November 7, 2011

Dear friends,

And the beat goes on ….

We’re settled here in the little house on the Neuse and Jason has been transferred to Texas1 Wuh. The shock has worn off, and we are thrilled to know that Jason has gotten the promotion he deserves. He is still with DPA, a division of L-3, but he is working at the corp. headquarters of LINK, the guys who make those aircraft simulators. His office is in Arlington, right down the street from Ranger Stadium, but they think they will live in Mansfield, a suburb. Jamie is up for the move and 3 out of the 4 kids are happy to leave Havelock schools. (Becca is a cheerleader and has earned a lot of money toward a trip to NYC with her Choirmates in June … bummer.)

It’s all pretty exciting. Jason has already been working in Texas, coming home on the weekends, and will go ahead of the family around December lst. Jamie and the kids will follow in early January.

They want us to come with them, and we probably will (it’s part of a migration west) but not right now. We’re in the process of hernia surgery (Dave)  and breast and liver biopsies (Sam), and need to take some time to get ourselves back together. Everything is really okay, well managed, just preventative stuff. I have a liver condition that requires a biopsy just to be sure it isn’t worse than we think. I also need to lose 45 lbs. (!) I have lost 40 lbs in the last 10 months and am plodding along. It’s a daunting thought but a tricky liver is pretty motivating.

I am joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Through going to church, reading the Book of Mormon, and study with a young missionary from Las Vegas, I have seen a way out of the spiritual desert I’ve been living in for too long. I feel like I can pray again, that my prayers are heard and that I can evolve spiritually in this church. Dave is mystified but very supportive. Jason and his family have never pressured me, not even a little; it might even have surprised them when I decided.

I have to admit that every now and then it kind of hits me: I never thought I would end up a Mormon. And I certainly never thought I’d be a Mormon living in Texas!!

We are just now climbing out from under the damage from Hurricane Irene. It took a long time for the city/county to pick up the debris. The trees were so damaged by the 24 hours of sustained high winds that they are trying to bloom now. Camellias are all budded  early, as is our ornamental pear tree and the little pomegranate in back.

We’re getting to know the Neuse River. The Neuse fluctuates only about six inches from the tides. Other fluctuation is from wind: Out of the east, the river rises; out of the west, or usually nw, the river drops in depth to where we can see old pilings used to steer logs down to a nearby, defunct sawmill. I don’t know how far we are from the ocean; we are close to the Hatteras Yacht Company.

At the edge of our  backyard is a 5 foot concrete ledge that runs along the water. Today the water is as smooth as glass, and about a foot below that ledge. But yesterday the water was up so high the waves were over the concrete and pushed pine debris up a foot onto the lawn.

Dave rides his bike at least every other day. Does all his errands on his bike. Yesterday he rode to Havelock to the kids’ for dinner. We still haven’t sold the bus. If our electric bill gets any higher we may have to move back in it! Davey sours at the thought of moving to Texas, but if we moved in the bus he would find it more attractive. We both miss the bus and the travel, but Dave REALLY misses it.

And we miss YOU! We watch the weather channel, to see what you’re all dealing with, west and east coast. And we think of you, lovingly.

Sam and Dave, Always

September 12, 2011

Dear friends,

A note to update you on the Swans. It seems strange to write without going anywhere, but our days are still full, albeit a little slower. We moved in to our little house on River Drive last week. Borrowed a pickup to get the few pieces of furniture from the new storage unit here, and drove the bus into the driveway. As moves go, pretty simple. (If you don’t count the cross country trip!) We are set up quite minimally, but comfortably. We had the Swan tribe for dinner on Saturday and ate ribs on the deck; it felt like home.

Xander would seriously consider moving in with us, he is so captivated by the backyard and the water. He made himself a net and brought a big jar and spent all his time catching things, dead and alive. Lots of crabs, little fish, eels (worms?) and turtles.

We have told our Southeast Publications managers we cannot work anymore. We are going to try and do a park just down the road from us, but our RV park sales job is essentially over. It is very hard to give up, but it is time. We are taking steps to sell the bus. Which is even harder to give up, but ….

I am very happy puttering around, but would like to go to New York every year or so, thus am looking (sort of) for a job. Dave would like to work in a hardware store, and we have a wonderful, old fashioned such place just down the street, but they seem to be fully staffed until someone dies. When we went on the road, before the RV park job fell into our laps, we planned to work at jobs we liked, sort of apprenticeship jobs. We don’t need a lot of money, but we would like a little bit of money. So we will see. There could be more adventure waiting.

Our little house is perfect. You can stand in the square of the hallway and see every space in the house except the front door. It has a very contemporary feel with the high ceilings and all windows on the deck side; we don’t plan to put drapes up. Windows on the front have wooden slat blinds, ditto bedrooms. Anyone coming up on us in the night would have to come via the river, and it seems pretty silly to worry about that. Plus there are motion sensors.

The birds have found my feeders, and the next door dachshund, Greta, comes in the morning for a treat. We go to the storage unit every other day or so and bring back more boxes. It’s like Christmas! I found the greatest SHOES! We are shopping today for a used bookcase or two, so we can get our books unpacked. It will be like greeting old friends!

