We drove to Georgia to spend Easter with Dave and Sam. They were staying at General Coffee State Park, near Douglas Georgia. It was a long drive but worth it. We had a wonderful weekend. Jason got everyone set up fishing, and you better be sitting down for this one…he set them up with fishing POLES not fly fishing rods!!! It was a strange sight to see him throwing out line with a bobber on it instead of fly casting. Fly fishing is pretty limited here. The kids had a great time fishing even though nothing was biting. Becca did catch a new name on our adventure. Grampa named her Gator-bait! There was an island in the middle of the lake/pond we were fishing on and Grampa dared her to swim to it but to be careful of the alligators!!!

The state park is a protected area for gopher tortoises and eastern indego snakes. We got to see one tortoise in his little home, which was a underground cave/hole that it dug out for itself. It was larger than the size of a dinner plate. It was neat. The park also has a heritage center, the kids enjoyed the animals.

We also did some hiking. There were 2 geo-caches in the park so we set off to find them. The kids love geo-caching, it is like a treasure hunt for them. They love to see what is inside the cache and to trade in their stuff. One we found was started in 2004. After we found the first one Susie, Katie and Xander were done hiking so we headed back to camp. Jason and Becca kept going. Becca was really into it so the last day of camping she and Jason set up a cache for our family to start and hid it in a large, burned out tree stump.

And of course Easter was fun. The Easter Bunny hid lots of eggs all over the camp site. The hanging moss from the trees made good hiding places. This park was just covered in dried out moss hanging from the trees. Xander and I decided that it looked like a good episode from Scooby-Doo!!!

One quick Xander story: On the drive home he started breathing in and out of his nose really fast and loud and said “My nose not working!” to which I replied “Your nose isn’t working?” and he said “No, it got no batteries!” so there you have it, the wisdom of a 3 year old!

Anyway it was a great weekend. I put a bunch of photos in a slide show this time because there were so many! If you click on the arrows you can see the pictures in order, otherwise it shows them randomly for some reason…

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New road! Yee-haw! We’re headed north on 221 out of Douglas and General Coffee, (home of the Gopher Tortoise), planning to hit the 4 lanes of Hwy. 341 west to I-75. Our next park is on I-75, which is why it has over 500,000 visitors a year. High Falls State Park is a popular stop for eastern snowbirds.

Enigma, Snipesville, Huffer, Towns, Haynesville, Scotland, Lumber City, Chauncey, Rhine …little Georgia towns. This south-central part of Georgia seems to be over the drought they had the last two years, but are still severely depressed, economically. At least I think they are. The town we just left also suffers, generally, from indifference and indecision. When you are trying to overcome objections in sales, you just kind of have to bow out when faced with indifference. We did okay this year, better than last year, but if we can get a couple of South Carolina parks, closer to the kids, we will let General Coffee State Park go. We do 20 parks a year, and don’t want to do any more, so if we get a new one, we have to let an old one go.

Jason and Jamie, the four kids and dog drove down to spend a long Easter weekend with us. They’re about 9 hours away, so it was a major effort. And it was wonderful. Xander slept in the tent with mom and dad, and the three girls and Roxy slept in the front of the bus. The couch makes a queen bed and the table breaks down to make a single.Â
We ate outside at the picnic table; the weather was nippy at night but with bright, sunny days.

The kids went fishing and trooped through the mossy woods to find a geo cache and leave one of their own. Easter morning we woke to find the oak forest around us bright with plastic easter eggs. I was glad to get up early as my bed was full of sugar. The Easter Bunny forgot to put the peeps in the baskets, and at 3:30 a.m. I was trying to get the wrappers off quietly in the dark. Arghhh! After the kids left I was upset to find blood on the screen door and in the bathroom. Much relieved, I discovered it was chocolate.

There are lots of pecan orchards in this part of the south. They aren’t leafy yet, so stand black and skeletal against the new green grass. The Yoshino Cherry trees are in full bloom, a cotton candy color, great puffs of them filling the town squares and roadsides.Â
Macon (about 40 miles south of High Falls) has a 10-day festival to celebrate. We have missed the bed race but hope to catch some “porch pickin.”

My feeder is attracting lots of little sparrows and wrens. I got some special sunflower/saffron seed for the cardinals and they feed off the ground under the feeder. My favorite tufted tit mouse is evident from its loud “neener-neener-neener” cry. Life is good.

