The last leg of our epic journey -
Florida to Texas
(with a detour to Bahamas)
Florida
Our drive down to Florida ended up being much longer than we anticipated. The drive from Atlanta, Georgia to Sarasota, Florida was supposed to take 9 hrs and daddy being ambitious as he is, though we might be able to do it in 1 day (mostly at night). Except, in the late afternoon we noticed something, which unfortunately we have seen before – smoke out of one of our tires. Oh-oh, we did another bearing on the caravan (trailer)! The first one gave way back in Texas; the second one lasted a little bit longer – 46,000 miles to be exact! (approx. 71,000 km). We had to pull up at the nearest fuel station and wait overnight.
Most of the next day we spent doing our schoolwork, while daddy spent hours on the phone persuading people to come and fix our bearing. On a Sunday of course..... He eventually found someone who did and by the afternoon we were back on the road.
We got to Sarasota late in the evening and so the first thing in the morning we went to check out the 3D chalk festival, we drove here to see.
We have seen some of the artwork on Internet and we have been quite fascinated by it so when we found out that there was going to be a whole festival dedicated to it, we just had to see it!
The artworks were just INCREDIBLE. We walked around admiring every single one of them. There were 2D pictures, which were stunning
And there were many 3D ones, which were just amazing. Spread on the walkways, they looked like they were out of proportions. The limbs were stretched out and they were a bit funny. That’s only until we got to a marked spot on the ground. The picture would suddenly ‘stand up’ from the ground and people’s jaws drop to the ground in amazement. Wow, how do they do it???
Check out some of the artworks! The theme for this year was ‘Circus City: USA’
On one of the artworks we came across, we noticed a little Koala
sitting on the ground holding an Australian flag. ‘Look, the artist is from
Australia!’ we both cried. 30 seconds later, we met Jenny McCracken, who
happens to be from Melbourne, Australia, just like us!!!
Jenny loved having some Australian company and she even allowed
us to sit on her artwork and take some pictures! What a wonderful piece of art!
Apparently Jenny does a lot of art around Southbank and the Docklands (in Melbourne).
Man, and we had to travel 46,000 miles to see it?
In the afternoon we went to the beach, which incidentally
happened to be voted #1 Beach in the USA. We didn’t even know that until we got there. Fancy,
stumbling across it like that….
When we got back to camp, we continued our lizard hunting,
which we started last night. We found so may of them, little ones - all over
the palm trees – they were just adorable!
Our camp neighbors, Dianne and Bob invited us over for hot
chocolate and a glass of wine for our parents. They have just been informed
that they have purchased a new home, so of course, we had to help them celebrate.
As it happens, both Dianne and Bob were retired schoolteachers.
Dianne used to teach singing and Bob - instrument playing. Well, after that
discovery we ran back to our caravan and fetched out recorders immediately. Dianne
was nice enough to play (and teach us) a few tunes – we were excited! Maybe now
mum won’t complain when we start playing them, LOL.
The next morning after
releasing all the lizards we caught over the last two days (oh, they were
adorable, little, little munchkins), we left for Naples, Florida. Unfortunately
we didn’t stay there long as this massive storm was following us all the way.
We had enough time to stop over for lunch, do a little drive through (very
beautiful town full of rich gated communities) and then we kept going towards
Miami.
Of course we had to stop at the Everglades National Park. This
is where the lizards got a little bigger. Check out the ‘crunchy’ I caught there!
Well, I didn’t really catch him. A nice man let us hold him.
This is a 2-year-old alligator and he was adorable.
Incidentally, while we were driving we noticed signs for
airboat adventures and it’s not like us to miss out on ANY adventures – ‘Adventure' by now is our middle name!
We hopped on the boats and man, did we have fun! It’s like
being on a jet ski but not having to worry about the banks of the rivers. At
one stage, the driver went straight for the ‘banks’ and our hearts stop for a
split second but soon we discovered that the boat could just glide over the
‘land’. Well, it wasn’t really land – it was grass growing out of the swamps.
The boat with its huge propeller at the back glided right through and over the
grasses. Crikey, it was exhilarating!
We saw hundreds of birds, some turtles and yes, the alligators.
That’s the incy-wincy cousin to our crocodiles back home. Even at 10 ft. they
look like baby crocodiles. Nothing like the man-eaters we have back home.
At the National Park information center a lady told us about a
campground that is in the national park and which does not charge for camping,
so we decided to spend the night there.
As we were pulling up, we saw a couple waving to us with a
glass full of wine. Daddy jumped out and asked if we could join ‘their party’.
And this is how we met Ruth and Mark from Arizona. We spent a wonderful
afternoon and evening with them. We probably would’ve stayed up longer at night
but the Floridian bugs were seriously getting to us. Looking like people with
chicken pox we left the next morning. Ouch!
We were heading off to Miami next. We did however stop along
the way and completed, not one, not two but three junior ranger programs! It
just happens that the Big Cypress National Preserve, Biscayne National Park and
the famous Everglades National Park are right next to each other.
As we were travelling we stopped also to admire more
alligators, which were just either sitting by the side of the road or plonked in the river.
We spent a night in a nice RV park near Miami and then our
parents decided to leave out home on wheels behind and drive up and stay in a
hotel on the Keys. For those who don’t know what the Keys are – they are the
islands connected by massive bridges off the south of mainland Florida all the
way to Key West at the end of Highway 1 (the most southern point of the USA).
The first day we just played by the pool and enjoyed the space
of two rooms! Wow, it’s amazing how big two little rooms can look when you are used
to staying in a caravan. You can spread your arms without bumping into anyone!
As it happens there was an ‘Australian’ restaurant nearby. We
have heard so much about it but have never been there – The Outback Steakhouse.
The food was divine (one of our favorites), the décor was
Australian, with lots of kangaroos, surfboards and other stuff reminding us of
home, even the names on the menu were sort of Australian: Walkabout Soup,
Chocolate Thunder from Down Under and Alice Spring Salad (although we have been
to Alice Spring and salad is a bit of an oxymoron, the place is in the middle
of the desert and I don’t think they eat a lot of salad, LOL)
As much as we loved the restaurant, we were a bit disappointed
the next day when mummy researched that the owners had never been to Australia
when they created the restaurant; they just rode on the tail of ‘Crocodile
Dundee’ when it was first released. I think we would’ve liked to hear that
their trip to our home country inspired them. But the food, even though it was
all American (and extremely fattening), was still yummo!
We got up early the next morning and drove all the way to the
heart of Key West. We were greeted by an enormous rumbling noise coming from
the ocean. Hundreds of people were aligning the dockside. Something serious was going
on!
It took us forever to find parking and when we finally did,
we discovered that the finals for high performance boat racing was taking
place. How do we always manage our timing so well? LOL
Once parked, within minutes we managed to squeeze to the front – the
advantage of being little I guess. And you wouldn’t believe who won! An
Australian!!! Hey, we must be a lucky charm – seriously!
