Last week we set our departure date for this coming Tuesday. That meant we only had a few more days for kayak diving. So, we went out on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. We have gone out kayak diving 6 of the last 10 days! The weather has cooperated marvelously.
I have been thinking for days about the words to write in this blog that can convey how we feel about kayak diving. Words that will allow you to experience a little of this unique sport. I keep searching for words but coming up short. No words can do it justice ... but let me tell you about it anyway.
It's the perfect outdoor recreation. You're in hot weather, but you get to be wet. It's not strenuous, yet you do get some exercise. You share it with companions, yet when you're underwater, it's very individual and solitary.
And, it's a combination of activities: kayaking and scuba diving. Although I like both, neither one alone would have such a power over me. It is truly the whole which is much greater than the sum of it's parts. Paddling on the ocean is beautiful. Your own personal watercraft. No engine noise, no gas smell. You're barely separated from the ocean itself. Just sitting on the water with a little bit of plastic holding you up. On a good day, you can see the coral of the reef below. You can see a little of what I mean in this picture. I wish it was better, but I don't dare take my good camera out there. This is taken with a disposable underwater camera.
Then, after you've enjoyed the paddle for a while, you stop over the reef in your own little space of peace, quiet and communion with Mother Ocean. You can sit and enjoy the view for a while, or, if you're anxious, you can get right in the water. If you want to see what is entailed in getting in and out of the water - check out the little videos I posted in a
weblog entry last year.
Diving is being part of another world. Not as an observer, but as a participant. For a short time, you are weightless. You are flying. And, you are up close and personal with very foreign creatures. Today, we saw a beautiful green moray eel. Some of the most spectacular eels in the world are right here off Fort Lauderdale beach. This one was about 6 feet long and probably 10-12inches around. Usually you just see their head sticking out of the coral. Today, the eel ventured out and free-swam alongside us for a few dozen feet. It's so graceful, like a ribbon, then it just slithers into a hole in the rock and disappears. The colorful tropical fish are everywhere, as well as the intricate corals.
It's not just the sights that I like. It's the feel. The warm water flowing on your skin. The absence of any sound other than your own breath blowing bubbles. The weightlessness. The way the current carries you along on your journey. I find it a meditative experience. The ultimate expression of 'go with the flow.'
Jim would add that he enjoys the thrill of the hunt. I let him catch the lobster, although I enjoy looking for them. It gives you a reason to look under those ledges ... and you see all sorts of things. And, I sure enjoy eating them! Our freezer is pleasantly stocked now. And reservations have been made with several friends and family along the way for a nice lobster meal.
Then, eventually (about an hour and 15 minutes) you run out of air and have to return to the surface. I often hang out in the water for a while, just enjoying the awareness of what an insignificant speck I am, floating on the water of the ocean which covers two thirds of our planet. The enormity of it makes everything else disappear. ToDo items I haven't done are unimportant. Money, or lack thereof, doesn't matter at all. All that matters is this warm, wonderful ocean holding me up, the sun on my face, my kayak that is my way back, and my companion - my husband. Kind of Zen-like or Taoist.
Oh yeah - you do meet other people out on the ocean too. Like this nice (really!) officer from the Fish and Wildlife Commission. He wanted to measure the lobster that Jim caught. They all passed and he wished us a pleasant day!
Have I told you how much we like kayak diving?!
Meanwhile, Jim is still thinking. He follows the cable from the modem to the wall and sees a splitter that has nothing else attached to it. So he removes the splitter - eliminating one more possible bad piece. It didn't help. "Let's go outside and see where the cable comes into the building, maybe we'll see a problem there."
He can see the cable going into the building, but it immediately disappears into the ground, so he can't follow it. He walks around a little, notices a utility pole, and then ... hmmmm, what's this?
"Oh ya, well there's that then." Apparently, a very tall RV pulled in on Friday night and didn't notice that he'd gotten hold of this cable. Some people saw and tried to yell at him to stop - but he didn't hear. He kept going until the cable had torn apart! They don't know what the cable goes to - but Jim had a pretty strong suspicion that this was the cable that fed Internet to the cable modem. But, a good detective needs proof. He can't see where the cable goes, but he has an 'electronic friend' who can! His digital multimeter that he's had (and kept) since electronics school in '85.
