Desert Flowers

Went for a nice walk in the desert this morning. I always thought the 'desert in bloom' meant flowers on the cactus. Maybe it does, but in this desert there are lots and lots of regular flowers in bloom. We walk a ways on the flat, then up that hill over yonder to the flag on top. We're getting some real exercise - first time in quite a while. And, it's a good thing because the weather is rolling in - it might be a while before we can take this walk again. Dick and Frankie made a turkey for dinner. So warm and homey - just like Thanksgiving. Odie thought so too.

Catching Up

We are back in Quartzsite. I'm so happy to be back at my own computer. Now I have everything I need to edit my pictures and find any information I need. So, let me catch up a little on the last week. Jim went diving in Fort Lauderdale twice and he caught 4 lobsters! Great - that'll be our thank you dinner with Dick and Frankie for taking care of Odie. He didn't take any pictures at the beach, but here's the Kayuba group meeting for dinner afterward. I got to see Dick and Geri, but I'm sorry I missed Andy, Diane and Glenn. But, umm, errr ..... Hey Jim ... who's the blonde? Jim and Mom and I used to go out to breakfast all the time when we lived there. We only lived a mile apart and we would call each other at a moment's notice to go out to breakfast. It was nothing to take a picture of then, but when we went to breakfast on our way to the airport, it certainly seemed worth a picture now. Then another day in airports and airplanes and hotels. Here's Jim computing in Atlanta airport. Still no WiFi - I was so surprised. But they did have these cool counters where you could plug in your computers and charge their batteries. We did have an excellent WiFi connection (free) in our hotel south of Phoenix however. Now we're back in our 'desert home'. Odie was thrilled to see us and the feeling was mutual. And we had our lobster dinner to rave reviews.

Photos and Videos

Since I left our camera with Jim, I asked Mom to bring along her video camera. That's all she uses - just the video. She's usually taking underwater video while she's scuba diving. Really cool stuff. But, I knew there was a way to take stills with the same camera. Here's a photo of Mom and me at the conference hotel: I really wanted to see if we could get a clip of one of her videos to post here, so, when we got home to her computer we played with transferring video to the computer and using her editing software to get just a little clip. There is no such thing as a small video clip. I clipped about 10 seconds of her penguin videos from Antarctica and its over 3 megabytes! Macaroni Penguins Did you know that there are at least 7 types of penguins? Emperor, King, Magelanic, Rockhoppers, Adelie, Gentoo, Chinstrap, and Macaroni!

Greetings from Orlando

This is the last day of our conference. This is by far the fanciest hotel I've ever stayed in. We even have a computer terminal with high-speed Internet in our room. I haven't had much time tho - we've been in seminar sessions from 8am to 8pm. I just love going to school, and this is a great way to do it. 4 days of seminars given by extremely bright folks talking about the world economy. The economies to watch these days are the 'BRIC' emerging countries. That's Brazil, Russia, India and China. Mom and I visited China in 97 and we traveled some of their beautiful new highways in a big bus. Just one fact we learned this week is fascinating. In 1974, China had 50 miles of expressway. Today they have 28,000! No wonder they are fast becoming the world's biggest consumer of cars. I wonder how long before they start buying RVs! My favorite seminar so far was on Wireless. A lot of the conversation was about cellular wireless, but there was plenty of information on 'Wireless Broadband' as well. That means WiFi, WiMAX and 3G. I really liked the speaker - Nikhil Hutheesing from Forbes - and plan to follow his newsletter. Did you know that Korea is the world leader in WiFi? In Korea, 70% of households have broadband Internet as opposed to 30% in the US. And, 'broadband' to them is up to 100Mbps whereas the top US broadband speed is 3Mbps! On to more seminars.

Family and Friends

Here we are in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This is where we started out over 10 months ago. You might think that, having been gone for almost a year, we would feel a little unfamiliar in these surroundings. But, we are so accustomed now to not having a clue where we are and how to get around, that what feels strange here is the fact that it IS all so familiar. We see a sign that the road is closed at the railroad tracks ... and we know the backway to drive around! Wow! In our RVing life, I'm often afraid I won't know my way home after going to the grocery store. Mom picked us up at the airport - what a switch, we've picked her up so many times! The next day we visited Jim's folks. And his sister came down to visit from West Palm. 52 years of marriage - and still in love. Jim comes from a good line! Then, Sunday night we had plans to see best friends. First we picked up Emily - she's the painter - the one who painted the picture of us that hangs over our bed in the RV. You can tell by her surroundings that she's the artistic type! Look at this gorgeous back yard. We don't see anything like this in Arizona. Then we met up with Chris and Richard at our favorite watering hole. Mom got out a map and explained to us where she just went in Antarctica. Starting in Ushuaia, Argentina then to the Falkland Islands. Then her ship, the M/V Orlova crossed the Antarctic Convergence - a line in the Ocean where the cold Antarctic water meets with the Atlantic Ocean. Next stop South Georgia Island with millions (no exaggeration) of penguins. Richard was particularly interested in how she communicated with the Russian crew since he's been studying Russian in preparation for his upcoming trip to Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cold places. Emily recently spent 2 weeks in a cottage in the South of France painting the countryside. Chris L. has 2 new grandbabies and so she visits closer destinations like Minnesota and Maine. And you thought we were travelers! Now it's Tuesday morning and ... Thank God! ... Dick is taking Jim kayak diving. This poor boy has been a fish out of water for too long. Me and Mom are off to our conference. I'm not sure if there will be computers there for me to use or not. I'm leaving the camera with Jim. It may be a few days before another posting here.