Greetings from the Mearns Family

Hello Friends,
It's now December, so time to send off Christmas Greetings to all of you. Hope you all have a great Christmas with your families. We are having all of our family here for the celebrations, so you will now see who will be at our place this year!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Early Christmas Greetings

Make a Smilebox greeting

Halloween Visitors

This year we were visited by friends and family for Tricks and Treats! It is so much fun to see the little ones (and big) dressed up to roam the neighborhood for candy. We actually had over 30 ghosts and goblins visit our place this year. The weather was good, no blizzard....warm temperatures....and the possibility of wearing their costumes without having snowsuits under them!! So it was good all the way around.

We had a cute little Raggedy Ann with her Tiger Momma visit us for candy. Lexi looked so cute with her long red braids and Savanah's tiger ears and tail keep the ghoulies away. We are so happy to welcome these lovely gals into our family.

Then we had a couple of bugs show up. A cute little Lady Bug and her Butterfly Mummy. The little Lady Bug wasn't quite sure at first, but once the first few candies went into her bag it was all good from there on!

We had a cute little turtle show up form across the cul-de-sac a little later. He was happy to get the candy, but you really can't tell from the look on his face! lol

Then we were amazed at the great makeup job that went into this Peter Criss look alike that was giving out candy on another street.

Hope that you all had a spooktacular Halloween!!

It's amazing how quickly the time passes.

It seems like yesterday when I started working again and already I'm up for my 3 month evaluation. In this time I have had the pleasure of working with a lovely lady, it seems more like spending time with a chum more than anything else. It has been a great experience to be able to impart my own schedule and fill it with activities that are both fun and learning experiences. We are both learning new skills together every week.

Today we are starting Dance Classes, which will continue until the middle of December. The classes are geared towards making it possible to get up and dance at parties/weddings without feeling like one has two left feet! Always a good thing.

We have been taking craft classes that are teaching us how to make our own Christmas cards. This has been lots of fun for both of us and we have very professional looking cards!

Family life is going along smoothly. We are looking forward to the Long Thanksgiving weekend. The little ones are getting excited about Halloween coming up also!

Life Moves On

Here we are at the end of August already, with Fall nipping on our heels. It has been a funny summer this year with not much warmth, to speak of. Hopefully we will end up with an Indian Summer in September.

I am now back working, same kind of work as I was doing last time, but with a new company, and life is good. With this job I am working one-on-one with a client, so am able to put all of my energy into it. It's great to be working this way and I just love my client. It is a very good match and hardly feels like work most of the time. That's a real bonus. It's very hard to find a job like that. But at my age, it's a blessing to be able to wake up in the morning and feel excited about my work day. It is a part-time position and every weekend is a 3 day weekend. I couldn't ask for anything better.

Family life goes along and is good. Holt is still sharing the house with us and this works very well for all of us. It is mutually beneficial all the way around. Heath and his family live close by, which makes it possible to watch my little granddaughter grow and develop. She is the cherry on my sundae!! Such a blessing for me. There is no joy like the joy of watching her run to me with open arms for a hello hug and an eskimo kiss!! The oldest fellow is doing well and is now happily engaged to a lovely gal. They are working on putting their lives together, so we really don't see them much.

We have not been doing much camping this summer. It seems that once we got back from the 752, we were turned off a bit by the whole thing. Then there were weeks of applying for jobs and waiting to here back from them. However, we are planning on doing a camping trip over the Sept. long weekend. Wayne and I both feel it's a lot of work to pack up the 5th wheel and just go away for 2 or 3 days.....lol....we are at the point where we feel if we are going to pack up to camp it should be for at least a month. I guess the trip last winter has put us into that mode. We are planning towards our next time on the open road, which hopefully will come about in 2011. Wayne is anxious to travel to Alaska and if I want to travel, that means that is where I will be going too. A small price to pay as after we go to Alaska we are going to head south for the winter and then up along the Eastern Seaboard in the Spring. There are still a few places that we are anxious to see....just a few....Wayne would like to travel for at least a year and I have no problem with that.

This year we are having all of our kids and their families here for Christmas. Almost like our last "hurray" of family get togethers before we start to travel long term. This should be alot of fun for all of us. We are really looking forward to getting to know our two great-grandchildren for the first time.

Father's Day Archery Shoot June 20-31, 2009

This weekend we headed out for some camping and for Wayne

to shoot at the Big Horn Father's Day Shoot with his son

Tim and some archery friends. We had a good day on

Saturday and did A and B courses. It was beautiful and sunny

and the courses went in and out of the trees. The only

drawback were all of the ANTS we encountered. Some of

the hill were over almost a foot high!! That did not deter

us any.

