We be eating good in Acadiana and wishing we spoke french so we know
what we be eating. We had planned for some time to go east on I-10 so
we could visit New Iberia, Louisiana, home of one of our favorite
writers, James Lee Burke. His many novels featuring the wayward lawman
Dave Robicheaux, are set in New Iberia and we just wanted to see where
Robicheaux and his pal Cletus Purcell hang out. It was great. We found
a bookseller who likes to talk about James Lee Burke (he was in town,
living in New Iberia in the winter and outside Missoula, MT in the
summer), and found some early Robicheaux books. Great.

Last week, about 35 miles from our destination, Dave pulled off the
road, telling me he was having a vision problem. His peripheral vision
was oily, distorted. I thought of a migraine, but he’s never had one
and didn’t have a headache. What he did have was shoulder and arm pain.
We weren’t really worried about a heart problem because the pain had
started in his shoulder blade about three weeks before, and seemed
muscle related. We planned to get it checked in Biloxi but now we knew
we had to get to an ER to get the vision thing checked. As we started
to unhook the car, Dave’s vision cleared up, so we drove the Bird 15
miles and got parked in an RV park, then went to a hospital in
LaFayette.

The first hospital we went to was an LSU hospital with an over-full
waiting area. No one checked us in for 15 minutes and the sheet on the
clipboard didn’t ask what we needed to be seen for, but asked “Are you
a prisoner?” We left without anyone caring.

The second hospital we found, Southwest Louisiana Medical Center, was
better. We were there nearly seven hours, and communication is not
their strength, but they ran all the tests to rule out stroke or heart
problems. Dave has a very healthy vascular and cardiac system. We saw
an opthamologist the next morning for a closer exam of his optic nerve,
which is fine. The doc says it is hard to diagnose migraine in single
vision people but that’s what he thinks it was.

Personally, I think the migraine was brought on by the shoulder pain.
The ER doc thought it was a rotator cuff tendonitis, but we aren’t in a
position now to confirm it with an MRI. So we decided to keg up for a
few days. We’ve been here in the Frog City RV Park for five days and
Dave is feeling better. He has been on vicodin and making sure not to
irritate the shoulder. We have taken some day trips and are already
planning to come back next year. We’ll head out to our Biloxi job in
the morning.

We are very close to the heart of Cajun Country and have loved being
introduced to this culture. A fifth of Louisiana’s population is Cajun,
descended from the tough band of French Catholics who fled to Nova
Scotia looking for religious freedom, then found their way to Louisiana
when they were run out of the north because they wouldn’t bow to the
British after the French-Indian wars. Cajuns have been discriminated
against for generations here in the south. They remain quite clannish,
devoted to family and most are involved in fishing or shrimping in the
southern Louisiana bayous.

I’m reading a great book (Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell) which is
shocking in its description of how the southern coast of the state is
disappearing. When the Mississippi levees were built in the 1930s, it
stopped the flow of silt that flowed down and replaced what the Gulf
pounded away. The oil companies have dug canals everywhere to lay pipe
and added to the instability of the marshlands, called the “trembling
prairie.” Gulf waters are pushing salt water into the marshes and
changing the ecosystem dramatically. Cajun shrimpers see their way of
life being washed away. Everyone can see the encroaching water as
cemeteries slide into the sea. These are all above-ground vaults, so
it’s very evident. Coastal wetlands have always been a buffer against
the storm surge that comes with hurricanes. They figure every 2.7 miles
of marsh grass absorbs a foot of storm surge. A century ago New Orleans
had about 50 miles of marsh grass between the city and the ocean; now
it has less than 20 miles.

We feel very fortunate to be able to experience this are while it is
still here. The damage from Hurricane Rita is very evident, but has
been cleaned up well. There are lots of boarded up homes and
businesses. One in particular testifies to the Cajun humor, even in the
face of adversity: “Grocery steaux, it no meaux!” New Iberia is quaint
and crooked, split by the Bayou Teche. Amaryllis grows along the
sidewalk, poinsettia grows in pots. Orange trees are heavy with fruit
and we’re eating fresh Louisiana strawberries. We have seen rookeries
of snow geese, many egrets, one alligator and a double crested
cormorant. I’m still looking for the roseate spoonbill.

