DAYs 21 & 22...Snakes, Alligators and then...the race home

Not much to say here...those reptiles were alive and slithering

Sad to leave the new-found friends--homesick young people who have been Phenomenal being away from their Moms and Dads for 10-20 days...

So we lit out of St Simons like a bat out of...you get the idea.

But we were so enamored with the idea that we should get everyone home---that we forgot we were on a "Road Trip"and drove way too much to get to Birmingham by dinner time.  We passed Plains and Americus Georgia, of Jimmy Carter fame---passed the Civil War Naval Museum, Fort Benning.  Didn't stop to admire the miles...and miles...and miles of rail cars we saw, apparently "in storage" along the highway, camouflaged by thick vines and trees...Really: coal cars, tank cars, flat bed and, later, some unidentifiable cars...just quietly "there". Like the Liberty ships mothballed  near San Francisco in the Carquinez straits ( I DON't think I spelled that correctly).  There were very few rest stops in these parts.  The children were quiet in the back seat listening to Disney Channel, and we just drove.

Lord there is an abundance of trees in Georgia and Alabama and single wide trailers are prominent as neighborhoods.

Don't know what crops we saw---peanuts? pecans?  Annal household income here (thank you, google) is $25K.

We arrived at our Holiday Inn Express  500 miles later, on schedule,  at 6:30---tired and cranky.

Fortunately we met Sean and Chrissie at a local BBQ restaurant  and they were so happy to retrieve their firstborn that we all perked up.  

Victoria was clearly the star the girls focused on, making space at "their" side of the table for her.  After dinner we even went to replace  the bathing suit left behind at Sea Palms (I'm sure they will mail it to us)

We had now driven 2700 miles since June 4....two days til home.

The REST of the Sapelo story

R.J. Reynolds was the last owner of the Island.  He sold it to the state of Georgia.  We met the kids and lunched at the "Mansion", now an 18 room hotel that will only be open if there are 12 guests for a two night stay.  Victoria was all over this thinking it would be a great place for the "next family reunion!"  This was her second declaration for a reunion site as we saw new places on the drive...she really enjoyed our Larkin/McCabe reunion a while back! However, I am not taking THAT bait.

Many hungry people here!

Sidenote: Milk was only offered at breakfast




The Mansion is a remarkable house with indulgences that were a sign of the times:  indoor swimming pool with 18 k gold in the design of the floor.  Don't know just Who gets to see it these days as it was boarded up and covered with carpet.  The ballroom of the second floor was completely designed in a Circus motif...striped Big Top, trapeze chandeliers, frescos of lions and strong men on the walls.  The grown-ups war not quite sure who this was designed for---ballroom or playroom--It easily could have been where you sent your kids with the nanny  OR a major event for mom and dad.  We'll never know.  The basement was THE absolute hit with it's bowling ally where the kids had/got to re-set the pins.  The difficult part was getting the extraordinarily heavy (and perhaps not quite round) ball from kid hands TO the pins

Don't YOU have a Civil War canon in Your Study?



So now the party's over.  We close the Road Scholar segment of our adventure this evening with an ice cream social at the pool and then a final  morning session with reptiles.

Sapelo Island...Day 19

6AM WAKE-UP was not as brutal as anticipated.  The ferry to Sapelo was an hour away and a quiet trip.

Sapelo is as quiet and rural as St Simons is developed.  We were on bumpy dirt roads in a re-cycled school bus  that was previously owned by the Shriners.

There are 70+ residents, all descendants of the slaves who returned to the island after they were freed.  There are three churches, a post office, a store that is open when the tour bus pulls up to get sodas and ice creams.  And this day there was a surprise treat for the football lovers among us...Allen Bailey, defensive end for the Kansas City Chiefs, a native of Sapelo and just a very nice "kid".  He visited with all of us and even took the arm wrestling challenge by (drum roll...)

 ...one of the Grandmas

he never moved

The children were with  the Naturalist at the beach seining (think: netting fish from the shore ...a cooperative effort)..and body surfing
The grandpas were happy to have a picture taken with Allen.

