Thursday, May 24, 2012

We have started loading The Beast and tomorrow will finish packing, empty the refrigerator and clean house. We hope to be out of here at 7AM Saturday, headed to Atlanta for the wedding.

I'm going to start a new page-Spring/Summer 2012. see you there!!!

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Happy Birthday to Oliver!!! He had SUCH a special day. First, homemade birthday cards from me and the dogs, since we didn't get to the store to buy any. Then we went to church, which we always enjoy very much and even more so today since we won't be back until November. Pastor Paul did promise he'd save our seats!! Then we went to the mainland to look at the hospital (more about that later) and then to Walmart to buy a cooler for Oliver's beer for the trip home. Then we had a special birthday dinner-leftovers out of the freezer-before we had birthday cupcake---which Oliver brought from the hospital yesterday! There was a free skin cancer screening and he decided to go get checked out, in part because we had never even seen the hospital in Brunswick and also because he is due for a skin check. He was so pleasantly surprised with the hospital that he wanted me to see it today and I was surprised also. It's not Froederdt but it's over 300 beds and a much bigger campus than we had imagined. Also, he said they had a lot of good food around and that's where he got the cupcakes!  I thought I might have to take him back over there after he blew out his candle!!

Thanks to all of you for the many cards and phone calls he got. He plans to find out just who told everybody his age!!!!!

Almost forgot to mention that we have been dealing with rain all day from tropical storm Alberto which is spinning RIGHT off our coast! Sure hope no hurricanes take this route!!!

Friday, May 18, 2012

Packing continues-just one more dog to find a place for!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

We've had really weird weather this week-goes from sunny to stormy in the blink of an eye. We're glad, beacuse we need the rain but it makes it tough to plan! On Monday, we went down to the village, had a drink at Brogen's and then decided to have an early dinner. We were outside on the porch, which has a roof, so didn't worry when it got cloudy. After we ate, I ran across the street to one of the shops to buy a t-shirt and when I came back it started sprinkling, so we ordered another drink. When it started raining hard, we moved our chairs back from the edge of the porch but then it started blowing hard and we had to run into the restaurant. It POURED for about 30 minutes (we had to have another drink!) and then we still got wet running to the truck! This afternoon we decided to go to the beach and sat in the sun watching a big storm build. After an hour or so, we decided it was time to go so packed up our things and we were in the house about 30 seconds before the skies opened up. Look at this picture and see if you can believe we were on the beach not 15 minutes earlier!

Yesterday when we walked, it was low tide and the sign that was WAAAAY out in the water the other day was on dry land!!

We put our first suitcase in the truck today! Won't be long now.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Happy Mother's Day to all my human and furkid Mommy friends!

One of the things we love about this area is that the beach is constantly changing and this week was no different. We started noticing tracks all over the beach and we could NOT figure out what was making them. They looked like this:

Any guesses on what this might be? We thought perhaps a Segway, although we had never seen one anywhere on the Island. Fortunately, we ran into someone who explained it to us. Can you believe it is horseshoe crab mating season? Really? Yes, they crawl out of the water and chase each other around until they find someone they like and then they mate-the female lays eggs in the sand and many of them are eaten by birds before they can hatch and make it to the water. They are homely creatures, especially when they are mating, when they look like this:

But it turns out they have romantic souls- look at the design this guy made

And that is your science lesson for the day!!!!

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Who KNEW this could happen!!!  Today Oliver was shredding some papers in preparation for leaving here and all of a sudden there was a BOOM-loud enough that I could hear it from downstairs in our bedroom-and when I ran upstairs, he looked like he was in the middle of a ticker tape parade! Shredded paper all over him, and ALL over the floor. He said the top of the paper shredder popped up about 6 inches and there was a fireball and all the paper swirled out! Turns out that there was some paper stuck in the metal teeth and apparently the friction caused the paper dust to ignite!! Anyway, all is well-nothing happened to him and the paper shredder still works! We did take all the paper and the top of the shredder-which was really hot-outside for a while! Never a dull moment here.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

We are working hard getting ready to leave-hard, but sadly! We still find time for our daily walks at the beach though. This is the sign the dredgers put in the other day. It warns about walking/swimming to the sand bar at low tide.  Believe it or not, this sign will be out of the water at low tide!