Wayne was also joined by his friend Sam, who he hadn't shot with in quite a few years. He
also had Tracy and Dwight in his group of shooters. Tim and Tracy are going to be shooting at
the World's Archery Competion in August down in the States, so they were busy working on

getting their distances calculated.

Dwight joined the gang too....he is a relatively new shooter. This is second year of shooting and

he was having fun just hitting "foam" on the targets...not really looking for any big scores, just

shooting for fun!!

Tim's daughter (our granddaughter) came to the shoot too and she came around with us while

her dad shot. Luckily, she made friends with another girl there and they buddied up to walk

around with us.

I went along for the walk too and took and pictures and helped carry things. In the afternoon, I

was one of the score keepers, so that made things a little more interesting. On Sunday, I opted

to stay back at the 5th wheel and read my book and pack things up for going home. The main

reason for that was because of the fact that it was raining 'dogs and cats' most of the morning!

All in all we had a great weekend. It was nice to get out of town and spend some time in the

woods!!

Camping with the Kids

At last we are getting some nice weather and are able to do some camping with our kids....big and small...furry too!! Our little Bouler Trailer that we picked up is just the right size for them to use and the baby now thinks that it belongs to her. She reminds us of this every time she passes by it by patting it and saying "Mine". We call it our 'guest house' and it is quite cozy. Celicia just loves to ride on our quads and is now being taught by her Poppa how to drive the quad!! Of course she has to have Poppa on board to be able to do this!

We were able to have our first campfire of the year while they were with us also and Celicia had her first experience with roasting marshmellows. Poppa showed her how to cook them to a nice golden brown.
It was a great weekend and we all had a good visit!

Home again!

Well, we are now back home again and have settled into the routine of every day life at the Mearns household. It is good to be able to see our family members again, of course. We do have days where we wish we were still on 'the road', but those times will come again soon enough.
For now we are getting our 5th wheel serviced and ready to go for another summer out at the
752 West RV-ATV Campground. There will not be much added to this blog until the Fall now. When we start back on our travels again. This time we are going to make sure that we are home for the Christmas season though, which will likely mean that we will fly home for a couple of weeks and leave our 5th wheel and truck in the States. Time will determine exactly how we are going to do things!
To all of our friends that have been watching our travels, stay tuned and we will be here again in the Fall!!
Hope you all have a great summer and feel free to come visit us out of the 752 West!

Home tomorrow if all goes as planned!

We are now in Big Horn Mountain KOA in Sheridan, Wyoming. What a long drive it was from Limon, Colorado and then across the high plains of Wyoming. We were lucky to have moderate winds across the plains! There were some gusty areas that got up to around 45 mph. Fortunately there was no snow at all blowing around. Alot of the white stuff on the fields and the mountains though. Wayne just kept telling me to think of the sand at Henderson Beach, FL and pretend that's what we were looking at! HA! HA! HA!
We were glad to have our quadding boots though as we had to wear them at this campground. There is alot of snow and ice around the trailer and truck.
The only mishap was having our outside stairs of the 5th wheel blown open part way while travelling. Tomorrow we are going to see if we can make a 'run for home' as our 'window of good weather' is starting to close.

We're getting there!

Well, we are now in Limon,CO outside of Denver. It has been a long drive today from Big Spring, Texas. However, we both have decided that it's best to keep driving as long as the weather is holding. There are rumors of snow in Alberta, something we are not looking forward to!!! Here we come in our shorts and crocs....lol.....luckily Wayne had enough foresite to suggest we bring winter jackets with us. If all else fails, we do have our quadding rubber boots that are good to -40c!
Tomorrow we are heading to Buffalo, WY and then Tuesday we will be going to Great Falls, MT.
That will hopefully put us home sometime on Wednesday afternoon. I'm sure we will be suffering from climate and altitude change for a few days. I'm cold already and it's still in the 50's (F) here.....lol....
We look forward to seeing everybody soon.

There is a Season......

Well, folks...here I am to let you all know that our trip will soon be coming to an end.

We are now heading back home, a month early, for family reasons. It has been a great winter for us, our first without snow and hopefully just one of many more.

Travelling though the Southern States has been a real treat for us, to say the least. It's hard to believe that by this time next week we will be back in Alberta, shovelling snow or the likes.

Thanks to you all for keeping track of our travels. We hope that you have enjoyed the pictures and not been too bored by the dialogue!!