We spent the rest of the day just walking up and down the
streets. There were thousands of people in Key West – most were there to party
and celebrate the finals of the races.
The shops were full of funny and goofy stuff.
There were also a lot of galleries, which our parents insisted
we check out.
We met some wonderful artists, like this Hawaiian painter
Walfrido. His work was just exquisite!
We also met Chris, who does these amazing 3D fish – he even
showed us one, which glows in the dark. Totally awesome! He has even been
approached by Disney to do some of their artworks.
We also found Mummy’s favorite sculpture – ‘Foxy’ by Nano Lopez.
We saw her once in Las Vegas and she is oh, so gorgeous! If it wasn’t for her
$7,000 price tag mummy would have definitely walked out with her under her arm!
After dinner we walked down the street - everybody was already
in a party mood. The boats were all displayed on the main street, which was
closed to traffic. There was loud music and pretty girls were dancing on top of
the boats. It was exciting!
We went over to congratulate the winners and told them we were
cheering for them. They were very, very happy!
We left late at night totally in awe of Key West! Loved it!
*********
When we got back to our campground, our parents spent WHOLE day
cleaning the caravan. Not that it was dirty or anything, they just decided to
do some ‘spring cleaning’ (in winter?) so that mummy could take photos to list
the car and the caravan for sale. Some lucky family was going to get our home
on wheels one day – we are sure going to miss it!!!
Here is the amount of stuff we have collected over the timespan
of our trip. Ay! I’ve got no idea how we are going to take it all home!
Anyway, we really didn’t mind our parents being busy for 8 hours
straight. We were camped very close to a playground and there was a whole bunch
of scouts camping near us so 8hrs of uninterrupted play was exactly what we
needed!
In the evening we spent a few hours splashing with our parents
around the pool.
The next day we did a little bit of shopping in the nearby mall
– and as luck would have it they had an American Girl Doll store. With our parents
‘kicking and screaming’ we dragged them to the store, which as usual was packed
to the rafters with other shoppers. We somehow managed to talk our parents into
buying some new outfits for our dolls, Yay!
As a reward, we played nicely in the Apple shop while our
parents indulged in some technological dreaming.
In the afternoon we drove to Miami Beach, one of mummy and
daddy’s favorite places. We first went for a walk on the beach and watched a
spectacular sunset.
We then went to check out the nightlife on the main strip. With
busy restaurants and people everywhere, it certainly was a party town.
We even
watched a beautiful lady dance salsa. Although daddy said ‘she’ was actually a
he – not sure what he meant by that! She was a spectacular dancer, even though
she was big and muscly! LOL
We ended up strolling through a lot of retro galleries and had
dinner in one of the funky restaurants. We quite enjoyed Miami.
Orlando – Florida
Well, I think most people, certainly Americans, know what
Orlando is famous for – DISNEYWORLD!!!!!!!! Yes, yes, yes! We have always been so
excited to see Disneyworld and we …almost
went there!
Our parents had another surprise up their sleeves for us. After
extensive search on the internet, mummy found out that the tickets to
Disneyworld are so expensive that she and daddy came up with another idea – why
not hop onto a Disney Cruise instead?! What? Really? We couldn’t believe our
luck when they told us about it. We were
just over the moon!!!
As it turned out, there was a company, which was offering last
minute deals on cruises (Disney inclusive) and the cost to go on a three day,
all inclusive cruise to Bahamas was just as much as a few day pass to
Disneyworld! So the cruise won hands down!
Here is the link to the last minute deal company – DEFINITELY
check it out! Mummy said she got a deal she couldn’t refuse! Something like 75%
off!!!
Anyway, we were so excited; we just couldn’t wait!
The day before we went on the cruise, our parents took us
to Downtown Disney. Its had all the atmosphere of Disney, and the best part is, you don’t have to pay to go there! We spent a whole day
having a look at the shops, digging bones of some dinosaurs and basically
having jolly good time.
We spent hours in the LEGO shop – not shopping, oh no! We were
building little people for others to buy. Here is a collection we had created.
We then went to admire other people’s Lego creations. Now
that’s what you call ART! Some of them were huge – all made out of Legos. I
wonder if we could ever talk our dad into spending THAT much money on acquiring
enough Legos to build these? I might not be that great at doing calculations
yet but mummy has been teaching us about making ‘estimations’ and considering
the little men we created were $10 for three, my estimation would be, for this
giant LEGO sculpture -…. we would go broke!
But if anything we had learned on this trip – it’s how to
window-shop. We are slowly learning that we do not NEED to buy stuff in every
shop we go to. Although by golly, we never fail to try! LOL
That night our parents surprised us with something incredible
(yes, we know we are getting spoiled). They took us to see Cirque du Soleil!
For those of you, who have never heard of them – it is the best circus IN THE
WORLD!!!!!!
And WOW, what a performance!!!! We were just in awe of the
incredible, breathtaking acts. The stunts and acts and the music were
incredible! We spent most of the night standing
up and cheering - NOT because we didn’t get good seats – we were just clapping
so hard. Loved it, loved it, loved it! Big thumbs up, mum and dad!
DISNEY CRUISE 15-18th of December 2012
Ok, so what can we say about Disney? WOW, WOW, and WOW!!! What
a Spectacular Boat, Spectacular Crew and …
I don’t even think I have enough words in my 8 year old
vocabulary to describe what fabulous time we had! Now, we have been a little
spoiled in our lives thus far (just in case you have not noticed, LOL) but I
tell you what – there is NOTHING like Disney!
Yes, Disneyland was fun, and so is Disneyworld apparently –
our parents had been there BEFORE we were born - but that is nothing compared
to the cruise!
For three days and three nights we were treated like ROYALTY.
From the moment we entered the magical boat called The Disney Dream, we were
swept away into the magical world of…….well – Disney!
As we entered the 13-story palace on water, the crew called out
our last name on the speakerphones and gave us a stand up ovation. Wow! Talk
about a red carpet arrival!
The staff - all 1500 of them - were just incredible! Every day
we ate in differently themed restaurants. Our waiters just followed us from
restaurant to restaurant every day being almost like our private servers – they
all knew us by name and treated us like royals. By the end of day three they
didn’t want to let us go – they liked us so much (I guess they are only human,
LOL).
With all the staff members, you certainly felt like you were in
good hands
Even the housekeepers had an amazing sense of humor!
We attended the awesome kids club, giving our parents a night off
to go out to a nightclub - there were
quite a few Australians working there so we felt like we were back at home.
On this cruise we got to meet all the characters!
Bella was beside herself when she got a chance to meet all the
princesses and swap stories – you know – princess to princess. She loves that kind
of stuff!
