Pike takes things nice and easy and it took him a good day to warm up to skateboarding, but by the second day he was riding like a champ. I am really so proud of him and it was his moment to shine as his older brother (sunburnt with limelight) was not ready to stand up and board; preferring to “buttboard”. Since the skatepark is only open after school hours are over the boys were killing time one day and skateboarding nearby when Pike had a small accident and injured his arm. At first we thought it was a wrist issue and after consulting Dr. Google decided to wait, ice and elevate. Today the arm was little better but waiting allowed the true location of the injury to be exposed and mother’s intuition (and a lump on his forearm) led me to take him to an urgent care clinic for examination. We waited only 10 minutes or so, saw the doc pretty soon afterward, waited for the Xray guy to come back from a late lunch (in Mexico, he’d be eating on the equipment ) and got the X-rays. The X-ray tech had us wait while he developed the films and then immediately showed them to us (before the doc!) and pointed out the break (it wasn’t hard to miss). Luckily it was a clean break and after we convinced the doc we didn’t need an orthopedic specialist she screwed up her courage and announced that while she’s only done one cast this year, she’d do Pike’s cast herself! It was great; she was very easy to talk to, really seemed to enjoy the visit and made sure we’d call if there were any problems; gave us her work hours and number. Only difference in Mexico would be getting the doc’s home phone. So it was a wonderful experience for us all and only $292 for everything and only took 2 hours. He is not thrilled with the cast, but it is much more comfortable and less painful with the support it provides.

Tabasco (state) and Villahermosa (city) have experienced the worst flooding in recent history. I don’t know if it makes the news in your part of the world, but the flooding has been compared to Katrina. The Mexican army responded to New Orleans and Katrina and so far, there has been no sign of US aid in stricken Tabasco. Ellen has a very good write-up on her blog at Yucatan Living. The rains are still coming, the flooding continues, and hundreds of thousands of Tabascans are without home, clean water or food. On a selfish note, we get all our bananas from Chiapas and Tabasco and a lot of our food. Quintana Roo, Campeche and Yucatan states will be hit by the flooding also.

The kids are having a wonderful time with their cousins and good friends. It might be hard to take them away, but Ellen has admitted to being homesick and I could go home in a moment’s notice. The heat of Quintana Roo has seeped into my blood and I cannot get warm here in frigid California. I’m so glad our family is not any further to the north or I might never come back. I hear from PaaMul neighbors that our kitchen has been outfitted with cabinets and I’m DYING to get pictures. It will be so lovely to have a place to put crap.

I’ve been spending the last few days completely absorbed in obtaining books for the kids. Spelling, Grammar, Vocabulary, Math, History, you pick a subject, I’ve got a book. We have always relied quite heavily on the plethora of amazing libraries we’ve found all over the US but they are quite few and far between in Mexico, so my only option is to try and anticipate what the kids might become interested in and provide that to them. The boys have been wanting more spelling resources and are always interested in Math. For the junkies, I took my base from Sonlight (cores 1&2 combined and 5), added History Odyssey, some Singapore Math, Learning through History and Michael Clay Thompson. I might have forgotten one of two; my brain almost burst with the selection and pricing. I checked prices with Amazon, Half.com, Powell’s, Ebay, Reading Resouce, CEM, Addall, the WTM swap board and then checked the local (and affiliated) libraries to see if I could see the product before ordering. I started ordering late last night and it should only take another day to finalize the math and LA selections. I sure hope the kids like the books; if nothing else, I’m going to have a BLAST learning about the Eastern Hemisphere this year.