We’ll have the spare room set up soon, so you can come and visit. Google New Bern and put us in your plans to visit the east coast.

Love,

Sam and Dave

 

 

ugust 21, 2011

Dear Friends,

We be home. And this time it sort of feels like home. Not in the driveway, exactly, but in North Carolina.

Our trip west, which began on July 13th, was amazingly smooth. Our boys made the trip possible for us. We count Kurt, Dave’s nephew, as one of our boys. He furnished his downstairs apartment in Bothell, WA, and loaned us his car. Kevin got us to Salt Lake City and Jason reserved the perfect truck for our haul, at $l,000 less than we were able to find. He also somehow found us a room in Logan, Utah which was full with a convention in town.

Once again, we weren’t able to see everyone we wanted to see. We selfishly spent time with son Kevin, Shelly and Morgan, plus Dave’s sister Carole and kids and my brother Steve and family. To our friends in Yelm, Eugene, Bend, Ashland, North Bend, Pahrump, Polson, Cove, Salem, Lake Oswego, Roosevelt and Preston … we hope to connect on another trip.

Following are the high spots of the 7 day trip from our storage unit in Utah to New Bern, NC in a Penske truck mainly full of Sam’s art supplies, books, fabric, photos and memorabilia, plus a few household furnishings and one box of Dave’s stuff.

Day 1. Logan to Rawlins, WY, the arm pit of the western world. We’ve been there before and vowed never to go back. We were just so tired. We ate at a dinner house that featured a full bar and chicken, but they had neither. “Sorry, the chikin is prolly on the same truck as the wahn and it din git har.”

Day 2. Nebraska. Flat. Green. Corn. We crossed the Platte River, the North Platte, a couple of Platte channels and the South Central North Platte (!)

Day 3. Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri. Went through the corner of Kansas because U.S. 29 is still flooded by the Missouri River.

Day 4. Missouri, Illinois. Good weather continues. Fertilizer signs advertise “MorCorn.” No kidding. Went through St. Louis at 2 PM Sunday but it was still a 9 on the Larry & Rachel Baker scale of Trailer Terror. Crossed the Big Muddy and neither of us saw it!

Day 5. Kentucky, Tennessee. Finally ran out of corn in the Daniel Boone National Forest. We braced ourselves to haul a heavy load over the Cumberland Gap but it was less than 4,000 ft. Kudzu, a voracious green vine, blankets the roadside. Like ivy on steroids, it covers everything in its path, hated but beautiful this time of year. Tennessee has us meandering through miles of knobs and hollers, with the faint sound of banjoes on the breeze….

Day 6. North Carolina. Soy beans and tobacco. The corn is planted, two feet high and burned brown. Too hot. No rain.

Dave’s ears have been sore and plugged for 5 weeks (he’s had treatment twice). It hurts his ears to talk loudly. I’m deaf in one ear (the ear on the side of his good eye, so we haven’t been able to hear one another this entire trip. It has been especially trying in the truck which has great, but noisy, A/C. I think we’ve handled it with patience that comes with caring, if not grace.

I lost two fillings on the trip and Dave’s belly hernia announced itself with the first box he picked up. We found a weightlifter’s belt that worked really well but next week we’ll get it checked and taken care of.

Jason helped us unload the truck into a storage unit in New Bern. When we finished we went to look at a house that was advertised in the paper that morning. It is just perfectly “us.” We still can’t believe it. The house is one huge open room with a couple of supporting posts and a galley kitchen, and cathedral ceiling. One wall is all window looking out over a nice deck and lawn running down to the Neuse River. Two bedrooms with white wood floors are attached to the big room; a beach house feel. The big room has light gray carpet, white walls, one half mirrored. The owners live next door, are very nice and will let their two Dachies visit. The back yard has 12 foot high hedges on both sides. The owner has a pad where he parks his boats and will let us park the bus and plug it in. No garage, but Dave is willing to trade the garage for the openness to the outdoors and the deck. 1702 River Drive, New Bern, NC 28560. We will move in after they clean and paint, within a couple of weeks, I think. You can google the address and see the front of the house. Very unimposing, but planter boxes all the way around; I can hardly wait!

We are very glad to be able to continue painting our own picture. The picture is changing but we are still able to handle the brushes. Some day we will probably just be color in the background of someone else’s picture, but not yet. And so the beat goes on.

Love,

Sam

June 24, 2011

Bright new greetings from the bus in the driveway in Havelock, North Carolina. This week I had my second cataract operation and not only can I read the road signs, I can put away the magnifying glass I’ve been using for the past year. The good news is that I can read the ball scores on TV; the bad news is I’m shocked at how old I look!

We have thoroughly enjoyed being close to the kids these past six weeks, The Grands have kept us busy with a flurry of T-ball, softball and LaCrosse as the school year ended. We have dinner together two or three times a week and help out where we can. Grampa especially likes a little list of chores, now that he has all our stuff polished.

