July escaped completely undocumented, even though we had a great big Garlic Adventure to Ohio and back to PA. Tonight I am typing this on battery power while we sleep several degrees off kilter in this welcome center / rest stop parking lot in NE Penn just shy of NY state. I don’t think we’re suppose to be here overnight, but when I went inside to find someone to ask, the only one around was a nice janitor lady and she said no one will bother us. I told her the story about how Joy dropped my phone in a cup of water and now the screen doesn’t work. She had asked what that little thing around my wrist was. I explained that it was a little LED flashlight that I use to read my phone’s screen whenever I need to. We wouldn’t have even stopped here but the Wal-Mart in town has been overtaken by township ordinances that state in scary big signs “no overnight camping.” I almost wanted to challenge that by setting up anyway and if anyone came I would have debated the semantics of overnight camping versus just parking… camping involves so much more it seems to me and it’s not like we would have tried to have a fire and roast marshmellows or anything. And, while the lady at customer service was apologetic and emphatic that it was not them (Wal-Mart) but the township and suggested that they were open 24 hours and hey we just might be shopping all night long, we figured we better not risk it and check out the welcome center instead since she also thought it might permit overnight. By the time we got here (just down the road) and everyone went to the bathroom and I called ahead to the next Wal-Mart an hour down the interstate to make sure they weren’t in local ordinance party-pooper land too, it was going to be quite late by the time we got there and sprawled out. So, we made a family decision split along pretty even lines to do the adventurous thing and subject ourselves to some guerrilla-style sleeping arrangements since I wanted to at least keep a low profile which means no slide-out and no leveling and Bennah had to climb over the bikes to get in bed, the other two boys are sleeping on the dinette (which turns into a bed of course… well of sorts anyway) and the girls are sharing the fold-down couch. And only the two little guys can squeeze through the bathroom door so everyone else has to use the porta-john that we normally keep in the truck so that we don’t have to stop at facilities every 15 minutes.
We’re on our way north and east.
I have many good excuses as to why things have died down quite a bit on the site here… and I want to publish this more boldly and dedicate an entire post to it – and I will likely write a lot more on the subject some other time (if I can make the time for it) – but:
The end of our world as we’ve known it
is closer than we think.
Let that sink in for a minute.
What does it mean? My world? Your world? Everyone’s world? You’ve probably felt the general vibe out there that not everything is as it should be. Sure there are lots of things going on in the news that seem like they’re all somehow connected, but surely everything will go on as it always has. Everything will be alright… right?
If you – right now – wherever you are, whatever you are doing that is getting interrupted by reading this is – pause for a moment; ponder the possibility that this fall – October, maybe later – could be a cataclysmic fulcrum point in America’s history that changes her (and the world) forever; let this possibility sink into your mind and then prepare; prepare by praying; prepare by thinking – what would you do if EVERYTHING changed? if you could not work? if you could not get to your family? if you could not use your cell phone? if there was no electricity? where would you go? what would you do? how? why? start weighing your options, but realize the only option is to trust your Creator whom you might not know as well as you’d like… if you pause for a moment and contemplate what I am saying… you will be more prepared to handle what will be coming in due time than the vast majority who will be caught completely by surprise.
Is this doomsday talk / conspiracy theory / doom and gloom? Depends on your perspective. Heavenly judgment on wickedness and oppression is justice and deliverance to the humble and righteous. Analytically speaking, America’s economic survival is impossible. Spiritually speaking, men of God have been having dreams and visions of America’s destruction for decades. And I’m not talking about televangelist type “men of God” – I’m talking about the kind of men (and women) who suffer persecution for their faith in Messiah in other countries, the kind who come to America as missionaries because of how lost our nation has become, the kind would (and do) walk for months on foot just to acquire a single copy of the Bible.
Could I be wrong about this fall? Certainly. But whether it unravels this fall or later, I am presently convinced that 2 of the next most massive world events are going to be: the collapse of America and war in the Middle East with Israel in the center.
Do I have any inside knowledge? No.
