Serendipity while Road-Tripping

We planned the Georgia RV Rally with plenty of time to enjoy ourselves on the drive back. When we originally planned this, we expected to visit alex in Melrose for a couple days, then go to Disney to see Sallie and play.  As it turned out Alex was out visiting at that time, so we just studied the map and our Allstays app to decide how to spend 3 nights. 

We could go to Sanford and visit with Chris and Cherie, haven't done that in a couple years.  Oooops, they're not there.  They're out cruising in their yacht rather than at dock. Next choice was Gamble Rogers state park on the beach.  No sites available,  so I signed up with WanderingLabs.com. that's a service that will watch for cancelations and let you know if a desired site becomes available. Unfortunately, a lot of people use it. I got notified twice and each time someone else snagged the site within one minute.

Other state parks? All full.  Next choice,  Elks Lodge. Hey Green Cove Springs is right on our route. Haven't been there in a while. There's no hookups at the Elks Lodge there, but it's a beautiful spot right on the st John's river. Let's go.

Our overnight parking spot at the Elks Lodge in Green Cove Springs

The view out our camper door!

We went in to the bar to check in and have a drink and a woman came up to us and said "I know you" we said I don't think so, we're not from around here.  

She said I definitely know you, and she thought for a moment and mentioned Lewis and Sallie Carlock. OK, yes we know them and often stay over in Melrose where they live.  We shared our names and she said yes,  we're even friends in face book... Christine Borchers. Small world. She is very active in Elks and her boyfriend was getting initiated that night.  

Catching up on Facebook I noticed that Chris and Cherie were cruising up the st John's river,  they could be nearby so I sent a "HI There" email to tell them where we were.  Next thing we know, they're at Anchor in Green Cove Springs and running their dinghy in to the dock to visit!

Chris and Cherie's yacht Y-Not, anchored at Green Cove Springs

Our mailing address! and theirs.

Green Cove springs is actually a delightful little town ... I could live there.

We both use st Brendan's isle for mail forwarding which also meant our home address when we were fulltimers. The four of us went home for a photo op.

Is always fun to get together and speak geek.  They are Tech Nomads and are still building their business by adding employees. We have similar business models,  using a membership website to "monetize' our content. But they're lots younger and willing to do the work of building a business. We've 'been there, done that' with Computer Savvy back in the 80s and 90s. That's a whole other story that I need to write!

Anyway, it was fun to see them and share our love of serendipity.

I sooo like one on one teaching

During the SKP ACRE Rally, I announce that people could sign up for one-on-ones with me and I'd help them with whatever questions thay may have about their iPhone or Android phone. 

I had 4 one on one smartphone help desk appointments. It makes me happy to have people let me teach them ... I always learn something in the process and that's my real goal! 

1. Husband and wife came together, he had questions about Android notifications, she thought she knew more than both of us and just confused him, on her phone, she could shake for flashlight, his didn't have that feature.

2. The next couple came separately, she had and iphone and was thrilled to learn how Live Photos of waterfalls can be turned into a soft long-exposure. I also showed her how to search for all of her waterfall photos

3. Her husband had a Samsung phone and wanted to learn about google photos, editing, crop to rule of thirds, pop, also how to scan documents with Google Drive.

4. Next was a Samsung phone, and an old iPad. Google assistant on the Samsung. On the iPad, he wanted to get FaceTime to work. It would not accept password. Went thru forgot password, all worked again. And, I showed him how to add an Android user to a Facetime call.

I'm going to pat my own back here and tell you how good I am. There are definitely people who have more depth of knowledge in given topics than me, but I challenge you to find anyone who has the breadth of knowledge about personal use of smartphones and technology as I do. Even if there is someone else with that knowledge, I doubt that they are the natural born teacher that I am. I don't grab their phone and start pushing buttons. I make them do the things I tell them to do. I also do much more listening than I do talking. I'm not telling them about all the right and wrong ways of doing things , I'm listening to what they want to do and then just telling them what to try. As they tap the buttons I try to explain why I'm having them do those things. If it doesn't work, I teach them that this is the way it works. You try one thing, if that doesn't work you try something else. You also search for answers using google. 

How can I do this when we're not going to rallies? Online is ok, but it's not as good. 

StarLink and live streaming to youtube

From April 15-19 we were at the SKP ACRE RV Rally in Brunswick, GA. We always enjoy a reason to get out in our little RV. This was home for the week.