Day 18 Jekyll Island

Tired from last night's midnight mama turtle siting, we boarded our 9AM  bus to tour Jekyll Island.

The grandparents exited the bus to board a Trolley tour of the Island of the rich and turn-of -the -century (20th)-famous.  The grandchildren continued on with AnneMarie, the exuberant naturalist in charge of teaching us all she could about turtles  and beaches.  They were on Boneyard beach ( Many felled trees fallen on the beach...look like big bones) She is the patient, firm voice that guided them through the "boneyard" of trees and rock climbing and a revisit of the now marked turtle nest of last night.  Victoria bonded with her AND  she had the credit card for the possibility of pre-lunch ice cream.

As we waited for our Trolley  Guide one grandparent ( a retired teacher) was heard to  comment"It sort of feels like we've been let out of school..."

The island was found,  a Club formed, and populated by the early Rockefellers, Morgans, and others "of their class"...the big names in finance and industry...before income taxes.  The mansion we toured was not considered elegant or expensive, but spacious and--most important--away from the city stresses of the men.  According to our guide these were sort of the fish camps of the day.  Pretty nice roughing it.
They claim that the Club participants represented 1/6th  of the wealth of the world  at the time.  It was a lovely place-BUT- at least one of the wives refused to go there.  I think I know why, and I am empathetic...BUGS.  I would not have wanted to be there either : not JUST the bugs, but the diseases they carried...yellow fever , malaria --yuck.

Local transport

Mira Rockefellar made it work.  For her this place gathered family and love, God bless her.

The State of Georgia bought the Island for 600 K in 1947 and made it a State Park.  If you want to help It gain a Coca Cola grand prize $100K award for being a favorite State Park go on line and vote for it.  It really IS worth it .  Vote often, competition ends July 15...I say "go for it"!

The evening provided wonderful entertainment  from Gullah/Geechee Ring Throwers.  This group of Sapelo Islanders is intent of keeping the language and traditions of the former slave occupants of this island alive and they ROCKED...kept the attention of kids and GPs !

Road Scholars JOIN IN!

W completed this day with a "walk"---which ended up being an hour and a half through the salt marshes, the charmingly old short housed, the sterile appearing bigger new houses...We consulted Tom's iPhone compass ...RE-found the golf course path...learned a new skill: how to evade the first path of a sprinkler, cross at the middle and walk on.  I'm not saying we were lost....

All are asleep.  I write in the bathroom and will put it on computer...whenever I can, I guess.

Day 17 continued...and a week Summarized

Tori here...
hi everybody. Im back! One thing I've done so far... I touched a SHARK!  It was slimy and a little furry feeling. Eww. It was a baby but we also caught a 2 foot one. Today... June 24, 2012...day 21 ... we got on the road at 7:30 and drove. We have been driving all day while I was sleeping soundly having dreams in the back seat. My dreams were mostly simple ones. I don't remember what they were. But o'well. Tomorrow we are driving home, I'm planning to sleep, and we are all excited for being home. I know I will be able  to share many endeavors with family and friends. My mind feels like it is about to explode with all of the exploits we have shared in the past 3 weeks.

 Last week we went shrimp trawling and we ate the shrimp we caught. And opa had the job of popping the heads off. May I remind you it was with his bare hands and sometimes the eyes popped out first. Thats just gross. Then the next day the grandparents toured and the kids went to the beach to go seigning ...thats fishing off shore with a net. The kids also got to swim. Erica, Andrew, Harrison and I went body surfing though. That was really fun. Erica and Andrew are twins so it was fun to hang out with them. Erica and I are friends. And then after the separate activities we all met up for lunch. We ate lunch at R.J Reynolds mansion. We had a bafet. In the basement there was  bowling alley so Erica and I got to set up the pins. In the upstairs was a circus room. It was like kid  paradise. On friday we learned about reptiles, and that lunging snakes swallow a frog whole, waiting for the frog to inflate its lungs in defense, to finish the meal with popping the frog in the snakes mouth. I gaged when she told us.

