Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Up the river

Passing the bamboo forest, beyond the palm trees, on the Estero River.


Perfect peacefulness. We are on the Estero River, paddling upstream against an almost non-existent current. To our right is the Koreshan State Historic Site where we live and volunteer. The bamboo forest is creaking in the wind that is 199 feet up but not at the river level. To the left is a wild tangle of trees, ferns, strangulating vines. There are fish leaping in the river….but very little bird life.

Bamboo can grow at about 2 inches per hour. On the slower side, most estimates place bamboo at about 24 inches in a single day. The record for the fastest growth is 47.6 inches in a 24-hour period. Additionally, there are records of large tropical bamboo plants growing 100 feet in the span of merely three months!


We reached State Road 41, known as the Tamiami Trail because it links Tampa with Miami. It is a busy four-lane highway and the crunch of tires presses in on us as we paddle under the bridge. On the other side, we lose ourselves in a river that is even quieter. There’s a tiny one-person suspension bridge across the river, with electric cables hanging under the walkway. I surely wouldn’t want to test this little bridge. Off to our right now is more Koreshan Unity acreage. This cult surely was industrious and acquired hundreds of acres. This 65-acre parcel is now for sale.

We decided to turn back as the river narrowed and got more and more shallow.
We passed back under the highway and came upon a mobile home park that lies along the river. They are putting in about 20 boat slips so this river is going to get appreciably busier in the months ahead.
It’s still a pretty special place – a haven in the midst of this megalopolis, this sprawling parking lot of big box stores, outlet malls peopled by hundreds of Brits who seem to fly over just for the shopping, and a couple of million Floridians and snowbirds who flood in at this time of the year from the cold north.

Monday, November 5, 2012

A Different World View


 This device demonstrates how the Earth surrounds the universe.
 This is the device the Koreshans used to demonstrates how the Earth is concave.

The Art Hall is the site for concerts, plays and communal events.

We have arrived at the Koreshan State Historic Site. And I have to tell you a little about this strange site to give you the flavor of the place.

It was founded in the late 1890s by a Dr. Cyrus Teed from Chicago. Cyrus changed his name to the Persian/Hebrew name Koresh (it supposedly means Cyrus).  He came up with the strange notion that we folks on Earth live on the inside of the planet and, when we look at the stars, we are actually looking into the center of the Earth. He believed the Earth was concave so we surrounded the universe.

He managed to get 250 hard-working people to come down to Estero, Florida, and set up a commune here. He was a big proponent of women in leadership roles and seven women lived in the Planetary Chamber and ran the commune. They, as well as the other top people in the group, committed to celibacy. But you could join the Koreshans and not be celibate. If you had kids, you would turn them over to the commune. Generally, the men lived in one big building, the women in another. The kids stayed in a separate dormitory and were looked after by a group of women.

These were not hippies. They were hard-working folks who were inventive and incredibly industrious. They set up a bakery that produced 650 loaves of yeast bread each day. This was a stopping off place for people trying to travel between Fort Myers and Naples to the south. They created a steam-driven laundry that had a spin cycle that would blow any Whirlpool or Kenmore out of the water today. They created their own electric generating plant as well as a machine shop that ran off a series of pulleys and belts. All of that remains in working condition today.

But celibacy will always do you in. And the group had a hard time sustaining their numbers and they dwindled to almost nothing by the 1950s.

Jo is a docent at the Planetary Chamber, and the Art Hall. The hall has a spectacular Steinway grand piano, built in 1885. It is considered unique in the world and is beyond price. I must admit to sneaking on stage when we were closing the hall on Sunday and tinkling away on the Steinway. Nice sound!

Jo was demonstrating spinning at the art hall, while keeping an eye on all the folks who wandered through the hall and trying to answer their questions.

There’s an interesting rig that was created by the Koreshans to demonstrate (and “prove”) their theory that the world is concave. They supposedly set up the device on the beach and then precisely measured and moved it repeatedly for some miles. As a result of those measurements, they said, it was conclusively proved that the earth rose up to prove its concavity. Well, sort of! People in later years took the device, along with a laser level, back to the beach and repeated the measurements. What they discovered, of course, was there was a tiny aberration in the device and this amplified the inaccurate reading as the miles went by.

The historic site has all manner of exotic trees and shrubs. There are three Sausage trees from Africa, an Orchid tree from India, Crepe Myrtle from Asia, Night Blooming Cereus from South America, Red Silk Cotton tree from the East Indies and southern Asia.

There’s even a Women’s Tongue tree with long pods that rattle in the breeze. And there’s a Soapberry tree, the fruits of which make abundant lather when crushed in water and have been used as a laundry soap substitute in Mexico and Central America.

One of the last Koreshan women to live here was named Vesta Newcomb. Before she died, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. That signal act brought home to Vesta that the Koreshans had gotten it all wrong. She acknowledged they were wrong about the earth surrounding the universe.

Cyrus, by the way, designed what he called The New Jerusalem for Estero. It was a city that could accommodate up to 10 million people. Those folks never came to Estero and it now is a lovely community that lies about 14 miles south of Fort Myers in Florida. The Koreshans donated their land to the State of Florida about 40 years ago and the park now is run as an historic site.

We have a delightful campground, with 60 sites. My job is to keep the place clean, answer visitors’ questions. It’s a great way to meet folks and we are having a ball. We are here for two months.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Blood and Guts

A warning for those who left the straight-and-narrow.

Halloween came to the park – with a bang. Honeymoon Island pulls the stops out every year with a huge Halloween spectacular. Our assignment was to cook hamburgers and hotdogs for the 300 volunteers involved in producing this extravaganza.

It also involved working during the week on the setup of the horror walk where we installed an outhouse, a funeral parlor, a Donner Pass stopover with appropriate cannibalism props (legs hanging out of the cook pot) and a saloon with a headless piano player.

All of this took massive planning by the rangers. It’s a major revenue producer for the park and all hands were on deck. Karen, our supervising ranger, was in charge of the volunteers. Karen reminds me of the ringmaster of a circus… or maybe one of those plate-spinners who keeps ever-increasing numbers of plates aloft. She pulled this one off with her usual good nature.

In addition to the horror trail we helped set up, there also was a haunted house, make from the picnic pavilion. Youngsters from the local high school appeared at 6 on Friday and Saturday nights with their ghoulish makeup, along with orange and yellow contact lenses, bloody clothing and nasty scars and gouges.

Jo and I cooked our burgers for the volunteers just outside the haunted house and we were subjected to the endless screams of the visitors as they made their way through the black corridors with the waiting un-dead.

Elsewhere in the picnic area, there were booths for face painting, fortune-telling, dunking, as well as other games. Thousands came each night to the park as the sun set and a waxing moon rose over the palm trees.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

In at the Beginning of the Cycle of Life

Ranger Dan carries the bucket of two baby turtles to the edge of the Gulf of Mexico.

After completing our bathroom cleaning duties on Monday morning, Jo and I drove our electric car over to enjoy a few minutes of the beach. We parked beside a Ranger truck and walked north, up the sandy beach, watching the terns doing their helicopter business of hovering over the water, heads pointed straight down, and then plummeting into the salt water to grab an unsuspecting fish. We noticed, in the distance, a coven of people, kneeling in the sand, bowed down as though in prayer.