How cool that Jim got to play with a Starlink fish and connection for our youtube show. We're at an rv rally and doing our live streaming youtube show. The parks wifi is pretty dismal. Our cell phones are giving us pretty good connectivity but when another rver offered Jim the use of his StarLink dish, he said Thank You! 

The dish itself was just sitting on the roof of John's RV. He climbed up a ladder and grabbed it down. They placed it on the grass outside of the room we were using, and put the router in the room. There was something they had to do with the phone in order to point the dish correctly, then it was just a matter of connecting our computers to the wifi signal that was coming from the router. The speed was quite good, the show went well except for one 5 minute stretch where we muted ourselves. 

We've cut that portion out on the youtube recording and about 700 people have watched it so far. It was fun to have a live audience. 

50 years - plus 2

 I graduated high school in 1971. That makes 2021 my 50 year reunion, but the world was still reeling from Covid that year so it got postponed a bit. They scheduled it for 2023 and it was right after we got home from Indonesia. It was at my good friend, Alex's house in northern Florida. She has a big yard and is a fellow RV with hookups and all. So, we drove the camper van up to her place and stayed in her yard throughout the festivities.

Chris and Arynne who still think they're 17 year old high school besties. She came all the way from California for the Novapalooza!

Looks like trouble! Yes, Jim knows he was not in my high school, but he graduated the same year somewhere else! He fits in with my class peeps just fine.

I look at this photo showing cary writing in his notebook while we're all out to dinner, listening to music by our mutual friend, Mark. I think of what Cary has taught me ... "a writer is someone who writes"

But, I need to write ... right NOW, says Cary

I want to be a writer, so, here goes. 

I'm in a place called Melrose Florida. Why? Because Alex lives here and she has invited me and lots of other folks who she knows primarily thru our high school, to spend the weekend at her house and reminisce about times gone by. 

... that's as far as I got. It is now nearly a year later and I want to bring the blog up to date and get my 2022/23 book printed. I am now taking a different message from this photo of Cary writing ... you gotta write NOW. When the thought or the idea strikes you. It is nearly impossible to write well later. Just like I preach that people need to make their photo albums as-they-go, I need to get better at writing - ask I feel like it. My main method of writing "now" is to use email and send to Blog post. That way I can write NOW - but still massage it and add photos later. 

Anyway, I don't know what more I wanted to say about the Novapalooza, but I do have photo albums.

NovaPalooza 2023 shared photo album

Jet lag zombie

We just touched down in Miami. It was a very light touch, smooth landing. I looked out at the blue lights lining the runways and reflected on what had just happened. We left Istanbul Turkey 12 hours ago. Turkey is 6,000 miles away and part of a different world. How is this possible? I've done enough travel by air to take it for granted, but I'm always amazed when this multi ton craft with a couple hundred people on board revs it's engines, starts barreling down the runway and then lifts off the pavement. How does it do that?

Bali is exactly 36 hours different from Florida. That's one day different (it's tomorrow there) and exactly opposite part of the day - 1pm here is 1am there and vice versa. 

We got home about 9pm on Wednesday (that equals about 9am in Bali. ) We went to sleep OK, but woke up ready to go at midnight. 

Sleep wake sleep wake. Got up about 5am feeling pretty good. Had our toastmasters meeting then went out for breakfast and I was done for the rest of the day. Read a book. Napped. Devon came over.  Jim was better, he cooked dinner. Thursday night slept good. Had our Martin meeting, then my Yoga class over Zoom.  Hungry, then stomach ache. Watched a movie. Snacked. Filled the toilet. Went back to bed. Jim made salmon and mussels for dinner. Usually my favorite but I could only eat a few bites. Found another movie. Rumbling stomach,non functioning brain. Back to bed. I hope tomorrow is better? Gotta create our show for Sunday--

Traveling halfway around the world can be grueling. It was somewhere in the air between Istanbul and Miami that Jim and I looked at each other and said, you know - the diving in the Caribbean is great and it's only a couple of hours away. Maybe this will be our last big International trip. 

Our Apple Airtags did there job. We could see exactly where our luggage was. No problems at all this whole trip

We picked up our luggage and sailed thru customs with our Mobile Passport apps making it easy. 

After a couple nights good sleep, and telling others about our adventures. We looked at each other again and said, well - maybe one more time.