But I will share with you a dream my 7 year old daughter had a few days ago. My jaw dropped when she began telling me about it. She was at the pool with a couple friends. The water started to slowly drain out of the pool, but it was happening fast enough that she noticed it. She said it was very weird. Her friends noticed it too, but what was so bizarre was that no one else seemed to even notice or care. They just kept right on playing, even as they sank deeper and deeper with the level of the water. She and her friends got out as quickly as they could and kept watching. Soon, all the water was gone and everyone else was stuck at the bottom of the pool. She had the impression of very grave danger in the dream. As she was telling me about it, she had no idea how significant it was.
But the first thing I thought of was: “…as it was in the days of Noah…”
Don’t let anything I tell you – or anything that anyone else tells you – become the basis for what you do. Ask your heavenly Father what you should do. And if you don’t know Him very well, well, that’s probably a great place to start. If you don’t know Him at all you need His Son.
And where did May go I might ask you? Well, at least that wasn’t quite so bad as I was expecting. It seems like 3 months have disappeared, but it has only been 1 + a bit since last post… of course, it HAS practically been months if you don’t count the latest posts which haven’t had a whole lot to do with what we’ve actually been up to here in Pennsylvania. And now the clock is already winding down to another departure probably by July… less than another month away. Yikes.
So, here’s the highlight reel. Another crazy thing is that I’ve hardly touched my cameras (relatively speaking), though I do have enough great video clips to cut a few more episodes of Joureys… like so many noble projects collecting dust on the back burners. But here are some of the things that have been filling our days here in PA (besides the work we do in our virtual worlds):
There are some amazing storms that blow through from time to time.
We've been feasting on strawberries. Renee and the kids have helped weed and pick, and every couple of days we get a new big bowl-full from the garden. This was an actual, single strawberry that Reayah found.
Our friends set their pool up over a week ago, and it was added to our daily routine.
Ever since our friends got three new cows, Joy has been smitten. Every single day, several times, we here the familiar refrain: "go see cows? i like cows!"
And of course there's all the farm stuff: I made an attempt at seeding a bit of pasture with grass, and Renee has been having a ball doing all kinds of planting and weeding and picking. Of course the kids are pitching in too.
No country farm would be complete without a creek. Even with the pool set up, this is still pretty much a daily necessity. The creek is so versatile it has hosted forts (under the bridge), dam-making, snake killing, rope swinging, splashing, wading, falling in, and so many other things over the weeks.
Flying down the long driveway hill on scooters is also nearly a daily event. The most common question (the younger boys have to ask first): "can I go down the hill 2 times?"
For more pics of our adventures here over the last couple months, check out my latest smugmug galleries, which I am once again finally getting caught up with (there’s roughly 35 pics in each, and they are still uploading, so if they’re not done when you check, you can always check back again later):
As far as other news… everything is new. We were planning to have left from here a long time ago, but this place has been so fantastic for getting work done (the kids are incredibly content having so much to do outside all the time), and there have been important things that YHWH has kept us around for. It has been a real blessing to have the nearly constant community and fellowship with our friends here.
There is still quite a bit of uncertainty about what will unfold day-to-day, but we’re planning to hit a garlic harvest in July and meet up with some of our dear Colorado friends there, and then head back and still make a run at heading up the East Coast after that. We’ll see… as we’ve discovered, everything is subject to change 🙂
I’m going to take things in a radically different direction here for a moment. This post is for anyone who might be just a little too comfortable in their perfectly conceived lifestyle cocoon (including myself). And it is ESPECIALLY for anyone who relegates conspiracy theories to Hollywood and nut cases. Near Elberton, Georgia I have seen THE Conspiracy written in stone with my own eyes. Many of you might not be aware of the monument that stands there on the highest hill of the countryside in the middle of nowhere. Ever since I found out about it a few years ago, I have been extremely curious to see it for myself. In March, as we were travelling from Florida to Pennsylvania via Georgia, we added a little detour away from the east cost to check it out.
There’s a short video below from clips that I took while we were there, with a brief narration that I added later – but I wanted to expound in greater detail some additional resources for the rightfully curious as well as some of my own thoughts that I’ve collected along the way.
The Georgia Guidestones are an arrangement of massive, granite stones weighing nearly 120 tons and standing over 19 feet tall which have been engraved with 10 directives in 8 major world languages. The directives are these:
Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.
Unite humanity with a living new language.
Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
Balance personal rights with social duties.
Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.
Be not a cancer on the earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.
You might find yourself thinking that some of these sound a little creepy but others seem like good, sound principles. But do not be enticed! Remember that a full glass of water with only a drop or two of arsenic in it will still kill you.