This is where we found Ranger Dan and Ranger Kyle, a new ranger to us, digging into the sand at the last of the turtle nests on Honeymoon Island. They were surrounded by three old folks who were out for a walk on the beach. Dan had already uncovered 36 loggerhead turtle eggs that had already released their baby turtles.

Another 42 turtle eggs, round and white, were either perfect, still waiting to hatch, or they had drowned embryos inside after being in the sand through Hurricane Isaac.

The rangers also had uncovered two newborn turtles which had broken through their shells that very morning. The rangers had carefully lifted them out of the egg pit and placed them in a bucket that had a layer of sand.  These two little guys would be kept until late evening and Dan would release them into their brave new world.

The rangers photographed the new hatchlings and recorded the count of eggs. Then Dan carefully replaced the round eggs in the nest on the chance they still held viable turtles that were just not ready to make their break for freedom. He also replaced the egg shells of the hatched turtles. He covered them back with the soft sand.

He told us he’d visited the nest last Friday and had noticed a crater effect which told him some of the babies had hatched and had burrowed out and made their journey to the Gulf of Mexico. He’d determined to give the remaining eggs another few days to hatch.

The rangers knocked on the door of our motor home at 9 in the evening. It was time to release the two turtle babies. We drove over in the complete darkness of a moonless night and joined a group of diehard turtle enthusiasts for the release. The little turtles didn’t seem to have much sprawl to them in the bottom of the bucket. I know it would have been foolhardy to release them in the morning sunshine. The hundreds of seagulls, terns, pelicans, man-o-war birds, as well as crabs and assorted sea life would have seen them as breakfast – or at least an appetizer had they been launched into the surf in the sun. But I wondered about the little creatures waiting 12 hours before being released. They had no food or water, just a quiet, warm pail.

Dan lifted them out and placed them on the beach. The high tide had just turned. It was hard to see the little guys as they stood on the beach, listening to the sound of the surf. They didn’t make a run for it. But a wave rolled in and grabbed them, pulling them out into the Gulf, but then pushed them back up on the shore. They moved a little. But there was not much energy. Jo had a flashlight that she’d fashioned with a red cover so we could keep an eye on them without confusing them with bright lights.

The next wave sucked one of them out into surf and he was on his way for better or worse. Dan reached down and picked up the other turtle and launched it as well.

If all goes well – and this is a big “if” – these two turtles will make it through the surf and will find some food. If they are not eaten by crabs or other predatory fish, they will not return to these shores for about 30 years. They will go off on an incredible journey, wandering out of the Gulf of Mexico, feeding in the Sargasso Sea, getting caught up in the Gulf Stream, that great river of water that runs up the east coast of the U.S. This current loops across the Atlantic Ocean to the northwest coast of Scotland. They will swim onward, south to Spain, then along the west coast of Africa. They’ll cross the South Atlantic and catch a current that’ll bring them up past Uruguay, Brazil, and into the Caribbean Sea.

It is part of their coding that they will, in the fullness of time, mate out there in the ocean and the females will slowly locate their native beach, here on Honeymoon Island. On a full and rising tide in June or July in 2042, she will laboriously pull herself out of the water and flipper her way up the beach. Her coding knows she must get well above the high-water mark before she begins to dig her hole in the sand.

She will lay close to 100 eggs and then cover them with the sand before waddling back to the sea before the dawn breaks. Fifty-three to 55 days later, if the raccoons and seabirds don’t uncover the nest and gobble the eggs, the first flight of turtles will break through their shells, eat the remains of their yolk sac to provide them the strength to climb through the sand and head for the open sea so the cycle can begin again.

The U.S. Federal government has listed the loggerhead as endangered worldwide. In the U.S., the loggerhead's nesting areas are divided among four states:
Florida (91%)
South Carolina (6.5%)
Georgia (1.5%)
North Carolina (1%)

Florida beaches account for one third of the world's total population of loggerheads.

The loggerhead is the most common sea turtle in Florida.

It is named for its large head

Powerful jaws crush mollusks, crabs and encrusting animals attached to reefs and rocks
An estimated 14,000 females nest in the southeastern U.S, each year

Adults weigh 200 to 350 pounds and measure about 3 feet in length
Hatchlings: 2 inches long

Nest in Florida from late April to September.

Dan estimates that 90-95 percent don’t make it. They either won’t hatch or will be eaten by predators.

We both were excited to see this cycle begin on a dark beach on the west coast of Florida on Oct. 8, 2012


Thursday, October 4, 2012

What's It All About?

Welcome to the beach at Honeymoon Island State Park in Dunedin, on the Gulf of Mexico.


We're back at our favorite park in Florida: Honeymoon Island. We rolled in on Oct. 1 and set up house among the sable palms. Our first evening, we wandered over to the beach where the surf was up because of the brisk wind coming in from the southwest. No bugs because of the breeze! But we had a blazing firestorm of a sunset.

I've been poking around the Internet of late, looking into the blogs of RV people who are doing what we do... but who do it differently.

I met up with George and his RV named Tioga. George drives and lives mostly in Mexico because life if less expensive and less restrictive, he says, south of the border. He also says the fear factor of lawlessness in that country is exaggerated greatly. Most of the problem is 40 miles from the border. After that, it is good living, he says.

I liked a little blog he wrote recently about our world and thought you might enjoy it:

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.

 "Not very long," answered the Mexican.

 "But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the American.

 The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.

 The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

 "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. I have a full life."

 The American interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat."

 "And after that?" asked the Mexican.

 "With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers . Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to  Mexico City ,  Los Angeles , or even  New York City! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise."

 "How long would that take?" asked the Mexican.

 "Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the American.

 "And after that?"

 "Afterwards? Well my friend, that's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!"

 "Millions? Really? And after that?" asked the Mexican.

 "After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends."

And the moral of this story is . . ..
Know where you're going in life . . . you may already be there.

Monday, August 27, 2012

The Event and the Episode


Unlike Garrison Keillor’s mythical Lake Woebegone, it has not been a quiet week in Hillsborough River State Park, just east of Tampa, Florida. We had to deal with what I now call “the event”. This was followed by “the episode”.  And then, just to round out the week, we have had to deal with the park being closed and we were required to evacuate because of Tropical Storm Isaac.

But let us start with “the event”. Wednesday morning, 8 o’clock, I awoke to a crushing pressure in my chest. The classic elephant’s foot, pressing down on me. In addition, there was a pain radiating from my heart and down my left arm. You don’t have to be a board-certified cardiologist to know this is not good.

Jo gave me two aspirin and then she called 911. Within 20 minutes, a fire engine and an ambulance were at our motorhome and men and women were clambering round, trying to figure how to get me onto the gurney outside the door. They refused to allow me to walk out on my own. That would have been so much easier on me and everyone else. Four men picked me up and tried to pass me down the narrow entrance way to our rig. They pretty much made life hell but managed to man-handle me out to the gurney. There they strapped probes on me and got me into the ambulance. One technician popped a nitro-glycerin pill under my tongue and we were off to the hospital, Jo following behind with a friend from the campground.

