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Published: April 18th 2008
Greetings Folks,
I know this update is a wee bit delayed, but Lynne and I have been running at warp speed since our last update. Lynne and I sincerely appreciate all of the e-mails and messages we have received from true friends and family in the past few weeks. Please forgive us for not sending individual e-mails to each of you who have taken the time to send us a friendly note. I will work on taking the time to respond in a timely manner.
We are presently in Holley, Florida. For those of you who may not be able to find Holley on a map, no worries. It is a small speck on a map and is located in close proximity to Pensacola.
My daughter, Katrina, her husband, Jeremy, and my grand daughter, Hailey live in Holley. My daughter Jackie is living in Pensacola. My son Daniel is right down the road in Fort Walton Beach. We are using Katrina’s place as one of our base camps as we continue to take care of business in preparing for our trip.
Last week, we took a road trip to Dunedin, Florida (near Tampa) to spend some time with my mother and brother. We stayed down there for about a week. During the week, I was able to take care of a few things for Ma and spend a little time with her. I also got to see my nephew, Chaz, play one of his Little League baseball games. Chaz is a natural at the game, just like his father was. In the final inning of the game, Chaz cracked a line drive double all the way to the fence. I know Robert and Monica are extremely proud of that young man.
While in Dunedin, we took care of getting a few things on our gear list and made some additional preparations for the trip. One of the things we did was purchased some Visa Travel Cards from the local AAA office. These are really great for the traveler and have replaced the antiquated travelers checks. I’ll explain how these magical cards work. These are just like any debit card linked directly to your bank account. You load the card with an initial sum of money and reload it as required. This flexibility will reduce the risk of anyone accessing our primary banking account while we are traveling around the world. We can use these cards for purchases or withdraw funds from any ATM that accepts Visa. One of our major problems was getting access to the funds to load on the cards, We had to make multiple withdrawals from ATMs and get our daily ATM limit temporarily increased to withdraw enough cash to load the cards. With the cash in hand, we headed off to the local AAA office to get the cards. I laid the stack of cash on the counter, gave the clerk my drivers license and SSN. I inquired as to why she needed my SSN and she said that the Patriot Act required reporting of any transaction exceeding $3,000. WOW—I never dreamed that our government would track simple financial transactions such as this. America—that land of the free and the home of the brave. Well, at least we still have a few brave folks who defend these freedoms of ours. I am finding that since our return to America, it seems that some our freedoms have slowly eroded away and you can’t do simple financial transactions without Big Brother looking over your shoulder.
Ok, now back to the present. On Saturday, I said farewell to my son, Daniel. He is working for a local Olive Garden and was taking a road trip to Cape Coral, Florida to open a new restaurant. He is on a hand selected team to go down there to train the staff to open the restaurant. He has done several of these openings and plans to many more in the future. He has plans to move into a management position with the company in the future.
On Sunday, I spent some quality one-on-one time with my daughter Jackie. She is working for a child care agency in Pensacola. Jackie is dong exactly what she should be doing. Jackie has a heart of gold and has a special place in her heart for kids. Jackie has plans to go back to school in May to work on her child development certification.
On Sunday morning, Jeremy’s grandmother had a little excitement. She lives right across the street. She has a few bee hives on her property to help pollinate her fruit trees. In recent weeks a Florida Black Bear has been coming to visit her bee hives. The wildlife folks came an set a trap about a week prior. On Sunday morning, they came to retrieve the bear and the trap. Wow—now that’s a little bit of excitement.
Lynne and I continue to conduct vast amounts of research for this great adventure and the more we read, the more we realize that we have attempted to over plan. Sure, some people may desire to have rigid set schedules so they will know precisely where they will be on any given date and how they we get there. Well, guess what, we are now officially scrapping those plans—they just don’t fit into our travel mindset. We have now semi-finalized all of the places we DESIRE to visit during our travels, but we will be adjusting this list as travel. We will be publishing our semi-finalized list of destinations in the near future.
Lynne and I have made some major modifications to our “gear” or packing list. Our original game plan limited our options for spontaneity and our ability to experience some unplanned magic. We will still carry all of our necessities in backpacks, but our new plan will allow for camping along the way as well. There are plenty of “stealth” camping opportunities available around the world. This means that Lynne now carry an additional 3 pound and my pack weight now increases by an additional 10 pounds. We are still tweaking our semi-final gear list and will publish this list in the near future. Lynne has developed a simple spreadsheet to track our progress of securing the essentials.
Many of you have been sending us some very details questions about this great adventure. As previously promised, we will be answering these questions as time permits. Keep those questions coming and we will be sure to add them to the list of frequently asked questions.
As some of you may have already have noticed, I have not been posting many photos. Please be patient, I will add some in the near future as well. To be quiet honest, I have not been taking my normal amount of photos.
Lynne and I have also set up a yahoo messenger account with video capability. We will be able to keep up with friends and family from around the world by using this service. Please feel free to sign up for a yahoo messenger account so we can communicate using the voice chat or video options. Once you sign up, look for my screen name it is “Wanderingson” I am also using this as an e-mail address on yahoo as well. If you need assistance in setting up a yahoo messenger account let me know. When we are online, we will have visibility on any friends of family who are also on-line.
Look for another update in the immediate future.
"When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money." -- Susan Heller
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Cindy
non-member comment
Nice hearing from you.
I was wondering what happened to you both. Take care, be safe and have fun.