With this device, he can test the cable. With the outdoor end of the cable 'open', he tests the inside end and gets no beep. With the outdoor end 'closed', (shorted, wire crimped together), he tests the inside end and - I hear a beep. That's it! It is the cable. Unfortunately, this is a problem he can't fix, and we wish them luck with the cable company. But at least the mystery is solved.
I gotta tell ya ... before we ever walked in the place, Jim said, "I'll betcha the problem is with the cable." Ah yes, the WiFi force is strong with this one.
p.s. Jim got a brand new, shiny multimeter in his toolkit from Motosat. He's so excited! I wonder what he's going to do with his 'old friend'?
They are a complete production facility creating and innovating the technology that allows Odie's Roadies to do what we do.
They are passionate about what they do, and it shows.
Dealer training is a combination of technical and marketing information. I like the technical stuff, myself.
Now, I have to put what I learned into practice.
Thanks to Royal, Tim, Maurice, Kim, Morgan, Mike, Wendy, Mary, and all the others involved. I am looking forward to working with you all.
He took some photos during the training - I'll let him post those and add his own comments.
Meanwhile, back in hurricane country ... it didn't even rain here this weekend! Pretty disappointing actually, we need some rain around here. It was windy on Friday night and much of Saturday - but that was the only indication that there was a hurricane anywhere nearby. The operative weather word was H O T! Over 100 degrees. I was tempted to crack an egg on the pavement and see if it cooked - but I didn't have the energy!
Now - Austin should be a reasonable place to be - we'll get rain and wind, but it shouldn't be dangerous, but - here's our problem: We called the RV park several days ago to check for availability. We also asked if they were impacted by evacuees from hurricane Katrina. They said no, no problem - lots of space. So we just reserved for one night figuring we'd take a look around and see which park we liked the best before committing for our 2 months here. Well, yesterday, before we arrived, they were inundated with calls from evacuees from hurricane Rita. They are booked solid for the weekend and we don't know what to do. Jim is getting on a plane for Salt Lake City tomorrow, returning on Sunday. Ah well - always a challenge. Stay tuned.
We cut our drive time a little short today in order to visit another 
It's a beautiful place, get a load of this golf course:
Do you notice that there's no one playing golf? I'll tell you why ...
IT'S
H O T
Our poor air conditioning has been chugging away since we got here about 3pm. Only in the last hour (10pm) has it gotten below 80 inside (79). It's still 92 outside. About 7pm, when we were also using the microwave, we threw a breaker ... no electricity. Boy was I scared. Luckily, Jim just went outside and turned it back on and it worked. whew
Jim is enjoying Monday night football ... rooting for Dallas. Hey! We 'live' in Texas now - they're our home team. You gotta be fickle if you live on the road.
This campground also advertises free Wi-Fi. But, I couldn't get it to work on my computer at all ... my adapter didn't see the signal. Jim's super-duper Sony Vaio could see the signal and attach to it, but it was unbearably slow. So, we raised our trusty Datastorm/Motosat/Direcway satellite dish, and in 8 minutes, we had our own Internet! I think that $115/month is worth every penny!
Travelling across Mississippi on highway 20 was no problem. We saw a few signs of hurricane damage around Jackson - down trees and highway signs - but no current problems. Getting gas was also no problem - plenty of gas stations and the price keeps getting lower. We filled up for 2.57 and we saw signs for 2.49. 
In fact, we had such smooth-sailing that we wonder if it would have even been OK to travel on I-10. It certainly would have been interesting to see, firsthand, what it looks like down there. But, I believe we did the right thing by staying out of the way. Here's a picture out the window as we crossed the Mississippi river. I had expected to see it looking very full - after all, the area was just flooded right? It actually looked downright low - look at all that beach. Interesting.
Did I mention that it was HOT here? One little trick we use while traveling is to hang a blanket from the cab-over bunk. It hangs down behind the seats in the cab so, when we use the engine A/C, it only has to cool the small cab area. Another technique is to turn on the generator while you're driving and keep the coach A/C running to cool down the rest of the 'house'. But, since all 3 of us ride in the cab when we're underway, we think the blanket is the most efficient method.
So - we get to add a new state to our map today!
