Black Water River Florida

March 9-11, 2012 is when we took this canoe trip. :)

So my grandma lives in Alabama real close to Florida. We wanted to go canoe camping and we chose the Black Water River in Florida, not far away, about an hour and a half. We had tons of gear packed, it is easy to carry a bunch of stuff in canoes. But still, I was worried it wouldn't all fit. I thought it might weigh the boats down too much and make them tippy.

I was in charge of packing food this time. Before I've always helped Mom with the food preparations on our camping trips, I've never done it myself so it was a challenge. At the very end Mom helped out and added in extra food, like a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly, and things for coffee.

Our family is not know for it's speed. In fact I think we're known to always be at least thirty minutes late. So not surprisingly, we had decided to try to get in the boats around ten o'clock in the morning. We made it to the river at three in the afternoon. Not bad I must say with all the extra stops we made on the way. ;)

This is one of Mom's favorite places. Stuckeys.

The Alamo

Well Our time in Arizona had to come to an end. We drove back down south to visit our friends in Louisiana and then later back to Grandmas in Alabama. On our way back we stopped in Texas to visit the Alamo. A place my Mom has wanted to go to for years. After driving several times around the blocks in the center of the city we finally found a place to park. We put our quarters in the meter and walked about three blocks to our destination.

This is the first view I got of the Alamo.

It was very disappointing to find that the Alamo, the place where that grand battle was fought, was in the middle of the city with tall office buildings towering above just on the other side of the street. I had always envisioned it being in the middle of the desert With remains of the compound and not just the little church building. I always thought of it as way out in the open where it would easy to imagine the struggle that took place there. No such thing here. The dusty ground in my imagination with cacti growing and tumbleweeds blowing was covered over in roads and sidewalks. Cars drove over the "sacred" ground of my imagination leaving exhaust fumes in the air. It was really a let down.

Photo Gallery

[March 16, 2012 Well I guess I won't be adding any more pictures to this page because I've got plenty of pictures in my posts. I made this page before I knew how to put pictures in the posts themselves]

This is the remains of our house. You can see the red shed in the background. Most of the front half was destroyed. The windows were broken and we got water damage in result of the firemen's hoses. Dad called Scrapper Dan and sold him the metal pieces of whatever he could salvage. This is a later picture, you can see that Scrapper Dan has already taken the big steal frame of the house.

These are the goats and our big dog Remus. They had all ran off when the house was burning. Thankfully they came back. The goats like to dig around in the ashes and sniff at things. (They also like all the normal goat stuff like jumping on cars, playing king of the hill, and other goaty things.)

Second Hiking Trip, Meeting Mr. Jim.

So here is the long over due post about our second hiking trip in the Superstition Mountains in Arizona.
If you havent read about our first trip click here.

Like last time their were no maps provided to take with you on the trail so I took a picture of the big one at the trail head.



We started at the Peralta Trail Head. Here is the route we planned to take: start at 104,  L. on 104, R. on 238, R. on 107, R. to stay on 107, R. on 108, L. on 104, and back at the trail head.

The first time when it was all four of us we made camp for the night on 107 probably about a third of the way after where you can get off on 111.

Seeing Through New Eyes

I was doing my eye wash the other day and I was thinking about some things.

Before I got my glasses I noticed acutely what others could see and what I could not. I complained, mostly to myself but sometimes I voiced my thoughts. Well I recently got my glasses and contacts.

When Dad and I were in the glasses store I remember trembling with excitement that now we were going to fix it. I was going to be able to see what others can. I sat in that big strange chair and the eye doctor put different slides of glass into the view finder. Things became clearer and clearer. I continued to tremble.