We are looking forward to flying out to Seattle/Tacoma on July 13th. We originally planned to fly to Utah after our visit and rent a U-haul to drive our stuff back here. (It’s still in a storage unit in Logan.) We have calculated the cost at $3,500 though, so may just leave it there. We expect to be back in the Northwest in three – four  years, and while there is stuff I’d like to have (my art) there’s nothing I need.

We are planning to rent a place in New Bern, NC when we get back. We aren’t sure about continuing our job. If we do, it will involve a smaller geographic area than we worked before.

I am feeling much better. My shoulder has improved, though I hope to get a cortisone shot before we take our trip. My foot has healed up nicely. I still can’t quite get the diabetes and liver function under control. I’ve had an ultrasound which ruled out a liver tumor but my liver enzymes are alarmingly high. I don’t drink anymore (although I remember those days fondly) and I quit taking all arthritis and pain meds in February. I had a screen for hepatitis last week but don’t have the results yet. The next step is to change the diabetes meds since it appears something I’m taking is irritating my liver. Dave figures it’s Diet Coke. I hope not.

Anyway, it would appear that life on the road as we’ve enjoyed it is coming to a close. We’re having kind of a hard time with the transition, but are talking it out, and fortunately have given ourselves enough time that we are coming to fairly comfortable conclusions.

We  find a lot of similarity between Oregon and North Carolina; the ocean, the rolling Piedmont, piney woods and a mountain area blue and cool six hours away. New Bern was established in 1710 and was the states first capital. The Tryon Palace, home to early Governors, is still the main tourist attraction. It is an artist friendly town of around 30,000, has two community theatres and a beautiful waterfront. (Also the birthplace of Pepsi, originally known as “Brad’s Drink,” developed in a local drug store soda fountain.)

We are following, in addition to the Mariners, the Kinston Indians, a farm team for Cleveland. Kinston is the smallest city in the nation with a minor league team, and baseball in Kinston (an hour away) goes back to 1908. They are in the Carolina league and are moving next year, so we are glad we’re getting see them now.

The family made a trek last week to Beaufort, NC to see the new Blackbeard exhibit. They have found the wreckage of his flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, that ran aground in 1718 in Beaufort Inlet. They have built an exhibit around the artifacts recently brought  up. We loved it. Xander got pretty excited yesterday when he caught me in my black eye patch. ( only wear it at night for a few days); he’s got dibs on it when I’m through.,

This afternoon we are going to explore Bath, NC, where Blackbeard “settled” after a pardon from the King. He evidently didn’t stay “settled” long, but there are probably still some pretty good T-shirts for sale. Legend has it that there is buried booty somewhere around Bath.

Tonight we are going to see “The Promised Land,” an annual pageant the Mormon Community presents near Bath. It’s the story of one family’s journey and travails to go west. Susie has a lead role, and Katie is proudly playing “a townspeople.”

Winter, spring and fall in North Carolina are wonderful “weather-wise.” Summer, not so much, and summer arrived instead of spring this year. It’s been the hottest, driest spring in Eastern NC since 1957. Temps have been running in the mid nineties. It gets down to the seventies at night. (Fran Greenlee, in Bend was rejoicing the other day because it has finally gotten into the seventies during the day!) Dave is tanned and happy in the heat.

We do get some breezes. Had some in the 50 mph range the other night! By the time we got out to put up the awning the rainwater in the driveway was over the tops of our feet. These storms are very dramatic, constant lightning and sometimes, hail as big as a quarter. Fortunately the hail has missed us.

We always like to share culinary adventures in the South, and we often think of Jim Gozdowski when we make these stops. Jim always counted on Dave to visit the, shall we say, “not so mainstream” spots and try the “unknown special.”  At Ghent’s Sandwich Shop in New Bern (est. 1949) the perky little waitress said “We’re famous for the hot hamburger plate, y’all should try it.”  So we did; Dave also ordered an Arnold Palmer, which he had to explain, was half ice tea and half lemonade. “Cool,” she says. “Who’s Arnold Palmer?” We described Arnie as best we could and she said: “Oh! Like Tiger Woods only a rilly nice person!” Yep. And the hot hamburger plate turned out to be a slice of wonder bread topped with a burger patty and cheese, and the whole plate covered with french fries and gravy!! And it really wasn’t nearly as tasty as the fries and gravy we enjoyed in Quebec. But it ate okay, even if we didn’t cover the mess with ketchup the way Miss Perky recommended.

Well, that’s the latest Word from the Bird. Hope you all have some sunshine and cool breezes. We’ll be in touch.

Love,

Sam & Dave

April 15, 2011

We watch the TV weather channel daily and always feel so bad when we see the rain and cold hitting Oregon and Washington. It seems like everywhere has a drawback sometime, whether it is sleet in Washington DC or wild fires in El Paso, snow in Montana. But this time of the year, in the southeast, with no hurricanes in sight (knock, knock), it is just “Lhuveiluh.” All winter the wisteria has climbed the pines without notice. Now it has burst into trembling clumps of flower, purpling the trees. White iris fills the ditches and pink dogwood takes a dainty stand in many a half acre yard. We watched the Master’s Golf Tournament just 45 miles from Augusta and with the windows open, couldn’t tell if the bird sounds were outside or on the TV. This is the place to be in the winter and spring.