What I thought about the whole experience....
Well first off I think the whole friendship and kids was the best part. Everybody was nice and made friends. A boy told us that the best part of the trip for him was meeting and becoming friends with all of us. I had to agree. It was fun meeting everyone. I loved the leaders. Annmarie and Rusty. They were so funny and nice. Rusty and Annmarie made the trip 10 times better. If I would have to rate the week 1 through 5 it would be.. 5 out of 5. it was that good. I recommend it. Well love you all

Bye,
Tori

Susan
At the end of a 22 day Road Trip nothing is as orderly as at the beginning...

Nothing has felt quite so dark as the beach ...at night...with NO moon.   However, Mother Nature had a surprise for us: "biofluorescence"!  an organism in the seaweed that you will have to google since we were allowed NO FLASHLIGHTs so we would not disturb any Mamas we might find, and thus, no notes to write down a multi consonant word.  We had a perfect Milky Way above us and felt we could see the curve of the earth on the wave line before us. ...and biofluorescence to guide our feet.  What more can you ask for?
There are volunteers in jeeps patrolling dusk to dawn to see, tag and protect the mothers beaching to lay their 120+ eggs.  These clever people also had cell phones to call our naturalist to beckon  us to just the correct spot.

There are no photos of this once in a lifetime event for us...only the red lighted naturalists could illuminate the site...turtles don't see red and so we don't disturb them.

She had come here the night before and decided not to stay...thought better of it and returned.  She laid her 2 foot deep nest-ful of eggs in 10 minutes!  a seasoned mom for sure!..( they can take 45 min to 6 hours) We watched her cover her tracks and then laboriously but efficiently take her 250+ pounds back to the surf.  By the end we were all quietly urging her on.  She will not return to these eggs and they will hatch in about 60 days  (protected by the locals against predators of all sorts).  She might repeat this process 2 or 3 more times this season, and then take 2 or 3 years to regain the strength to do it all over again.   One out of  a thousand will survive to be a 35 year old mama hitting the beach for the first time.  It was AWESOME.

We quietly returned to the bus...saw a golden orb spider nest on the way (wow)...and went home to bed...Nature is more than incredible




the spider web

 Different methods:

I should also mention that last night the kids did a service project:  they cut red  cellophane into squares for hotels to give to patrons turtle hunting...they rubber band it over their flashlights to be invisible to the turtles...

Days 16 & 17 Shrimp-Sandcastings & Sea Turtles, Oh My

The Ghost Walk of Monday night was picturesque in the warm Georgia night with Spanish Moss dripping spookily from every tree.  An abundance of strange happenings  on St Simon's Island have produced great possibilities for the return of the complaining hapless victims of these exploits.  We, however, must be non-believers in our hearts because, alas,  we saw no ghosts...and got us to bed around 11:30.


Tuesday morning Sandcasting was a great activity for the sleepy in our group.  An entertaining, retired art teacher taught us the art of pouring cement over the design we made of shells and toys in a sand "frame", also of our making.  Even Opa got into the act and made a very nice wall-hanging.  We are also bringing back sand paintings of various designs...we all got into it!

Opa observing Victoria and Harrison as they create...

Opa getting into the sand painting thing..I needed to be the chronicler , but I did do a sand painting!

After another stelar lunch (three meals a day are going to kill me...)

We headed to the Lady Jane Shrimp Trawler.  (sounds so "Suthen")

The captain showed us how they drag a conical neat just the right speed and depth on the canal floor to collect a myriad of fish, shrimp, blue crabs, ocean trout, puffish, lance fish (we can't remember it's true name.), flounder (it's eyes migrate to be only on one side of him in the first two days...clever) horseshoe crabs, small sharks, spadefish, and on and on... The captain's son pulled the net in and released the purse on the table on the boat.  You have NEVER seen children have so much fun.  They were told not to put their fingers into the mass of fish for fear of "losing a finger"...clearly viewed as a "suggestion rather than a law...

caught by a crab!

