Killing time

I’m not really sure what has happened over time with this blog. What I’m supposed to do with it? How often? I realized that it is almost 2015 and  haven’t typed a single word here his year. I also realize that I’m typing into the wind since no one will be reading this.

The blog that started as an “Oh my god my dad is sick” tracking tool, morphed into a travel brochure for dummies, and now…..not sure. My dad is still chugging along. We are still travelling. I guess at some point I will be given a sign.

I’ll probably post some events from 2014 that happened, so that I have a more definitive “over time” accounting of things. Let me know if you read this.

What color water?

Whitewater rafting. I had conjured up a lot of images in my mind pertaining to this event, but none of them matched the actual activity. I guess it’s probably best to list them off as I thought about them.

Fear: Sore muscles and exertion, as well as fear that I don’t have muscles or lung capacity for exertion.

Reality: I saw plenty of, let’s call them, “fans of food” lining up at the waiver table prior to the actual rafting. It turns out that most of the whitewater on this trip was contained to a bunch of short areas and that the rest of the trip was relatively leisurely floating. Don’t get me wrong, “a bunch” was a good many stretches of “better get paddling”, but it was just enough rest in between to get me excited for the next burst.

Fear: I would spend my entire time fishing Sam out of the river and scared to death of someone having to pull me out of the water.

Fact: If you paid attention to the instructions I eventually found that it would be tough to fall out and even if you did it seemed like they were pretty good at chasing people and rafts down.

Fear: One or all of us would not have fun or find it not enjoyable.

Fact: My family is a wide range of interests and abilities in so many things, but every one of us had a blast. Take a look at this picture…everyone is smiling.

Even our guide seems to be enjoying something.

Fear: The water would be freezing or the weather would be bad, and so on…

Fact: Our first raft trip went this way…We woke up at 6:30 am for an 8:30 am launch time. It was pouring rain and we knew from the locals that the creek temperature was 58 degrees. I think that 58 degrees is an agreed upon temperature that they all get together and decide to lie about. I can imagine this is done at a town hall meeting with voting and everything. I didn’t have a thermometer, but if I had to guess the water temp. was about 4 degrees. I know what you’re thinking, but this isn’t science class…it was 4 degrees. I have missing toes to prove it. Anyhow, by the time we got going the skies cleared and the weather was how you see it in the picture. Again…we had a blast. Here are a couple more pictures, but frankly, they all look the same.

 

We can’t figure out why Jen has her bored face on.

Sunday, Monday…

Every once in a while a day comes along with none of the usual lists or chores, strife or trouble. The problem with these days is that, by their nature, they are unscheduled surprises. You can’t save your money for them or wake up early for them, you just have to recognize that you are having one and go for the ride. One of those days just happened to catch us at the right time yesterday. The majority of us have been sick or struggling over the past month with various things, but yesterday will help get us through until our turn comes again. Now that I’ve built this up into some kind of big deal and made it into a corny thing, I don’t have a lot of evidence to show you that it is as I say. We spent the day with each other, without TV or computers (for the most part). We swam in the pool, went for a walk, ate lunch together on the lanai and generally had fun. The weather cooperated, nothing was broken, and I think we only got in the car once yesterday, and that was to get some ice cream to help wrap the whole thing up. Hope everyone else has had a turn recently, and here is the only evidence of yesterday.

Yes we have no bananas!

Mom and Dad have safely returned to Orion and sub-60 degree weather. I already miss them and can’t wait to get together again. Sam still has his banana aversion and is still singing the new song that he and Larry arranged. This song goes something like this: “Christmas dog saved the day! Christmas dog saved the day! (repeat 50 times) Bow wow wow, bow wow wow!!! Sorry. It had to be noted for posterity. Especially if a similar song makes the top 40. Residuals you see. We are all looking forward to Christmas and counting down the days while we twiddle our thumbs waiting until the very last second and wondering why half our budget is spent on postage. Here are some additional random photos from “the visit” and holiday preparations.