Since we left Savannah we have done a commercial park in Statesboro and a State Park in Jackson, Georgia. We just finished a State Park in Elberton, Georgia, up on the Savannah River, bordering South Carolina. Working in these small towns is very hard. Unemployment has just improved to 15%, and there are many empty store fronts.

The State Park at High Falls, or Jackson, GA has been one of our most profitable parks for four years, even though we have not had the support of park management for the past couple of years. This year was even worse. We make the park 10,000 maps, which is a high print price and we have a hard time getting anyone to “go upstairs” and see how many boxes of last year’s maps are left. This year we felt like we had to insist, something just didn’t feel right, and sure enough, ALL of last year’s maps were upstairs. Wuh! It was a very uncomfortable time. our interpretation of southern manners looked like a thin veneer of civility spread over a fairly big slab of mean.

This description actually comes from our friend Ron who got stopped by a sheriff when he was a young man in southern Georgia. I’m sure the sheriff was Butt Cut Cates, who detained Ron and scared him pretty good. When Ron asked how he could get un-detained, the sheriff took him down to the local Conoco Station and told the proprieter, “Bubba, mah fren heyar wonts to bah four tars, but he doan wona to takem wiffum.”

Our 10 days here in Elberton has been interesting. The park is beautiful, but has no cell service, no computer service and no sewer hookups. Town is nearly 10 miles away. Elberton is the “Granite Capital of the World,” hosting 45 granite quarries and 89 processing plants. A granite quarry is surreal in that it looks like it’s made of leggo pieces, all straight lines and up and down slabs. Granite isn’t dug out of the ground, it is lasered and sliced. And according to the signs they will shoot you if you go in without permission. The factory outlet for granite markers is at the edge of town; remnants are readily available.

We had to smile every day, passing the emu farm, advertising emu oil. “How do you get emu oil?” I ruminate.  Dave says you squeeze ‘em. We should have stopped. Elberton offered us many examples of how important the human contact is. Sometimes in sales, I don’t get the “touch” I would like, no doubt owing to my own issues, but I miss them nevertheless. When I called on a towing operation, I couldn’t help but notice a monster rottwieler they use to guard the parts and cars inside the fence. The next day when I came back, I brought a couple of steak bones from our dinner and since everyone was out to lunch, I left the plastic bag of bones on the door mat. The dog saw me but I didn’t approach him. Later that afternoon I dropped by to show the owner the ad we had made for him, and before I could say “Did Chub like the bones?” this dog leapt up across the counter and licked and wiggled like a pup. I just couldn’t believe this dog associated the sight of me with those bones. What a smart dog! Chub got real playful for his picture (attached).

We had to get tires for the car, and decided to get them from a tire dealer who had bought an ad in the state park map. I know it was a difficult choice for the owner and I worked him pretty hard. We got four good tires, and the owner was pleased, but the tires were almost like a gift. They rotated the tires on the bus for a really good price and a LOT of grunt work, and let us stay overnight on their lot in downtown Elberton. By the time we left we felt like we had friends here

We are now in a park outside of  Lincolnton, Georgia, about 45 miles down the road. It’s another State Park, closer to Augusta, and a little better off than where we are now. That’s our last job until fall, unless we can round up a good one. I have my eye on a park in Ava Gardner’s home town; been trying to get it for three years.

We are trying to find a place to stay in New Bern, NC, while we get established with doctors. I need to get my shoulder treated, probably need to have cataract surgery, and get some follow up for the blood sugar, which has come down nicely. When my blood sugar went up, my triglycerides went up, and my liver enzymes went sky high. I haven’t taken any pain meds since the first of February, and the liver enzymes look much better. I am, however, somewhat cranky.

About my opening remarks on weather: Okay, the southeast does have about 250 tornadoes a year. We were really braced Friday night, but it passed right around us and got very close to where the kids are. We’re all okay, though.

Hoping you are the same, or better!

Sam

March 13, 2011

Even though it has been cold in the Southeast this winter, we see the temperatures in Bend every morning and shudder. Our TV weather channel is set to display the weather for the  97702 zip code, so that’s what comes up first.  It keeps everything in perspective for us. We are in Georgia, where so many trees are blooming, looking a little stark in their beauty, as they are still leafless, but they are blooming. The tulip trees, bradford pears, redbud, are all shouting spring. As a kid said to me the other day, “It don’t get no realer than this!”

We finished the park at Skidaway Island and did very well. Once again we were stunned by the contrast in lives just moments apart. Justice Long John Thomas was raised in a trailer park just off the Diamond Causeway, which leads over the Moon River to Skidaway Island. It could not be farther in economic levels from the sweater sets and pearls of the Island itself. Trailer parks here are not manufactured units set into landscaped terraces and built to look permanent. They are rectangles of tin and plastic set in mud at angles which approximate rows and are identified by the flotsam out front of each of them. The rust can be identifiable, too.