Florida Hospital in Tampa is a sprawling, multiple-block-long series of buildings. The emergency staff sprang into action and repeated what the EMT people had done in the ambulance. They stuck another nitro tablet under my tongue. That opens up the blood vessels. But the price is a raging headache. Their heart monitor tracked everything going on in my ticker and, after a few hours, a doctor appeared. He said they could find no damage to my heart but they wanted to move me to a room where I could be monitored constantly.

I didn’t see a cardiologist until 5 p.m. which was disconcerting. I was pretty grumpy by this time because I had not been able to eat anything for 22 hours. My elephant foot was still on my chest and I was not being treated. The cardiologist, Dr. Mohammadreza Tabesh, was a quiet young man, exuding a peaceful confidence. He said there would be four EKGs made during the first 24 hours and I’d had two already which showed nothing.  He said a nurse would be monitoring me every hour.

Another patient was brought into the room and he seemed to be in much worse condition than I. He seemed to be drowning in his own fluids. He’d lie in his bed, out of sight, and gurgle when he breathed. About once every hour, he’d press his panic button to summon a nurse, screaming that he was drowning.

My nurse came in and woke me at 1 a.m. on Thursday to take another EKG. She disappeared. My elephant was still in the room. Things changed in 20 minutes. She was back with a team of nurses and technicians. “The EKG showed you were having a heart attack while we were taking the EKG,” she said. We have called the cardiologist and a senior nurse. We’re moving you to the catheterization lab and will prep you for the doctor.” This involved shaving my pubic area. This was done by Jukie, a cute young South Korean nurse. She worried aloud that she was shaving too much. But another RN, a guy, said to keep going.

I phoned Jo at 1:45 a.m. to alert her to the change. She can’t drive at night because of cataracts in her eyes that cause extreme flaring of light. But I wanted her to know that something was up.

The cardiologist, looking a little rumpled, was all business. He inserted a catheter in my groin took a look at what was happening to my arteries. I was able to watch as he came to the first blockage. It was like a dam: blood here, then a blank spot, then blood on the other side. He said I needed four stents. But he was worried about two of them because of an intersection in the artery which would have required two stents to be very close together. He saw very little damage to my heart muscle.

He said he’d like to consult with a cardiac surgeon to help determine if I should have stents or if the surgeon should split my breastbone, open me up and do four bypass surgeries. That was not an appealing option from my point of view, All I could visualize was a chicken breast being split apart with a cleaver.

I was moved into the cardio intensive care section, where I was assigned a nurse whose only job was to look after me and one other patient during her 12-hour shift. Mary was her name and she was my new best friend.

Mary was all business, but she had a great sense of humor. She hooked me up to more monitors than I thought possible. As best I could see (all of the monitors were behind me) there were more than 20 readouts occurring simultaneously.

I was being drip-fed nitro now. And this didn’t cause a severe headache. I also was being drip fed loads of other fluids.

The surgeon stopped by on Thursday morning to lay out the options from his point of view. He said I could go either way: stents or bypass surgery. He liked bypass surgery because he thought it would last longer than the stents. But he also was aware of the impact of the surgery in terms of being able to function and work. He praised Dr. Tabesh, my cardiologist, saying he was quite conservative and was an excellent cardiologist.

He said he would be unable to operate for one week, however, because Dr. Tabesh had given me a specific drug that must be out of my system before he could cut.

That pretty much made my decision easier for me. I was not willing to sit in hospital for a week, waiting for my system to cleanse itself. I chatted with Dr. Tabesh and asked him about the drug he had introduced. He explained that it is necessary to use it for one year in conjunction with inserting the stents because it makes the blood more slippery, thus reducing the possibility of clotting at the stents.
I told the cardiologist I wanted to move ahead with the stents. He said he could do two the next morning but I would have to wait until Monday for the second set because it would require too much of a chemical in my bloodstream so he could see the blood flow on the monitors were he to do all four in one sitting. He said my kidneys would have too hard a time processing the chemical. Arrrgggghhhh. Nothing is easy.

I was prepped on Friday morning and carted off to the catheter lab again. Jo kissed me at the entrance to the lab. She leaned in and whispered, “I’m not done with you yet. See you soon. I love you.”
The lab hummed with life and energy. The full team was waiting. Dr. Tabesh came in, shook my hand and it was cameras, action, roll ‘em.

He opened up my groin, slid the catheter in and up my femoral artery, across my chest and there was my messy artery. In went the first stent, inflate. In went the second stent, inflate. And there went the blood. It was like a dam had been cracked open. Now the blood flowed through that river of life. I was able to watch all this action on the hi-res monitors.

Dr. Tabesh sat quietly watching the action. I could feel his mind working. He told me he thought he would like to run a stress test on the location of the final two stents to see the state of that artery. I said, “Go for it, doc.” He injected a chemical that sent a great rush of warmth through me. He studied the picture on the screen for two minutes and turned to me. “I think we do not need to stent this area,” he said. “The stress test shows you are getting adequate blood flow there. I suggest we leave that alone and revisit it if needed at a later time.”

I was wheeled back upstairs to intensive care and this sets the scene for “the episode.”
Mary hovered around, constantly checking where the catheter entered my groin. She said she worries about blood clots forming there. After about three hours, Dr. Tabesh stopped by to check on me. He said if all went well, I might be able to leave the next day, Saturday.

He then left the building. Mary removed the catheter from my femoral artery and placed a heavy donut over my groin. She returned a number of times to check my groin to be sure there was no leakage.
I asked her about the catheter, how it worked, where it went, etc.

And, as she explained it to me, I noticed I began to yawn involuntarily. I then noticed I was beginning to feel very hot. I told her that and the moment I did, I had the sensation of falling backwards and going down, down, down. There was no fear but I knew I was dying. I may have said, “I’m not going to make it” because I could hear Mary going into overdrive, calling out for assistance and calling for specific drugs and fluids. There was great urgency in her voice. But it really didn’t matter because I had fallen so far backward that I knew I would not be back. I could hear her tell me to hold on. “You’re going to come back. You’re going to come back.” But I didn’t think so.

And then I stopped falling. I was hovering now. No worries. No fears. Nothing. No bright light. But I felt myself rising. I heard her say, “He’s coming back.” I thought of Jo and was relieved that I would see her again, that it wasn’t over.

I remember Mary asking a nurse to stand by my bed and keep an eye on me because she had to go pee. I thought that was kind of funny. I looked at the nurse, whom I didn’t recognize, and began chatting with her. I was curious, I said about whether the monitors would have all this data recorded, or do they just give moment-by-moment information. She smiled at me and said it was all recorded but she was there the whole time and had seen everything.

I asked her about my blood pressure. “That dropped to 32 over 22,” she said. “And your pulse went as low as 24.”

Mary was back now and I asked her about what happened. She said she believed she had affected the vena nerve, a major nerve that crosses our groin area and curves around to the anus. If it is traumatized, she said, it is possible to produce these results. She said this is why people straining over a bowel movement can pass out. (I could have this wrong, because all this is being reconstructed from memory, of course.)

She said she had ordered two one-liter bags of saline solution to be pumped simultaneously into each arm without any restriction. So I had been given two liters of fluid in an incredibly short time. She told me I would need to begin eliminating this fairly soon. Otherwise she would have to insert a catheter. I told her there would be no more catheters. And I set about to pass a couple of quarts of pee.

