Hershey, PA

We've been at Hershey for one week. When we first arrived at our campground I spotted an RV flying a pirate flag, and I commented that I wanted to park next to them. It just so happened there was a vacant spot right nextdoor. Turns out they were the first people our age we have had the pleasure of camping with since we started this adventure. Our neighbors have a son who is 9. He loves legos and bike riding just like Shanti and we all became fast friends. Unfortunately, Jason and Monica had to go back to work (although they did play hooky for one day so they could visit with us longer). The good news is they are going to come back next weekend to camp with us again, and then they will be meeting us down on the Chesapeake Bay 3 weeks from now for another weekend.
This has been one of the nicest campgrounds we have been to. The weather has been perfect (sunny with highs in the low 70's and lows in the mid 40's). We have visited with Brian's grandparents twice at their home at a large masonic village in Elizabethtown, PA, and they spent one day at our RV with us. They are in their mid 80's and l hope we are as spunky as them if we make it to their age! We took the kids to Hershey's Chocolate World, and had fun learning about how they make their chocolate. We also attended a huge fall festival at the masonic village with thousands of people and lots of free food. Brian's Uncle Dean and Aunt Barbara drove from Delaware to spend the day with us. For those of you who remember stories about our trip to St. Thomas, Dean and Barbara are the ones who lived their for many years. They have been back on the mainland for 5 years, and seem to have adjusted well.
Today we had a visit from a 3 1/2 inch preying mantis on the side of our RV. One of my favorite things about our travels has been seeing all the different kinds of bugs, spiders, birds, mammals, trees, etc. A couple of days ago we were hiking through the forest when I almost stepped on a large Eastern Box turtle. It was very pretty with lots of orange, and it made me think of Sam in Austin with his collection of reptiles. I'll post more pictures the next time we get a faster internet connection. Our general itinerary is to spend one more week in Hershey, and then we will be camping in D.C. for one week where we plan to visit lots of museums and see Jason and Monica (not the ones we met at the campground in Hershey, but the ones who live in Baltimore).

More pictures

We first started seeing this billboard on our trip to the Everglades last winter. The question is, "When did they get this picture of Vashti"?

This is a good perspective of the size of our rig!

Ice Age exhibit at the Cincinnati Natural History Museum...very cool!

Vashti and John

Daph's cousin John was a great guide at the Cincinnati zoo where he has volunteered for the past couple of years. 9/08

My dad's mom turned 90 at the beginning of August and she still doesn't have any gray hairs!

Enjoying a morning cuddle.

One of the cave entrances. 8/08

Shanti eating a boxed lunch (which hasn't changed since I last had one 30 yrs ago) inside of snowball cafeteria deep within Mammoth Cave.

The kids sluiced for minerals at Diamond Caverns which is where we camped inside of Mammoth Cave National Park.

This was taken during a 4 1/2 hour, 4 mile hike through Mammoth Cave. 8/08

Vashti with her triplets :-)

Today is September 11th. We made it to Pennsylvania yesterday, and we are staying at a lovely campground just north of Fallingwater (Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece...you can check it out at fallingwater.org). Vashti and I are getting over a short cold and the ragweed is high here, but I love this part of the country. Miss Spider is doing well. She rides in the minivan with my dad, and she is getting much fatter.

Pictures

This is Brian's Aunt Dorothy. Shortly before we were planning to leave Cherokee Landing for The Farm, we learned that we only had a small window of opportunity to see Dorothy before she had to go out of town. We decided to save The Farm for the next time we passed that way, and we enjoyed a wonderful visit with Dorothy. Besides being an attorney, Dorothy has started teaching Pilates and we had lots to talk about. Our campsite was really nice, and we were parked right next to a great playground and the swimming area seen in the next picture.

The kids getting their feet wet at J. Percy Priest Lake just outside of Nashville, TN

Proof that Poppy is still with us! We are so lucky to have him along for the adventure. 8/08

All gone!

Playing pool, TN 8/08

Walking back to camp after mini-golf at Cherokee Landing, TN, 8/08

Spiders and Bugs and Spiders, Oh My!

Katydid on my cousin John's head, Wilmington, OH 9/08

One of the many cool spiders we have seen on our travels.

Rhino beetle at our campsite in Kentucky 8/08

Daph's 38th Birthday in Tennessee

We have been camping in Wilmington, Ohio for one week. I have a little catching up and filling in to do so here goes....
If you have been reading our posts, then you may recall my birthday post last month. It ended with a comment about watching my dad and Shanti canoeing across a peaceful pond. Right after I finished the post, my dad and Shanti suddenly sounded distressed. I quickly road back to camp to see what the commotion was all about. It turns out that shortly before they got back to land Shanti realized there was a large female black widow right between his legs in the front of the canoe! Needless to say, he was not happy, but he did manage to keep it together enough that the canoe made it to land where he was able to jump out and run. Personally, I have always liked spiders (and snakes), but the poisonous ones do give me the creeps. While we were camping in Tennessee and Kentucky there was an exceptionally large quantity of large creepy spiders, and we ended up killing quite a few in the RV because I got a couple of nasty bites. I never made it a practice to kill spiders indoors in Texas since we had a large space to share with them; however, the RV just isn't big enough to share peacefully with the creepy crawlies. So now we are in Ohio, and the only spiders I have seen on a daily basis are daddy long legs and some large red mites. Brian was doing some general maintenance around the RV today, and he called me up to check out a spider which had set up a home inside of our RV hitch in the back of our pickup. It's brown, and it has a very distinctive reddish orange hourglass on its abdomen. It also had a very cool, and very large egg sac. Very carefully, with gloves on, we managed to capture the spider and its egg sac in a glass jar. While we were capturing the spider it pulled its legs close to its body and played dead. It was very easy to find photos and articles about the Brown Widow spider on the internet. Here's a website with pictures that look just like our catch if you are interested: http://www.247wildlife.com/brown-widow-spider.htm
We're not sure how long we will keep her, but she is safe for now and we dropped in some dinner for her.