Halloween was an AMAZING success for the kids and I’m hoping that we’re just about at the end of day after unending day of kids strung out on sugar. The girls decided to leave the candy they didn’t eat the night of Halloween for the Sugar Sprite, who, being a VERY FRUGAL Sugar Sprite indeed, utilized two of her Polly Pocket coupons and left a couple lead-filled Pollies for the girls. The boys have decided to gorge themselves into endless days of sugar stupor and I do believe they have actually killed off braincells in the process. Tomorrow we take the kiddos to a building full of trampolines and I’ll see what kind of photos I can come up with. I’m just killing time, waiting for the plane to go home. I love my friends and family, don’t love the cold, don’t like the traffic and pace of life, and really miss our house on the Caribbean. Oh, and that hot and heavy air. I’ve come to LOVE the heat and humidity. Never thought that would be a remote possibility, but there you have it.

It has come to my attention that certain words are NOT, contrary to my belief, international words. At the Houston airport, between flights, I purchased a sandwich. I’ve become so accustomed to spicy food that while I eschewed any idea of dairy, I definitely needed something hot. I asked if they had a “salsa picante” and honestly, I’m still having trouble believing that phrase is not universally understood. The sandwich maker had NO idea WHAT I was asking for. I translated for him, “do you have a spicy sauce?” and his co-worker, spurred to action with a translation they could deal with found some Louisiana hot sauce. Louisiana, I’m sorry. If that sauce was indicative of your spice quotient, we’ll be giving your hot sauce a pass. Twarnt neither hot nor spicy.

We were so lucky to be able to stay at my Aunt Marge’s house in Akron (or was it Barberton?) but those Ohio people sure have a funny idea about what is warm. I had frequent fantasies of donning a downy warm coat. I took my warmest item; a sweatshirt, but it was no match for the frigid Ohio summer. When I was packing for the trip, I added shoes and socks but never imagined I’d use them as summer weather, even in Ohio, should certainly be flip-flop weather. I can only hope that Akron was experiencing a freak summer cold snap; I was so cold the entire time. It was incredibly disconcerting to walk out of a building into weather that was COLDER than the climate inside! I’m used to an invisible wall of heat; weather from a furnace blasting at your body when escaping the A/C of the building. It only took me a couple days to remember that I needed to brace for cold instead of heat when leaving a building but it never left me, the oddity of leaving a building and not being hammered with heat. And I can’t tell you, how oddly comfortable it was, to return to 90’s F and 90+% humidity. I was finally warm. But those poor Akronians in shorts and short sleeved shirts; I can only believe they were trying to encourage warmth to errupt.

Don’t get me started on the lack of spicy food in Ohio; apparently my taste buds have changed such that Ohio “spicy” and my spicy are worlds apart. It was so nice to head to Costco, immediately after Jamie and the kids picked me up, and get samples that activated my spicy buds.

But not all of Ohio was cold; we siblings had an amazing opportunity to visit with Mom and Dad and each other, completely unencumbered by children; so much so that we have vowed to make it happen without a parent hospitalized. The amazing warmth, hospitality and care we received from our Ohio relatives was mind blowing and so appreciated.

Tomorrow will be back to business as usual; find out if and when the abaniles (cement workers) will show up; see what was done in the week I was gone and figure out how much we’ll pay for what. We also need to renew our car permit as it looks like we’re not going to be able to leave before it expires. And I’m sure you’ll want progress photos of the palapa. I spent today in bed; sleeping the day away after a week of progressively less sleep each consecutive night. That and sitting next to a woman hacking up a lung exhausted me. It’s good to be home again.

So we left as a front was coming in; literally, as the front moved over, halving the humidity and temperature. Jody met us at the park to say goodbye and mentioned that as she was driving there, passing through the front caused all her windows to fog up. I’m embarrased to say that I thought she was just not used to “weather”, being a sunny Texas girl. So, off we headed to the coast. The route we took, zigzagging all over creation, as Texas likes to offer “alternate” routes to the highway (i.e. 77ALT) that go NOWHERE near the non-alternate route (i.e. 77 goes south, Alt77 goes WEST) and had the fortune to zigzag through the front 3 or 4 times. Each time we went from cold (under the front) to warm (outside the front) the OUTSIDE of all our windows and mirrors fogged and the inside would waver with fog. It was the oddest weather experience we have had. We stocked up in Victoria at the HEB Plus (what a marvel of a store that is!) and marveled at the architecture of Victoria. We made it to Goose Island without incident and decided to pay an extra $2 to camp on the beach. It is a lovely place here and until about 5am this morning, I was loving it dearly. Apparently, at 5am, the duck hunters put out in air boats which rival a helicopter hovering directly over the trailer for noise.