There is a much bigger picture at work here. These counterfeit 10 Commandments are also internally inconsistent and deceptive. They publish the agenda while attempting to temper and even conceal it with falsehood. A prime example is #1. In order to justify a philosophy that wants to eliminate roughly 75% of the entire world’s population it plays the “ballance with nature” card. But think about it logically. Population management is inherently UNnatural. Any intervention to change natural processes – from contraception to fetuscide / abortion – is in fact OUT OF BALANCE with nature!
In addition, when we critically examine the mechanisms of population reduction that are currently employed throughout the world we find a massive body of evidence that proves directive #1 has nothing to do with nature and in fact is quite detrimental to nature:
War (Self explanatory)
Foreign Corporate Water Control (For years corporations have been maneuvering to privately control the drinking water resources around the globe – particularly in third world countries where supply is limited and demand high – in order profit massively from controlling the most critical element necessary for human survival. Through the WTO and the World Bank they have been largely successful).
Engineered Famine (Global markets and regulations artificially restrict production by influencing prices and import/export law; genetically modified terminator seeds sold to third world countries have been engineered to be sterile – planting the seeds that come from the crop will not result in new crops; U.S. government subsidies favor farmers who grow crops for purposes other than human consumption, etc.)
Disease / Pollution / Contamination / Health Destruction (Vaccines, Engineered Viruses, GMOs, etc… If you think I’m off the deep end here, just read the quotes below… and then go do your research. There is almost nothing safe or healthy about our current medical establishment / FDA / Pharmaceutical superstructure. Not to mention the toxins and viruses deliberately developed and administered through a variety of subtle means to subdue population immune systems and result in sickness and death.)
Fetuscide (The semantically correct term for the misnomer “abortion.” Language is manipulated to confuse and deceive. What does “abortion” mean? Go look it up in an older dictionary. By definition, an “abortion” is a natural process and includes miscarriage. Fetuscide or Aborticide on the other hand are the willfull destruction an an unborn person.)
One might take issue with me connecting these atrocities to the 10 “guidelines” above and try to make the argument that the authors would also have been opposed to such morbid means and results. But I submit that the authors of the directives would have to be either completely ignorant and naive or overconfident in their cause to attempt avoiding the logical conclusions of their principles encapsulated in the 5 mechanisms above.
War is an inevitable result of at least #4, #5, and #6, because who exactly gets to determine what is reasonable, fair, and just? For instance, much of the Islamic world thinks it’s entirely fair and just that all Christians, Jews, or other infidels either convert to Islam or die.
Guidelines #7 and #8 – when considered together – reveal that the authors’ definition of “petty laws” are rather the Common Laws of inherent Creator-given rights that should otherwise protect the individual from being enslaved by the relatively modern concept of “social duties.” The very existence of “social duty” must by nature infringe on personal freedom because it requires that a fallible human source determine what is socially required, rather than every individual on a level playing field being accountable to their Creator for their conduct towards other individuals. Thus, Creator-given rights are usurped and replaced by Socially Granted rights and duties.
As characteristic of every man-made law, the lawmakers assume their laws do not apply to them. This fact is exposed by and reveals principle #9 as a complete fraud. The authors were not interested in absolute truth, but in a truth of their own fabrication. Cases in point: The mysterious spokesman for the organization that commissioned and funded the Stones used a fictitious name in all his dealings and never revealed the organization he represented. As if this wasn’t “priz[ing] truth” enough – the spokesman claimed he took the fictitious name R.C. Christian because he was a Christians himself and that the 10 guidelines were based on his beliefs. I have no idea what Bible they were reading, but maybe they should have considered the fate of Nimrod’s Tower of Babel before they added #3 to their list.