Anyway, we're having a nice time, and have visited with my Ohio family. My Grandma turned 90 in August, and it has been nice to just sit with her (her hearing and vision are not so great). Daphnie's cousin John came out to our campsite to spend the night with us, and then he took us all to the Cincinnati Zoo where he has been volunteering in the summertime for a few years. John was great with the kids (I can't believe he's 17), and we all really enjoyed his company.

Mammoth Cave KY

Hi All,

We're enjoying a nice rainy day here at Mammoth Cave in KY. Vashti and Shanti earned their Junior Ranger badges today. Yesterday Daph, Shanti and I went on a half-day tour of Mammoth Cave that was very educational and uniquely inspiring. We have seen bats, spiders, deer and wild turkey here in the park, and enjoy swimming and mini-golf when the weather has been dry. Right now Vashti is enjoying playing with a toy workbench here in the common area while I write. Love to all.

Birthday

Yesterday, August the 13th, was my 38th birthday. It turned out to be one of those simple, perfect days that I will probably remember for a long time (it reminds me of the day Vashti was born). We woke up to a beautiful, warm, sunny day (the previous day had stayed cool and cloudy with occasional soft rain). I baked a chocolate cake (the first time I have baked in our little convection oven), and I was happy to see that it baked very evenly. Brian and I went for a walk and enjoyed a leisurely yoga practice and meditation together. During our practice, the resident falcon circled above us and even managed to do a spectacular dive right as we rested on our backs and looked up. Afterwards, we ate lunch, went for another walk, lounged around, and then cooked quinoa chili for an early dinner. After dinner, Brian and I walked down to the lodge while my dad hung out with the kids. As usual, we had the whole place to ourselves. We played three games of pool while listening to classic rock music and then played ping pong (it felt very 80's and was a lot of fun). As we headed back to camp for chocolate cake we decided we should get gear for mini-golf so the kids could burn off their sugar buzz. Brian gave me a piggyback ride across the parking lot, and we felt like kids goofing off. For the third time this week we lit candles and sang happy birthday (Vashti is very into candles). The cake was delicious with a very rich dark chocolate glaze. After cake we played mini-golf and I got a hole-in-one on the very last (and one of the most difficult shots). We had a nice walk back to camp and enjoyed watching the bats fly above us.

Brian and I have been reading a book called Respectful Parents Respectful Kids. It blends ideas of interconnectedness and the importance of true co-operation for the health and sustainability of families, communities, and the whole world with Marshalll Rosenberg's style of Nonviolent Communication. So far, I'm enjoying the book, and I'm feeling very thankful for being at a place in my life where I can take care of my own needs so that I am able to better meet the needs of our family and kids.

From where I am sitting outside I can see my dad and Shanti canoeing across the placid lake. It is another beautiful day (the high is supposed to be 87 degrees). I am thinking of all my beautiful friends, and hope that you will all take the time to do something nice for yourselves today. I had another lovely yoga practice this morning, and now I'm going to head off to play with Vashti.

The soul empties itself of all its contents in order to receive the being it is looking at, just as he is, in all his truth ---Simone Weil

Catching Up

We have been enjoying a simple existence lately without cell phone service or internet connections. After we left Livingston, TX we camped at Lake Tawakoni which is east of Dallas. We had a lovely lakeside campground where we enjoyed bike rides and bird watching. While we were parked at Tawakoni Brian, the kids and I drove into Dallas where we spent a week visiting my mom and little sister, Lindsay (who is now 13). Despite the heat, we all got to spend a fantastic day out on the lake in my mom's boat. We got caught up on all of our shopping in Dallas, and then we finally made it out of Texas to camp at DeGray Lake State Park in Arkansas.

DeGray is about 20 miles south of Hot Springs (which is where Brian and I bought our $8 sterling silver Hopi Indian engagement bands back in 1992...I still wear mine as my wedding ring most of the time). It was fun to revisit the city with the kids. We also visited Diamond Crater state park where we got to play in the dirt digging for diamonds and other gems/minerals. DeGray lake is breathtaking and I highly recommend camping there when passing through Arkansas. After camping in Texas it seemed like we had jumped back in time about a century to be on such a beautiful lake with no houses or businesses surrounding the water. There was a wonderful produce stand just outside of the state park with lots of fresh, local produce. It was incredibly hot while we were in Arkansas, but we finally got a break from the heat as we headed into Tennessee. It rained most of the day as we drove into Tennessee, and the temperature stayed in the low 70's. Currently we are camping about 50 miles east of Memphis. The campground is about 300 acres and we are sharing it with 5-10 other people (depending on whether it is the weekend). We have a swimming pool, pool table, ping pong, mini-golf, tennis court, a small playground, and a pond stocked with very big large mouth bass pretty much all to ourselves. I have found a perfect spot for doing yoga, and the weather has stayed in the 70's to mid 80's during the day and around 60 degrees at night (just cool enough for a campfire and marshmallows with a couple of the other campers). We met a woman who is in a tent with her dog and she is probably between 70 and 80 years old. She camps for part of the year and she has a home in Baja where she stays the rest of the year. My dad said it made him think of what Tricia might be like when she is that age, and he suggested we invite her over for dinner.

After spending the last few years cooped up inside (trying to find relief from our allergies) it is great to be spending the majority of our time outside. We love being lulled to sleep by frogs and bugs, and to wake up with the birds each morning. When we leave here we will stay at a campground near The Farm (which you can check out at thefarm.org), and then we will be heading up to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky. We will try to post some pictures while we still have internet access so stay tuned!