We beat our previous mileage record of 400 miles today. We traveled 422! But the real record was money spent for gas. Here we are filling up for the second time today, spending a grand total of $234 for gas!
Our gas tank holds 50 gallons and that gets us about 400 miles. Well, at least the price is going down rather than up - notice the $2.63 price on the sign.
And check out the love bugs!
We didn't stop till about 8pm and, we needed to do some grocery shopping anyway, so we just parked at Walmart for the night.
Westward ho!
We stopped by a couple months' ago on our way south just for one night, promising to spend more time on our way north. Well, I'm afraid it's not to be, we have to leave tomorrow if we have any hope of making it to Austin in time. We had to spend most of today driving to Orlando for a short job at another RV park. We left Odie here. When we returned, we hear the tale of his little adventure. Take a look at this photo of their back yard. It ends at the banks of the river. Apparently, a lot of vegetation has been dislodged upriver and found a resting place here. All that green you see is just floating on top of the water. But Odie doesn't know that. When he gets to the end of the dock, he decides to jump down to this lower level lawn for a stroll. Glub ... Blub ... woops! I remember that he did that last year when we were here, I still laugh about the sight of him disappearing in a splash after jumping onto these lilly pads. He probably doesn't think it's so funny.
After a few worrisome moments looking about for the resident alligator, Candy guided him to an area of the bank where he could get out. She washed the muck off of him and kept him inside for a while. When we got back, she simply explained that "Odie had a bath!" Here he is enjoying a post-bath run in the yard. Boy can he run.
Our visit happened to fall on Candy's birthday. So we got to join them for a special dinner at 
We had a delicious gourmet dinner. And even were visited by the very friendly chief cook and bottlewasher ... the owner.
Happy Birthday Candy!
Sure is nice that we have our home with us everywhere we go! While Jim was working at the park, I turned on the generator and had air conditioning and my computer, so I could do 'office work' in comfort.
We have to be in Austin, Texas by September 21 because Jim has a plane to catch! Coach Connect is sending him to Datastorm Installers training in Salt Lake City. He's really looking forward to that, but it's such a shame we have to hurry.
Our next stop was at a Coach Connect park called 
And, look at this great hot tub we didn't have time to use!
Headed north. Hey!! Is that a hill I see? That means we are out of South Florida. Oh Boy! It feels so good to be back on the road.
We had a great time. Saw so many friends and family, and did the kayak diving we love so much (have I told you about that?) We saved the weekend for that 'one last visit.' With Jim's sister and brother in law, we chose to take in a show. We saw 
Saying goodbye to Jim's folks was the hardest part - we made it short and sweet. My Mom was the easy part, since we put her on a plane last week!
So, now we're on our way to Texas where we plan to work at Coach Connect's offices in Austin for a few months. We finally hit the road about 3:30 and made it a couple hours before stopping. We've been eating out a lot lately in Fort Lauderdale, it's kinda nice to be back to our simple lifestyle on the road. Here we are with our marvelous dinner of fresh fish (snook) given to us by a neighbor in Paradise Island who caught it yesterday! (Jim gave him a couple lobster) We also opened the bottle of wine that we've been saving. This is the bottle that David, from 
The adventure continues!
But, I gotta admit, she goes to some pretty exotic places! This trip is guided by Keren Su of 
The Wireless Internet antenna (in the middle of the roof) withstood hurricane Katrina's winds unscathed. The TV antenna (at left) didn't fare so well.
We are getting ready to pack up and hit the road again soon. Our next destination is Austin, Texas where we will be working at Coach Connect's headquarters for a while. Looking at a map, the logical route is via I-10. We're going to have to study that a bit because it goes right thru New Orleans. I believe portions of the highway simply don't exist anymore. We will probably detour north.
Most of the party took place in the bookstore of course.
But a few non-claustrophobic souls hung out in the motorhome for a while.
It is so funny to watch people's reactions to our home. A few say, "Wow, this would be a dream come true. I would LOVE to do this." More say, "You guys are crazy, I could never live in a space this small. Especially not with my husband!"
Notice how Jim is enjoying crashing this 'women-only' event!
Then, we had also promised to bring our motorhome to our 
After the meeting, people came to visit. I wonder what the record is for number of people in a 30 foot motorhome?
