a "Shaka!" from Kim. My commentary wasn't exactly Mom-in-law friendly, so I am leaving it out. The seat from my extra-tall cannondale bicyle had done a greater than expected amount of damage to the aluminum soffit material of the portico. I remembered that there was a bike tool in the bag below my seat, so I quickly jumped into exit-embarrassment mode. I loosened the allen screw that held the seat post and it allowed the seat to lower and at the same time the car suspension to raise. I then did the obligitory "this never happened" move the car forward four feet. The girl at the desk couldn't have cared less, so no harm to my wallet at least, just my ego and the soffit.

We spent the next night with my sister Robin and her husband John. They took us to a nice dinner at a family style Italian joint with my niece Jessica. They serenaded us by the Mississippi River with their lovely three-part harmony, it is very cool that a family can sing that well together.

The next day we took off to the Timber Trail Lodge in Ely, Minnesota. The folks at the Timber Trail showed us our adventure gear for the Boundary Waters and gave us the low-down on how to camp and travel in the Boundary Waters. Basically don't leave a trace that you have been there and stay in the designated camp sites. All travel in the million acre area is done by canoe or foot, no motors. There are thousands of lakes and with the help of Bill the outfitter we chose a moderate path for our six day venture. They let us stay in the bunk house for the night, which is equipped with four bunks and a fly swatter only. When we woke up it was raining. We put on the water in the rain, we paddled five lakes in the rain and chose a camp site on a point in Lake Hudson. We were able to set up camp and make dinner with no rain. It was clear at night, then the rain came back in the morning. It ended up raining most of the time. I decided that our prayers for sunny weather were far outnumbered by the locals prayers for an end to the drought. I caught a nice Norther Pike, Walleye, and Small-Mouth Bass and several other fish, but the wind and the rain made it tough. We hiked over about 20 portages without incindent, but on the 21st portage I slipped and slammed the kevlar canoe on a rock and punctured it. Luckily it was above the water line. We left a day early after enduring 8 hours of rain, a night of stiff winds and no promise of improving weather. On the way out the clouds lifted, of course, and it was not too windy. We returned to the lodge where I fessed up to the canoe damage. Every person present had to take a look and comment in their thick Minnesota accents, "oohhh, I've not seen a hOle like that before, I dOn't knOw if that can be fixed." They are going to check with the canoe fixer and let me know how much is posted to my credit card, they assume about three hundred bucks. We came out of the Boundary Waters without injury or a divorce, so that was good. Kim was a trooper, she paddled hard and trolled me around with my fishing rod. She had a small meltdown on the third day of rain, she looked so cute and pathetic under the tarp in the rain with her rain coat hood hanging down in front of her forehead and tears on her cheek that I couldn't help but give her a hug and a kiss. We allowed as that this was good prep for the R.V. life. The R.V. will seem like a palace compared to canoe camping.

We went to Duluth for a night in a very nice hotel on the banks of Lake Superior and then headed to the Twin Cities to spend a few days with my good friend Ed from my vo-tech days at Dunwoody Industrial Institute. Ed has found a special woman, Mary, after years of being a bachelor. We had a lovely walk around the lakes of the Twin Cities and some nice meals together. After a trip to one of my childhood haunts, Willow River State Park in Wisconsin, and a nice bike riding day around the lakes and up the banks of the Mississippi River we loaded up to head back to Arkansas. Sorry about the lengthy update, hopefully we will make shorter more frequent updates in the future.

James

It's here!!

2007-07-01T12:05:00.000-07:00

Well the new baby has arrived! A huge thanks to Bill (James' stepfather) for making the trek back from California with James and the new toy. It was quite an adventure for them both to make it out there, but thankfully the ride home was uneventful.

We are now preparing to spend the next few nights in my parents driveway while James finishes up some work and I try to cram our 4 bedroom house into our 26 1/2 ft. RV. I have no idea how we aquired 48 glasses but I don't think we will be entertianing that many people on the road.

Floyd & Sienna are definitely aware something is askew. Floyd has never been thought of as being the smartest cat, but even he realizes all the furniture in the house being gone is a bit odd. He has also been even more vocal than usual, which doesn't seem possible I know. I have tried to warn Megan & Tiffany (the girls renting our house & watching Floyd) that some earplugs might be a good investment, but they insist they love cats. We'll see how they feel by Christmas.

Hopefully we will leave Friday to head up to Minnesota. I have already been eaten alive by mosqutoes here at home so I have no fear of the Boundary Waters!