Louisiana has offered us new culinary experiences. The best selling
cook book is “Who’s your mama, are you Catholic and can you make a
roux?” We tried boudin (pronounced boo-dan), which is a sausage made of
rice gravy, and God knows what animal parts. We ate boudin rolled in
balls and breaded with crushed pepper skins. Very spicy but served with
cool ranch dressing.

Seafood gumbo is really good, with tiny shrimp, crawfish and crab, in a
thick spicy roux. It is served with a bowl of white rice, seasoned with
green onion, and you ladle your gumbo juice onto the rice. I found it
very tasty, although the little crawfish bodies kind of bothered me.
Their little legs float. I tried not to look at what I was eating. Dave
had crab and corn bisque and said it was very good. I’m making
beignets, the happy dessert dumpling Steve and Sandra Miller introduced
us to a few years back. Lawd! We don’t usually eat out much, but we’ve
made an exception in Acadiana! If any of you have a recipe for “Liketa
died potatoes,” it will save me from calling that bookseller in New
Iberia. I just should have bought the book, because it is still talking
to me!

Wish you were here

November is fun with birthdays for our family. Susie insisted on having another Dog Party for Roxy’s birthday. She invited 10 or 11 dogs and 6 came! She was disappointed that they didn’t all come! It was plenty crazy with 7 dogs…Susie made a dog cake and everything.

Jason’s birthday is the same day and with the dog party and two church meetings (stake conference and it takes over an hour to get to the stake center-we’re not in Utah anymore!!!) we celebrated his birthday Sunday night with some friends. We had brownies and ice cream and lots of loud kids running through the house! I love our home but it is not very big for 6 adults and 12 kids. We miss having a basement to send the noise down to!

Katie’s birthday was on the 19th. She turned 7 years old. She was beyond excited! We planned an old fashioned party with activities like 3 legged race, gunny sack race, tug a war, pin the feather on the turkey and the best was pie eating contest! We wanted to do apple bobbing but it was a little cold and I figured it would turn into a water fight! She had a lot of fun. We gave the kids carmel apples and pink popcorn balls. I just had to laugh…none of the kids we invited had ever had a popcorn ball!!! Is that a west thing? It was hilarious watching their faces, they really did not want to try it (“What is this pink thing?”)but when they finally did they asked for more! One of the moms asked me later for the recipe because her daughter wanted her to make some!

We LOVE being near the ocean! We took the kids on a cool evening to fly kites at the beach. We had a great time. Katie was probably the most excited. She was all over the place. And even though it was a bit chilly it didn’t stop Becca and Katie from wading out in the water. Brrrr!

Over the Thanksgiving Holiday we went to the aquarium again. The kids (including Jason) love it there. Even though we have been a few times now I still think they could spend all day there again. We did go on the outdoor nature trails this time which we haven’t done yet. It was a great little hike. No need for a stroller, Xander was a trooper walking and running down the trail, we had to hurry to keep up with him!

This is the favorite spot at the aquarium…the sting rays!!! Xander would have jumped right in and swam with them if they would let him. They do let you “pet” them though. We also got to see the ‘swimming with the shark’ event. Two divers went into the tank to swim with the sharks and fish. After swimming around and answering any questions, they got out and then they fed the sharks and fish. This tank is huge and beautiful. Inside the tank they have built a replica (part of it) of a German submarine that was sunk miles off the North Carolina coast. Another fun day at the coast!

The following is a travelogue of our trip from northern New Mexico to southern Louisiana. I can’t help but write down my observations, and apparently I can’t help sending them to you, but it won’t hurt my feelings if you skim through, overlook or blatantly dump them. This is a lot like looking at someone else’s slides ….

11-30-07

South of Lubbock, Texas, we pass rich, red fields of cotton, many fields not yet harvested. The cotton plants have been sprayed to defoliate them, so the plants are just white, puffy balls on brown sticks. What’s left over after harvest blows around, littering the side of the road like kleenex.