She remained ever vigilant, wanting to know how that was working. And she threatened to catheterize me but I said “no way”.  I began flowing on my own and that solved that problem.

Dr. Tabesh came in to visit me in the early evening. He wanted to hear about the episode and said I would not be leaving on Saturday. Maybe Sunday if all went well on Saturday.

And all went well. I was moved out of the intensive care unit on Saturday afternoon and moved to the first floor to a private room where my night nurse was Marina, a very sharp Russian RN. There was a whiteboard on the wall, giving me the Day, Date, Names of my nurse and my technician. There was a slot for “Goal of the Day” and I asked the nurse to write “To leave tomorrow.” They liked that and chuckled because no one bothered to fill that line in.

I woke up on Sunday morning and walked over to my whiteboard to change the goal to “Leave Hospital Today!”

And so it was. But, just to keep life interesting, the park where we are volunteers phoned just before I was released to say the park was closing because of the tropical storm and we were required to evacuate the rig from the park immediately. We told them we would be back in about an hour or two, after getting our prescriptions filled. We planned to eat a light lunch and then we would be ready to move.

While I was unable to drive the rig or the car, I was able to show Jo all the things I normally do when we disconnect our umbilicals and leave our site. But Jo did it all. Then she drove to a commercial park nearby where we had already called to be sure we could stay. They gave us a handicapped site which is easier to back into. Jo finished the journey by backing the rig into our new slot. We plugged in the umbilicals and set up house.


Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Cat Tales


I'm Fiona at the front. My brother, Ian, sits behind me on the sofa. We are pretty good pals.


Ian: This past month has been huge for Fiona and me. One change after another. Very high stress for the two of us. First, the parental units (PUs) drove us half way across the country and moved us into another home.

Fiona: Then the PUs moved us halfway back across the country. The whole world changed. The engine is at the back of this new house.  That’s nice for us because we enjoy being up front when we travel and it is quieter.

Ian: So we made it back home to this park we seem to be living in. No big problem for us. We are adaptable animals if we are anything. We both like the new home, although I did have the scare of my life – and even used up one of my nine lives – when Robert opened this huge sliding wall that creates a bigger room. I was on top of the sliding room and no one knew that. Trouble was, I tried to escape by sliding my lithe body (that’s a joke, folks. I’m a little tubby!) I tried to slip between the solid part of the wall and the sliding room and managed to get trapped. Boy, that hurt. I yowled long and hard. Robert stopped the sliding wall from moving and then reversed it. I yowled again. I was caught half in and half out and the space was tiny. But I managed to slide my hind quarters through and jumped to the floor. It was scary and I learned I should not ever be up there. Now, when we move, I slip under the sofa and I stay there while the sofa and the room moves in and out.

Fiona: It was scary to hear my brother scream. But he wasn’t hurt. He likes to talk back to the PUs when he does something bad and they scold him. I never do anything bad, by the way.

Ian: This past weekend, the humans were complaining that I have grown so large I can’t seem to fit into the litter box. My problem is that I seem to hang my rear over the end of the box and that really annoys the folks. They bought a deeper box. Depth isn’t the problem. Anyone could see that. I needed a bigger box, not a deeper box. They went off out in the car and back they came with some cheesy new box with a completely new system. They talked about how it was a two-layer system, with a pad on the bottom to collect our pee, and a weird yellow chip system. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. Those yellow chips are hard and hurt my paws.

Fiona: I agree. I went into the box first because, generally speaking, I am more daring than my big brother. I pee-d and jumped out. I really didn’t like the feel of the yellow chips.

Ian: I said to my sister I wasn’t going to accept this new concept. I’m flexible. Lord, I am the most flexible cat in the universe of cats. But no cat should have to stand and squat on these damned yellow chips. I pee-d and said,  “That’s it. I’m going to hold it in from this moment onward.”

Fiona: Boy, the PUs tried everything to coax us into that damned box. They even sprinkled our old litter on top of the yellow chips. I went in and checked it out. I was holding onto my poop. Twenty-four hours in and I needed to go. But I was not going to go on that yellow stuff. I felt the old litter was better but I still could feel the yellow chips under it and, when I dug into the litter that brought the yellow bits back to the top. So I walked away.

Ian: We went through the night, not using the box. In the morning, Jo was getting concerned about our innards.

Fiona: Robert brought in the old box, filled with litter. Oooooh. What a relief. I was in that box in two minutes and aaaaah. That felt so good. My brother got in right after me and we both felt the relief. We felt even better when we saw the new system being put back in its cardboard box. They got the receipt out and off they went to get a refund.  Now, all we have to do is train my brother how not to hang his rear end over the end of the box. That is embarrassing.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Snake, Rattle and Roll



The diamond back rattlesnake lay low in the grass, nudging up against a sable palm tree. He was flat, had an almost collapsed look. I wondered if he had died. There wasn’t any movement visible. I picked up a palm frond and gave a nudge. Oh-oh! This boy was wide awake now.

He reared up, hissing. His rattler tail uncoiled and it, too, stood straight up. He did his thing…. Rattling like the killer he is.

I retreated. And I eyed him cautiously. I was in the midst of clearing my five acre patch of grass for cutting. We’d had a storm in the night and a huge number of palm fronds had fallen. All these have to be picked up and carted off before I mount my massive Gravely grass-cutter to mow.

The snake maintained his belligerent rattling and I moved away from him. After I took my load of fronds to the dump, I stopped by our motor home to pick up my camera before returning to the snake. But he had slipped away in my absence. So I finished picking up my debris field and returned in another hour with the Gravely.

I love how it is possible to pivot the Gravely around a palm tree. With the right touch, you nudge the front wheel up against the tree trunk, and then you spin your rear wheels and move forward. The tractor rotates close to the tree trunk. Nice and clean. I did that about 50 times before I came across the rattlesnake again. He had found another tree to lean up against. But he could feel the vibrations of my massive machine so his tail was already up and rattling when I reached his tree.

I veered off so as not to hurt him but he had no sense of humor about this annoying human. So he reared up again and again to tell me to stay away from his patch of grass.

So, should you come to Honeymoon Island State Park in the next week, and you head down to the grassy picnic area, you’ll enjoy the rather nice lawn I have prepared for you. But there is one little patch beside a Sable Palm where the grass grows tall and I won’t be able to get to it before we leave this wonderful park at the end of our three months here on Tuesday. And I never did get a picture of him. Sorry about that.

Here's some information about the diamond rattlesnake:

Eastern diamondbacks are primarily terrestrial (living on the surface of the ground), rarely climbing into trees and infrequently going underground during the summer. During winter, movements decrease; rattlesnakes in the northern part of the range often stay below ground, but those further south still remain on the surface much of the time.

Rattles probably evolved as a warning device to protect the snake from being accidentally crushed by large, hoofed mammals. The rattle is composed of hollow, interlocking segments that click against each other when the tail is vibrated. Rattlesnakes gain a new segment to the rattle every time they shed their skin. Since they may shed from one to three times per year, one cannot accurately estimate the age of the snake simply by counting segments. Segments also break off as the snake grows older.