Even Opa admired the puff fish

Then we ate the shrimp

and we were happy.

This was all BEFORE we went out at 9PM to stalk the Mama turtles ...

WE  WILL catch up on telling our tales...so much  going on...only 24 hours per day.

What's a body to do??? 

Day 15 How many eggs does a Sea Turtle lay???

AND just WHAT does she weigh????

Hey you guys,
Its me, the best person in the world, Tori. Today we did so many things that were fer-filled with fun and learning. First off we ate break-feast. For break-feast we got to enjoy eggs, bacon ,and cereal. The eggs were a little funny tasting, but good in its own way. After break-feast at 9 am our group and us got on a bus headed for St.Simons/ Fort Frederica. At St. Simons we did 5 things. 1 of the activities that were given to us was learning more history. We watched a war video to accomplish that. Our guid that is our all time historic guid, told us about the haunted jail, and how people hear a certain prisioner talking in all sorts of languages.  Cool huh. Anyway back to the day... Then we got to see wild alligators and crabs nearby St. Simons while exploring the perimeter. After that we were off to lucy at a restaurant called Mullet Bay. If you haven't guessed it was mostly sea food. Harrison, Grandma, Grandpa ,and I shared amongst 2 plates and 3 sides. I mostly ate the crab salad, the normal salad, and the pulled pork sandwich. It was yummy! After lunch we went to a cemetery and walked through it. A lot of babies are deceased from that time. So sad. Then after that we came back to the hotel, got our swim gear on, and went on another bus ride. That bus ride was to the beach so we could do our next activity. Which was Mock Nest. For Mock Nest we un buried a sea turtle baby nest that was 4 days old.  The way we un did it was taking out golfballs and learning more about sea turtles. We dug out the balls from a real nesting hole but that was already used. When we were all done with the exploring we went swimming in the Atlantic ocean.  I just looked of shells though.It was fun though!After that we rode the bus back to here for dinner. We got a cheeseburger, chips and salad. For dessert we had ice-cream sandwiches. They were yummy as can be! I mean they were ice-cream. And now we are sitting here waiting for the ghost walk to arrive. We are meeting at 8:15 to go on the bus and see haunted things. If I get scared I am going to squeeze grandma. But hopefully I won't for her sake.  Anyway  i will be back to feel you about the walk. bye

Prisoners in the lowest level...with the crabs , the damp and the bugs...Soldiers barracks on the upper level
















OUR Troops on the move through the amazing Spanish Moss,.which is neither spanish nor moss...it resembles more the pineapple plant...that's what she said...

Mama Turtle lays between 120 and 150 golf ball sized eggs and weighs UPWARD of 350 pounds.  The Boys can weigh as much as 2200 pounds (visualize a VW Bug).   Here we have  primarily loggerhead and leatherback turtles  Who Knew??  This is Victoria shoulder deep in digging for turtle eggs (ok: golf balls...).  Mama digs them into a 2 foot deep nest...and does this three or  four times a year, every third year..or so.  The educational team is hands on...and VERY PATIENT....SEVEN boys...we have few shrinking violets here.  Bless their little hearts...



Boys pile wet sand

Girls look for seashells

 Some people don't admit they are tired

 Baby graves are identified by the foot-stones

and this is where Methodists sealed their marriages...think it will stick??


John and Charles Wesley tried to establish a Church here and were foiled by a woman named Mary.  I think she had another "business" in mind. .. (this trip is PG) they had too many rules.  The men left, she won, but there is a thriving Methodist community here...now, not then.


The Ghost Walk was fun and interesting...I will study the photos for ghosts...tomorrow...our sleeping arrangements tonight may change through the night.  It is near midnight.


The children are very sweet as they make friends.