At the entrance to the park is a huge United Methodist Church, which was advertising a “spiritual concert” last week. I went down to hear it and was surprised to find there was not a person of color in the church. Oh, there were two black kids in the children’s choir, but I’m sure they are adopted. I’ve never seen such a homogenized group. They were mostly old, very well tailored, thin and respectful. The choir was very good, but needless to say, there was no clapping and no amens. The children’s choir was small and sort of a musical bone thrown to the few young couples, but the bell ringers, all women, white haired and gloved, were wonderful.

Once again we have missed our chance to go to the Tick Museum. Statesboro has the largest display of ticks in the world and it’s on our (my) list of “really want to sees,” but it is only open on Wednesdays between 3:30 and 4:30. Hard to make it.

Cotton is king again in Georgia. If you are going to buy new sheets, better get them now. Because of floods in Indonesia and poor crops in China, or wherever the cotton has been grown before this year, the price of cotton has gone from $l per pound to $2 per pound. Every available acre is going into Cotton in Georgia this year. I can’t remember the numbers for certain but it seems like the paper said there would be 15,000 acres in cotton, compared to 2,000 acres in peanuts, in the area under discussion. Wish we could be here to see it planted.

I’ve written often about the southern civility that so defines this area. Very often it makes it difficult to sell, because the prospective buyer will tell me what he thinks I want to hear, when he has no intention of buying. It makes the process long and sometimes irritating. Not so much anymore, now that I understand it. Not long ago I heard civility raised to the nth degree when an elder statesman referred to the civil war as “that recent unpleasantness.”

If you ever get to Savannah you must drive out to Sandfly (on your way to Wormsloe Plantation and the Isle of Hope) and stop in at Violet Garden. I met a woman named Laurie there, a free spirit from the Chicago Art Institute who loves cowboy boots. She asked about our lifestyle, as a lot of people do, and astutely went right to the heart of the trades: a limited wardrobe in exchange for experiencing a lot of places; personal freedom at the price of the laundry from hell, and the killer: never enough room  for shoes. Especially cowboy boots. Laughing with Laurie and sharing a few kindred “I knoooowwwws,” made me realize that this lifestyle also trades off travel for close friendships. I rarely meet and enjoy someone I could share so easily with. Or maybe I meet them but don’t have the time to realize how much I would enjoy  sharing with them. Laurie is just so beautifully out there, it was easy to connect. I bought a tiny copper vase and she gave me the orchid stem that was in it. It touched me so much I was a little shaken. Somehow it reminded me of the time when I was newly married, living five miles outside town on a ranch with no car and my husband asked me what I did all day. “Oh, I’m training the chickens,” I told him. I didn’t realize how isolated I was.

We are at Jason and Jamie’s right now. Drove the car up from Savannah to see the doctor about my blood sugar numbers. We are having to start over in getting established with doctors now that our insurance change has gone through. On the way up, an 8 hour drive, we stopped at a traffic light in Wilmington and the car died. People very quickly stopped for us, directed traffic around and pushed us into an area where we could be towed. We spent the night in a motel, kindly delivered by tow truck, and got a rental car the next morning to come on up to Havelock. That was last Friday; the bad news came Monday morning. A broken timing belt. It will cost us about $4,500. It’s just devastating. And we still don’t have the car. We are going to Wilmington tomorrow, Monday, and wait for it. We need to get back and pick up the Bird; the nice folks at Metter have let us leave it in exchange for some computer work Dave did for them.

As always, it has been great being here with the kids. We have the big bedroom upstairs and can nap when we (I) want. A special treat was the birthday dessert Becca made for Grandpa. It is a gourmet cupcake built to resemble a sandwich. The bottom layer is cupcake, then comes a layer of swiss cheese (rolled out lemon starburst), ham (pink starburst), lettuce (corn flakes rolled in green icing), onion rings (another starburst), and topped with a doughnut bar. It was served with french fries (crinkle cut angel food cake strips). Give that girl an A!!

Love to all,

Sam

February 14, 2011

We left Jason and Jamie’s almost a month ago, and are hopefully finishing up winter in Georgia. There has been a lot of rain, and more cold than you can imagine when you think of the Carolinas and Georgia. We spent two weeks in Statesboro, GA, home of the Georgia Southern Screaming Eagles, and now we are about 20 miles southwest of Statesboro outside the little town of Metter. “Everything’s Better in Metter.”

Statesboro is a lively college town, with a lot more tattoo parlors and biker bars than would seem likely in a southern, upscale college locale. The freebie newspaper not only lists arrests of the week, but runs the mug shots! And they aren’t all black!

This whole area of mid eastern Georgia is still suffering economically. Selling ads is tough. This is an area where snowbirds come to spend October through April, and it appears a lot of them didn’t come this year.

