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Week 3+ December 24 to January 2, 2007
We are getting more comfortable with our regular assignments here in the refuge, Sandy in the Visitor center and Carl at the homestead. During this week we also spent time doing other things which was a break from routine. We visited the kids on Christmas day and had dinner with the Florida Greenbaum’s plus Tara’s mother Pricilla and brother Todd. When we arrived with a RoboRaptor for Garrett and a 200 piece Pirate Island for Wyatt, the living room was already ankle deep in toys. We had a great visit and we watched Scott fry a ten pound turkey in 35 minutes. It was delicious. Speaking of more toys, we began negotiating with dealers on a new motorhome. It would only be seven inches longer but would have an additional 3500 pounds of carrying capacity. It is still a work in progress but we are getting close on price. Back at the swamp we continued to enjoy meeting visitors and telling them about the refuge and the hardy people who lived out here. On December 31st, we drove to West Palm Beach and spent New Years with Eileen & Al, Cal & Rhoda, and Millie. On New Years Eve, Cal made each of us an awesome two pound baked stuffed lobster. Next morning while we were still digesting, we were treated to a fabulous brunch at Millie’s. In spite of still being stuffed the next day, we bought some Honeybell oranges before we headed north to the swamp.
January 4 to January 10, 2007
Last night we booked our next vacation with Roberta & Elliot, a ten day bareboat sailing charter in French Polynesia followed by seven days in an apartment on Moorea. We are soooo lucky to be able to do this. When we got back from West Palm Beach, we concluded negotiations with Lazy Days RV dealership in Seffner, FL (near Tampa) and ordered a new motorhome. It is a Tiffin, Phaeton 35DH. It is only seven inches longer than our current coach but since it is a diesel, built on a much stronger chassis, we have almost 4,000 additional pounds of payload capacity. This will solve our overweight problem (at least for the motorhome ;-). Check out some pictures at:
http://tiffinmotorhomes.com/phaeton/features.html
And the floorplan at:
http://tiffinmotorhomes.com/phaeton/floorPlans.html
They said we would get it in seven weeks. We shall see.
We visited Okefenokee Swamp Park, a non-profit park at the north end of the refuge, near Waycross, GA. It was not as touristy as we had feared and there were replicas of buildings similar to the authentic homestead within the refuge. At the park’s reptile show, Carl held a five foot long red rat snake and got bit. No, it was not the snake. While holding the snake, a mosquito landed on his arm and, reluctant to move too quickly while holding the snake, he got a mosquito bite. During the week, Sandy was assigned to work one day at the Refuge Headquarters helping the admin staff. She spent most of the day filing. “It takes a lot of paper to run a wildlife refuge!” was her reaction to the experience. We had the next day off so we slept late and went for a run. Along the way we found a tree with three woodpeckers on it; an endangered Red Cockaded Woodpecker, a Pileated Woodpecker and a Flicker. In the afternoon we went to St. Mary’s, a delightful small town on the Georgia coast.
On the seventh we drove to Savannah to meet Roberta & Elliot. We had a delightful four days with them. We toured the historic district in Savannah and visited Fort Pulaski National Monument and Tybee Island. We then drove to Jekyll Island for a day followed by a day showing them our new home in Okefenokee. On the eleventh, they headed down to relatives in Florida and we went back to work.