Bonne Soir (sorry, I've lost my French spelling)


Tom and Harrison are asleep or reading  just now...so "no comments"


Good Night
Susan

Day 14THE big EVENT

Hi y'all,
 Im in the southern mood today. Its Tori. Today we did many things. Our day went like this: We woke up all tired,and went to break-feast in the hotel. I don't know if grandma told you about the trolly.But yesterday we went on a tour trolly.We bought the passes for yesterday and today.So we went on it again and learned about more of the town. So much history live in that town. The town beholds so much history and sadness through the historic acts that were made there. Anyway we learned more and we went to a haunted house, but we missed the tour and we had to leave. Harrison and I were really sad we missed it. After that we drove to this destination in Georgia.We checked in here at SeaPalms resort. We are here for the Grandparent/ Grandchild camp like thing. A schedule and everything were given to us to keep. One of the activities of Tuesday is watching Mama sea turtles lay there eggs. Our nature person told us that the minimum time it will end it 12:00 am! She said if thats a bad night, but they are having luck.

I am going to be so tired. Anyway I am exited of this week .Except I am the oldest kid in our group meaning, I read the most paragraphs and I help out more. But to be honest I don't mind,its still going to be fun. After the orientation of the routines and everything Grandpa, Grandma, Harrison and I went up to our room and got ready for a night walk. It wasn't really night, but still fun. We got to see flying fish in the lake and water birds. Our Nature person told us to look out for alligators here in Georgia. That gave me the chilling goosebumps. I think this part of the trip might the the most fun. Oh I almost forgot, we all got locked out of our room, so opa and I drove to the check in area to get a back up key. We were lucky because we thought they would be closed. But they weren't. When opa and I were driving back to the hotel, I spotted a fawn and a doe just standing there on the side of the road. I was so happy , I was also the one to spot the red Gekko as well. It grossed be out a bit.  I almost forgot... I just wanted to say....
                                           HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!!!!!!!
 To all of the dads out there. The world would be nothing without you.  Thanks for being awesome dads!


Love you all so much,
Tori (Victoria)


Susan:
We might be beginning to look like the "Clampets" although we have nothing on TOP of the car...
We try new foods daily...mostly after someone says "I don't LIKE that".  Lord only knows what they will say Grandma said about how we eat.  Lunch tends to be around 2:30  and today was a "no-candy" day, even if you HAVE money in your pocket..I have my standards.  The drive was uneventful as we admired the trees.  Not even a WalMart visible from the highway.  We are thoroughly enjoying the audiobook "The Red Pyramid" .  Unanimous vote  to recommend it to all...still have 2 hours to hear ...of the first book.


The orientation dinner re-stated the rules: safety and fun, and Victoria had immediately read the roster and discovered the age range.  Most interesting is that there are only 3 girls!   The reading, questions and after dinner get acquainted games re-afirmed  that girl energy is still different than boy energy.  This is going to be an interesting week to watch unfold.

Our walk  after dinner was lovely even  though I found myself immediately consumed with ITCH...I did catch a photo of ONE flying fish and have to admit that you have to know what it is to recognize it in the picture.


The mosquito repellant "Avon Skin So Soft " was last seen this morning...we bought deet.
And, indeed, we, one by one , exited the room to be on the phone on the deck...with no key. ...who knows/cares who let the door close...Everyone does that ONCE on a trip.. Life lesson if you travel.


The WIFI is rather slow here, several minutes somehow to gather a picture to include...I will try for one more and sign off.  We have an aggressive schedule this week with late nights...I am currently last up...with request to turn off the lights...and we have only just begun...so we will blog as we can and try to convey the details..no photos allowed on the mother Sea Turtle sightings.

Day 13

Harrison:

might wait for tomorrow.

Susan:
OK so tonight I have hit the pictures in arrears...lord it is so much easier to use an iPad!!!!!! So look back,  Today we drove...had quite a bit of junk food before we noticed we missed lunch.  Savannah is lovely and the Trolley tour was "attended" by both V and H  ...  history speaks to them both.  Had to cut short since we all had a sudden starvation alert .  We walked home.  Swimming--movie--blog...Victoria is sort of "done" with swimming for the moment and wanted movie/alone time this evening so there will be more tomorrow.  We will gather the "other" kids at camp tomorrow evening.
Hard to get all this in!

