We decided to drive to Maggie Valley, North Carolina, today to check out the skiing at Catahoochee Ski Resort because we were planning to spend a day there skiing once Kyle, Trevor and Kelly all get here. We drove through the Pisgah National Forest to Waynesville, then to the slope, a two hour drive. It … Continue reading
Category Archives: United States
Settling In
We’re staying near Penrose, North Carolina, in our exchange family’s house. Today we took care of grocery shopping, got in a little exercise, and generally lounged around. Dale cooked dinner at home tonight. She loves the big kitchen here, especially the commercial gas range and oven, and the butcher-block table. There’s a big yard and … Continue reading
In My Mind, I’m Goin’ to Carolina
We met our home exchange family at our house on Wednesday, showed them around, then left to spend the night with Mother in Deerfield Beach, on our way to North Carolina. Here’s Mother in front of her apartment on Thursday morning as we were leaving, holding her early Christmas present, an iPad2. Thursday, we drove … Continue reading
Bayjam
After leaving Robbie’s in Lower Matecumbe Key, we went to an art festival at Holiday Isle. Lots of looking, but no buying for us. Next, we stopped at Founders Park in Islamorada on the way home. There was an all-day reggae festival called Bayjam going on. We stopped and listened to a couple songs. It’s … Continue reading
Tarpon Time
For lunch yesterday we went to Robbie’s marina restaurant and after eating, Dale fed the tarpon. The pelicans looked on… …except for this guy; he wasn’t interested. He just wanted something to snack on.
Thanksgiving
We had Thanksgiving dinner at our house in the Keys and my Mother, Sandy and David came down to spend the weekend with us. Dale spent the last two days cooking. Here’s the exhausted chef. Time to carve the turkey… …’cuz the fixins’ are waiting… The food was great and it was good to be … Continue reading
Look, Books!
Today, we drove to Miami to go to the annual Miami Book Fair. I used to go every year when we lived in Miami, so it was nice to go again after a couple year hiatus. I went in search of history books and this year Dale accompanied me and found several good mysteries. The … Continue reading
Dancing Flowers
We’re in Miami this morning, hoping to have lunch with Kyle. As we got in the car this morning in the Keys, we were greeted by these pretty blooms. Just thought this picture was nice enough to post.
Tropic Hunters
There’s an annual event sponsored by The Miami Herald newspaper in South Florida called the Tropic Hunt. We’ve been participating since the mid-1980s when it first began; Dale and I came in third place that year, and Kelly and I made a father-daughter event out of it more recently. The Tropic Hunt is part scavenger … Continue reading
I am Iron Man
Yesterday, we got up early and drove to Miami to watch Kyle and his friend, Jordan Ziegler, in an Iron Man competition. The race is a half triathlon, consisting of a 1.2 mile swim, followed by a 56 mile bicycle race, followed by a 13.1 mile run. Kyle and Jordan started at 7:00 a.m. and … Continue reading
Back in the Keys
Friday we drove to Deerfield Beach to have lunch with Mother. She made a delicious soup for us. Nothing like home cooking! After our visit, we continued to Hollywood and camped at a county park. Friday night we went to a comedy show in Ft. lauderdale featuring Kathleen Madigan, my favorite comic. Saturday we did … Continue reading
Backroads of Florida
Well, we’re almost back home, but this is the part of our travels that is normally the least interesting. We’ve made the journey from Gainesville to South Florida (and vice versa) so many times that we now just endure it as a necessity to get out of Florida. So today we decided to do things … Continue reading
Rock Gym
This evening, Kelly took us to the Rock Gym where she works part time. Trevor also works at a rock gym in Buffalo. Dale had gone rock climbing before with Trevor, but I had never tried it. It’s more fun than I had thought, and it’s also good exercise. I can see why the kids … Continue reading
Slack-Lining
This morning we had an early lunch with Kyle and Kelly. But, first, we stopped at Kelly’s house so she could show us her slack-lining skills. Trevor’s really good at this, too, and I’m guessing that Kyle enjoys this sport as well. Kelly tried to help me and Dale learn, but we didn’t get very … Continue reading
Micanopy
After caving, Kyle and Kelly and their gang drove to Atlanta and then home to Gainesville. We took our time and drove just past Atlanta, went to a movie, and then stopped for the night. The next morning we drove to Gainesville and then yesterday we drove a little further south to Micanopy where we … Continue reading
Cavemen and women
One carload of the college campers decided to call it quits and headed back to Gainesville, but Dale and I took their place in the second cave. The cave opening didn’t look that difficult, but it turned out to be a rock crawl for the first 50 feet. (That’s Dale in the blue shirt, white … Continue reading
Camping
Kyle and Kelly and their friends started a nice camp fire, which is a good thing because it dropped below freezing. Somebody brought sparklers! It was cold outside and they were all camping. We offered that if anybody got too cold, they were welcome to sleep in the RV. Kelly took us up on the … Continue reading
Sinkhole
Next, we hiked up to the top of a giant sinkhole. Kyle and a couple friends had previously rappelled down into this and made a movie of that adventure. This is about where Kyle had rappelled down. Kelly went around to the other side with some of her friends. That’s about a 200 foot drop! … Continue reading
Rock On!
After caving, we all went for a drive to a giant sinkhole, but along the way we came upon a menagerie of animals made out of boulders. Kyle liked the giant chicken. I picked the rock turtle. Dale liked the calf. And Kelly went for the bucking bull! The real cows across the road thought … Continue reading
Spelunking
We got the RV set up by the cave and grabbed our flashlights to go see if we could find Kyle and Kelly and their friends in the cave. Dale was ready to go. We went into the cave about 100 feet and bumped into one of the cave caretakers coming out. He told us … Continue reading
Cotton Picking
We dropped off the RV in Scottsboro, Alabama, and drove the Jeep into the backcountry to find Kyle and Kelly and their caving friends. Kelly texted us GPS coordinates. On the way, most of the farm fields were picked cotton, but we found a couple that hadn’t yet been harvested. Further up the road we … Continue reading
Culture Shock
We crossed the border from Tennessee into Alabama and the first thing we came to was “Big Daddy’s Hunting Supply Store.” it was a real culture shock! They had guns for everything: assault rifles, shotguns and even kid-sized rifles painted pink for little girls! Weird. They had stuffed trophies everywhere and I’m not lion.
Groundhog’s Day
As we were leaving The Hermitage, we saw what looked like a giant hamster run out of a hole in the ground. He got spooked when we walked towards him and ran back into his hole for safety. It was a Groundhog! After a couple seconds, he turned around and disappeared down his hole. Does … Continue reading
The Hermitage
This afternoon, we went to The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s plantation, just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. Andrew Jackson was the 7th president of the United States, from 1828 to 1836, serving two terms. He was a frontiersman and a rugged individual, who became, in turn, a lawyer, a militia general and war hero, a congressman and … Continue reading
Leaving Tennessee
Yesterday afternoon and this morning, I did genealogy research at the archives in Robertson County, Tennessee, while Dale caught up on her reading. We’ll be leaving Tennessee in the morning to meet up with Kelly and her friends in Alabama where they are going caving and hiking. We’ll join them for the hiking, but not … Continue reading
The Road Less Traveled 