I skipped that part. Princesses are not my cup of tea – but I
did enjoy hanging out with Donald. With a long line of kids, Donald didn’t want
me to go when I started speaking to him in his language. I have been practicing
lots and can speak his lingo - he just cuddled me and cuddled me (and Bella
too). He even sent us a private letter with his photograph and signature saying
that he really enjoyed meeting us. Yep, I like Donald.
A lot of times we would just meet Mickey or Goofy or Donald, just
walking past and we would stop them and ask for a photo. They were more than happy to
do that. Certainly beats lining up if you ask me.
The whole three days turned out to be one big party, which
continued into the late hours of the night. We had a pirate party one night. A lot of people dressed up for the occasion in pirate gear
Then we had the fireworks night. The going away party, coming back
party, meetings, greetings, hellos and goodbyes. Party, party, party! Oh we
could so live here permanently!
On the fireworks night, other cruise lines surrounded us to
watch the spectacle. Disney is the only ship, which is allowed to have
fireworks. Apparently all fireworks are made out of ......recycled food! Fancy that!
Here we go, imagine this for a moment – salads, vegetables and other healthy foods….. going…… Caboom! Now thats better than eating them!
Speaking of food, mummy told us at the beginning of the cruise
that we have a ‘green card’ with ordering ANYTHING we want over the next three
days. Anything?? We had to ask twice. ‘As in we could have ice- cream for
breakfast, for lunch AND for dinner???’ ‘If that’s what you want’ – mummy said-
‘then yes’.
‘Hooray’ we both exclaimed and ran down the hall to fill up our
plates with doughnuts, pancakes, cupcakes, waffles and - of course- ice cream!
And that was only our first meal on the ship! Mummy almost fell off her chair
when she saw our plates but to her benefit she did not say a word for the
whole three days! Then she got back at us once we got back to land, feeding us water, salads and broccoli (but that’s another story).
With all these fabulous parties, sensational theatre
performances EVERY night, I don’t even how we managed to fit in the day trips.
But somehow we did.
On the first morning, we woke up to this view from our 10th
floor balcony
This is the Port of Nassau (as in Bahamas!). Our parents
organized a tour of Atlantis, one of the most famous resorts in the world. It
was one of those places mummy wanted to tick off her ‘bucket list’
It was incredible – the Resort with over 2300 rooms overlooking
the world’s largest open-air marine environment, is home to over 50,000 sea
creatures. It is totally surrounded by lagoons, waterfalls, a 140-acre waterpark,
dolphin habitats, underwater tunnels and exclusive shops.
In it’s deep marina sit the sleekest of motor yachts.
See these baby stingrays below? Do you know why they swim so
close to each other? They are pretending to be one big stingray so they they look scary
to their predators. Neat, hey?
Just to tour the resort with a guide, took us over an hour and
a half – that’s how big it was!
The ‘bridge’ between the two towers houses one of the most
beautiful penthouses, which costs $25,000 a night! With a minimum of three-nights stay of course! Apparently it is referred to as the ‘Michael Jackson’s penthouse’
as he paid double per night to be the first one to stay there. We asked our
parents if we could stay there and they just said ‘next time perhaps’, which is
fine – really- we already had awesome accommodation for the night – on the Disney
Cruise.
After an extensive walk through the resort we went to a nearby
‘village’, which had a little outdoor shopping mall. We did a little bit of
window-shopping and admired the big motor yachts. Bella was taking notes of
course. She was saying that she would like to add one of those to her ‘toy’ collection in the
future.
On the way back to the cruise ship we stopped to get a couple
of little souvenirs and Bella and I got to boogie on stage with this lovely
Bahamian man. Can’t remember what we sang but it certainly was fun!
Bella also made a brave decision to have her hair braided. I
chickened out as soon as I saw how much pain she was going through under the
skillful fingers of Speedy, The Hair Braider. It did turn out quite
pretty, but i just didn’t want to go through the pain.
Back on the boat we got to play at the pool and party once
more. See the clear tube up above the
pool going around the screen? That is a water slide and it goes all the way
around the WHOLE boat. It is so much fun! You just hop in a little inflatable
device and weeee- off you go around the boat!
At night as we were sound asleep, mummy would sneak out to take
some pictures of this palace on the water. It was nice and quite for once (at
3am!) so she could take pictures without hundreds of people walking by.
The next morning we woke up to this view out of our balcony:
We have arrived at Disney’s PRIVATE ISLAND!! Imagine that! It was
unreal!
First we went to the kids club for a few hours, where we dug
for fossils as well as whale and dinosaur’s bones. I even got a certificate for
being the best paleontologist! That’s a fossil digger in kids’ language.
We played all sorts of games in the club. While we had fun with
other kids, our parents went to the beach for a well-deserved rest. When we
asked them later what they did, they said they both fell asleep in a hammock. Oh, well. Why not?
After a delicious lunch on the beach we all went on these fancy
tricycles. I went with mummy and Bella went with Daddy. We thought it was fun
because we didn’t have to paddle – our legs were way too short, so the grown ups
were doing all the work. The only problem was…….mummy’s legs were also too
short! So we got in the water on our tricycle, looked at each other and said to
each other ‘now what?’
Mummy somehow managed to
‘extend herself’, which she did by almost laying down in a very awkward
position and with her tippy toes maneuvered us around to the big boat (to take
a picture) and back. I have no idea how she managed to do that and not drown
her gigantic camera, which she had hanging off her neck. Funny site indeed. I
think by the time we got back to the shore she had confirmed that she
definitely did not like Tricycles. As if she didn’t learn that in Mackinaw
Island! LOL
Before we got back on the cruise, we played around on the
hammocks
And took bunch of photos.
That night after our once again- fabulous dinner and a
spectacular show- we had a farewell party on the boat. All the characters came
out to say goodbye; it was awesome!
And the next morning when we woke up, our balcony overlooked a
car park where our home on wheels awaited us. We got treated to our last
breakfast with our favorite servers and yes, a bunch of waffles, cupcakes AND doughnuts.
And then the inevitable happened - we walked off the boat with
sad puppy faces. And as sad as it was to leave, daddy reminded us how lucky we
were not to only do the cruise but come back to the continuation of our wonderful
travels.
Yippee!
Orlando
There is nothing that can deflate one’s ‘Cloud 9’ experience more than a walk
through border security in the United States. This time they were reasonably
nice but they still retained us for over two hours drilling our parents about our
‘extended vacation’. Even though all our paperwork was all in order, they still
unpacked ALL our bags to see if we were not hiding something bad. Lucky I didn’t
retain any of the whalebones I found on the Disney Island!
The border security officer was really worried that we would choose to
stay in America forever. I tried to explain to them that if they think that we wanted stay here forever, they obviously had not been to Australia AND had not
tried our grandma’s chicken soup! We really like America but we LOVE Australia
and we miss our grand parents terribly – how could we possibly stay here
forever?