St. George's Island State Park, FL

Our travels continued onto the coast of Florida. First we went back to Henderson Beach State and spent 6 days enjoying the white sugar sand that looked like snow and the emeral waters of the Gulf of Mexico. We know that you have seen the pictures from there already, so I'll move down the coast to St. George's Island State Park. This park is also on the Gulf of Mexico, but the beach is more like the Atlantic Ocean with browner sand and the water is a darker color. This beach had much better shells, which we collected with abandment! We will be bringing them home to share with the grandkids. The bath house on this beach was on stilts, as were the cottages on the island. This is in case of high tides or hurricanes. The beach flag was red most of our visit as the surf was high and unsafe for swimming.

Driving to the campsite there were 2 brackish ponds, one on either side of the road. These are ponds that are fed both seawater and freshwater. These ponds were home to a large male alligator. He was close to 8 to 9 feet in length and was out and about most days. The weather was warm enough that he was still hunting, one time we saw him with something in his mouth, either a turtle or large fish. The alligator shared the ponds with large wading birds and ducks. He never did venture into the campground though. Thank goodness for that!!

Manatee Springs State Park FL

Manatee Springs State Park in Florida is one of the places where the manatee go to spend the winter months in the warm spring waters. However, we were not lucky enough to see any. We did watch a group of young fellas go swimming in the Springs though. This park had some of the largest cyprus knees that we've seen anywhere. The knees are actually part of the trees root system that helps to stabilize the trees in the unstable sandy soil.

The inlet where Manatee Springs originate flow out to the Swuannee River. The boardwalk actually goes from the Springs out to the river. Along the way we found a nesting place of the Turkey Buzzards, down near the mouth of the inlet. This was a very nice park with lots of walking trails. I had noticed the red trees on our travels and this is the first one that was seen up close. The red turned out to be seeds hanging from the branches and not leaves as I originally thought.

Cyprus Swamp Trail Highlands Hammock SP

Here are some pictures of the swamp walk we took. The spider in actually bigger in diameter with leg span included, than a two dollar coin!! It was quite large, wouldn't want to meet up with it too close to me. Also I've included the elusive armadillo here. Armadillo are very hard of hearing and almost blind, so it's easy to get up close to them. They spend their time rooting for small grubs and bugs. The flora in the swamps is very interesting too. We didn't come across any snakes or alligators in this swamp though.

The Blown Tire Event

So here are the pictures of the damage that occured to our 5th wheel from the tire blow out! We didn't realize just how much damage there was until we the next day when we could look at it in the light of day!! Of course we had to take pictures for the insurance company. Oh well, the main thing is we are both alright and the 5th wheel is ambulatory.

Highlands Hammock State Park

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Loving Florida

Hello again! Sorry about the lack of pictures on the last Blog! This time I will try to do a bit better. The first few pictures were taken in Georgia that were suppose to be with the last entry!! Tybee Island Beach was on the Atlantic Ocean and quite different from the Gulf of Mexico. It was quite cold and windy when we were there, so we didn't stay too long.....we found ourselves a Crab Shack instead and spent the afternoon dining on fresh seafood instead of collecting shells.





For the last 3 1/2 weeks we have been biding our time in Florida, enjoying the sun and sea as well as some inland areas. The first place we visited was Highlands Hammock State Park, close to Tampa. This is where we has our first really good look at alligators in the wild...up close. We also saw lots of turtles and birds..plus an armadillo that was very obliging at letting me get a good picture of him. The ones in Texas were very camera shy!! I will put these pictures up the next section.
The trip from Georgia to Highlands Hammock SP was interesting to say the least. Once we were through Orlando, we happened to pick up something in one of our trailer tires and it blew in the fast lane on the Intersate Hwy.. A car came buzzing up beside us and the driver was making motions with his hands of something spinning and pointing back at our trailer! We knew what that meant! We were able to get over into the inside land and pull off the side. When we got out we were greeted by the smell of burning rubber and an empty tire rim on the back driver side of the trailer!! The side of the trailer was bent in and the fender around the tires was broken off (it is made of fiberglass). The blown tire was wrapped around the axle of the trailer and was not going to budge. We spent an hour on the side of the road waiting for help to change the tire. Once the tire was changed we had to drive back to the previous small town to a Discount Tire and have them struggle to remove the remains of the tire from the axle. Once done we went happliy on our way to the State Park. This was a day that was suppose to be a short drive with an early arrival. It ended up being one of our longest travel days. The Warden as the State Park was nice enough to wait around until we arrived (well after dark) and show us to our campsite. The lesson we learned from this day was to never say "This will be an easy drive!"