Love,

We be leaving Savannah, Georgia, leaving the parsley hawthorne, sweet gum and swamp oaks for a drier clime. Our job at Savannah Oaks RV Resort (“resort” is a stretch) was like working a park that had never had a map. A competitor had done the park the last few years. Didn’t do a very good job: They took an ad from Savannah Christian Church and put a pinpoint on the map to locate the church, but when you got there the location was actually the Catholic Church. Some hard feelings over that one. It was a hard sell, but we did okay. Next year will be even better.

The park neighbors the original Savannah-Ogeechee Canal, built in 1831 to carry cotton, lumber, etc. from inland to the port of Savannah. It isn’t used anymore, but in true southern tradition, stretches of it are maintained and have a nice walking path. The Ogeechee River is very dark and lazy and narrow where it comes through the park, but a little bit down the road it goes under I-95 as a good-sized, pretty river. They fish for red breast, bass, catfish and shad. I found a sign, broken and face down at the dock in the park: “No swimming! GAITER!”

The bird nests are disappearing as the trees leaf out. The pollen count is off the scale. Dogwood is blooming and wisteria is popping purple as it vines up into the pine trees. Planter boxes are full of cyclamen and snapdragons; pansies are a ground cover. We have identified the mulch we see all around: it is cypress bark, chipped and treated with a bright rosy orange color. The chain gangs are all their tether, wandering down the ditches and the medians, picking up litter. No horses anymore, just a guy in a bus following them with a gun.

Bumper sticker: WWBD (What would Bubba do?)

I sold an ad to a guy they call Boss Hawg the other day. I just called him Boss. The sales contact went something like this”

Mr. …uh…Boss, my name is Sam Swan. I’m staying at Savannah Oaks RV Resort, helping them with a new site map. We’d like to refer park visitors to you when they need tires. Can I show you the map?

Sy-am? Huh. Savannah Oaks? Huh. I disremember that park.

Sam shows a mockup of the map, shows location of the park, etc. Tells Mr. Boss that tire dealers do very well on RV park maps.

Ah don’t sayell Arvee tars.

No, I’m talking auto, truck tires. The RVs are all towing a vehicle and there are lots of 5th wheels in this park. The park owner says she quite often gets asked to recommend a tire store.

Huh. Ah got truck tars.

There you go!

Way-ell, come on back ‘here, darlin’. I guess we might could do sum bidiness.

We go to his office, a small room with every surface, walls, desk, covered in paper – invoices, old, new, calendars, old, new, posters, old, business cards, receipts, etc. Boss Hawg, looking sort of like Jackie Gleason in overalls, says, How much this gone cost me?

$468 for a full panel for one year.

GREAT LORDAGAWD, WOMAN, I cain’t do that! HUH. Mmmmmm. Huh.

Well, Sir, I can make you a smaller ad for less money, or what about sharing a big ad with your neighbor? That will just be $234 each.

Wull … Ah own the likker store next door.

Boss, to combine the liquor store with your tire store will be even better. This park has a high percentage of Canadians here for 2-3 months at a time. You’ll have the only liquor store on the map. Shall I write it up?

Shoot, darlin’ uh …okay … huh.

Boss Hawg loved the ad Dave made him for Boss Hawg’s Liquors and Harrison Tires. He even allowed as how he might could use the ad for the newspaper. Huh.

Not always an intellectual pursuit, this job, but very rewarding if you enjoy people and like the challenge of sales. Both Dave and I are getting better, but still have a hard time understanding people when they talk. And it’s not just the black people; the white people also talk mushy. I’m reminded of a guy I knew when I worked at the mill. Jim was a skinny guy from Georgia, completely forgettable (if you don’t count the fact that he spent time in the Big House for incest) except for the way he talked. He punctuated every sentence with “Enayouthin,” It translates to “and everything.” He used it like the kids say, “you know,” and I remember being fascinated, watching his mouth like I could see the words come out.

I wrote this yesterday. We got into our new park in late afternoon, so we’re off and running on a new job. General Coffee State Park is the home of the endangered gopher turtle and the indigo snake. This is our third year here, and Wally and Mary, the camp hosts from Ottawa greeted us by saving us the best space. Judy Peacock is still at the front desk at the ranger station, even though our favorite manager, Sim Davidson, has left to take a job at Little Ocmulgee State Park, up the road. Whoever thought we would get to know the Georgia State Park personnel so well!

Love to all,

P.S. We’re adding a couple of pictures. One is of me and my new ride (I wish). The other is a drawing done by Katie Swan, age 7, of Xander sleeping. I promise I won’t add any more of our grandkids’ artwork, but this one just made us laugh so hard we have to share it.