Cotton is planted in two rows close together, with a wide space on either side for the cotton picking machine. It just takes the bolls and leaves the bare branches. A couple of years ago we went through a cotton museum in
Georgia, but this is the first time we’ve seen such expansive fields at harvest time.

Texas highways are clean and well maintained. We see trains carrying crude oil and more trucks than we can count. Forty miles south of Lubbock we see the first oil wells, some of them pumping in the middle of a cotton field. The smell is right now and not real good. The smell of money, I guess.

Sweetwater, Texas, home of the world’s largest rattlesnake round up. The last 100 miles have been solid cotton fields. There are also miles of wind farms. The 3-prop wind turbines are huge; some are near the highway and we can see how they dwarf a pickup. Most of the wind farms are, of course, up along the mesas.

12-1-07

We stayed at a park on Brownwood Lake, outside Brownwood, Texas. The Woodall’s RV Park Directory says “some seasonals.” Out of 41 spaces, there were four spots available. The others were full, and empty of people! Some days a good deal of the adventure is in just finding a place to stay. And we’re getting into country where there really are seasonals.

We pass through so many little towns with rusted tin store fronts and weedy yards: Zephyr, Early, and Mullin, Texas, pop 175, home of the Bulldogs. Towns of any size usually have a Brown Barn on the highway, a drive through likker store. The billboards are wonderful: “Attention hunters! Ask about our happy water and gift sets!”
Lots of signs out for deer corn. We got the story on hunting in Texas a couple of years ago when we were in San Antonio. Hunters use a 15 to 20 foot tripod with a platform and cammo blind on top. A feed spreader shoots out
corn kernels every so many minutes and when the deer come to eat you shoot them. Some sport.

This country seems to be big on “Blood Boers” and show goats. Hwy. 184 South is 4-lane, except where it’s 2-lane, and then the shoulder is so wide the locals use it as a granny lane.

We’re on the Brazos Trail from Austin to Houston. Oaks are bigger here, with lots of cedar and pecan trees. Seventy-five degrees at 3 p.m. We have been without our own computer service since we left Bernalillo. Verizon called some time ago and offered to upgrade our plug-in card that gives us such good service almost anywhere. Dave distinctly asked the rep if we would have any problems with it, traveling the way we do. No, no, she assured us. Well, we don’t have any problem with it, but we had to get into a Verizon area to activate it, and Austin was the first place that was possible. Wuh.

At Ledbetter, Texas, we stopped at Stuemer’s Store, operated by the Stuemers since 1891 (and the woman behind the counter just might have been one of the original Stuemers). Also in the store were six guys wearing shirts that said “Austin Christian Bass Club.” Dave said to one of them, “What do you do if you catch a bass that isn’t a Christian?” The guy said they only catch Christian bass but he allowed as how this is the first time he’s ever been asked that question.

We spent last night in Brenham, Texas, halfway between Austin and Houston. Traveling is exhausting for me. I’ve got about one more day in me. The smells here are smells of the South. Wet earth, faded roses, standing water and smoke from the barbecue probably three miles away. Those are the outdoor smells. Indoors you have to add the odor of the bath mat that won’t dry until we head back west. I notice the guy behind us has put some kind of an animal hide outside his trailer (I didn’t count that in the outdoor smells), and a vulture is braced in the dirt, struggling mightily to pull some strips off it. Some places are classier than others.

A couple from Massachusetts pulled in next to us last night, and the guy got out and was hooking up at the same time Dave was. “Whew,” he said, “It’s good to be some place.” It amused me because I know he wasn’t sure where he was. We have felt that way many nights. It’s the little things that distinguish one park from another. Too bad he missed that vulture.

Driving through Atlanta pales in comparison to driving through Houston, Texas. With over two million people, Houston is undoubtedly the largest city we have driven through. We always look to take a ring road, or loop, to
bypass a major city, and we did it here, but the outside loop road was busy and in worse repair than I-10. It took us 1-1/2 hours to drive through the city. And this was on a Sunday!