After two and a half hours, they finally satisfied themselves
that we were not bad people but just a bit crazy to be travelling for that long
– and they let us back into the country. Phew! By the time we got to our home
on wheels mummy and daddy were so stressed that the memories of the fantastic
cruise almost evaporated. Mummy said it was called ‘Falling off Cloud 9’. I
just took her word for it, although I still wonder if Disney Cruise is called cloud
9 – what’s on the other 8? Hmmm…
Our campground was very close by and we only just arrived and
set up ‘camp’ when we heard the oh so familiar- Disney departure signal – the
deep horn played to the tune of ‘When you Wish Upon a Star’. We dropped everything
and ran to the water to wave the new lucky travellers going on their best
vacation ever. Lucky buggers!
The next morning we moved closer to Orlando to catch up with
some friends we met at the beginning of our trip: Will and Ella. It was
fantastic seeing them again and meeting their children and grandchildren. We
even went out to a nice restaurant that night with everybody…
Savannah –
Georgia
We decided to backtrack a bit to Savannah Georgia. We met a lot
of people along the way who told us we must see this old, historical town and
unfortunately we missed it on the way down because of hurricane ‘Sandy’. Now
that the weather had settled, we decided to detour back to check it out.
Also, we had an awesome surprise waiting. Remember those
wonderful ‘singing’ friends we met near Atlanta? The Rountrees? Well, they
invited us over for Thanksgiving! Awesome! We have never celebrated a proper
Thanksgiving (last year we shared it with a bunch of strangers in an RV Park).
We were so excited!
But first we needed to tick off Savannah. After a very early
morning we got to Savannah (from Orlando) in just over 4 hrs. We have been told
that the best way to see Savannah is to go on a narrated Trolley Tour, which
goes for 90 minutes.
So we hopped on the tram (the trolley) and we zoomed around
town being entertained by our driver - BIG Carl. He was very funny – well only
when we could understand him because he spoke mighty fast and sounded a bit
like a cowboy – you know, the southern drawl.
Savannah is a beautiful historical town planned around 22 city
squares. Thy used to have 24 to start with some 160 years ago but lost three to
development. They did manage to get one back a couple of year ago. They
bulldozed the buildings and rebuilt one city square. Mummy thought designing
the town around city squares was a mighty good idea - everybody got to enjoy
the beautiful Oaks draped with Spanish moss from their beautiful verandas.
We hopped off the trolley near the famous river walk and we
strolled down the street checking out all the shops and enjoying a nice sunny
afternoon. It’s amazing how many identical souvenirs we have seen all over the
country. Seems everybody buys them from the same factories in China and puts their town’s
name on them. We even have them in Australia!
Overall, we liked Savannah.
Rountree-ville
Georgia - from 22nd November 2012
After a nice overnight stopover on the side of a lake and some
morning exploring we got to Adel, Georgia to meet up with our friends. We were
initially planning to stay there for a day or two but boy, we almost ended up
living there forever! We were certainly in for a treat we had not anticipated.
When we arrived we met up with the Rountree family we met two
weeks ago: granny and papa Rountree (that is how everybody refers to them),
Miss Diane and Mr. Jimmy. Their two sons, Mr. Eric and his family (Miss Kim and
their two boys: West and Eli) and Mr. Bo with his family (Miss Candi and their
three children: Kaeli, Tucker, and
Isaiah). Now if we are losing you already, don’t worry – we met one family member
who is currently working on their family tree and says that at the Papa
Rountree branch there are 47 cousins! This is why we decided to call this happy
little town –Rountree-ville. One BIG happy family. Here are the youngest members of the family, all of whom became our really good friends.
You also will notice that we refer to everybody from now on as
Mr. and Miss – that is because these are probably the most polite and well
mannered people we have ever met in our lives and calling any adult by their
first name would be very, very impolite. Mummy couldn’t get over that their
young boys would always respond ‘yes, sir’ or ‘yes, m’am’ even when responding
to their own parents! Mummy liked it so much - WE even started calling her m’am.
Especially when we were just about to get in trouble – she would soften when we
used our manners like that. Yes, the ‘yes, m’am’ certainly earned us bucket
loads of browny points with our mum. Oh, she is sooooo easy to please.
We don’t think we (Bella and I) are a rowdy crowd and we think we are quite
polite but boy, did we have to learn some more manners to ‘blend in’. Not that
we could really blend with our funny accents and all. Especially when you
compare it to the delightful, polite southern talk.
As soon as we arrived we were given our own block of land WITH
full hook ups. Can you believe it? Nestled on an acre block, it was just too
perfect! After greeting the whole family we were invited to their aunty for a Thanksgiving
lunch (although they called it dinner). It was delicious and we got to meet so
many people that we were losing count – everybody was incredibly warm and
welcoming.
And after we ate so much, we could not fit anymore – Ms Kim
told us we were going to her mum’s home for Thanksgiving Supper. Oh platz!
Miss Kim’s parents were wonderful and made us feel like we were
part of their family. They introduced us to some more family members and
friends and we were having a jolly –good time.
Miss Kim’s mama lives on a beautiful property and has
fine-looking horses, which she rides everyday. She is also a super host and
makes wonderful wine (so our parents told us). Miss Kim’s step-dad is the
Town’s Mayor (the boss) and he was also very friendly and funny.
Miss Kim’s mama even gave us yummy jams and produce and very pretty
glasses, which she personalized for us as a present. How nice is that?
Mummy dressed us both in cowgirl gear and Ms. Kim dressed West
and Eli in cowboys’ outfits. Of course
mummy couldn’t help herself and snapped some nice pictures of the four of us.
We made a handsome group, don’t you think?
We looked around to see if we could find some horses but they
apparently fled as they herd a gunshot. A what??? As part of the celebrations
all the boys decided to shoot some guns at clay pigeons. There was a machine,
which would spit out a disk and all you had to do is aim and shoot. Boom! It
certainly looked like fun. By the time we got there from our ‘photo shoot’ we
found out that our daddy was apparently a ‘natural’ with the shotgun. Wow! We
have never seen our dad shoot a gun!
Mr. Eric asked us (after checking with our parents our parents) if we would want to try it.
We both looked at mummy with pleading eyes and she smirked and said that if Mr.
Eric would supervise us, we could do it. Really??? Holy Smoke – we couldn’t
believe she said yes!!!
We used Eli’s gun (yes, even though he is 9 - he has his own
firearm). Mr. Eric was very strict and patient with us and explained all of the safety features and rules as well as how the
shotgun works.
He then helped us position it properly, aim and……… cabooom!!!
We missed of course but boy did we feel its power?! I though I shot
myself - it kicked so much! In fact I decided to do one more shot but use Mr.
Eric’s shoulder to hold it – now that worked better! The round circular clay
fell down somewhere in the unknown but we didn’t care – we were over the moon
and knew this was an experience of a lifetime for an Australian girl.