Do you think I am being extreme, even paranoid? Actually my words are too soft! The threat can only be truly driven home by the searing words of the world’s elite themselves. Go back up and re-read the list of 10 directives. Then re-read my list of the 5 mechanisms by which these directives are being achieved (just read the 5 concepts in bold). Now ponder the perceived gap between the two lists. Now, read the quotes below and marvel at the way the dots connect:
“Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind” Theodore Roosevelt
“A total world population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.” Ted Turner, in an interview with Audubon magazine
“There is a single theme behind all our work–we must reduce population levels. Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the kinds of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control, it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it… Our program in El Salvador didn’t work. The infrastructure was not there to support it. There were just too goddamned many people… To really reduce population, quickly, you have to pull all the males into the fighting and you have to kill significant numbers of fertile age females… The quickest way to reduce population is through famine, like in Africa, or through disease like the Black Death…” Thomas Ferguson, State Department Office of Population Affairs
“The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap of mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.” Alexander King, Bertrand Schneider – Founder and Secretary, respectively,
The Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, pgs 104-105, 1991
“In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it is just as bad not to say it.” J.Cousteau, 1991 explorer and UNESCO courier
“A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people…. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions.” Stanford Professor ” Paul Ehrlich in The Population Bomb
“The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.” Dr. Henry Kissinger New York Times, Oct. 28, 1973
“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac,” … “The elderly are useless eaters” … “World population needs to be decreased by 50%” Dr. Henry Kissinger
“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.” David Rockefeller
“War and famine would not do. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved. AIDS is not an efficient killer because it is too slow. My favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world’s population is airborne Ebola (Ebola Reston), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years. “We’ve got airborne diseases with 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing humans. Think about that. “You know, the bird flu’s good, too. For everyone who survives, he will have to bury nine” Dr. Eric Pianka University of Texas evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert, showed solutions for reducing the world’s population to an audience on population control
“No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian Initiation.” David Spangler, Director of Planetary Initiative, United Nations
Women in the Netherlands who are deemed by the state to be unfit mothers should be sentenced to take contraception for a prescribed period of two years.” Marjo Van Dijken (author of the bill in the Netherlands) in the Guardian
Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.” David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club
“The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
“Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.” Obama’s science czar John P. Holdren: From a book he helped write ‘Ecoscience’
“The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control…. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.” Congressman Larry P. McDonald, 1976, killed in the Korean Airlines 747 that was shot down by the Soviet Union
“Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.” Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991
So, as you can clearly see – the sole motive is control and power. It has nothing to do with nature or any other “noble” cause. It is their quest to achieve absolute, god-like control over every facet of people’s lives and decisions.
Do not fear. Be aware. Be alert. Be sober. KNOW YOUR CREATOR AND BE KNOWN BY YOUR CREATOR! The only other option is to be a slave. In truth, you are already enslaved in so many ways that you cannot imagine. But there is such thing as complete freedom. And Kissinger was wrong about pretty much everything – including that “every man fears the unknown.” Many might fear the unknown, but you do not have to be one of them!
It’s hard to believe that in two weeks we will have been at this for a year already. Amazing!
We are settling in here at our friend’s in Pennsylvania where we started out last year around this time after a wonderful but all too short 2-stop journey up from Georgia. We camped at the fantastic Newport News Park for a few days and missed our dear brother and sister and family who used to live just a few short miles from there.
We had a wonderful time with our dear friends Ben and Elizabeth – hanging out at the campground on Saturday and then at their place on Sunday. Joy really took to their little girl who is only 2 days older. Now, every little girl Joy sees is “Aa-bee, Aa-bee!”
I had a business meeting on Monday with the very talented and creative folks at Ethicom (who are also long time family friends), and afterwards I brought the whole family over to their office for what was supposed to be a short visit (not wanting to impose). Well, it turned into quite a much larger adventure than that and by the time we left a couple hours later the kids all had their own offices, Bennah was working for $10 a day, they had produced their own “magazines” with a little help from a copier, and they each had a new writing/sketch book and an umbrella. They were talking about their new offices the rest of the day.
Keith from Ethicom put it so well (and I hope he doesn’t mind being quoted here): “It was a pure delight to have your little family come and spend a few moments showing us what true creativity really is. We need to be reminded that the Lord teaches us about Himself through the lives of little children and to always look at life through their eyes.”
The delight was ours! And the reminder was so valuable to Renee and I as parents. We can easily get caught up in the duties of raising children and sometimes forget the simple delights. We often look at things with our adult perspective and only see the extra work that a child’s whims might entail. But if we return to our own child-like vision still buried down deep underneath all the grown-up responsibilities and “mature” perspectives we’ve collected over the years, we can quickly tap into an endless wellspring of simple joy. To all our dear parent friends out there: chase the whims of your children with them through their creative and carefree eyes and you will discover the delight of remembering that anything is possible!