So here we are, up to date, in Sulphur, LA. We are only about 250 miles from our destination, Biloxi, MS, but are going to lay up for at least a day. We need to finish up the paperwork for our last two jobs, now that we have a computer. We did well on sales for Santa Rosa, but still hope Biloxi is not a dud. Four out of our last five jobs have been less than sterling.

For you trivia buffs, I-10 has 880 exits in Texas. The highway seems to have been completely repaired from the Katrina and Rita damage. Tomorrow we are going another 75 miles down the road to New Iberia, This little bayou town is featured in one of our favorite writer’s novels and we want to hang out a day there. I promise I won’t write again for a while.

Love,

November 28

We be happy to hit the road again. We’ve done Santa Rosa for another year. We really like this little northern New Mexico town of 2,700. This is our third year so some of the people I call on to advertise are old friends. Don, the feed store owner, is the closest thing to a vet in town. He introduced me to the 3-legged kitty he saved after the fan belt disaster. Johnny Martinez is doing well after the death of beautiful Alice last year. I still say a prayer for him every night (I just tacked it on to the end of my list and why stop now?). He took me back in the kitchen while he chopped up the chilies and onion for salsa. We sampled it with chips, Johnny and the cooks watching me closely. I nearly died, but other than a runny nose I think I covered it pretty well.

Johnny is 1/4 Jicarilla Apache and told me some stories about his reservation pal coming into some money and retiring to a planned community in Arizona. “John,” he says, “There was a lot of men there in bright shirts
and short pants and they was all riding tricycles! One of them says to me one day, have you seen the market today? No, I says, I told him my wife does the shopping. But he was talking about another market. John, we just didn’t belong down there.”

Santa Rosa is a three or four mile strip along the old Route 66, the famous road from Chicago to Los Angeles that opened in 1937. Route 66 was replaced by Interstate 40, which parallels it. Sadly, many gas stations and motels that were wildly successful in the 50s and 60s are now dead and boarded up but still standing. The testimony to a rich history just looks like failure today.

But Santa Rosa seems to be staying fairly solvent. They are busy now restoring the old courthouse downtown and maintaining a tradition of parades for every season. They are known as the City of Natural Lakes and home to the famous Blue Hole. Surrounded by semiarid ranch land, the Blue Hole is a geological phenomenon. An 80 foot bell shaped pool of great clarity, and a constant 62 degree temperature, it is ideal for scuba diving and training. The pool is 80 feet in diameter at the top and 130 feet wide at the bottom. Water flows in at a rate to recycle every six hours; we aren’t sure where it goes, but probably the nearby Pecos River.

November 29th

We are headed east on I-40 to Amarillo, then will head south to Lubbock and Sweetwater, Texas. We got delayed yesterday doing up some map stuff in Tucumcari. It is VERY windy today and in addition to miles of wind farms on the horizon, every now and then dozens of tumbleweeds tumble across our road. For a change, Dave is glad we are close to our maximum weight of 34,000 lbs. We’re ahead of a storm, expecting rain, but hopefully not much. Santa Rosa was cold at night; we set the mouse trap.

We are going to be in Texas for at least four days. KLAATU BARADA NIKTO!!

Love to all,

We be leaving Bernalillo, New Mexico … finally. We were here a week, waiting for the Village of Bernalillo to approve a letter of
introduction. Didn’t feel we could start the job without it, since the Coronado Campground is operated by the village of Bernalillo. Never did get it, though, which should have been a clue that they weren’t totally committed to the map project. We made up a letterhead for the campground, with Bernalillo’s okay, and went with the signature of the Campground Manager, who is totally committed.

It was a hard job and took us two more weeks. Coronado Campground is a gem, but it’s small, not very visible and has never had a map. But we got it done. Made enough money to cover our expenses and worked another Albuquerque park while we were here. It’s our second year on that park, and we did very well. So, three weeks, two parks, not bad.