Thanksgiving supper was super-delicious with lots of yummy
dishes we have never tried before. Lots of people were coming and going and
everybody was so nice. We had an awesome time and by the time we got back to
our home on wheels we were exhausted from the excitement of the day.
Mummy had decided that we would carry the Thanksgiving
Tradition back to Australia. Even though the Pilgrims had started it in the USA
and it is very relevant to American History, we decided that there are so many
things WE can be thankful for in Australia. She said we might not be Pilgrims
but we certainly can be the first ones to start a Thanksgiving tradition in Australia. Although we either will have to change decorations, as our November is in spring OR change the date to March. Something to think about...
The next day we watched Papa Jimmy and Granny Diane cook sugar
cane syrup. We had no idea there is so much work involved in getting the juice
from the cane into a bottle.
From memory, this is how it goes: You have to pull off the
leaves from the stalks, cut their tops off, cut them at the base, load them onto
a trailer, drive the trailer to the crushing machine, put the cane stalks through the crusher, which extracts the juice. You then
have to cook it for hours, scooping sediment off the top, transfer the cooked syrup
into a pot through a strainer, add some secret ingredient and then bottle it. Voilà!
You have the most amazing, finger-licking syrup. Apparently this incredible
syrup gets distributed all over the United States with a special order by a lot
of country bosses. Yummo!
Here I am, helping papa Jimmy fill the bottles, getting them
ready for delivery!
We had an absolute ball playing with all the kids on the farm. I
mean, come on, what kid would not like to ride at the back of the truck with
bunch of other kids yelling and squealing with joy?
Or ride at the back of a tractor?
Or ride on top of a hay bale, which is way up high?
We played a lot with Eli (9) and West (8). We made up some
interesting slides
Caught some chickens (sorry papa and granny, we just couldn’t’
help ourselves)
And we ran for our lives from the nasty turkeys, which chased
us round and round.
We met all the family animals on the farm
One day when daddy was riding the truck with Mr. Eric, he
spotted a turtle on the road. The poor little bugger was upside down and didn’t know
how to get back on his feet. They stopped the car and daddy picked him up and
saved his life – the little man was very, very dehydrated. After we observed
him for a while, Mr. Eric let him free into their pond.
Our stay revolved around yummy, yummy food. No one let us cook
anything – we shared many lovely meals with the family and usually a campfire
every night. This complemented by guitar playing and Ms. Kim’s incredible voice
was a perfect ending to every night.
Every night we were planning to leave the next day but Ms. Kim
and Mr. Eric kept on coming up with reasons why we needed to stay just one more
day. And then another ‘just one more day’. Everybody was telling us how much
they enjoyed our company and in fact they would be happy if we were to stay
there forever.
One day Ms. Kim asked mummy if she would let us attend a local
school. Mummy thought it was a terrific idea and so Mr. Eric rang the teacher
and school principal and organized for us to attend.
The day at school was awesome. Well, the first part was where we went to different classes: West’s and Keali’s. We did a full presentation on Australia.
Bella showed them where Australia is on the globe and explained
that we do not walk upside down.
Both the teachers and the students asked us a lot of questions,
many about our wonderful Australian animals. There were also questions about
our Aboriginals, which we were more than happy to answer. We were lucky enough
to have travelled the outback a few years ago so we had a lot of nice stories to tell.
We walked around and showed the students what Australian money looks
like
And daddy played the Didgeridoo for them, which they found
quite fascinating.
Bella went around and let everyone touch the ‘instrument and
show off the artwork.
To finish the presentation, we also sang our National Anthem.
Wow, we really felt like Ambassadors of our country!
The rest of the day we spent being part of West’s class. Bella
loved it; I thought it was way too much work! We had to be quite and listen to
the teacher and do schoolwork! Oh, boy. Mum, can we just do homeschooling
forever???
The four of us also got to do a lot of singing, in fact we
did concerts for our parents every evening by the fire. Both Eli and West have awesome voices, just like
their parents, so we loved performing for the grownups: singing and dancing and
sometimes being back up performers for Ms. Kim and Mr. Eric.
On our (real) last night in Georgia we had our supper at West
and Eli’s place and half way through our evening the electricity went off so we
all gathered outside and sat by the fire Mr. Eric built. The rest of the family
joined us and we had a jolly good time. Especially when Ms. Kim came up with an
idea to do a few prank calls to her parents.
Daddy, with his incredible ability to speak with Chinese and
Indian accents rang and left a few messages to see if they’d care to change
their phone plan. Eventually Mr. Bruce picked up a phone and gave daddy an earful and a piece
of his mind. But when he finally discovered who daddy was, he laughed his head
off and admitted that we ‘got him’. Apparently Mr. Bruce is a ‘master – pranker’
who also happens to be town’s mayor and so everybody was so happy that somebody
finally got HIM.
When the electricity eventually came back, we went back to the
house to watch a movie while our parents sat outside talking about how
everybody was sad that we were leaving.
Mummy was telling them how we really wanted to go via Panama
City in Florida one more time (we went there last year and just LOVED it). She
then came up with an idea and asked them if they would like to join us on a
weekend down there.
They thought about it for approx. 3 seconds and decided that it
would be great to meet us there in a couple of days. As the conversation
progressed mummy came up with another idea: what if the boys came up with us
for a couple of days before Mr. Eric and Ms. Kim came up for the weekend? Now
that idea needed a night to get ‘digested’ but we got a phone call first thing
in the morning with an answer ‘YES’ – woohoooo!!! We were ecstatic! All four of
us!
This is us, just before we left. We were all pretending to be model children - sweet and innocent.
Now, this you wouldn’t believe! To top it all off, Mr. Jimmy and Ms. Diane (granny and papa)
decided to buy our car and our home on wheels from us. They were even nice
enough to say they will come and pick it up from us in Dallas where we were
planning to finish our trip on the mainland US in about two weeks. That could
not have worked out any better if we planned it!
It was so sad to leave the ‘Rountree-ville’. It was amazing how
we walked into a ‘strangers home’ and in such a short time we walked out as
FAMILY. We even started calling ourselves, the Roundbergers. Daddy said it was
quite appropriate as we all started to get a bit……well…. rounded from all the yummy food and sugar cane syrup and all the
home-made jams and salsas. Hmm-mmmmm!
And so we had to eventually get going. The only consolation
prize we had was that Eli and West were coming with us to Florida, Mr. Eric and
Ms. Kim were following us in a couple of days AND we would spend a couple of days with papa and
granny in Dallas, Texas. If it wasn’t for these wonderful ‘perks’, I doubt we
would have ever left Georgia…
Now we understand what they mean by ‘I have Georgia on my
mind’. LOL. What a wonderful place, what a wonderful family!
PANAMA
CITY BEACH – FLORIDA - December 2012
Oh boy, how much FUN we had in Panama City Beach in Florida.