Jamie and Jesse spent yesterday in bed with the stomach bug while the girls and I headed to Port Aransas for errands and to check out the beach. Port “A” is directly on the Gulf and muc hwindier, with blowing sand. The girls were not impressed. So here we will sit and pass the Christmas. UPS is supposed to be delivering to the campground today (apparently they don’t deliver to “General Delivery”; we’ll see how well they do with “Bayfront Site #3, Goose Island State Park”.

I put Christmas lights up inside and outside the trailer yesterday and the kids have nixed the idea of driftwood and shell Xmas tree. They want a real one (nope!) or a fake one. I’m hoping to find a thriftstore in Corpus Christi on Saturday as I don’t want to waste the beautiful sun we are getting today.

Jamie is better, Jesse is better, the sun is out, the airboats and thankfully quiet, the house is asleep, the sun is out (did I mention the sun?), the birds are hopping on the roof (???) and the vistas from the laptop are stunning here on the calm bay.

So, this morning, we had only one mission; to get to an RV dealership or Houston (Camping World) to deal with the pesky brakes. Fortunately, or unfortunately, they have been working well all day long. But since we NEED to spend money at Costco and Camping World, we dropped into Houston (instead of Galveston island and another questionable ferry) and dragged the trailer to Costco. Many many jars of organic peanut butter, coffee, and about $200 worth of other crap, we made it to Camping World just in time for it to close. So we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to buy stuff we probably won’t need, but will be desperate for in Mexico should we find we do, in fact, need them. Then we’ll be off to a small town in Texas which shall remain annonymous (to give some privacy to my friend, Jody) and then to South Padre Island where we’ll FINALLY get some Gulf beach time.

Inbetween all this we visited an estate (think plantation) which is run by the NPS and “oohed and aaahed” over all the incredible homes in Natchez, Mississippi. We spent One Hundred Dollars on a single dinner in Vidalia, Louisiana. Apparently, in Louisiana, when they specify “fried”, it really means “deep fried”. Deep fried pickles, hush puppies, catfish, oysters, shrimp; you name it, it came deep fried. And it was DELICIOUS!

I was very impressed with the way that Arkansas merges traffic when two lanes merge to one. The left lane merges into the right lane. If you are a long slow vehicle, this is a wonderful idea! Merging into a lane of cars going faster than you is always hard work and no-one ever wants to let you in. Having those fast cars merge into your lane is so very much more civilized, saner, safer and easier.

We were going to drag the kids to plantation after plantation, but the one we went to ended up being so emotionally draining we decided against it. We spent one afternoon at Melrose, an estate in Natchez, and came back that night for a Christmas program. It was incredibly historic; Christmas through the eyes of the slaves, complete with mansion tour and vignettes around the estate. The kids had hot chocolate and made “mussy tussies” or something like that; little boquets. I highly recommend it if you’re in the area December 1-2. Oh, and best of all, it is FREE!

We have been staying in Passport America RV parks all through Louisiana though it about killed me to pass up incredible boondocking opportunities along the Mississippi. It has been getting down to the 30’s (though last night was mid 40’s) here in LA and we’re needing the heat, if nothing else, to keep the pipes from freezing. Oh, and those pesky kids. Hmmm…maybe the hormonal hell isn’t quite over yet. We’ve only been doing about 100 miles on a travelling day and staying about as long as the whim lasts. The kids are LOATHE to leave camp, preferring to spend all day outside playing or playing with their toys. The long days of travel outrunning the storm were trying on us all. I’m ready for Gulf water though, and hopefully tomorrow we’ll head to the Gulf coast somewhere near Houston. We need to spend outrageous sums of money at Camping World and Costco (and I need to see if Houston has a Trader Joes) and then we’ll head further down the coast. I’m not sure if Christmas will be in the US or Mexico; I thought Jamie was insistant on Xmas on the beach in Port A, but I’ve got an itch that only Mexico can cure and after talking to him (that does help, I find) it turns out he just wants to be on the beach.