We have been here through the high colors of New Mexico’s fall. Thescreaming yellow Cottonwoods are brown now. Every day we hear the stressed and pitchy warbling of the Sand Hill Cranes flying overhead, aimed at the Bosque del Apache just south of us. The Inca Doves and jays have run me out of seed and the prairie dogs have gone to ground. Time to go.

The Coronado Campground is on or close to the area where the Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado bivouacked with his soldiers and many native slaves the winter of 1541-42. He left colonists when he continued his search for the fabled seven cities of gold. Considering this information, Bernalillo is older than St. Augustine, Florida, and thus, the oldest city in America. Verification of the colony left at the Bernal Ranch is apparently a problem.

We’re always tickled to find people with ties to Bend, Oregon. Sold an ad to a woman in Bernalillo whose mother, Jewel Stewart, worked for The Bulletin in the 60s. We bonded over a couple of great Bob Chandler stories. Made my day.

We really like Bernalillo. The to-be-expected shopping strip is small and confined to the highway. The dusty little section of old town is full of little adobe dwellings, all with some kind of fence. Fancy houses have an adobe wall, lesser buildings have stick fences, many of them very old, just cut poles planted tightly together. Bernalillo is on the Camino de Real, approximately 20 miles north of Albuquerque, 50 miles south of Santa Fe. People here are very warm and welcoming. While I was waiting to talk to Erasmo at the Chevron Auto Service a Navajo woman explained to me the clan system of her People. It took a long
time, but then I’m still waiting on Erasmo.

We drove to Santa Rosa today, 130 miles east. We are still at 5,000 feet but it is much colder. Temps are still close to 70 during the day, but down in the teens at night. This is another tough job; we’ve done it twice. This park sits at a major crossroads and needs a lot of maps, which raises the print price. There are only so many people in the town of about 2,500, only so many businesses. We’ll give it our best shot, and hope some of those businesses that turned us down last year will
sign on now. We have to be able to make print cost and make enough to cover our costs for fuel.

After Santa Rosa we are still headed south to savor Louisiana, but have found a job in Biloxi, Mississippi. We can probably get a little gumbo there. Many RV parks were shut down after Hurricane Katrina and are just now back up and running, so they need maps. With the temps what they are here, the Gulf Coast is looking pretty good.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. We count you all among our many blessings. I leave you with our favorite Navajo proverb: “Never go to sleep when your meat is on the fire.”

Love,

Well another successful Halloween has come and gone! The kids had a great time. Our new neighborhood was awesome for trick or treating. It was pretty impressive, reminded me of one of those cute Halloween movies where the streets are packed with kids in costumes. It was almost like there was a timer set. All the kids and parents came out about 5:45 and the fun began and then at about 7:45 everyone was back in their homes and the streets were empty again and quiet, no one else came the rest of the night.

Xander was a fisherman. He was so excited for Halloween. And so sweet, for several days before Halloween he would say “Happy Halloween Mommy” very randomly. For his costume he kept changing his mind. Started out wanting to be a pirate ghost (sister’s idea), then a plain ghost, then a puppy, then a bear, then a magician (my idea), then a blue ghost (not sure where that came from) then back to a ghost pirate. So we got his costume all ready and mom forgot to take it to school for one of his Halloween parties. He got to have 2 since he goes to school 5 days a week with 2 different groups of kids. MWF class and TH class. Well I kinda forgot and was only thinking about the party on the day of Halloween and so I forgot to bring his costume on Tuesday. Anyway luckily I had dressed him in his little fishing outfit for no reason other than I really like it. He was pretending to go fishing with Daddy’s big pillow fish before we left for school and begged to bring it to show his teachers. Good thing he is so cute and I usually give in to him because I was really glad he had it. It made a great last minute costume. For his party the next day I took his ghost pirate costume to school and he refused to wear it. So that is how he became a fisherman for Halloween this year. Maybe next year he will be a Ghost Pirate!!!