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Thought we’d get another update going on the kids…

Susie is enjoying drama club at school. She has 2 small parts for the play Bugsy Malone Jr. in May. She has chorus this semister and enjoys it but really misses art. Susie has been busy babysitting for neighbors and church members and dog sitting as well. She is so funny, the neighbors asked if she could come and just take the dogs out and feed them each day while they were gone. Well Susie went the extra mile and spent hours playing with the dogs and even gave them a bath. She is very responsible, has been for years now. She is going to be in high demand for the next several years I am sure…she is already booked up for the next 3 weekends for babysitting! Susie and Becca also enjoyed staying up late to watch the lunar eclipse with Daddy.

Becca is getting really excited to start softball. She has been out each day throwing the ball around with her sisters or her friend Casey. Becca has become very good friends with Casey, she has invited Casey to Activity Days several times and today she told me she wants to give Casey a Book of Mormon. So we tracked one down at the church house for her. She is also looking forward to a outing with her AIG group (can’t remember what AIG stands for but it is special classes Becca gets to go to each week for advanced students) they are having colonial days. Gramma Sam made this great dress for her. She is pretty excited!

Katie has now lost both front teeth so she is our toothless wonder! Some bigger news than that for Katie is that back in November she won a writing competition at her school. They sent it to the state competition and she was just notified that she won! Her story will be published in a North Carolina Young Authors Book. She has been invited to attend a celebration and receive her medal and a copy of the book in Raleigh in April and then there will be another local celebration here in May. She was very excited and we are very proud of her. I guess they made a huge deal about it at school, kids were asking for her autograph!!! Pretty cute! She also did a great presentation teaching her class about a famous American. She chose President Hinkley! It was awesome!

Xander is just as cute and fun as ever. We all just enjoy him so much. He loved Dr. Seuse Days at Preschool. And continues to love taking care of his puppy.

We left Havelock, and the kids’ driveway, on Valentine’s day, getting up early to tell everyone goodbye. It was an awful way to start the day, puffy eyed and sniffling for about 100 miles! Highway 17 South was a new road for us, always exciting. We were set to leave a day earlier, but a big storm came in. Storms here mean a deluge of rain and very high winds. A fatality was reported just a mile or so away when a tree branch blew down and in through a car window, killing the passenger.

Everyone has a ditch here. Water runs off the road, off the lawn, into a ditch. The water table is so high that the level (mostly) front lawn will have standing water in less than two hours. When we left, Jason’s front lawn had a visible nap, the bent grass all pointing to the ditch.

A Marine Harrier jet went down over the weekend not far from here. It landed in a field, nose down, the pilot parachuted to safety. They
don’t call them North Carolina lawn darts for nothing. A 20 million dollar lawn dart, too!

The military is a huge presence here, with the Marine Air Station at Cherry Point in the back yard, and Camp LeJeune 40 miles down the road. Lots of barber shops.

This part of North Carolina is very flat and full of pine trees. I’m not sure what kind of pine, Long Leaf, I think, but it resembles a real good looking lodgepole. The ins and outies of the North Carolina coast make it a boater’s paradise. Tourism seems stable and healthy;
they come from New England and Canada in the winter and Florida in the summer. A lot of the RV parks here are actually permanently placed mobile units of some sort that the owners visit. Diesel is $3.34 per gallon and lettuce is $1.79 a head. Cooking for eight has been a real experience. I really loved it, but was horrified to realize what it costs. To put a green salad on the table is about $5.00. That seems un-American to me.

Things we learned in North Carolina:

• Grits are purty darn good.
• You can go barefoot in January.
• Restaurants are not smoke free in a state supported by tobacco crops.
• Don’t knock a deep fried twinkie until you’ve tried it.
• You don’t have to dust the fruit bowl (and fruit) here.
• Our son will go to any lengths to retrieve the 1978 Swan kite (including calling 911 to borrow a ladder).
• Nicholas Sparks (“Time in a Bottle” and “The Notebook”) lives in New Bern, which is also the birthplace of Pepsi.

We are now settled and working at Skidaway Island State Park outside Savannah, Georgia. The storm was still rattling around in the south, and we got some more high winds, but no tornadoes. Our radio alarm works very well. As we have mentioned before, these southern states do not have the public land we enjoy in the west, so when a family wants to go camping, they go to a state park. Skidaway Island is a very popular park, and very busy. We’re able to make a nice map for them, and enjoy a good relationship with the park management.