So, that’s the non-update. We don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know when we’ll be there, but we’re doing pretty well getting there.

Last night Jamie and I downloaded days worth of weather maps and decided we’d outrun the storm coming down from Canada and turning all the states blue with cold, snow, sleet and ice. We drove lovely roads through the Ozarks and were amazed by the beauty of the mountains. We found all the leaves which were missing from the trees in the northlands; they’ve all migrated down here to Arkansas. Lots of beautiful turning color maple leaves still on the trees. We decided to take highway 65 south through Branston, Harrison and eventually Little Rock and from there we’ll head to Louisana and Mississippi. The coldest of the storm is west, so the beaches and south Texas will be very cold but southeastern Louisana and Mississippi should be ok. At least no snow or ice. According to the weather maps and prognostications, Texas should thaw by Saturday or Sunday and we’ll head down then. For now, we’ll hug southeast Louisana and Mississippi and wait it out on the edge.

For only the second night since we started travelling, we’re at a WalMart. I refuse to shop them and will not even park in their RV-friendly parking lots, but Jamie really only feels comfortable at WalMart so here we sit. I was able to find a Goodwill in walking distance that is not quite as expensive as its midwestern cousins and bought swimsuits for the girls, 2 pairs of pants for Sissy (FINALLY she has enough pants, now that we’re Mexico bound and will be wearing only shorts or dresses until these new (well, new to her) pants are outgrown), a dress for Ellen, books galore and a bear for Pikey. If we are overweight, it must be from the 3,982,355 bears the kids bring everywhere with them.

We left Janesville, Wisconsin on highway 51 and followed this meandering 2 lane road all the way to Peru, Illinois.  It was a lovely road that traversed many family farms and flattened out into rural Illinois.  Jamie was insistant on making tracks though, so we abandoned the backroads for Ithis and Ithat and tonight find ourselves on I44 in Lebanon, Mo.  He promises me though, that tomorrow we will leave I44 and head into the Ozarks where there are no interstates and I will be at peace again.  We have been traveling very long days; six or more hours of travel and over 200 miles.  For us, this is a LOT of daily travel.  It makes it an even longer day when we don’t leave “camp” until noon or later.  Tomorrow I plan on being on the road by 8 or 9am.

What can I say about this mode of travel; it is tiresome and boring but we did show the kids the Gateway to the West (St. Louis Arch) today and they got some run time at a rest stop.  I’m really looking forward to Texas when we can rest from outrunning the cold front (due tomorrow in Illinois and Missouri) and relax on the beaches before heading into warm Mexico.

I really shouldn’t complain though; I used the very last of our whole wheat flour to make a loaf of bread and the generator ran out of gas with 2 hours left in the bake cycle.  We topped off the genset and restarted it and the breadmaker started up where it left off.  So we have fresh bread for midnight snack.  And Michelle, if anyone, should know how my kids LOVE to eat right before bed.

We tore ourselves away from the mansion, Michelle and Slade and their four amazing boys yesterday. It was really hard. The kids really loved every minute they spent with their cousins and will miss them terribly. Ellen has already tantrumed about missing Sebby. Pike is ready to settle down Right Now and doesn’t want to go to Mexico; he wants a house. It really took no time to get used to the stickness of the mansion; not worrying about water usage and the need to deal with the grey or sink or black water after its use; not worrying whether we had enough propane for heat; having so much room to spread out; having an enormous (in Minneapolis, the word is GINORMOUS, apparently) oven to cook in; coffee flowing at all hours of the day; it was all heaven. And the company made it even better. But tear away we did, and a good thing as La Crosse predicts that winter will arrive late Tuesday or early Wednesday and we definitely DON’T want to be around for that.