Katie was planning her costume for a good month, maybe longer. She knew she wanted to be a gorilla this year (my $6.00 at the DI finally paid off!!!) At first she wanted to put her princess dress on top and be a gorilla princess. I thought that would have been pretty clever and creative. But she decided to be a plain old scary gorilla. She loved to secretly (at least she thought it was secretly) torment Xander throughout the month, putting her costume on. He was terrified of her. While trick or treating there was a adult dressed up like a monkey that started following us and kept tapping Katie on the shoulder. I was laughing. Katie didn’t think it was too funny. Later she told me he scared her. I told her she should have just roared at him, a gorilla is scarier than a monkey. She said “You’re right, I should have”.

Becca had a Halloween Party earlier in the month with her soccer team. She was a witch for it too, but a mean witch with a green face and warts. For Halloween she wanted to be a nice witch and wear makeup, real makeup. I put bright red lipstick on her. She was looking pretty hot!

Susie started out being a goth teen witch, then decided to be a dead version of Hannah Montanna but didn’t paint her face white, then decided to be a dead rock star! Go figure! Jason and I were very sad this year about Susie. It has happened… our child is now too cool for us. She would not trick or treat with us, she wanted to go with her friends! We saw her several times throughout the night and teased her, she took it pretty well but still would not join us! We are so not ready for this teenager stuff!

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween and we hope to hear from you.

Love, Jamie and family

We be in Bernalillo, New Mexico today, starting a job for a little city
park that has never had a map. It is a really nice little park,
dedicated to Coronado, has nice trails and a little museum; we want to
do a good job for them.

We spent a couple of nights in Bluff, Utah, at the Cadillac Ranch RV
Park. Bluff is one of our favorite places; we spent a week or so here
in 2005, exploring the indian ruins of San Juan County. The Cadillac
Ranch consists of about 30 hook ups, all in a row, facing a murky pond
full of cross bred quackers. The cottonwoods are turning; the display
of Disney-yellow leaves stands out against the bright blue sky

I did my laundry yesterday at the Cottonwood Wash n’ Dry. They have 40
washers (22 of them out of order) and 12 dryers. Sunday is wash day for
the indian ladies (the only day they can get the truck). The place is
very clean, swept constantly by the lady who staffs the place; she also
does the laundry for the three motels in town. Bluff has one market and
gas station, an elementary school, one restaurant and gift shop, a
river guide and three art studios, all closed. Summer time brings out a
few more commercial endeavors. The town’s proximity to the San Juan
River and cliff dwellings make it a popular base camp.

Laundry took a long time, as the ladies and I lined up for the dryers.
I was struck by what we had in common and what we didn’t. Watching a
serene old granny fold clothes for a large family I thought about my
great grandmother, known only to us now as “the Chinook woman,” seated
on the floor, wrapped in a blanket smoking her pipe. She had come all
the way from Castle Rock, Washington to Monroe, Oregon, to see her son
and grandson. Was she comfortable in the hotel owned by her son’s white
wife?

In spite of the Chinook woman’s influence, my father and his family,
enrolled in the Cowlitz tribe, have never looked very indian. Actually,
the Cowlitz people don’t look very indian if you consider we look like
muffins compared to the hawk-nosed Navajo on the side of the truck.
I’m feeling pretty white in the Cottonwood Wash n’ Dry. There isn’t
much talking today. We all watch Kaila, a sturdy, intent 3 year old,
march around and around, elbows pumping, terrorizing the other
children. Her mother, a pretty woman, close to 300 lbs. and wearing hip
huggers over a purple thong, yells at her over and over, “Kaila! Stop
it! Don’t you hit him or I’ll whip you!!”

There are a lot of born-again indians coming to the Cowlitz Tribal
meetings now that we have federal recognition and are building a
casino. I wonder how many of them would be born again to these Chaco
Canyon natives. What would my life be if the Cowlitz had been granted a
reservation, instead of fighting to reclaim recognition and
compensation, for 146 years.

There is a large table in the Wash n’ Dry, filled to overflowing with
clothes and shoes, mostly children’s, all clean and in good repair. In
all the laundry rooms I’ve used across the country, this is the only
place I’ve seen a stash of good used clothing that doesn’t disappear.
These people of Bluff take what they can use and contribute what they
can’t. I find it a very civilized statement of community. I wonder if
it’s an indian thing, like politeness. At the twice yearly Cowlitz
meetings, anyone can speak, and say all he or she wants to say. The
Kinzwas are still speaking, trying to get the town of Kelso to give
them back their land. The meetings are interminable. I found a red
pullover that would look good on Becca but I didn’t take it. I had
nothing to contribute.