Like all vipers, rattlesnakes have a pair of long, movable hypodermic, needle-like fangs that fold against the roof of the mouth when not in use. These fangs are connected to venom glands on each side of the rattlesnake's head. Rattlesnake heads are large to accommodate these venom glands. During a strike, venom is pumped by muscles surrounding the venom glands, through the fangs into prey. Rattlesnakes are also known as pit-vipers and possess two heat-sensitive pits on either side of their face. These pits are sense organs and detect radiant heat, and aid rattlesnakes in locating prey and increase striking accuracy. These pits are extremely sensitive and can distinguish differences in temperature of less than 0.2 C. These advanced systems evolved in pit-vipers as a means of obtaining food. It is the most advanced system that snakes have for capturing prey, and reduces the chances of injury to the snake.

The venom of rattlesnakes is actually a digestive enzyme and is a complex mixture of proteins. The primary purpose of venom is to kill and digest prey. Venom is used in defense only as a last resort. Some venoms attack the nervous system (neurotoxic) while others attack the blood and tissue (hemotoxic). The eastern diamondback, like most rattlesnakes, has a combination of both types, but unlike most vipers, it has more neurotoxic properties.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Our New Home


Here's an exterior view of our new Alfa. There's an additional slide on the other side at the rear.

Well, we’ve done it! We took the plunge to help the U.S. economy by purchasing a new rig. New to us, that is. It is actually a 2004 model with 36,000 miles on it. Beautiful inside. Lots of space, including two slideouts. The outside needs work, though. It has peeling decals and is chalky so lots of elbow grease is in our future.

We have been lurking around RV dealerships since January, looking for deals. We even put a bid in on three different rigs but we ended up either rejecting them or being rejected by the financing agency we dealt with. Even though we have an extraordinary credit score (835 on Experian, which is better than 98 percent of the U.S. population, we were told), they were nervous about us because we simply have too little debt! That was a new piece of madness. Anyhow, we kept on triangulating and got very friendly with Ricky, our finance guy who works in California.

When I found an Alfa 36 motorhome on eBay, I wrote the dealer to see how we could work a trade for our Holiday Rambler. We came together on the price and we chewed it over for days. The problem was the motor home was in Missouri, 1,100 miles northwest of us. I wanted to find someone trustworthy who would do an appraisal for us. After a few hours on Google, I located an RV repair shop in St. Louis. I called the owner and explained my needs. I wanted him to be my eyes and ears and brain and go over the rig with critical eyes. We agreed on the price for his services and a few days later he came back with a pretty honest report, as it turned out.

So why would a person drive 1,100 miles each way to buy a different vehicle, you might ask? What we found was pricing of similar motor homes in Florida are about $25,000 higher than in the Midwest. Go where the bargains are!

We decided to go for the financing and our friend Ricky said he thought it would go through this time. It did at a very conservative 4.49 per cent rate. Now we had to arrange to drive our rig north to the Midwest. Tropical Storm Debby said “Not so fast, buster.” She dumped 12.25 inches of rain on us at Honeymoon Island State Park in Florida. And then she couldn’t get her act together and move out of the area.

We left and drove through the feeder bands all the way north to Macon, Georgia, where we parked for the night in a Walmart lot. That was 400 miles of the trip. We were up at dawn and pushed on through Georgia, coming into Tennessee and finally stopping exhausted for the night in Kentucky.

The next day we passed through Illinois and crossed the mighty Mississippi at St. Louis, passing the iconic arch alongside the river. We promptly took a wrong turn in the city and had a fearful job of maneuvering our way back onto the Interstate and eventually being squirted out on the northwest side of the city. The dealership was in Moscow Mills, Missouri and we arrived on the third day in searing heat – 108 degrees, breaking all records.

We spent the next two and a half days, in the same blistering heat, transferring all of our stuff from our old Holiday Rambler into the new Alfa. At some point, the generator on our old rig died and we were left with no air conditioning! We asked the guys at the dealership if we could take up residence in the Alfa since the alternative would be two dehydrated bodies and two cats lying in the dust. They were very nice about it and we moved in.

The dealer, however, was nervous about the generator dying. I, however, found some problems with the new rig’s four-door refrigerator-freezer. The freezer seemed to be working, but the fridge was useless. We agreed to call it even. I would fix the fridge. He’d fix the generator.

All the time we were carting stuff between the two rigs, I was on the internet or the phone with Ricky in California. The check was late in being sent out via FedEx. It arrived on Friday morning, however, and we transferred ownership and keys.

We headed out to make the return trip at a slightly more leisurely pace. Now we have a very powerful diesel motor at the rear of the coach, instead of our Chevy truck engine up front. We are able to talk and listen to the radio as we travel. Because of the severe heat, we are travelling along with the heavy-duty diesel generator running. This allows us to cool the coach better than with only the dash a/c units.

As I write this, we have just crossed the Illinois-Kentucky state line. Jo is at the helm, the cats are prowling around, sitting atop the big slide in the living room area. When it is retracted for travel there is a high shelf available to them which they think is the cat’s pajamas.

If all goes well, we will be back in our slot at Honeymoon Island State Park by July 3 in the afternoon.
Looking aft from the entryway. 

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

New Life at the Beach

The killdeer is just to the left of the single orange cone.

A nervous killdeer hovers near her nest of three eggs in the parking lot at Honeymoon Island State Park.


Two delightful things happened during this week: a loggerhead turtle swam ashore, made her way up the beach to the high water line, scooped a hole in the sugar-fine sand, and dropped a clutch of eggs into the nest. She covered up the eggs and made her way back to the Gulf of Mexico… all before the dawn broke.

A ranger discovered the distinctive marks of her flippers in the sand, the first time this has occurred in Honeymoon Island State Park in two years. After consulting with the park botanist, it was decided the eggs needed to be moved farther inland by 25 yards so they would have a better chance to hatch in the next 57 days.

In the process, the rangers have installed a protective mesh enclosure so raccoons can’t invade the nest and steal the eggs. The tiny hatchlings will have a hard enough time surviving when they break into this world in just under two months.

And the very same week, a killdeer (that’s a small bird with a couple of stripes around its head) decided that the Oasis parking lot was the “perfect” place to lay her eggs. She picked a high spot in the grassy verge. She scraped a slight indentation in the rocky soil and plunked down three eggs with black and white spots on them.

The rangers have put orange cones up in the parking lot to provide a tiny amount of protection for this momma. When I drive through the parking lot, I stop to watch her spreading her wings as she sits on the eggs, protecting them from the heartless beating down of the brutal sun. She also has to worry about marauding gulls which might see the three eggs as a delightful appetizer.

Last night, Jo came with me on my final rounds of the night and we photographed the killdeer as she hopped off her nest and trotted round the nearby parking lot. We sat very still. In a minute, her mate arrived on the scene. He danced around for a few seconds. She darted over to him. He mounted her and had a quicky coitus and then flew off. Mmmm. Interesting behavior, old boy.