Dave is feeling fine and swears he wakes up a little smarter and quicker every day, taking his brain stimulant pills. I’m getting back in our travel/work groove, although I sure miss having a kid pop in and tell me about their day. All three granddaughters are doing so well, loving school and their new friends; it was fun to be part of their lives for a couple of months. Even Xander liked to come to Gramma’s house. Xander pronounces his Cs as Ts, and it really amused this old hippie Gramma when he would say, “When I get up from my nap I’ll come out to the bus and have a toke, okay, Gramma?” He likes those little bottles of coke because he can screw the top back on; we had a lot of fun, watching Scooby Doo and having a “toke.”

We know we’re back in the South because we’re seeing lots of little stands along the road selling hot boiled peanuts. (They taste just exactly like what you would expect, soggy shell, slightly mushy peanut.) We are eating fresh strawberries from Florida, and gizzards are on the menu at KFC. We watch the weather channel and commiserate with you all, dealing with a tough winter. Davey spent Sunday in his shorts and sandals, had a nice bike ride around the island; it got down to 60 degrees in the night. We enjoy seeing folks use this park. It reminds us a lot of all the years we went camping; great times, great friends. Maybe one of these days we’ll put a fire in the fire ring and make s’mores.

Love to all,

Dear friends,

Well, we be a little more on the down side than the up side today, but we¹re plugging along. We had a consultation with the neurologist today, and the most you can say is, well, we’ve finished this chapter of the journey.

Dave is diagnosed as having had a series of tiny strokes, called pin strokes, which have caused some brain damage. It accounts for his memory loss, and the slowness in bringing a word to mind, mullti- tasking, and problem solving. He can still do everything he always could, only not as fast.

Plus, he has a slipped disc, vertebrae 6-7, resulting in a pinched nerve that goes down his arm to his pointer finger.

Both of these problems are more common in older people, of course, so the doctor can’t say with certainty that the accident caused them, although he did agree that if Dave had the conditions before the accident, the severe concussion obviously would have made them worse. The vascular damage in his brain is seen often when the brain has been shaken severely.

It is hard to say whether he will have more of these tiny little infarcts. They are so small he doesn’t know when they happen. Maybe he will never have another one. It is the cumulative effect of many of these little bursts that causes the symptoms, so we’re hoping this is the worst of it and he won’t have any more. We will have to do follow ups, of course, now that we have a baseline.

Anyway, we are through with the testing and have turned it all over to the attorney. They are in the process of gathering up all the medical records and figuring a settlement amount. We feel sure we can reach some sort of agreement without going to court, but it probably won’t be next month. We work with a paralegal who scares us just a little bit. She’s tall and angular and has electric red hair, honest, she looks like Bill the Cat, her hair is about 5″ long all over and sticks straight out from her head. The first impression is memorable. But she is definitely on our side and seems to know what she’s doing. The firm has nine offices and a couple of stately old gents on the letterhead, so we figure they’ll take care of us.

The doctor was quick to tell Davey that he does NOT have Alzheimer’s, but he has started him on one of the new drugs that Alzheimer’s patients use. He describes it as a brain stimulant and results are mixed, so we’ll see. A listed side effect is loss of appetite, so I’m hoping he gets enough for both of us. A brain stimulant that takes off 20 lbs. … that’s my kind of drug!

Thanks for your notes of concern and encouragement. We know we’ll be fine. I’m having a low day today, but the guy with the problems came home from the doctor and fixed the leaky toilet! And actually, I think he was just as fast as ever!

We are headed to Savannah on the 12th. We have been enjoying 80 degree weather the past few days and feeling fairly glad we aren’t in central Georgia right now. Tornadoes are probably the scariest thing we have come close to down here, and it’s even scarier when they blow through out of season.

Love to all,

We are still in the driveway at Jason and Jamie’s house in Havelock, North Carolina. We have gotten a wonderful grandchild fix (and enjoyed Jason and Jamie from time to time, too!) but are ready to move on. We are waiting on medical tests for Dave, and a follow up neurology visit on February 7th.

Forgive me for going on about this, but it has been so much on our minds, and must be subject to some wonder. Dave has had memory loss and some cognitive problems, like trouble saying the word he wants to say, since the auto accident last May. We were advised that recovery from this kind of problem, typical in concussion cases, is pretty much at a maximum by 12 months, so we have deliberately waited until we were here to get the necessary testing done. In addition, the pain in his neck, shoulder and arm has been diagnosed as a C-7 radiculopathy, which may or may not have been caused by the accident. He had some small episodes of “cricks” in his neck last summer, but it didn’t get really bad until October-November. An MRI is required for definitive diagnosis.