For some reason, my blood sugar numbers spiked while in Statesboro, and I was turned away by five internal medicine clinics. Five! The urgent care center couldn’t treat me for diabetes, but really went the extra mile to find a doctor who would. They also challenged a couple of clinics who maintained they didn’t take our insurance; turns out they don’t want to treat a patient they can’t follow up on. The clinic I finally saw ran all the appropriate tests and gave me a prescription for a bigger dose of the insulin resistance med I take and my numbers are almost back to normal. Life on the road is a lot more fun if you don’t have any health issues.

Here in Metter, we are surrounded by cotton fields. Hope we are still in the area when they plant. There are three cotton gins in the area. Seems like I read somewhere that the cotton producers offshore have been impacted by floods or some other natural disaster and the price of cotton is going to go up. Maybe there will be more cotton planted in the south.

Georgia has initiated legislation to stop illegal immigrants working in the state. I don’t know why this came up, but it has riled a lot of farmers who are dependent on migrant workers. Peaches, pecans and onions (Vidalia is one county over) are labor intensive crops.

We are back in the land of geechees and hoochees, catfish and sweet tea and biscuits. Hoooooeeeee. Today we had lunch at a very typical southern buffet. The chicken is cut so you can’t get too much white meat no matter which piece you choose. Dave had to ask what the “potato” dish was, even after he ate it. It was mashed red potatoes, alright, but it had so much bacon grease in it the potato taste was gone. We passed on the gizzards and grits. On the other hand, down the street at a lunch counter, Dave had the best chicken salad sandwich of his life! It’s made with cranberries!

One more week here and we move to Skidaway Island State Park on the edge of Savannah. We hope to meet our Bluebird friends, Suska and Lou there and as always, look for the painted bunting.       Love to all,     Sam

January 17, 2011

Dear Friends,

We be pulling out of the driveway tomorrow or the next day for sure. A big rainstorm blew in and delayed our start today. The older we get the more we restrict ourselves to fair weather travel. Driving in the rain is not pleasant but hooking up and unhooking the car is really miserable in the wet.

We are just going 500 miles down the road to Statesboro, Georgia. It is a nice little college town about 60 miles NW of Savannah. After that we go to Savannah, or possibly to a State Park in extreme southwest South Carolina. We would rather do that Park in May when it is warmer, but they might be out of maps – don’t know yet.

We have loved our time here, as always, with Jason and Jamie and the kids. We stayed here while we did a park 15 miles toward the coast. Actually, I’m still following up and selling on that park, even tho we sent the job in a month ago. North Carolina is a very interesting state, kind of independent compared to other southern states. Reminds us of Oregon, in that there are mountains and the seashore on opposite sides of the state. We are still talking about parking the bus and living in downtown Raleigh for a year or two. Culturally, it is very rich. And I could probably get a few new parts there; it’s a real medical hub.

You can always recognize a North Carolina accent: they say “impordant,” instead of “important.” I’ve spotted it in everyone from John Edwards  (p-tooey!), to the girl at Wal-Mart. They also seem to drop letters, for example the number 5555 is fitty five, fitty five. But maybe not everyone does that.

It appears to us that North Carolina has always had an interesting mix of people and ideas. From the time of the civil war, when there was a great division of thought. Originally populated by Scots and the English, I guess it was to be expected. Today we find a great array of religious expression, compared to say, the preponderance of Baptists in Georgia. (The Mormons say Methodists are just Baptists who can read.) We recently read a book that just staggered us: Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy B. Tyson. It is a true story set in a small town north of Raleigh in 1970. The author is a white guy, professor of Afro-American studies, son of a small town preacher, and he tells the story in first person. It starts out with a 10-year-old rushing up to announce “Daddy and Roger and ‘em shot ‘em a nigger.” Anyone who is interested in race relations has to read this book; the story itself is riveting, and to have the story assessed by someone who knows both sides as well as anyone can, is just epic.

We send love to all. Hope you escaped the flu and that bad weather is on the wane. May 2011 be a good year for us all!
Sam and Dave

December 13, 2010

Dear Friends,

Two months since our last update – you must think we’re dead, or, as we like to think, having too much fun, no time to write. The latter is more true than not. I hesitate to bore you with my perceptions when we aren’t traveling – they tend to involve my clever and doting husband, brilliant sons, perfect daughters-in-law and one-of-a-kind grandchildren. Add in my personal aches and pains and it’s the How-We-Be from hell!

We spent a week in St. Petersburg, Florida in early November. We were busy for five days with the Company Meeting (and a good one it was this year!) We enjoyed the lazy trip down and back. Everything was still green and warm most of November. The winter uglies hit us about ten days ago and it is now brown and scraggly and freezing every night. Jason put in a power box with 50 amps for the bus so we’re toasty but Dave is still talking about researching the Florida Keys.

Who knew oranges fresh from the tree are dirty brown and green, and are “gassed” to turn them “orange?” What a comment on our society that we have to have a product cosmetically attractive before we’ll buy it.