Late last week, we had a wicked storm pound the park and the neighborhood. Much rain fell and the angry Gulf of Mexico was roiling with the wind, casting up destructive waves on the shore. I had stopped on my morning rounds to enjoy this angry version of Mother Nature at her best… and worst.
I was carrying our iPad and, while I sat there on the shore, I was moved to write these words:

Be still, my heart, and listen to the surging sea.
She pushes forward, surging and sucking, surging and sucking.
She knows just how far she can come. Up and onto the land. Wave one, then two, three and four. A small retreat. But waves five, six and seven push in, inexorably, and here comes the eighth wave, pounding and spreading  its foaming richness. Now retreat for nine and ten. A pause for eleven, twelve and thirteen. A small retreat, just a moment, then with a great heaving and sighing, in comes the fourteenth wave, pushed ever onward by a bustling and almost angry fifteenth. A sigh. A moment to catch its pounding breath. And now the cycle begins again.
Be still my heart and listen to the insistent roar. Does it come for me? No. It is unthinking, unfeeling, uncaring. It is the never-ending sea.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Some Heavy Lifting


The park is a site for multiple weddings each weekend. This couple speak their vows under a canopy on the beach.


Have you lifted 2,400 pounds lately? I have.

Memorial Day weekend at the park was for the record books. Thousands of people flowed through the gates. Jo brought in more than $3,000 in admission fees at her booth. More than 8,000 folks came to visit the park on Saturday.

I was out on my magical mystery tour, trolling up and down the beaches, fighting the never-ending flow of garbage that was deposited by folks leaving the beach. I met up with a man from Vancouver, B.C., who wanted to know everything I knew about the beaches, the birds, and the ferry. He even began to tell me about day-trading on the stock market. I spent a half hour chatting with him before I bid farewell so I could continue my journey of collection.

The flow of garbage was so overwhelming I decided I needed to quantify the crap. So I kept tabs on the numbers of trash bags I filled from the barrels along the beach. In my five-hour shift, I collected 48 bags of trash. The dumpsters were so full, the rangers had to use a forklift on the front of a tractor to press down and compact the garbage so more could be loaded. I calculated each bag averaged about 25 pounds. And I had to lift them twice: once after bagging the trash from the barrels and once from my electric cart into the dumpster bins: 2,400 lbs. or so.

The following day was just as bad. Sunday was hot, hot, hot and I returned to the workshop area after my first cart load of crap. I drank greedily from the water fountain and said the only way I could keep up the pace was if I got help. Chuck was the answer to my prayer. My radio crackled. The front gate ranger announced Chuck, a volunteer from Palm Harbor up the road, had just entered the park and was being sent to the workshop area. When he walked in the door, I pounced. Chuck didn’t know what hit him! I told him we were going trolling along the beaches. He worked alongside me for four hours before announcing he couldn’t do any more. But he was a god-send to me and I sent him on his way as the sun slipped below the horizon – with yet another green flash.

We’ve finished our first month at Honeymoon Island. It’s been fun and memorable. Mostly, Jo and I like having the park to ourselves in the late evening. We love the wildlife which surrounds us. We’ve both encountered 4-6-foot-long diamond-back rattlesnakes as they wriggled across the roads. We have two raccoons that play havoc with Jo’s lettuce pots. We laugh aloud at the antics of a silly female cardinal who alights on the rear-view mirror of our Honda Fit. She is beside herself with frustration every day when she sees her image in the mirror and seems unable to understand it is a reflection. To her, this is an intruding competitor who is interested in her male cardinal who arrives at the same time and who never looks at himself in the mirror. He simply perches on the roof or the radio antenna of the car and watches his mate with bemusement as she goes through hell trying to scare off the competition in the mirror.

The gopher turtles live here in abundance and look us with a mopey look of “please don’t disturb me” when we pass them on the road. They pull their head into their shell and wait for us to move along. Eventually, they peek out and decide we are not there to do them harm. And, finally, we are endlessly entertained by the endless array of wading birds and fluttering seabirds. The other night, as we walked the beach, two least terns fluttered overhead. They would hover in the air, their beaks pointed directly below them, eyes straining to pick out the tiny fish in the waves. In a split second, they spy their meal and drop like stones into the water. Up they come again, with a tiny fish in their mouth.

All in all, it’s a life that might be recommended to anyone. Chuck, by the way, was astonished that we would want to – as he put it – “live out of a suitcase”.  I tried to explain to him that we don’t feel we’re living out of a suitcase. It’s more like being a gopher turtle, I said. We carry our house around with us and it is always there as a comfort and place where we can find peace. Chuck, who is a retired professor of gerontology from the University of Georgia, was intrigued but couldn’t get his brain around the concept.
This Least Tern hovers while eyeing the potential for a meal in the Gulf of Mexico.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Wandering Among the Birds

A courting pair of  Royal Terns dance in the sand at North Anclote Key.

We joined a handful of rangers and a couple of volunteers from the Audubon Society on a boat trip to Anclote Key and then North Anclote Key to count birds. Anclote Key has a single ranger living there in isolated splendor. His name is Chris and when we pulled up to his dock, he was pretty grumpy. His reverse osmosis water system had broken down and he had no fresh water on the island.

He climbed aboard and piloted the barge to the northern part of the island (it's five miles long), where we dropped off two rangers and a volunteer by running the barge into the beach and letting them off the front end. Then Chris pulled back and we headed to North Anclote Key - a mile-long spit of land and barely rises above the sea. It had a wealth of birds living there, however.

Syd, an Audubon volunteer with a braid in his long white hair that looked like it had been done 15 years ago, Jo and I stepped off the barge onto the island.

Syd knew his birds, however, and we were soon photographing and identifying nests that were mere indentation in the sand. These were the homes of Least Terns, well-named because they are tiny. But these little guys also are feisty. While Jo and I stayed well away, Syd moved ever closer to the nests so he could photograph them and take a GPS reading on their actual locations. The birds continuously dive-bombed him when he was too close.

We moved along the beach to a cluster of much larger Royal Terns who were courting and preening. They are gorgeous birds, with bright orange beaks and a crew-cut hairstyle.

Jo spotted a pair of Snowy Plovers, lying low in the sand. They tolerated our approach and I was able to get a nice picture of these dainty and downy-soft birds which are threatened in the state.

The low-lying nature of North Anclote Key (it didn't even exist 50 years ago) makes one wonder how they can possibly survive in this hostile place. A higher-than-usual tide in these parts would pass over the island and the eggs would be washed away. I estimate no part of the island was higher than 2.5 feet above sea level.

When we made it to the southern tip of the island, Chris brought the barge back into the beach and we climbed aboard. We made our way back to his ranger's house (standing on 10-foot-high pilings on Anclote Key) and we got to work trying to get his reverse osmosis water maker to run. I did the plumbing, cutting and cementing PVC pipes and fixtures while Syd, a retired electrical engineer, worked on the electrical side of the system. We both got the system up and running in two and a half hours and it pretty much made Chris one happy ranger.

He has a huge array of solar cells behind his octagonal-shaped house which feed electricity into a large bank of batteries, the island's sole source of power. When we left him he kept shaking our hands and inviting us back anytime.
The barge, pushed by two powerful outboard engines, takes us to Anclote Key.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Review of My Book


Escapees Magazine is a journal for people who enjoy the RV lifestyle. They graciously gave my book a decent review. Thought I would add it to my blog.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Life in the Park


Jo and I enjoy the peace of a perfect evening on the beach at Honeymoon Island State Park.


