Travels with Deb

As you can see I've had a great time in America the last 10 weeks. Here are a few more places I got to see and friends & family to visit with.

Just before I left, the Fowkes's were very kind to organize a family trip south to see the home of one of Virginia's favorite sons: Thomas Jefferson's - Monticello. To be honest, I am not a great fan of Mr. Jefferson. I know, I know; yes, he was the 3rd President of the United States, brilliant at many things and he did a great job writing the Declaration of Independence, but his politics and treatment of his friend and my hero, John Adams irritate me to no end! That said, after our visit and tour: I really like his house. Monticello is truly beautiful and the view is spectacular! I now understand why he yearned to return home and stay there.

I sadly left Virginia (more importantly, left Scout, Isaak and cute little Ellie) to fly to Arizona and have a reunion with two of my sisters and also a long over-due visit with my sister-in-law Mary and our nieces Wendy and Kelly. We enjoyed some competitive card games and great Mexican food. We were also able to visit the Desert Botanical Gardens together which had a special exhibit of Chihuly glass sculptures which were amazing! This yellow thing is about 4 meters tall!

Judy, Marilyn and I drove north to spend a day in Sedona and see some beautiful red rock country. This picture doesn't really capture the incredible beauty of the "red" but it's fun because it's called "Snoopy's Rock". Can you see Snoopy laying on his dog house, and maybe a tiny Woodstock perched on his nose? If you ever travel to Arizona, Sedona is a must see! We also visited Mesa Grande National Monument Prehistoric Ruins. This 3 story building is about a thousand years old! amazing!

My last stop was Bountiful, Utah to visit my long time buddy Karen. We did a little shopping (fabric and American goodies), rented movies and I continued eating my way across America - enjoying Cafe Rio, Nielsen's ice cream Concretes, Carl's Jr and more Taco Bell whenever I could get it! :) Have I mentioned I easily gained 10+ lbs on this trip? groooannn! :(
I also enjoyed a wonderful reunion party of friends that lived or grew up in my home town on the North Coast of California. Patsy, I can't thank you enough for organizing that! It was so fun to visit with dear friends of my youth.

Now you might be wondering: is that woman ever going to return home?

Yes, after 4 airplanes, 19 hours in the air, 2 movies, a long nap, 2 meals, numerous glasses of cranberry juice and packages of peanuts, I arrived back in Brisbane safe and sound last Saturday. Two handsome guys were there to greet me at the airport and was I glad to see them both! Dorothy was right: "there's no place like home".

Virginia

I've been having a great time here in Northern Virginia with Becky's family; cannot believe Scout will be 6 years old in a few weeks and Isaak turned 3 in February.

It was very fun to dye Easter Eggs and help the Bunny gather some candy for baskets. I've enjoyed reading aloud bedtime stories again - brings back so many good memories. I read aloud to my children every night until they were all well into their teens.

Scout is playing soccer again and I am amazed to watch her practice her violin; it's also been very exciting to listen to her read!

Isaak loves his motorcycle rocker, his sisters and is fearless climbing at the playground. He is going to break hearts with those dimples!

It has also been a beautiful time to be here and see Virginia go green with all the trees and scrubs leafing out. The dogwood is spectacular. It is a typical Spring here - sunny and warm one day then rain and chilly the next which Becky tells me this is common for this time of the year. My thin Aussie blood makes me glad I brought a fleece jumper (sweater).

Had an interesting "First" - was Scout's Show and Tell for her Kindergarten class one morning. I talked about living in Australia and showed them lots of pictures but they were especially impressed with with my Kookaburra call imitation and my koala shaped sugar cookies.

Ellie is good baby and is already growing like a weed.

You win some and you lose some

I was lucky enough to arrive in Virginia at the peak of the Cherry Trees blooming around the Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC. My first afternoon we had some time to kill so we trooped over to see this spectacular sight. It was beautiful! Thank you Ellie for scheduling your arrival at a great time!

On the down side...... I have visited Washington DC several times and being diehard lover of books, have always wanted to tour the Library of Congress. Well, I thought, now's my chance and I'll treat myself on my anniversary to a day in the "big city". Arrived only to find it closed for the day - WHAT THE HECK! thank you for updating your website! I was one uphappy taxpayer!

So I went next door and wandered through the Supreme Court Building. Very impressive.

I have a travel tip for anyone interested: if you ever want to visit Washington DC, come in the Spring. The weather is perfect: not too hot or humid and the flowers are unbelievably beautiful!

Happy Anniversary!

Roy and I celebrated our 33rd anniversary on Thursday! Yes, WOW! where has the time gone?Unfortunately we were on separate continents again for the second year in a row. Hoping not to make this a habit....

The Possum Trip

Hello my friends, it's Alex again.

I'm taking the intiative and writing my own blog post. And this time it's without being threatened by Mum! Amazing huh? And I have nothing else to do on this dark rainy day. I have only been home for three days. For the past two weeks I have been in Southern Australia and Victoria, two of the Southern states below us, about a two hour plane trip. I was invited by a friend of a co-worker of dads to come down and help her with a college research trip she is conducting. She goes out into the Australian bush and traps Ringtail Possums! Being me, I accepted without any second thoughts and after a two hour plane ride, followed by a four hour car ride, I was at the site house. And it was a nice house, with a real bed, running water, electricity for fridge, stove, and microwave, and a working tv and DVD player. The TV and some books a friend loaned to me helped kill the spare time, which we had lots of. BUT! Duing the times that we were busy this is what we did. The woman who invited me down to work with her, now my good friend, is named Melanie. She is doing post Doctorite work for the University of Adeliade.