First of all, even the drive there was a blast. The four of us (the rowdy kids
in the back) got on like a house on fire, we played games, had a drawing
competition and then, when we stopped to stretch our legs, mummy came up with
an idea to take some silly photos to send to Eli and West’s parents. We knew
that the boys got a drill before they left regarding proper behavior and since
their parents were so worried about it – this is an email we sent them:
It was entitled: I am not sure this was
such a good idea!
And it read:
HELP!
WE ARE GETTING TERRORISED!!!!!!!!!!!
JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!!
WE ARE HAVING AN ABSOLUTE
BALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THE......... ROUND-BERGERS
Needless to say everybody back home had a good chuckle about
it. The boys were so well behaved that mummy asked Ms. Kim if she could adopt
them. She said she could never get tired of children who have great manners and
a ‘yes, ma’am’ attitude.
It was awesome getting back onto the familiar turf, back to the
Panama City Beach RV Resort.
And the best part about it – it was hop and skip
away from the most beautiful beach of white sugary sand stretching for miles in
both directions.
We were up early in the mornings taking walks along the beach.
Mummy and daddy made us walk for miles, which wasn’t really that bad when it
was with good company.
We walked, we ran, we collected shells and we wrote in the
sand.
We sent another email to boy’s parents so that they didn’t have
to worry:
the
morning started well, they were all asleep...
But
then they woke up!!!
At the beach we viewed a lot of wildlife. The first morning we
spotted some baby manta rays lying in the sand. It looked like they got washed
out onto the shore and got stuck – the poor buggers didn’t make it…
In the afternoon that day we spotted a few babies feeding near
the shore. It was incredible watching them come up so close. We would get in
the water directly in front of them and they would just gently glide beside us.
Bella even got to touch one. A great thing about manta rays is unlike the
stingrays; they do not have a stinger, which makes them safer to be around.
They were gliding through the water like butterflies.
Another day, we spotted little reef shark, just feet away from
the shore. He was a little munchkin, at only 4 ft. in length, and unlike some
of the great whites we have back home, this one was quite harmless (although we
didn’t pat him- just in case).
Yet another morning we saw a huge grouper fish and a beautiful
dolphin.
We saw them from the jetty, where we would attend Eli’s martial
arts classes every morning.
Eli was a very good teacher. Both West and Eli do
Tai-Kwando and they were more than happy to show us a few fancy moves.
There were also a few other interesting animals we saw in the wild. As we were walking down the beach Eli noticed that a crab was burying itself in the sand. He started digging gently (with daddy’s supervision) and suddenly he yelled out and jumped away. No he didn’t get pinched, the size of the crab just spooked him and it’s dash from one hole to another. Daddy decided to step in and find the fugitive. After 10 minutes of digging we all realized that Eli had a reason to scream like a girl – check out this little beauty we found!
And of course there were the birds! Oh how much fun we had with
those!
One afternoon we went to a local, huge souvenir shop, where
they had live baby alligators and we watched them get fed. They were feisty
little creatures with razor sharp teeth – how adorable!!!
‘Mummy can we get…’
‘No!!!’
On Friday afternoon the boys’ parents arrived and joined in on
all the fun. We all hopped into the pool, while the grownups talked till the late
hours of the night.
The next day we spent on the beach. We let the mums relax and
soak up some sun while we engaged dad’s to help us built cities and castles.
Our mums bought us these really neat shells and had them
engraved with our names. Check this out, they make real nice snails.
In the evening we all went to a Margaritaville restaurant,
where they believe that it is always 5 o’clock somewhere. We got a great table
to sit us all and this very, very tall lady (I think her legs were made out of
sticks) made these goofy balloons for us all
When the music started, Bella, West and Mr. Eric decided to
show off their dancing skills. We had a ball watching them!
Our last day in Panama City was spent mostly in the ‘Upside
Down’ museum. We had been there before (last year) but the boys had not so we
all decided that it would be great to go there one more time. And it was just
as awesome as last time.
We got to lie down on 3500 nails, which lifted us up. We
learned that it takes 2 kg of pressure to puncture one’s skin and since there
were so many nails, the pressure was less than 0.04kg per nail – that’s why our
blood did not leak out everywhere form the many nails.
There were so many interesting things, it’s hard to mention
them all but one that we really enjoyed was the rollercoaster simulator, which
took us on a ride on the biggest roller coaster we have even been on - it was totally ace! We even went upside
down quite a few times.
Oh, and this one was also interesting. Check this out, can you
see my body? That was very, very clever! The secret lays in the mirrors, which
are placed on the outside of the box I am standing in. Clever hey?
And of course we did some climbing up the ropes
And the fun wouldn’t be finished if we didn’t get to play lazer tag.
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking up and down the
streets window-shopping and goofing around. Here what our friends look like in
disguise as the MO Family.
We celebrate yet another beautiful sunset and had sleepovers in
each other’s campers because the next day we had to seriously say goodbye.
The next morning before we left, we took a few more pictures around the campground
And officially organized the adoption of Bobbi. Remember the
beautifully carved bear Bella got from an artist in North Carolina? Our parents
were worried how we were going to take him home. Not only do we have strict
restriction in regards to what we can bring to Australia but Bobbi weighed more
than our hand language allowance and it’s not like he could be put in our
pockets. After spending such fun days with this great family we thought they
were wonderful enough to ask them if they would adopt our Bobbi, who certainly
became our mascot on this trip. The boys and their parents said yes and
officially adopted our Bobbi Bear.
Now we can see him every time we skype our friends in Georgia.
After our communal breakfast at the Golden Arches (McDonalds), we said our teary
goodbyes and pulled our campers in two different directions, our friends North East
to Georgia, we- North West to Dallas,
Texas.
DALLAS,
TEXAS
We drove through 5 states in ONE shot! Started in Florida then
we drove through Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi (hey we even learned to spell
that one, LOL) and ended up in Dallas, Texas some 16 hrs later. The reason why
we drove all the way there is that there was one last person we wanted to visit
– a lady who’s been our virtual navigator for the past 6 months – Joanne, who
we met on one of the ice-cream tours somewhere mid-west. We promised her we’d
drop in to say G’day before we leave for Australia.
JoAnne and her husband Tim and their kids Sienna (14) and Stone
(9) were really nice. They offered us their spare room to stay in, which was of
course larger than our whole camper but the family cat almost had a nervous
breakdown when she saw strangers walking through her door. In fact she was so
upset she did a runner and it took JoAnne a few hours to find her.
Not wanting to upset the cat any more we decided to stay in our
home on wheels instead, which was just as good. After all it was only days away
to our departure date, which we finally had to lock in so that we’d get home by
Christmas. We promised our family we will be back home and as much fun as this
trip had been, we started to really miss them.
And besides, these were our last days with our little cozy
caravan and we knew we would really, really miss it.