The good news is that I get to mount my electric cart and go for spins around our park in silent splendor. The cart can achieve speeds of 26 miles an hour. It’s called a GEM-el and it allows me to troll around the 4.5 miles of beaches. The bad news is I have to empty the trash barrels which are often too disgusting for words.

I also have come to the conclusion, sorry ladies, that women are intrinsically messier than men. So why would I make this sexist statement? Because I see it with my own eyes EVERY day. The women’s bathrooms are always twice as dirty as the men’s bathrooms, for example. I shout as I enter: “Maintenance. Anyone here?” “Yes,” comes a female voice. I stand on the deck of the bathhouse, overlooking the perfect water, enjoying the view. Out she comes after a minute or so. I go in and string up my chain, cutting off half the female bathhouse while I go through the stalls. Always I find toilet paper thrown on the floor and the toilets unflushed in the women’s section. Rarely do I find this in the men’s section.

And the little container for used tampons and pads in each stall: well, that’s another story. Ladies: Please be sure to drop these used items into the supplied container. When you don’t do that, I have to pick them up in my gloved hand. Disgusting.

Hardly a day goes by without my finding a pair of underwear in the stalls. What is that about! Get it together ladies!

Happily, I now have only one set of bathrooms to clean. My first weekend on the job, I had to do all four bath houses. I came home sagging and dispirited. Something told me this was a test by the rangers to see how I could stand up to the overload. I told them I was not a happy camper having to clean so much mess and they backed off and said I was supposed to clean only one bath house.

Best job: Definitely cutting the grass in the picnic area in the early morning once a week. I have access to an enormous 60-inch Gravely grass cutter. It is a monster machine that is very finely tuned to turn within its own length. Lots of fun cutting great swaths of grass and spinning around the palm trees and park benches in the early morning before the searing sun begins to cook. Not only do I use ear protection, but I also have a helmet and visor to protect my eyes from flying debris.

Jo has mastered the computer at the tollbooth. There are about 80 keys on it for every possible permutation of visitor: Walk-in, person in a car, Car with up to 8 people, military pass, annual pass, family pass, active duty military, and freebies, and a handful of others.

The best part of the day, however, is when our work is done and we have the park to ourselves. All the visitors go home at 8:10 p.m. (current sunset). It is us and the birds and the fiddler crabs, maybe a pod of dolphins frolicking in the Gulf, and the constant, soothing sighing of the waves washing against the shore. Bliss.
A man happy in his work.

Friday, May 4, 2012

State Park Volunteers

We're at our new home on Honeymoon Island State Park, all uniformed and ready to work.
May 1 took Jo and me to Honeymoon Island State Park, on the blue-green Gulf of Mexico, just north of Clearwater and St. Petersburg, Florida. We have been hired as park volunteers for two months.

Jo looks pretty smart in her uniform since her job is to be a toll taker at the entrance to the park for 20 hours a week. I, on the other hand, dress down because I wander the beaches (4.5 miles of them) and keep the park clean. We have been provided a really nice camp site, with full facilities, even including free laundry.

Honeymoon Island once was called Hog Island. It is a long barrier island that protects the mainland of Florida from the encroaching sea. In the 1920s, a major hurricane came through the area and split the island in two, creating Hurricane Pass. The other island, to the south, is called Caladesi Island which also is a state park and can only be reached by a shuttle ferry.

Jo and I visited Caladesi Island this week as part our orientation. It is a pristine place with incredible beaches. Lots of wading birds were wandering the shore and we will return several time this summer to explore the nature trails.

Our park is the busiest day visitor park in the state. We have more than a million visitors passing through the gates each year. No public camping is permitted in the park. But the beaches are exceptional. As we cycled around the park last night, we came upon an army of fiddler crabs, marching across the road. Many had previously been squashed by cars as they made the march to the dunes. Jo and I stopped on our bikes and watched as hundreds of the little crabs crossed the road, one large claw in the air in front of them as that walked sideways.

My first day of work began at 7 this morning. I reported for duty and was assigned a ranger who took me around the park. We cleaned the bathrooms (they were perfectly clean already) and we picked up barrels of  trash, plastic bottles and aluminum cans. It also was great to get the ranger's insight into life in the park.
He explained that most of the vehicles in the park are in their last legs because the state has little funding for repairs - or anything else. Hence we are hired to help the rangers at no cost to the state apart from the electricity we use.

He mentioned that rangers are not in the job for the money. He said, as a point of reference, if you are a ranger with one child you are eligible for food stamps because the pay is so low. It was clear he loved his job, though, and he saw the greater good that was provided by having the state park system. I'm not naming him so his honesty will not cause him any problems.

Jo has just left for her first day of training at the entrance gate. She's going to have to learn the computer system which offers her some trauma. But I have every expectation she'll be a whiz at it in a few days.
Stay tuned for updates on the adventure.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Sailing Away

A happy couple, surfing the silver sea.

Five million people live in Miami, viewed from Boca Chita Key at Biscayne National Park.


We are sailors at heart. That was re-enforced this weekend when we boarded Surprise, a rocket ship of a catamaran, owned by our friends Corky and Susan Clark. Corky and Sue charter the 48-foot long, 25-feet-wide sailboat and they took us aboard as guests at Miami’s Dinner Key Marina. The wind was howling across Biscayne Bay, so much so that the launch at the marina refused to take us out to their mooring. So Corky launched his inflatable dinghy and scooted in to the shore, handing us foul weather gear to keep the spray at bay while he crabbed back out to Surprise.

We were lucky enough to catch them between charters and they invited us aboard for a weekend of sailing around Biscayne Bay, one of our old sailing grounds while we lived in Coral Gables in the 1970s while I worked as graphic arts director of The Miami Herald.

After a delightful lunch, we slipped the mooring and Corky raised the mainsail and released the jib. Like a stallion that had been housed in its paddock for too long, Surprise unleashed her power and we lifted off across the bay, leaving two respectable rooster tails off the pontoons as the boat’s speed climbed steadily to 9.5 knots. Jo and I are used to sailing at 5 knots. So the sensation of almost double that speed leaves a permanent smile on our faces.

We scooted across the bay, heading for Boca Chita Key, an entrance to Biscayne National Park. The park is 95 per cent under water. But Boca Chita offers a place to anchor and then wander around the land once owned by the fellow who created Honeywell back in the early 20th century.

A clutch of power boats were tied up to the piers at the key. We parked outside, hanging on the anchor while the wind whistled through our main hatches.

We dinghied ashore and listened to the visitors chatter away almost exclusively in Spanish. Miami, of course, is a Latin American city. Even when we lived there, the population was 47 per cent Hispanic. There were 11 per cent black and the remaining minority was white folks. 

As of 2000, in terms of national origin and/or ethnic origin, 34.1% of the populace was Cuban, while 5.6% of the city's population was Nicaraguan, 5.5% of the population was Haitian, 3.3% of the population was Honduran, 1.7% of all residents were Dominican, and 1.6% of the population was Colombian. It’s a rich and colorful tapestry that adds to its international flavor. It gets a little overwhelming, however, when you find it impossible to speak English with city workers, for example, because they only speak Spanish.