Oh Yes we saw a petting zoo today..road side and it was so sweet:

tiny horse

buffalo love..Georgia?

Happy Fathers Day to all the Fathers in our life!!!

 Love

Grandma /Susan,  Victoria, Harrison

PS... I thought I had missed it last week...

HARRISON CHANGED HIS MIND

Today was very fun. We got to go through my home town . And we went through Pell City and got subway sandwiches and I got a Bacon/chicken ranch sandwich and Victoria had a tuna sandwich.  We will be in Savannah tomorrow. I will blog tomorrow .
love, Harrison

day 12 1800 miles and counting

Hola Everybody,
Its Tori. Today we were pretty much on the road. We spent 7 hours on the road, starting at 9:30 am. I fell asleep a couple times but o 'well.  WE are staying at a much better hotel tonight. Its not as scary. Harrison and I went swimming and our hotel neighbors decided to do weird stuff. Like doing the call me thing to me and the rock out thing to Harrison.It was really weird.  We had Chinese food for dinner. Yumm. Anyway I guess we didn't do anything else so ...
Love you all and Wish you all a awesome goodnight.
With lots of love
Tori

Susan:
Waylon and Willie serenading the front seat.  iPad music in the back...educational games and books in the bag...Tower of Bable comes to mind...

We SAW Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri --we DROVE THROUGH Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Georgia.  We will need to return.  We are getting pretty good at the state birds:  The scissortail flycatcher of Oklahoma is my personal favorite.  The state flowers are harder...The highway skirted Memphis and Tupulo (skipped Elvis' birthplace).  The view from I 78 is TREES, lush  a thousand shades  of green.  There was a monstrously large storage area: rail cars, truck containers, things I couldn't identify.  I think that if the computers go down around here there will be a whole lot of identical containers with no place to go.  There was also a saw mill and various clear cut swaths of forest.

Next we had Science Friday on the front... a movie and a nap covered the back.  Thus it is, traveling with "old folks" and pre-teens in the 21st century

We entered Georgia serenaded by Willie Nelson's "Georgia"..it was lost on the kids.

The Driving Diva directed us safely to our Hampton Inn (loving the GPS these days)  and to our dinner destination.  The Happy Budah proved a hit...despite  a plethora of complaints, from "I get sick on Chinese food"...to "I'm not Hungry.  Tom did a good job of ordering for the table and amazingly everyone savored the new flavors.  Didn't leave much  on the table.  Victoria wanted the bill to keep: it was written in Chinese

We are beginning to lose and find, and lose and find things at this point. Earphones at the moment, I'm sure they will show up...again.   No more emptying through the rear hatch, though.

Most of the towns we couldn't see as we passed were Pop. 7,000+ and likely related to the Civil War.  Looking for a Subway in Pell City AL took us entirely through the very sparse town and on to the next highway exit

Sidenote:  This IS a nice place, but when we asked to be moved to a less smoky smelling room (it is a non-smoking venue) they were extra gracious...moved us...and comped the room

Tomorrow, Savannah, staying in the Historic district and taking the Trolly Tour Colleen and I found a few years back.  I have no takers for the Cemetery (spooky) tour.  And I am not so much wanting to go on a Paula Deen tour ( I guess I should learn how to spell her name).  Colleen and i discovered just how much food can be put on a plate when we visited Paulas's BROTHER's place  (Bubba's) on the aforementioned trip ( $2.00 extra ...if you want it GRILLED)

Harrison is taking a pass on writing and Tom is into his book....just made popcorn...kids watching RV (out loud because the earphones...).  !! o'clock and we know where the kids are.