From there we headed up to our old stompin’ grounds near DC. It was a lot of fun watching the kids’ reaction to the familiar sites. They were beside themselves with amazement. Bennah kept exclaiming: “I just traveled back in time!” It was surreal in a beautiful way.
On Wednesday I dropped in on my old buddies at the White House and had a wonderful time catching up a little with them and hitting my Chipotle for lunch. Yes, it is my Chipotle. I used to make the pilgrimage at least once a week while I worked there. So many things have changed and so many things haven’t changed. Several people asked me throughout the day: “So, do you miss it?” Do I miss working at the White House? I told them all the same thing – I loved working there, and I would love working there again, but I do not miss it; not one bit 🙂
Our youngest son Jaiden asks us almost every single day no matter where we are: “can we ride the metro train sometime?” Our universal answer is, “yes – sometime.” So, Thursday was finally sometime and we rode the metro into DC and invaded the National Museum of Natural History. The little ones tired out in pretty short order, but Bennah and I made an extended exploration while Renee took the others for snacks in the Fossil Cafe.
The Pohick Bay Campground in Virginia near our old home was so nice – we wanted to stay longer, but Friday came and it was time to leave. We had a very pleasant journey up to PA and are now enjoying the farm, the kids have their friends again whom they’ve been looking forward to seeing for months, and we are getting ready for Passover.
I’m still incredibly busy with business and have added even more new projects to the list. I much prefer drinking through a fire-hose I suppose. Episode #5 is now live! I need to catch up on 3 months of photos to my SmugMug galleries. Spring is coming and YHWH’s blessings abound!
I’m writing this after a pretty tough week – not like, dramatic tough, just self-inflicted tough. I stressed myself out over a couple projects that really didn’t have any stress attached too them. And stress is not the right word either, but it’s the closest I can get to communicate the point. I don’t actually really ever get stressed out about much of anything if you can believe it. But I do have this condition where, once I sink my teeth into a project, it takes more than , a band of wild horses, an international crisis, and a New Kids on the Block song to pull me off of it. Unless of course I actually finish it. This week was not so perfect on finishing things. But in all the mundane chaos I did make progress… with a few priority casualties along the way.
Traveling is so much better for writing-inspiration, actually. There’s not all that much to write about. This week and the week before it were pretty much the same pasty flavor: Work. Don’t get the wrong idea – I love my work. I love what I’m good at. I love solving, fixing, and fusing technologies. I’m just a little grumpy because I didn’t get much sleep this week or spend enough time with my family and that’s my own fault.
So, it all comes to a nice, relieving end with Sabbath and some time for reflecting. Next week will be different and that feels really good. I need some work on that incredibly elusive thing called Balance. I mean, that’s one of the major reasons we’re doing what we’re doing and what’s the point if I’m going to squander that and put myself in my own private rat race? Arg but it’s so comfortable there as bizarre as it sounds. I can imagine that most people (including me) – if asked – would say that they’d prefer to have a life that resembled a perpetual vacation. Seems like the ideal right? But I’ve had glimpses of what that is like at times along the way and it is not ultimately rewarding or peaceful. I’ve also experienced the opposite: moments where it feels like I have no choice but to work 25 hours a day, because otherwise where is the food-money going to come from?
And maybe this is just an Ecclesiastes moment, but really, that’s all quite meaningless. Especially because there is no joy or peace in either extreme. Especially because there is no success or reward or rest without Balance. And these things cannot be measured.
So. That basically sums up the past two weeks. My incredible wife has been amazing – patiently carrying way more than her share of the family side of things through it all. She’s supportive and knows the work I’ve been doing is really important. But I tend to set these unrealistic demands on myself and dare myself to meet them anyway. And I’ve got to learn how to let go more easily than a pit bull that has chomped down and fallen into a vat of wet cement that then immediately flash-hardens.