This one edited to retain maximum Christmas surprise.

Yakkety yak…

Here’s the scoop behind yesterdays kayak trip.

When we were in Europe we took advantage of our time and opportunities and spent a lot of time together doing really cool things. We decided the other day that we didn’t do the same thing here in Florida and that we really had no good reason for it. The output of this discussion was the we resolved ourselves to doing something fun and family related every weekend. One day for fun, one day for cleaning up the house and the substantial grounds.

We found the kayak company online, called them and they gave us the friendly “Come on down, the water’s fine!” routine. Trying new things is always a tricky routine. If we had shown up yesterday and the weather had been bad or it started raining halfway through we probably would never go again. First impressions you know. As it was the weather was perfect and we had a great time. The pictures were few and of bad quality because I was using my phone to capture the moments. I’m not even sure a real camera could have done it justice. We kayaked about 4 miles. Some of it in open water and some of it under the canopy of the mangrove trees. When I say canopy I really mean two foot wide swath cut in the trees. Herons to the left of me pelicans to the right… The kids seemed to have a great time, mostly because they didn’t paddle. Actually Sara did a great job and caught on pretty fast. Eventually Jen and Sara made a good team in their tandem kayak.

Here are the other two pictures I took. Sorry for the lack of pizzazz. Now that you know each weekend will have an adventure of some sort attached you can check in and see what happened.

The fear of dropping my phone in the water also negatively contributed to the quality of the pictures.

A day in the life, Swedish style!

What a day we had yesterday!

When we started this trip one of our goals was to involve ourselves in the culture and customs of other countries. Yesterday we got the full on Sweden experience. Let me see if I can break it down into useable parts.

A lot of Swedes use the summer weekends to get away from their daily life and the best way to do this, they think, is to spend some time at their Stuga, or cabin. Most of them only travel a small distance and most Stugas are very simple and small. We joined Roland and some friends at a Stuga that they use yesterday for breakfast, a tour of the area, and then a BBQ. Let’s start with breakfast.

Breakfast

We sat down to a very traditional and challenging breakfast. Traditional in the sense that we were served anchovies, half boiled eggs, liver pate, and some caviar in a tube….a favorite of the Swedish. I managed to try a bit of everything, but Jen and Sara struggled a bit. Sara is a vegetarian and won’t eat fish, and Jen is a “don’t talk about my food as if it walked the earth” person. The worst part was the anchovies. I’m not a fish person either and having one raw and staring at me was tough. The caviar in a tube is one of those items that Swedes get very worked up about. They can’t get it in very many places and, like Americans and their peanut butter, miss it when they travel. I can’t figure out why. We didn’t tell Sam what the liver pate was, we just put it on some bread and handed it to him. Our hosts were very polite and didn’t seem to take offense at our struggles. Oh yes…I forgot about the yogurt and cereal. That was the saving dish for the girls as it kept them busy and made them look like they were eating.

“The tour”

Roland, the father of our home exchange family on the fathers side, never misses a chance to take us “around”. We have been on a couple of his tours previously and we now know that this tour can be long and sometimes, well, let’s just call it wide ranging. Yesterday the highlights were visiting the Pippi Longstocking playground, the beach, and berry picking along side of the road. I’ll save one of the other stops for further down the page. Here are some photos of “the tour”

 

I was skeptical when we stopped the car in the middle of the road. Roland has a habit of driving his car anywhere he pleases, so I was ready for him to turn into a field and start chasing cows. Turns out he wanted to let the kids pick some flowers and wild raspberries. We all got into the act. It was fun, the setting was beautiful, and my favorite part is that it included food. More pictures.

The tour consisted of at least 3 other interesting stories, but I’m saving them for later. I am also saving “Dinner” for later. Trust me there is a reason dinner is in quotes. Even if I can’t describe it in writing, or it isn’t as interesting to others as it was to us, it deserves its own entry. I’ll leave you with some additional pictures from the Stuga and our group. Come back later or check www.homeroamers.com later for more on yesterdays adventures.