Here’s the rub. North and South Carolina have laws in place that say an insurance company will not pay medical bills until the claim is settled. We obviously are not going to settle this claim until we know for sure what the problems are and what we can do about it. So we are at a stalemate. Our insurance company (Progressive) told us to work with the insurance company of the guy who hit us (Progressive) and he has been impossible to work with. We have never exactly figured out whether he is clever or stupid, but it became obvious we could not work anything out with him. So we have hired an attorney, who explained all of the laws to us and is promising to work for an equitable settlement once the testing is completed.

Clear Choice, our health insurance, will only pay for emergency room visits, so we have been using the PIP coverage of our auto insurance to pay for accident related bills. It has not been smooth, as our attorney says “Don’t talk to either Progressive office,” but our medical claims representative (PIP money) won’t return the attorney’s calls, but will talk to me. WUH! Two MRIs is going to tap that fund. They have to do two of them, one for brain and one for neck, because they can’t use as much dye as it would take to do both scans at the same time. The PIP fund gets paid back in the settlement.

We are not behind schedule in terms of doing our Georgia parks, but we have been looking for work in the area and so have lined up a job at the Tidewater Air Services, a Fixed Base Operation at the New Bern Airport. It’’s a new job, so is hard and slow, but is keeping us busy and on the ball!

New Bern, NC is 15 miles inland from Havelock, and a charming town of about 18,000. It was the scene of an important civil war battle; the Neuse and Trent Rivers converge here, and the port was critical. There are many homes in the downtown area which were built around 1800; one little place boasts that George Washington stayed two nights in 1791! It’s the second oldest town in N.C. and the first capitol.

It is cold at night (well not cold by Bend standards, but below freezing) but balmy during the day. Our allergies are totally under control. Dave usually has the January “hack,” but not this year. Must be the gentle coastal winds. The planter boxes downtown are full of snap dragons and pansies; trees are starting to bud and people are cleaning up the long leaf pine needle mulch. A decorative bark is very evident because it is a bright rosy-rust color; Iâ™ll have to find out what it is.

Love to all,

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Our little X-man turned 3 on January 1. He had been telling people for weeks, actually a couple of months, before that “my birday Yanuary first”. It was very cute because some friends invited us over for a New Years Eve party and he was just sure that the entire party was for him. When we did the countdown to the new year we ended our cheering with the Happy Birthday song for him. He was loving all that attention. It was fun. We slept in late the next morning and then Xander made his own birthday cake. He told me he wanted a “brown” cake when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted. He did a great job. He loves to crack the eggs!

He got some fun toys but the most exciting was a new bike! He rode in the kitchen for a few days, it didn’t take long for him to be racing down the driveway. He even rode his bike on a walk we took around our neighborhood, he got going so fast his bike was just shaking…I was nervous that he would fall off but he didn’t, just kept pedaling away!

What a sweet little boy he is. We feel so very blessed to have him in our lives…

We have decided we love the weather here…(it has made up for the awful heat and humidity in Aug.). It has been like Sept. in Logan, my favorite time of the year. Days are warm, nights are cool. A couple days after Christmas we went with Jason’s parents to the beach to fly kites and have a picnic. We also went to the aquarium again. We have been several times but each time we have to drag the kids away when it is time to leave! Here are some photo’s of our outing!

I love these two pictures of Xander and G’pa Dave. Ya know what they say ‘imitation is the highest form of flattery’…

Well here are the kids in their new PJ’s on Christmas Eve. Very excited for Christmas.

On Christmas Eve we also have the tradition that Jason started or rather continued from his childhood. He chooses a small gift for each of the kids then wraps it up with yarn. He also adds small toys and candy until it becomes a large yarn ball. He then hides them from the kids. They have to find their ball and unwrap it. They look forward to this each year almost as much as Santa coming… It becomes quite crazy with 4 yarn balls being thrown around, yarn everywhere, kids running, cats and dog going wild too! It is a lot of fun.

The girls got new outfits and Heely’s, so they were pretty stoked. Susie was an old pro with the Heely’s. It was pretty funny watching Becca get used to a wheel under her foot, and Katie practiced in the kitchen for a couple of days before she ventured outside.

Xander loved all his toys.Scooby-doo from Santa (he is REALLY into Scooby-doo and his Daddy is saying it is about time he got a kid who loves Scooby-doo!) and he also got a lot of TOOLS. Here he is finding ways to use those tools.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and we hope to hear from you soon.