We spent Friday night at the Camping World; we spent about $300 on stuff there and needed a night to charge the new batteries we bought. What a deal; we left the trailer there the entire time we were at the mansion; hooked up to electricity and it was all free. Course, we did spend $300 when we picked it up… We got such an incredibly late start, anyone in an RV will simply laugh or shake their heads in disgust. We NEEDED to spend even MORE money at Camping World, the kids did NOT want to get ready to go, we had to test the repair of the black valve and then dump; it was a long, lazy (though not for me, trying to “encourage” the kids to get ready) morning and we finally got rolling around 1:30. By 5pm we knew we weren’t going to make Janesomething Wisconsin that night so we pulled into a wayside stop just south of La Crosse and setup for the night. “No Overnight Camping” (we’re parking!) and “CLOSED FOR WINTER” signs adorned the reststop. We hoped for no interference last night and got none.

If you’re following along on maps, we took 94 out of Rogers to 495 (accidentally; you get very little warning to freeway splits in Minneapolis and there are not quitck manuevers with the trailer) through Minneapolis. Turned out the 495 accidental routing was good; Jamie decided we’d take 52 to I90 instead of I94 the whole way. It is a great road; 4 lane and divided. We listened to “Words of Stone” all the way to Wisconsin and followed that with Prarie Home Companion (live from Cinci). While we were in Minneapolis, on one of our library forays, I found the “Friends of Minneapolis” store across from the central library where you could purchase old books and audio and cassette books. I picked up a LOT of cassette books and now I’m worried we’ll run out before Texas… Yesterday we listened to “The Jungle Book” narrated by Jim Weiss (all the kids recognized his voice “This is the guy who does the Greek Myths! And Giants!”) and “Words of Stone”. We took I90 from Rochester (did you know there is an Austin and Houston Minneapolis???) Minneapolis to the Mississippi (which we crossed 3 times trying to find the right exit) and now we’re in Wisconsin 14. Tonight we’ll be in Janesomething and after that we are making a break for warmer weather. I think we might take I80 over to I35 and blast down as far south as we can get by Wednesday. Though, last night, we ran the generator to power the furnace (now that we have working batteries, Jamie is loathe to acutally USE them) and the generator ran all night on one tank of gas. At least 12 hours so far… Interstates are really weird; after years of not using them, we’re making great use of them (but still prefer the backroads) to get SomeWhere.

I’m not sure if we’ll actually check out Arkansas or not; we had planned to check out the communities of Hot Springs AK and something else on our way to Texas and Mexico, but now that we’re headed south, I don’t want to stop until I’m on the beach. And I don’t think we’re Arkansas people. I think Silver Springs, NM is more our speed…

Minneapolis is a really easy city to get around in. The downtown is easy to see and head for should you get lost coming home, say, from the library only a 1/2 hour WALK from your sister’s house. I’m already feeling very comfortable with the city but we still need to hit Trader Joes and I don’t think we’ve yet been to that part of town. I’m thinking that is SW. And there is so much to do here and many opportunities for freebies. I got $8 coupons from a convenience store for the Mall of America. I would totally consider living here, were it about 1000 miles to the south. This weather is insane in the winter and I keep reading advertisments saying, “No mosquitoes” (indoor). So I can only assume that the mozzies are a force to be reckoned with in the summer.

Today I took my first Ashtanga primary class. It was a very different experience. Ever since I began doing Yoga I’ve been reading my friend Julie’s blog (I’ve actually met her) and reading of her deep and moving experiences with Ashtanga. I don’t get that with my home practice and didn’t get anything but a workout from the Green Bay class I took. I’ve never really experienced the mindful part of Yoga but today something was different. Interesting. Still processing. It was a 10 o’clock class and coming out, I felt like it was late afternoon. Weird. I don’t do the chanting or invocations; just doesn’t feel right. If I can still function tomorrow (I’m not more sore than normal yet) I’ll try a class tomorrow evening and then again on Sunday.