We just finished a job 15 miles down the road by the ocean that has given us a chance to explore the Crystal Coast of North Carolina. Little towns like Swansboro, Cedar Point and Bogue  are full of small frame houses showing the crippling angles of age. Fishing is a livelihood as well as a major sport. Huge RV parks are full of park models, which people buy or rent for a portion of the year, or permanently. A park model is approximately the same size as a single-wide trailer except it has a peak roof, lot of windows and usually a cute little porch. The aren’t meant to be moved once in place.

We have enjoyed trips to Fort Macon, built around 1826 to guard Beaufort Harbor. Confederate troops seized the Fort at the outbreak of the Civil War. Higgins Island, out of Swansboro, is the site of the only unspoiled Confederate earthen fortification on the NC Coast. Our Civil War study is alive and well here.

We are scheduled to work a park in the Northwest part of the state, in the Blue Ridge Mts. in June. I’m especially looking forward to the folk art in that area.

Wishing you all the best in the New Year, and a Very Merry Christmas to start if off! We, as usual as of late, be enjoying our time with the family here.

Sam

After a extremely busy July it was nice to have a relaxing August. Then School started up again and we are super busy again! It’s all good though!!!

The highlight of August was Susie coming home from her summer in Utah!!! She had a wonderful time with family and friends out there but we missed her terribly! I think it was the toughest for Katie, ok well maybe she was the most vocal about it. Susie made her a doll before she left so she could sleep with it and whenever she was sad and missing Susie she could hold her doll. It was very sweet of Susie. Well Katie literally packed that doll everywhere for the 6 weeks Susie was gone! Couldn’t find it a couple of times at bedtime and it was trauma! Katie really really missed Susie. Becca missed her too. Alot. Becca had been counting down the days to “graduate” from primary when she turned 12. Well then Susie left soon after and Becca decided that Young Women’s isn’t nearly as fun with Susie gone…poor kid was counting down the days until YW then had to start counting down the days until her friend Brooke turned 12 and could join YW too. It was a long month for Becca. And Xander… every night as he said his prayer he would pray that Susie’s plane wouldn’t crash on the way home!!!

And the low of August was our neighbors and good friends moving away. Our kids have spent the last 3 years playing with the Andrews on a almost daily basis! So we had lots of sad tears as we sent them off on their new adventures in Louisiana…we wish them well and miss them lots! We have many many fun memories with them…This is the hardest part of living in a military town. The longest these families stay in one area is usually 3 years so friends come and go and it’s hard to see them go…

Becca actually started school (7th grade) on July 14, the day our Freston family flew home from their visit here! She had mixed feelings about starting already but she did good being the only one in school…we are doing the year round schedule for Becca and the traditional calendar for Susie, Katie and Xander this school year. So Becca started early, Susie went to Utah with our family, Katie and Xander hung out together for the month of August! School for them started on the 25th of August. It was an exciting day for Susie, her first day in High School and an exciting day for Xander, his first day of Kindergarten…I had rather mixed feelings of having my oldest start HS and my youngest start K. We are officially in the next “phase” of life! Katie (now in 4th grade) had a first too, her first day at the new Elementary school we switched her to. She was very nervous and not very happy about the switch but she came home very happy and loving it! This new school has a fun tradition that the kids are met on the first day of school by teachers in tuxes and the principal in a fancy dress and they roll out the “red carpet” for the kids to walk into the school. It was very fun!!! We of course had to do our traditional cookies and milk when they all got home! We invited our friends the Escobar’s to join us!

Susie made the color guard team for Havelock High School. They started practicing at the end of last school year and they had lots of practice time and activities all summer long. Well since Susie was in Utah for 6 weeks she missed alot. When she got back she worked really hard to get caught up and is almost there. She was able to perform part of the routine at their first football game, she snuck in on the last movement. She was super nervous when I dropped her off but afterwards she said it was awesome, she wasn’t scared at all! Way to go Susie…it was fun watching her but seriously they need some major help with their outfits!!!! They are awful, not even school colors and what is up with the socks! I can’t believe we actually paid money for it!!! They should pay HER to wear it!!! (btw I wouldn’t be saying this here if Susie didn’t agree with me 100%!) High School has been quite an adjustment for Susie. She is absolutely exhausted! Her day starts at 5:15 and she is off to early morning seminary at 6:15, school is out at 3 and then MTH she has Color Guard practice, W she has YW, then Friday night a performance at a football game and then a competition that takes up most of Saturday. Each night she is averaging 5 hours of homework so she doesn’t get to bed until midnight or sometimes later. It’s CRAZY!

