Oct03
Posted on Oct 3 by Ruth Davis
Counting Blessings Our volunteering gig at the refuge in New Jersey is officially over. I worked my last shift at the Visitor Information Center on Saturday, and it was a full and fulfilling day. We had 158 visitors and sold more duck stamps, park passes, and gift shop items than any other day I’ve been there. We loaned out binoculars, showed the wonderful video, and helped folks identify what birds they saw on Wildlife Drive. I enjoyed the women I worked with, and I even teared up on my walk home. That night we went out for Rita’s ice cream with our neighbors who live down the street. We’ve had dinner with them twice and chat when we see each other walking our dogs. It’s been fun to connect with people in the neighborhood. And now today, Sunday, is a readying day: laundry, more laundry, packing the mosquito tent, taking out the maps. Marika is on an all-afternoon birding boat tour to watch migrating hawks. I am so thrilled that she is doing this. She’s enjoying a day in...
Sep20
Posted on Sep 20 by Ruth Davis
It’s a curious thing: I’m less than two weeks away from closing my Mac training business after 32 years, and a huge part of me thinks I should have my next website up and running by the end of the month. So that I can catch my previous peeps while I still have their attention, and more important, because I think I have to have the next thing ready and in place.But I don’t. In fact, I can’t. Because I don’t even know what it is yet.And so I am practicing what I ask my clients to do/not do: I am allowing the empty space to be gloriously empty, so that I can feel around in it, explore the corners, the edges, the round places, and allow the emptiness to speak and grow and create itself.And of course, this perfectly coincides with our upcoming travels. We will be finishing our volunteering gig here on the Jersey shore at the end of the month, and traveling in New England and the mid-Atlantic states for the next 60 days, exploring, adventuring, meeting up with friends,...
Aug29
Posted on Aug 29 by Ruth Davis
It’s hard to believe that this is the last week in August, and that we’re only here on the New Jersey shore for another month. There are less shorebirds at the refuge, the ospreys have all fledged and, in the next few weeks, the waterfowl will be arriving for their winter layover. The marsh grasses are fading from their bright summer greens, and starting to show hints of gold and yellow. And a few leaves along the lake trees have already turned red. We’ve been exploring more of the area with a visiting friend this past week, including a trip to Atlantic City to walk on the boardwalk. As a kid, our family would meet my Philadelphia relatives for a week at a hotel on the boardwalk. My cousin and I would spend most of the time in the hotel pool because we could only go to the beach with an adult, and my mother hated the sand and the sun. In the evenings, the families would take a walk along the boardwalk, and I’d stand against...
Jul24
Posted on Jul 24 by Ruth Davis
Two weeks ago, the air conditioner in the RV finally died. We’d had it serviced for a squeaking noise at the end of May while we were in Memphis. But a few weeks later it started squeaking again, and dripping, and, while Marika was in Philadelphia, the noises became deafening. I made an appointment with a mobile repair company to come on Wednesday. Shortly after Marika got home on Tuesday, it died. That night, it was 80° outside with 80% humidity, and even moving into the living room for the cross breeze didn’t help. Neither one of us really slept. In the morning we were both tired and hot and the repair guy didn’t come until late in the afternoon. He said we needed a new unit, but that he’d have to order it and come back the next day to install it. Marika and I had already talked about how much a new unit might be. She had guessed $1200. So when he said $1100. including installation, it was easy to say yes without involving her....
Jul11
Posted on Jul 11 by Ruth Davis
One big thing about living on the road is that we never really know how things will be when we arrive at a new place. (Like most of life, really.) And that the fewer expectations we have, the easier the adjustment is. And that, like most things in life, everything changes. After months of emails back and forth, confirming our arrival July 1, we were asked to come on July 2nd instead, because there would be no staff on site on Sunday to welcome us. So we stayed an extra night in the Poconos and arrived at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge on Monday afternoon around two, tired and ready to settle in to our camp site overlooking Lily Lake. Our volunteer coordinator greeted us and explained that the previous volunteer was still in the campsite, and he was dragging his feet about leaving. We pulled into a shaded parking space, grateful for a half tank of gas so that we could run the generator to use the air conditioning. And we waited. Like most of the...
Jun27
Posted on Jun 27 by Ruth Davis
We’ve been traveling and touristing these past two weeks, learning lots, and adding more state stickers to our map. After getting the air pressure checked in both the RV and the car tires, we left camp near Staunton, Virginia and got back on I-81 for an easy 1-hour drive north across the state line into West Virginia. We followed the Garmin’s directions 9 miles off the highway, along a narrow two lane road that curved and climbed, and just wide enough to stay in my lane, in no hurry to drive the posted 55 mph. At the end of the road we turned into the campground, a huge non-working farm, with campsites in a grassy field along a creek that was lined with deciduous trees, all in their summer greens. We leveled and hooked up, had lunch, and then planned to drive 35 minutes back south to Winchester, Virginia, to the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley where a Facebook friend works. She had set aside two free passes for us. So we put on our going-into-town clothes and...