We returned to Surprise and a dinner feast by Susan. We sat below, after dinner, playing board games and talk, talk, talking into the night. Before turning in, we took a stroll on deck and eagle-eyed Jo noticed the boat was lying at right angles to the anchor chain – always a bad sign. Sure enough, we were dragging across the grassy bottom of the bay and we were dragging into pretty thin water. We had about four or five inches under the boat. All hands on deck now! We had to haul in the anchor and steam back to deeper water. We got the anchor reset and we watched as the boat rode easily to the chain.

We turned in and awoke to a peaceful morning, full sun, and no dragging. We sat around, solving the problems of the world before hoisting sail after lunch and scooting across the bay once more to the mooring at Dinner Key Marina. What a joy to sail. But it was made more special by being with dear friends we have known for 30 years.

If you’d like to know more about Surprise and maybe how to charter her, go to: www.Sailsurprise.com where you can learn about the boat, the different cruises that are possible, rates, as well as their blog.

Jo and I had left Ian and Fiona aboard our motor home for the two days. They had the air conditioning running, and two big bowls of cat food and multiple bowls of water. When we arrived home we found they barely eaten any of the food. Presumably they had gone into rationing mode for fear that we wouldn’t come back. They greeted us, climbing over us endlessly, marking us and nuzzling up against each of us. So a little absence did make the heart grow fonder.

The captain of this ship has passed out for siesta time on the foredeck.
Corky Clark at the helm, right, with Sue and Jo as we sailed across Biscayne Bay.
The lighthouse at Boca Chita Key, with fishermen and kids silhouetted.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Tampa Bay Times Article



Make retirement the best chapter of your life

By Patti Ewald, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 

    This is just a short stop for Robert and Jo Mellis as they move from Wekiwa Springs State Park, north of Orlando, to Lake Manatee State Park in Bradenton.
    They sit in lawn chairs facing the Gulf of Mexico. 
    The water looks like a sea of diamonds the way it does at that certain time in the afternoon when the sun is at just the right angle to bounce little flickers of light off the waves and ripples. 
    She is knitting. He is reading. They take turns reaching into a bowl of trail mix on a makeshift table between them. 
    To all the world, they look like a happily retired couple with not a care in the world and not a place they have to be.  Until you realize what's providing the shade in which they sit. It's their RV, a 34-foot beast that is to them what a shell is to a tortoise. It's the home they take with them everywhere they go. This day, they've taken it to the base of the Sunshine Skyway bridge, to the road leading to the fishing pier. 
    They are spending the year exploring Florida's state parks. They stay as long as they want at one park  and then pack up and move on down the road. 
    That would be quite an accomplishment for most 71-year-olds. But not for this husband and wife. A mere five years ago, they were making their third trip to Namibia, a developing nation on the southwest coast of Africa. They had been there two years before, when they were 64. It was the same year they went to Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Germany, Spain, Gibraltar and England. 
    Their first visit to Namibia was three years before that, when they were 61. To these post-retirement globetrotters, cruising Florida in a vehicle equipped with all the comforts of home is a breeze. 
    Robert Mellis went to Africa and Asia to teach and mentor working journalists in developing countries. Two of his trips were funded by the International Center for Journalists in Washington, D.C. Funding for the other trips came from many sources, including the Independent Journalism Foundation in New York, the U.S. government through its Aid to International Development program, several corporations — and even the newspaper in Namibia. 
    Jo Mellis, who has been at his side since they met in Boston in 1962, continued as his constant companion. She always went along and always found her own projects to work on — not the least of which was her opposition to the schools being built in Cambodia. "I got really annoyed," she said. "The Japanese were there building schools with no bathrooms. "Schools. With. No. Bathrooms," she repeated incredulously. "What are the girls supposed to do?" 
    Mellis started his lifelong career in journalism at age 15 in Scotland after he dropped out of school. "I was the youngest editor in Scotland," he said. He came to the United States and worked at several newspapers, including a stint at the St. Petersburg Times, before settling into a job as publisher of a group of weekly papers in Connecticut and New York. It was there that he learned to make the most of what he had — which wasn't much. That's the nugget he wanted to share with reporters and editors in poor countries: You can do great journalism even without a lot of resources. 
    And so began his travels that took him to 19 countries in 20 years. Mellis details all of this in his book, Now We Begin: How to Add Fun and Enjoyment to Your Retirement Years and Make a Difference in Our World. 
    Were they ever scared? Not really, they said, but there were some scary times. "We were in Namibia right after 9/11 . . . all the talk shows in the country were saying America got what it deserved. They called us the bullies of the world," Mellis said. "Sometimes you have to just let things roll off you. Not everybody loves America," he said. 
    What was their favorite place? There's no hesitation. "Bhutan." It's a small country the size of Switzerland in the eastern Himalayas that measures Gross National Happiness and strictly limits the number of tourists it allows in, Mellis said. The idyllic Buddhist nation nestled high in the mountains between Tibet and India makes its money selling hydro power to India, he said.
    The editor of Kuensel, a newspaper subsidized by the Bhutanese government, asked Mellis to help it become self-sufficient. Mellis obliged, teaching its business staff — of one — how to prepare and sell display advertising to local merchants. The paper, and the merchants, were pleased with the results, he said.
    Robert and Jo Mellis believe their life has been richer and fuller after retirement than most people's are during an entire lifetime. And it makes them feel like shouting from a mountaintop to other retirees: Just do it. 
    They are done with international traveling, but they plan to keep preaching the gospel of "Your Life Has Just Begun When You Retire" to everyone they meet. 
    In the epilogue of his book, Mellis said, "It has become our mantra that our retirement became the starting point for our new life, the beginning of what has become the most interesting phase of our journey. "And I constantly remind myself of the Monty Python skit in which a cart is pushed through the streets of some woebegone city in England with a man calling out, 'Bring out your dead. Bring out your dead.' The men with the cart haul a puny-looking guy out of a hovel and throw him on the cart while he whispers, 'I'm not dead yet.' "We are not dead yet. Lots more living will be done." 


Be brave, stay engaged 
Tips from Robert and Jo Mellis on how to make your retirement years the best of your life. 
• Just do it. Be brave. Be fearless. 
• Stay involved with people. 
• Stay interested in life. 
• Always challenge yourself. 
• Try to do something different. 
• Chase the thrill — get on that Harry Potter ride at Universal Orlando.
• Volunteer. Do your fair share of giving and everybody benefits. And remember, you don't have to be rich to have a great retirement. Be frugal. Live on your Social Security — but just live. 


The globetrotters Robert and Jo Mellis have been all over the world in retirement. Here are the places they've been and the age they were at the time: 
By plane 
Age 57: Singapore, Malaysia, Borneo, Sri Lanka, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan 
Age 61: Namibia 
Age 63: Cambodia 
Age 64: Laos and Vietnam, Germany, Spain, Gibraltar, Namibia, England 
Age 66: Namibia 
By boat 
Age 60: Maine to Florida 
Age 63: Canada 
Age 62: The Bahamas 
Age 65: Down the east coast of the United States 
By RV 
Age 67: Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia 
Age 68: Maine to Florida via Cape Hatteras, N.C. 
Age 69: Along the Mississippi River to Ontario 
Age 70: British Columbia, Yukon and Alaska 
Age 71: Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and back to Maine 
Source: Robert Mellis 
Copyright 2012 Tampa Bay Times