Because of the supermoon, our 8 foot tide has been REALLY high at high tide! We had coastal flood warnings the past two nights because of it. There is a lot of ocean debris VERY high up on the beach. Yesterday we met this Airedale-Marina pretty much ignored him but Skipper wanted to play.

Back to packing!!

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Can't miss the chance to have the first supermoon picture!! We went to the beach at about 7:15 and stayed for a couple of hours. There were lots of people there, many with cameras. We each took a camera and got some pretty good pictures. Oliver needs one to help him finish his full moon over the ocean painting he's been working. Here's the early shot

People watching other people taking pictures of the moon!

I really like this one. Oliver is going to use it for his painting

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Just updating the blog before we have dinner and go down to the beach to see the Supermoon. Oliver finally finished the porch today-it was a real chore taking all the old screen down and putting new screen up. I did not like him up on the ladder

For good reason, as it turned out. While I was at the store he did fall off the ladder into the bushes and his back looks like he was on the losing end of a cat fight! But he got everything done and we're sitting out here enjoying the non-buggy afternoon! Yesterday we walked the beach and saw this dredge. Today Marina wimped out so she and I sat at a picnic table while Skipper and his Dad walked and Oliver says the dredge was out there to place a sign, warning about the tides. We have an 8 foot tide here and people tend to walk out to the sandbars at low tide and sometimes get stuck there when the tide comes back in!

Oliver saw this "ghost" hanging from one of our trees while he was working on the porch. He was really skeert!

The kids were groomed today and they look so nice!

Three weeks from today and we leave!!

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

We're home from our road trip and glad to have our furkids back home with us. We ate at Boss Oyster again last night and enjoyed soft shell crab and grouper. A little seagull joined us for a while

This morning we packed up and had breakfast at the B&B and then left at about 8:45. We decided to take the "scenic" route home-instead of taking I-10 and then I-95, we cut up through Valdosta and then to Waycross and over to SSI. Not exactly scenic. Anybody who thinks this country is crowded and doesn't have many trees needs to come down here!! Miles and miles of nothing EXCEPT trees! We got home about 1:45 and picked up our dogs, unpacked, took the truck to the car wash and had dinner. Tomorrow we get back to work here, preparing for our trip home. We'll be back in Port Washington 4 weeks from today!

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

We really got a jolt of reality today, driving along the Gulf coast from Apalach to Mexico Beach-about a 35 mile stretch.  All along this beautiful stretch, 8 of every 10 houses were for sale and many shops and businesses were closed. We drove out to Windmark Beach, which is (or was) a planned community that obviously has not and will not be completed. There are some condos and a few big houses but other than that, it is just a big area of very well made wooden walkways and a nice beach. Here are a couple pictures:

It is just overwhelming when you see what the oil spill did to this area-not the oil itself, of which there was little that actually reached these shores, but the effect of the press and their constant focus on the issue. The continuous articles about how bad the situation was kept the tourists away, which led to the business declines and people's loss of jobs and homes. This area will never recover to it's pre-spill level and I blame it more on the irresponsible media than on BP. OK-off my soapbox.

When we got back to Apalachicola, we stopped at our "house" and then drove over to St. George Island, a long barrier island. It reminded us both of North Carolina beaches-few trees, lots of sand dunes and rows of houses from the beach back toward the road. It's a narrow island so from some of the houses, you can see both Apalachicola Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. There are a very few shops and the lighthouse, which was rebuilt in 2005 after the other lighthouse(not the original but a rebuild) collapsed into the Gulf. The bridge from the mainland to the island is LOOOONG and the bridge across the Bay to Apalachicola is also long. We came back and walked around town to shop a little and then stopped for lunch (oysters and crabcake sandwich) and a beer before shopping a little more. There are lots of cute shops here. Oliver bought a t shirt and a hat and I bought a picture of shrimp boats and a shirt for Fish Day or Fishmas Eve. We came back to our B&B and had some cookies and coffee on the porch and we're now getting ready to go to dinner. Here's the back of the house where we sat