So, in the spirit of reflection, I am finally wrapping up one of those projects that I have had my mind on for a while without ever really sinking my teeth in. I am here, officially, kicking off our serial documentary (using the term more loosely than a weasel dipped in baby shampoo) “Journeys.” There will be more soon – I just have to combine all the clips, but here are the first few episodes (I am also playing with a new web toy I found this week):
…nevermind…
As destiny would have it my resolve to find Balance would be tested even before I published this post. I had 4 episodes of “Journeys” ready to post with this entry today (which I wrote last night while kicking off the uploads to YouTube before going to bed). To my horror, I awoke to discover that the audio tracks did not make it… should have remembered to AAC (mp4) encode them rather than mp3… grrrr… A second attempt was also thwarted when I re-encoded the audio tracks and re-uploaded only to discover that they were insufferably out of sync with the video now. Back to the editing table. But the show must go on! So I am publishing this sans videos… so much for having anything related to the title in this post.
But the Journeys episodes are coming! Some time! Whenever it is balanced to post them. And then you will see my new web toy too. Stay tuned. And have a fantastic day!
We have been having so many adventures in Florida – both with work and with play and with meeting some amazing new friends. One of these days here soon I am going to write about some of it (in theory). I should have gone to bed long ago as it is, and I’m going to try to wake up the kids in about an hour and a half to catch the space shuttle launch at 4:30am…
But, for now, here are some visuals. I know they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I could write at least a few thousand words about the stories weaving in and out of each of these pictures.
We’ve arrived in Florida! Now, this isn’t the Orlando and Disney World part of Florida. This is wild boy country Florida. Where wild boars, rattlesnakes, coyotes, alligators and fire ants are all part of daily life. First day here and the kids are exhausted but happy after a very full day of playing golf, running, climbing, digging holes, swinging, petting a new horse and much more! We are parked for a couple weeks at an old friend’ s property. He and his lovely wife have three marvelous children who share the same excitement of life and hunger for adventure. Their home is in the country. The nearest town is just over 1,000 people. There is lots of room to run around and endless things to explore. We’re looking forward to many adventures and just time to chill and catch up.
Our trip here was easy and restful. The kids were amazing travelers and didn’t complain about wanting a break to run around. We took 8 days and drove through 5 states to get here (New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Missippi, and Alabama). Our first day traveling was 11 hours altogether! The consecutive days were 7 and 8 hours in the truck. The kids were pretty much content to hang out in the truck. We did school, watched movies and enjoyed the ever changing views and discoveries out our windows.
Most of the drive through Texas was acres and acres of cotton fields, wind turbines and oil rigs. I have never seen so many wind turbines in one place in my life. Hundreds of them. The cotton fields turned into a great school lesson. We pulled over and Andrew got out and grabbed a big handful of cotton from the side of the road that had blown around during the harvest. The kids each got a piece to play with while they watched some really awesome cotton harvesting videos on YouTube! I love the internet! After we saw how they made cotton bales, we started to see real cotton bales covered with tarps, waiting to be loaded on trucks. The kids were pretty amazed and I was very satisfied with a productive homeschool day.
On day 3 (Saturday), we stopped in San Antonio for three nights. We met up with an old friend there who showed us the famous Alamo, and other sites in San Antonio. The next day Andrew and I worked most of day while the kids played and enjoyed the campground and the break from traveling. We left the campground tuesday morning (day 6) and then met up in Louisiana with some good friends of ours who are nomads like us. After spending a night camping side by side in a Walmart parking lot, we went to visit an alligator house together and all the kids had a chance to hold baby alligators. Later on that day, we stopped for gas and saw a live tiger exhibit set up by the gas station!
We stopped for the night on day 7 at a campground in Marianna, Fl to clean out our tanks and get cleaned up ourselves. We arrived the next day around 3:30 pm with plenty of time to play and visit.
It’s Shabbat now and we are resting! It’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow so it might be a nice down day after all the excitement today.
First day back on the road and it’d been great. It’s wonderful to be on the road again. Jaiden is serenading Reayah, Zach is asleep on my shoulders, Joy is chewing on a carrot, Bennah is playing my ipod and I am getting some design work done! 7 Hours ago we pulled away from Andrew’s parent’s home in 4 inches of snow with frozen water and gray tanks. It’s been a peaceful day. We are now driving through New Mexico and got to see some incredible scenery before the sun completely disappeared. We’ll be driving late tonight to the next Walmart (they are few and far between on this stretch of our route) where we’ll spend the night in below freezing temperatures. We’ll be bundling up tonight in the trailer and keeping the thermostat on a low temperature to save on propane. That’s the plan anyway. We’ll see how it goes. It’s 6 degrees F already and will keep dropping through the night.