Ms. JoAnne and Mr. Tim were gracious enough to let us use their
big property to finalize our packing. As it turned out they also own storage
facilities and were able to help us pack all the belongings we managed to
collect over the last 18 months on a pallet, which we decided to ship home.
Our parents started packing some boxes they bought in a hardware
store. Didn’t look like we really had that much but 20 boxes later we realized
we had some serious issues with gathering stuff. Oh boy!
Ms JoAnne, as usual, was ever so helpful with finding us some
interesting things to do while in Dallas.
One night both of our families hopped into their truck and went
to check out how Texas does Christmas decorations.
We drove to an estate called Dearfield and the word WOW did not
do it justice. They not only decorate all the houses like ginger-bread homes
and wrap all trees in sparkling lights, oh no – they decorate the whole
property -Texas style!
Some homes have their own…wait for this…….radio stations,
to which if you tune into, you will see a whole light show presentations
designed to their specific Christmas music! Wow, how cool is that?! We drove
slowly down the roads and admired how every neighbor outdid the next in
wonderful decorations. As we drove on Wednesday night, the traffic wasn’t too
bad –apparently it jams on weekends. There were even horse carriages coming
down the road, taking tourists for a sightseeing Christmas rides.
Some of the light show homes have donation boxes outside their
homes and raise funds for worthwhile causes, which is a terrific idea.
There was one house in particular of a man who specializes in
Christmas decorations. Apparently you can send him plans to your house and he
will design decorations completed with radio station and music to knock your
sox off. We stopped in front of his house and admired it forever – it was the
coolest private light show we have ever seen. And the music wasn’t just your
average Christmas jingle either – he even has some cool rock and rap songs in
there. It was just incredible!
One day we decided to have a drive around some of the places
Ms. JoAnne recommended. It’s a pity we were quickly running out of time, Dallas
looked like a fun place to visit, although we never made it to downtown.
We had a look at a few shopping malls, which had beautiful
Christmas decorations. One even had a massive Christmas tree with an
ice-skating rink around it. Very, very nice!
That shopping mall also had one of our favorite shops –
American Girl and our parents decided to treat us to a lunch with our dolls
because that’s what they do in there. It was almost exactly a year anniversary marking
the day we bought our dolls and so we decided to celebrate their birthdays.
Our dolls were given special baby chairs and were treated to a
pretend lunch while we had the real thing. We even sang them Happy Birthday! It
was a real neat experience although the lunch was way too expensive and overrated. Oh the things parents do to spoil their kids!
We also went to check out some art that kids from different classes
created – this really made us miss our school back home. We love arts and
crafts.
Stone’s artwork was also on display.
In the afternoon we listen to one of Sienna’s friends, Heidi,
sing. She is only 15 but boy, she is way on her way to be a star. She was
singing solo but she already has a band and will be performing with them in a
concert. She was very good!
That night we went to a really lovely local restaurant with our
Dallas friends. It was a real cozy western diner and the food was
finger-licking delicious. The company was also great!
The next morning we needed to head off to Fort Worth, which is
where our flight was going to leave from in a couple of days. We still had to
catch up with Pappa and Granny Rountree to do a handover of our rig and to
spend some quality time with them. We were really looking forward to that!
We bid our Dallas friends goodbye and thanked them for all
their help. Ms. JoAnne is probably one of the most resourceful ladies we have
met on our trip…
Fort Worth, Texas
We had booked into a campground where we could park our camper
and rent a little bungalow as well. We moved all our belongings to the villa
and waited for the arrival of Mr. Jimmy and Ms. Dianne. Which took about 5
minutes. We were so excited to see them again. They are like our adopted grand
parents – with lots of cuddles and love to share around.
We ended up spending the night and most of the day the next day
with them and it was so much fun! They are such lovely people and back home
they were always busy working and running their business – here we had them all
to ourselves!
In the morning we went to see cowboys walk longhorns down the main
street. It has been tradition ever since they established the Stock Exchange in
Fort Worth. Anyway, even to this day, the cowboys will walk the cattle twice a
day – mainly for tourists to enjoy, which of course we did.
We also went to visit the local museum. It was fascinating! We
met one of the men who was working there and he showed us a lots of fascinating
things from the past.
Check out this vacuum cleaner for example. This is possibly the original version of the Dyson, where you physically had to pump it up and down to get
dust off the ground. Fancy, hey?
This was also quite interesting. Read the sign on the bath –
especially the bottom part.
Gross!!!
And the story of Bill Picket was probably the most bizarre
thing we came across in the United States. The bull-dogger as he was known had
a very interesting talent. But before we tell you about it, do you know how bull dogs
got their name? Well, in the olden days, cowboys used the dogs to bring the
bulls down to the ground. The dogs would jump up and grab the bull by its top
lip. The bulldogs’ jaws would just clench and lock. The bull was in so much
pain that after throwing the dog around for a while would drop down to its
knees and allow the cowboy do to it whatever he wished. That is where the name bulldog
came from.
What does this have to do with Bill Picket I hear you ask?
Well, he was the human version of a bull-dog. As a rodeo entertainer he would
get in front of a bull and… bite it on it’s lip!!! The bull would then throw
him around like a rag doll but eventually the bull would …yes, drop to the
ground. If that is not bizarre, I don’t know what is.
By the time we left the historical part of Fort Worth town we
knew all cowboy’s horses by their names. This guy is called “Little Texas"
And this is “Bow"
Your parents are crazy!
We are having way too much fun with them!
Can we take them to Australia????
If you want to see them again, you have to fly Down Under!
We were so dreading saying goodbye to Ms. Diane and Mr. Jimmy
AND to our car and caravan. Granny and Pappa were ready to take us back to
Georgia with them and if we didn’t miss our family so much, we probably
would’ve jumped back into the car and gone with them.
We kissed and cuddled our reliable Caddi (the car). We will
miss it so much. It had been such a wonderful companion on our incredible
journey. After all it carried us around for over 50,000 miles! (approx. 80,000
km!) without missing a beat. The only consolation prize was that Pappa and
Granny told us that we can come back and visit them anytime we want and the car
and caravan will wait for us. We were so glad our cherished home on the wheels
was staying in ‘the family’
It was also very sad to say goodbye to Ms. Diane and Mr. Jimmy
– there were lots of tears at this goodbye….
But goodbyes needed to be said, they had to drive for many,
many hours to get home and we had to jump on the plane to ……..no, not Australia
yet! There is one more state we had to tick off, before we get home …..Hawaii
of course!
HAWAII December 11-15th 2012
Ok, so we decided to stop over in Hawaii for three reasons:
one, we had to tick off our last state, two, it broke the trip into more sane
distances and three, apparently it worked out cheaper.
Of course we took this opportunity to meet some more pilots and
work out what buttons they are going to press to take us up in the air. I have
no idea how they remember them all – so many switches and lights and screens.
We are lucky there are people who are smart enough to work them out.