The snows of Utah are a memory; we have blue skies and sunshine here in
Bernalillo. We watch the news of the California fires and once again,
count our blessings.

Love,

We must be suited for life on the road. No matter how happy we are to
be someplace, we’re just as happy to be leaving. We’re leaving Heber
City now, headed south. This Wasatch Mountain State Park is hard to
work. Park management has no commitment to the program. They use the
outside of the map which shows the campsites and trails, but don’t
understand how the inside, the advertisements, work as a directory of
services for the RVers and supports the advertisers, who actually pay
for the map. We found park people who told us they don’t give the map
to RVers and campers who seem to know their way around the campground.
State parks quite often have an elitist attitude about the maps and
advertisers, not helping us until it becomes clear they might not get
their free maps. Last year I had 16 advertisers. This year 10 of those
advertisers said they didn’t get any response from last year’s ad.
Knowing the park has been handing out 2005 maps (“they’re pretty much
the same, aren’t they?”), or not handing out any maps at all, it is
hard for me to overcome an advertiser’s objections and maintain my
integrity.

So we tried to educate the park folk, sold enough to make print plus a
little for us, and we’re movin’ on. We are passing up Willard Bay State
Park right now. They don’t hand out their maps either, so we know they
will have enough to last until spring. Maybe the bird watching will be
good there in the spring. Or maybe not.

Small Utah towns really turn out for Halloween. They decorate
everything. The 5” of snow we had night before last didn’t slow anyone
down. I love Halloween because it’s the one time of the year I can buy
big bags of candy and not be self conscious in the check out line. We
have fond memories of costume parties and potlucks. This year’s
goofiness seems a step down from the year I was part of Bob and Carol
and Ted and Alice (four people wrapped in a bedspread carrying a
headboard), but we’re having fun with it.

Boo,

We were so thrilled to have my parents here for nearly 2 weeks. We did a lot of relaxing around the house, a lot of soccer, and several outings, including a lighthouse tour which I will write another post about. The kids were on their 3 week break (year round school schedule) so we had plenty of time to make memories.

Grandma and Susie enjoyed making jewelry together. It was really great to have plenty of time to just hang out and not feel like we had to rush from thing to thing.

We had to do a day at the beach of course. The water has cooled off some but it didn’t stop the kids from swimming it in. They spend about half the time swimming and the other digging in the sand. Each time we go it seems like they discover new creatures to dig up and torment. This time it was hermit crabs, other times it has been mole crabs and some sort of slug. They love it. It was great because we had the beach pretty much to ourselves until a multi High School cross country track meet was held. It was kinda fun to watch them race down the beach though.

We also went to the Museum here in Havelock that has several planes on display and a small visitors center in honor of the US Marines.

The last thing we did on our way to the airport was stop at a popular little place called the cow cafe in downtown New Bern. The whole place is decorated with dairy cow theme. We thought Dad would like it. He did, the kids did too! There was a little gift shop that you could buy just about any cow thing you could think of. It was like cow overload! It was fun.

Looks like Dad is back in his element!

And last of all. Soccer, lots and lots of soccer. It feel like it never ended. We finished up in Logan and started here right away, so it has been an exceptionally long season for mom. This is Katie kicking the ball.

That is about it for us. After my parents left we had a couple more days off from school and now we are back in the swing of things.

Oh one noteworthy item to share, Katie set a goal of reading lots of books over the 3 week break, she wanted to have the most in her class. She read 100 books!!! She won the contest with a landslide and they announced it over the intercom so the whole school could hear about her amazing accomplishment. And her soccer coach heard about it too and made a big fuss about it at practice. She was pretty excited. She worked really hard. We are very proud of her.

Hope all is well with everyone. We think of you often.

Love, Jamie and Family