The Journey

Updating Is Slow... Sometimes.

Well now... I'm sitting in Myrtle Beach to have Thanksgiving, on Wednesday, with the kids and I have a fast speed connetion. How sweet it is. So I'll catch you up.

Pat has been in and out of town a lot this month and that is always a drag, but Lord knows you've got's to do your duty. She has had shows in Fountain Hills, AZ, Dunedin, FL and is in Tarpon Springs, FL this weekend and then flys to AZ for Tempe and Tucson. As this is going on she has had shows at the Texas renaissance festival, Denver Food & Gift Show, Colorado Springs Food and Gift Show and the Delray Garlic Festival.

I've been working Times Square in Fort Myers Beach, busking and passing the hat at sunset doing street shows. It has promise.

Now how is all this possible? We have imported Dan Reid to work weekends with Pat here at the Florida shows and Cricket and Danny are in Colorado and Benjamin is in Texas. I wish we were more organized. But we are making it work.

Brad's brother Todd is here in Myrtle. We are kind of sending him off to Thailand to be with his wife, Tian and baby, Tyler. He is excited to be going, but we are going to miss him here in the states. He taking an early retirement and liquidated everything to 4 bags and off he goes. Good luck Todd, we love you and look forward to hearing of all your adventures.

We will be heading back to Fort Myers on Thursday and Pat and Dan will go to Tarpon Springs for the show. I will work Times Square and we will be back to normal, what ever that is.

Next week Pat flys to AZ and I will fly after her on Sunday. On Monday we will drive to Palm Desert to see my Dad, Charlie and his wife Donna. I hope my sister will come out from Alta Loma and maybe my brother will float through and we can see all of each other before the Christmas holiday. I'll fly back to Florida and leave Pat and Dan to do the 4th Ave Street Show. After that we have a week together and then back to Myrtle for Christmas.

So that is pretty much it for now. I'm going to try and update the Captains log over at Magic Winds blog site. You can catch up with our sailing travel's at: http://bpwmagic.typepad.com/magicwind.

Click on a photo to enlarge in a new window.

Here's a shot from my office window just before the sunset show at Times Square at Fort Myers Beach.

Visiting Iva & Pete in Hollywood, FL

Well Iva and Pete came in from their cruise and ended up in Hollywood, FL at the Thunderbird Hotel. Now we checked the day before they arrived and they were closed because of damage from Wilma. But they opened, I think just for Iva and Pete.

To make a long story short... They reserved an ocean front room, but those were blown out so they got another room on the second floor over looking the damage and had to pay the same rate. No air conditioning, no hot water and when Pete complained all they said was take it or leave it.

So they took it. We went over on Sunday and spent the afternoon with them. It was a good visit we always laugh a lot when we are with them and this was no exception. We love those guys. They told us about the cruise and where they went. They missed Wilma and Alpha. Snorkeled and played and ate.

We went to the Rascal House for lunch and enjoyed every bite... Again.

When we pulled up, Iva handed us a torn out page of a book she found on the cruise ship and said, "Look here's a picture of Paul." I looked at it and it was a photo of me, Linda and Brian on a 12 meter racing sloop in Saint Martin. I laughed and said wow that IS a picture of me. Iva got this look of shock on her face and said she handed it to me as a joke. She thought it looked like me, but didn't know it was me. It was a good laugh. Seems that the Saint Martin Tourist Board published the photo in all the cruise line books... I want royalties.

We finally had to leave and it was sad, but we are blessed to have had the chance to spend a few hours with some very good friends.