We spent three wonderful days in Hawaii but we made sure we get
some mileage out of that stop as well.
The hotel was right on the beach in Waikiki, which was very
handy – nice and close to everything.
On our fist outing we strolled the streets and we met this
funny pirate who had two adorable parrots. He let us hold them - one of them laid down like a baby so that I
could hold him. Isn’t he just gorgeous?
Bella also got to hold them, one even landed on her head!
As we were walking down the street we accidentally got mixed up
with lots of people walking down the street protesting. They were yelling out
some words about justice. ‘Justice? That’s a rock band, and a clothing store, right mummy?’ Mummy
explained to us what justice meant and told us that those people were upset
because the hotel they were working for did not pay them enough money and was
sending jobs overseas. Well, it seemed like a good enough cause so we just
progressed down the road with them. I think we even ended up on the local news.
Eventually we needed to step out of the crowd because we saw a
familiar face in the shop. Yes, isn’t this the boss of the whole country? A man
in museum in Texas told us he would be vacationing in Hawaii around the same
time as us. And what do you know? Apparently the boss shops for leis in the
same shop as us, LOL.
We needed to stop and say G’day and besides, the man in the
museum told us to pass on a message to the president. He said, that the boss
was spending four million dollars on his vacation in Hawaii and he said to us
“Tell the president ‘You are welcome’ from all the taxpayers”. We were glad we
were able to pass on the message…
The next day we rented a jeep. Convertible of course. We drove
to the other side of the Oahu Island to check out the scenery and learn more
about the culture.
With mountains on one side and ocean on the other, the scenery
was quite breathtaking.
We ended up going to Turtle Beach, where we observed 2 massive
turtles getting tumbled in the waves.
As it happened (how do we get so lucky?) the Hawaiian Surfing
Finals (Billabong Pipe Masters) were on that day so we also went to check it out.
Turns
out Joel Parkinson, one of our best surfers from Australia was the winner of
the competition. Go Joelly! That really made our day!
We then ended up going to a cultural center where we learned
that Hawaii is part of the Polynesian Islands, belonging to: Samoa, Fiji,
Tahiti, Tonga, our neighbors New Zealand and of course Hawaii. The cultural
center to our delight, covered all of them.
We took a gondola ride through the beautiful, tropical gardens
admiring all different types of huts the islanders built to suit their
environments and needs.
We learned how to do the Hula Dance
And move our hips like at million miles per hour – Tahitian
style
We learned how to play the drums
How to throw a spear
A lady from Tonga taught us how to make fish out of palm
leaves.
But the most fun we had was with …our neighbors – New
Zealanders. Perhaps it is their funny accent, which so much reminded us of home
or their wicked sense of humor, which Australians and New Zealanders are well
know for.
The boys even allowed us to take over their artwork and add our
own flare to it.
We have learned amazing games our ‘Kiwi' neighbors play with
sticks. Who would’ve known you can have so much fun with sticks? We wish we
knew those games before we left on this trip – there wasn’t that much room for
toys, you know…..
In this game the lady would call ‘left’ or ‘right’ and we would
have to swap positions real quick, before the stick would fall to the ground.
The better we got at it, the further apart she would place the sticks. Fun,
fun, fun!
In another game we would sing along to a song and then swap the
sticks in mid air by throwing them to each other – now that required A LOT of
coordination. We giggled more than sing – it was really funny. I think we need
a little bit more practice with that one!
The boys later showed us how they dance ‘The Hakka’. Our parents thought it was fantastic, we however thought it was down right scary.
For those who have seen rugby games you would be familiar
with this powerful and strange dance the ‘All Blacks’ indulge in. Here are some
pictures from internet..
The dinner that night was in a real Hawaiian style. Everybody was
wearing flower leis around their necks and we watched dancers slowly move to
the Hawaiian music, which was more soothing rather than rock.
At dinner they showed us how they cooked a massive pig under
ground on the coals. It was wrapped in the leaves and cooked for 12 hours. Once
they took it out of the ground, they put it on the table and gave it a smack on
its butt. Voilà, the meal was served!
After the dinner they had a fascinating two hour show, which
evolved around a baby being born, his growth, his childhood, his adult life and
finally becoming a parent himself. In a very clever way they combined all
Islands of the Pacific and used their different rituals to present this show.
It was funny, moving and incredible.
We really liked the part when a warrior got his butt caught on fire!
LOL. Unfortunately photography wasn’t allowed so you’ll need to check out the
show yourself, next time you are in Hawaii.
Our final day in Hawaii consisted of a lot of surfing. Mummy
and daddy were dragged through four hours of sales pitch, for us to get these
surfing lessons. But hey, it was worth it.
Meet Mike, our surfing coach. He’s the one upside down on his
board!
It only took us 15 minutes to grasp the concept. And only
because it took us 14.5 minutes to get the first wave. We have surfed before in
Australia, although haven’t done it for a few years (which at our age it’s like
half our lifetime).
Mike was very impressed with our skills and said that if we
keep on practicing soon we are going to look like this. Yep, I can see that
coming!
Our parents of course were our biggest fans as they watched us
surf for hours.
After de- sanding ourselves in a warm shower, we went out for
our final meal. As we weren’t really that hungry (and portions were way too
big) we asked the waiter to box our meals and we went down the shore and fed
half a dozen homeless people who sleep on the beach. It is always great to
make someone’s day.
Sometimes lives can be enriched by little, tiny contributions,
which to us might not take a lot of effort but to others it will mean a lot.
That’s what our mummy says, anyway.
And thus our wonderful Epic Journey of American Walkabout came to an end.
The flight
to Australia from Hawaii took over 10 hrs and somehow we skipped a day (we went back to the future, LOL). Saturday the 15th, 2012 had forever been marked on our calendars as non-existent. Not sure how it happened, but it just disappeared!
As we arrived on Sunday afternoon, we were swept away
into a tornado of hugs and kisses and some more hugs and kisses from our family
back home. They all came to the airport and chased each other to get to us
first to get their share of hugs. Oh, we are just SOOOOOO spoilt!!!
And loving it!
*THE END*
I hope you enjoyed our blog. Did it make you smile sometimes?
Maybe it made you curious? Did it make your day? If the answer is yes to any of
these questions, then the blog has achieved its purpose.
We just love putting smiles on people’s faces!
Whatever the reason you chose to follow us on this journey, I
hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. And for those of you who we have been
blessed meeting along the way – thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Thank you for showing us America in the light that it truly
deserves to be seen. A country that is not only stunning, but also a country
that is full of wonderful, generous, friendly, caring and loving people. We
have been so lucky to have met you all. Or y’all
as they say down south!
We hope that one day, if you chose to step foot onto our soil,
you will be treated by Australians with as much hospitality and friendliness as Americans (and Canadians) have treated us.
Till then,
(Aussie for "see ya”)
Lots of Love from Down Under,
Amir and Anna
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