Becca continues to do great in school, gets her work done quickly and rarely has homework. She decided to try out for the volleyball team, thanks to her cousin Jaicee who plays and while visiting us in July got Becca interested in it. (Of course I have suggested it several times but NOOOO mom’s are clueless don’t you know!!!) She LOVED it! They have a strange program here though, really stinks actually. They cut the season in half and doubled up the games so they play each school twice but it’s all in one night. So their season was a total of 5 weeks! Seriously…it’s all about money, or lack of. She got to play quite a bit and did really great. Becca has really matured physically, she is almost as tall as me and has a beautiful girly figure now. A few months back she had to get glasses and they are so adorable, she wasn’t too happy about it but she only has to wear them to see the board at school or watching TV.  After the Dr. told her she would need them she said “Great… glasses now and next braces, I am going to be such a nerd!” She is scheduled to have her braces on in December. Becca is on her 3 week break right now, we’ve had fun hanging out together, she is such a fun kid. She has LOVED rubbing it in her siblings faces that she gets to stay up late and sleep in while they have to go to school. When I picked her up on her last day before break she was absolutely giddy…I told her this is the most excited she has ever been to start break. She told me “Of course I am excited…I get to sleep in, have the computer to myself, the TV to myself and no bratty kids around to irritate me!” Does she sound like a teenager or what!

Katie had kind of a rough summer. She really struggled with Susie being gone, with her best friend Sophie moving, fighting a lot with Xander, anxiety about starting a new school again. But once Susie got home and school started up she cheered right up. She loves school and does really well. We always get great comments from her teachers about how they really enjoy her. Her new teacher Ms. McNay is perfect for Katie. She does these “brain breaks” during the day and has taught the kids some dances and songs, some are line dances. Anyway Katie loves it of course, this is Katie who sings ALL the time!!! I was volunteering one day when they had a brain break and it was so cute all the kids singing and dancing together. She came home a week or so ago just bustin’ at the seams! She had made the Singing Gators group at school, it’s like honor choir. She was beyond excited!!! Katie also had a fun Activity Days night. They had a modesty fashion show. All the girls were silly about it, a bit embarrassed walking the runway to model their clothes. Not Katie, she was swinging her hips and striking a pose at each stop like she had been modeling for years! Then her 2nd time through we all just cracked up, she came waltzing out in her nice dress bouncing a basketball! Only Katie could pull something like that off! What a character!  There are a few random pics of Katie being a Karate Kid and another of her playing Daddy dress up, and of her just being silly Katie!

Xander has been so excited for Kindergarten to start. It was a long month of August waiting for the 25th to roll around. He marked off the days on the calendar for both school and Susie coming home. School has been so good for him. The last few months he has really struggled with his attention span, or lack of it. He just can’t stay focused, school is helping. He has loved meeting new friends and his favorite part of the day is centers time. I love volunteering in his classroom and having him run and give me hugs. I miss him at home. They talked about and read chicka chicka boom boom and made their own CCBB tree out of food. For family home evening that night he gave us a detailed description of how to make our own CCBB treat and helped us each make one. He REALLY likes to be in charge! He was also super excited to go to the book fair because he could dress up as a super hero! He is too cute! He has also discovered that he likes to color. It has been very surprising, he has never shown much interest in coloring or art, only if someone is doing it with him and even that was iffy. But suddenly he is a pro. telling us how to do it, what colors to choose, making sure we stay in the lines, describing what color his friends were wearing at school, who was the model for the day. Each day they all draw one friend, who gets to take home a book that day of all the portraits of them. He is doing much better writing too. But even with all this school stuff his favorite thing to do is still using his imagination! I did have to take a picture of him one day because he had actually gotten out all of his cars and lined them up and was playing with them. It was literally the first time ever that he has done that. He has played with cars here and there if it is with a friend but never by himself, it’s just never interested him much. I was shocked and had to take a picture of it! Xander and his Daddy have really bonded lately. They have so much fun together…being guys! They went fishing and they love to joke about ‘bro’s before doe’s’ and all the bodily functions that boys and men seem to think are hilarious!!! He sure loves his Daddy!

Jason has been super busy. He is doing great at work, he’s on several projects. He has traveled a bit over the last few months… Texas, Virginia, San Diego and Arizona. In Arizona he had the great luck of being there the same time his brother Kevin was there on vacation so he got to meet up with Kevin and Shelly and have dinner with them! He was thrilled to see them again. With us on one coast and them on the other we don’t get to see each other very often. Being the Bishop has been good for him also, at least most of the time. I guess I should ask him but from my perspective it has been neat watching him through this process of stepping into such a huge calling and responsibility. It hasn’t been easy, he has had tough stuff happen and I have found myself on several occasions crying as I am on my morning run because I feel so overwhelmed for him. He is handling everything so well though and has helped so many people it is just amazing to me. I still can’t call him Bishop yet, it’s too weird…

I have been busy trying to build my photography business. I am enjoying it so much. Probably too much I’ve been able to do so many different sessions (newborn, maternity, engagement, families, kiddos, military…)and with each one I am learning more and more. Check out my website for all my latest work…www.familyphotosbyjamie.com. I am also enjoying a quiet house during the day. Enjoying my solitude before they all come home and it’s rush rush from one thing to the next.

We ended the month very WET!!! It started raining last Sunday and rained nearly nonstop until Friday. They released school early on Wed. and canceled school on both Thurs. and Fri. due to flooding. We had our usual ‘Swan Lake’ in our front yard that we always get when it rains but the ‘river’ rushing into the back forest behind our house was pretty impressive. So add on Conference this weekend and we have had a 5 day weekend!!!