DAY 11...Memphis by sundown

Harrison signing on:
Today was really fun and we started off waking up in the morning and I played my 3DS and we ate breakfast when everybody came over.  After Breakfast we went to the slide pool and went on the slide a couple times and I did some gambling in the game room. And then we were off...on the road to Memphis.  Stopped along the way a few times and at one stop we thought we had closed the back gate but it really wasn't and the waters fell out and these two boy scouts waved us in and helped us put the water back.

Mom & Dad in the rear View Mirror...

Now its Tori:
Hi everybody. Today and yesterday has been fun.
Yesterday: Yesterday we went swimming at the oasis pool and the slide pool.  The slide pool is fun. Later we had lunch and had quiet time. At quit time I read some more of my book, while Harrison played his 3 ds while Isacah did the same. I love my book so i couldn't stop reading it. When quiet time was over we all rented a boat and went on a ride. We ate dinner on the boat, fished and did some tubing. The tubing looked like fun but I didn't do it.  Then we went to the Butterfly Palace, the night version. If you wore white you glowed all bright.   The Butterfly Palace had a maze of mirrors, a fairy meeting, a place to make bug jars, and then where we got to see sleeping butterflies in the dark beautiful room .It was shinny and sparkly in the room.  So it was pretty fun.

Today: Today we went to the slide pool and also went to the game room, we had fun at the game room. Then Harrison, Opa, Grandma, and I  were of to Memphis. We are spending the night here. It s so safe they have to have gates around the parking lot. ( thats kind of scary) We went swimming and went past the time allowed, but we didn't get in trouble.  Well I love you all,
goodnight.
With lots of love,

Tori (victoria)





Susan 
Holland and I were having a pretty good time hanging out in the foot deep pool while the others shrieked down the Flume into the FREEZING cold pool when Tom decided he should slide...which, naturally evolved into MY needing to do the same ( WHO"S idea WAS that???) .  It turned out to be a lot of fun, mostly they liked that I screamed.  Nevertheless, twice was enough for me.
Everyone really wanted my now famous BLTs  for lunch but , alas, we had eaten too much bacon for breakfast so we made do with left over hamburgers, chicken and beans.

What STYLE...Isacah

The meal on the boat made up for it...no, no more food details.

2 1/2 hours of children at the wheel was entertaining.  Especially since I have never known of the expertise of boat driving among the men in this family --who were guiding the kids!!! hmm.  Harrison was the only one relishing being dragged behind a pontoon boat on his belly on a tube.  I think Chrissie would have gone for it but the opportunity passed.  We DID have a fun time and when we returned Chrissie, Harrison, Victoria and I took a turn on the kayaks.  I had never been in one and that was great...and easy on this calm inlet:  a peaceful sunset watched from the water

You might think that, since it was 7:30,  we went home and went to bed...but no-no-no.  We showered and went to the above mentioned butterfly Palace.  We arrived to a nearly empty parking lot and wondered if we had chosen the only day of the year it was closed...BUT they just keep the lights dim in this lovely place where you can visit nocturnal bugs and lizards ( spare me ever having to admire 4 inch cockroaches again)  and you tour a maze of mirrors and trees ( hilarious for grown and small...only three of the 8 of us were heard to go bump in the night...a couple cried ...but we mostly laughed.  They did a wonderful job of dim lights in the Butterfly room...AFTER we had made bug catching jars (again in black light).  We were greeted by silent fairies and a Frog named Lee who pointed us directly to sleeping butterflies nearby.  They sleep dawn to dusk.  Lee had a great ventriloquist, but Holland was unimpressed and didn't like him.  She liked the hula hoops.

I may have been the only one admitting exhaustion when we returned home...but all the kids fell asleep very quickly .
Victoria and Harrison summed up today's travel skipping seeing the Table Rock Dam,  Driving in the Ozark mountains,  excruciating traffic on I 40 to Memphis and an hour swimming  and playing Marco Polo with Opa after the pool was supposed to be closed.  That's the way it is...

Tomorrow Atlanta.  If we arrive there early enough we might call and see if we can get together with Reis cousins.

I am going to post this now...but return tomorrow to add the photos.  Don't ask why...