The first day we got down there we started to set up traps. Setting up a possum trap consists of finding a good spot with a good tree and putting the two and half meter ladder up against your selected tree, chaining the ladder to the tree with a, guess it, chain. Without that chain I would not have lasted very long on some of those thin trees. Once you do that you climb up the ladder wth a hammer and four nails, holding three of the nails in my mouth I would hammer one nail into the side of the tree. then I would put a trap bracket on the tree, and then using the rest of the nails, secure the bracket to the tree. Then you set the trap on the bracket, set it, and ten go and do the next trap. Al together it would take between five and ten minutes per trap. Now turn that into fifty traps and you've got what we were doing fo rth efirst three days. It would have only been the first two, but the place where we set up a patch of 18 traps was a bad spot so we took them all down the verynext day after we set them up and then we set them up at another patch.

So once all the traps are set up the job became easy. Every morning we would wake up at 6:30 (which became 5:30 on the third day, due to daylight savings) and go out in the Ute (Australian pick-up truck) and go check the traps. The empty traps we would just drive past. But the ones with possums in them become exciting. When a possum is in the trap a person has to go up to the trap, lower down to the partner, and then get the possum out. The possum goes into a pillow case where they are then processed. In processing we take measurements of the foot length, head width, and head length. We also see who they are (gender wise), take a DNA sample (cut a tiny piece of ear off), and then give them some bling in the form of a metal tag that gets clipped onto the same ear for easier future identification. After processing we would then let the possum go near the spot where we caught them. We would either process on the spot, or if there were a few possums we would take them home with us and put them into a dark quiet cupboard for the day, processing them later in the arvo (afternoon), and then let them go before dark. Sometimes processing on the spot was slow because the possums were very squirmy and fidgety, compared to the ones who had cupboard time, who would normally be quieter and more relaxed. We only ever had one possum escape during processing, and that was on the second to last day. So that is how you trap and process the possums!

So the checking and prcessing took up the mornings pretty well. So what did we do to take up the arvo's? Well we would go out and check nest boxes. Nest boxes are basically bird houses that are put up out in the bush, except they aren't for birds. They would contain either a: a big spider, b: an Antechinus, or c: a Sugar Glider. Thankfully we didn't get any spiders, but we did get quite a few sugar gliders and luckily we caught three Antechinus's. An Antechinus is a marsupial rodent who looks like a mouse with an elongated head, sharp teeth and claws, and a suicidal bad attitude. They were alright. But the best thing was the Sugar Gliders. They are basically flying squirrels, but much cuter, smaller, and they are marsupials. We found nine Gliders all together. We would process the Gliders and Antechinus's just like the possums, except we wouldn't put tags on them because the tags could be a little big for the little guys.

In case you are confused the thing on the upper right is an Antechinus and the little guy, or girl really, in my hand is a Sugar Glider. And no, I'm not holding her tightly, she was just trying to escape from every possible angle imaginable so I had to prevent that. The Antechinus on the other hand, had to be gripped tightly so as to prevent it from escaping and biting the holder. So naturally, Mel held them.

So this was my trip. Two weeks of hard and repetitive work that tested integrity, courage, and disicipline. Because, after hours of taking traps down, one just wants to drop to the ground and throw a temper tantrum. Thankfully there was none of that, but we came close. But I'm really glad I went, and I can't wait to be able to do field work of my own some day.

An explanation of odd random phenomena you may have noticed in these pictures. The banadana wearing is not really a style, a gang sign, or an act or rebellion. I am wearing a bandana in every one of these pictures because, A: they kept my head and face dry from rain and sweat, B: they kept my head warm in the cold mornings and evenings, and C: they make me look rogue-ishly handsome. The other thing is that during the entire trip is that I didn't shave the entire time. It was really for fun to see what it would look like after two weeks, and since there was no parent to badger me about it I just had fun with it. I came no where near Dad's beard or Mum's legs, but I liked it all the same. Hope you enjoyed this fun little report on my personal adventure.

Solomon Islands Trip

The Trip of Roy and Alex to the Solomon Islands.

I apologize for the late posting, seeing as how this trip was over a month ago. Things have been hectic and I have been lazy. This is Alex, incase any one was wondering. While Mum is in America living up the good life with the daughters, Dad and I decided to take a man trip to the island of Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Island chain. Guadalcanal was the sight of teh very first American naval invasion during WWII against the Japanese. These little islands are a couple hundred miles North-East of Australia.

When we left Australia it was a cloudy rainy day, and going onto the air conditioned plane somewhat wet was very chilling. But as soon as the five hour flight ended and the doors of the plane opened up we wished the cold air had followed us. The airport in Guadalcanal is a single air-strip and to get off the plane mobile stairs are put up to the two doors and we walk down them to get off. Guadalcanal is very humid and excruciatingly warm. We got our luggage and met up with our tour guide for the week. He is an Australian who has lived in Guadalcanal for the past ten years or so, and has married an islander. They were both very kind, and we would not have survived without them. On this first day we were shown around the capital city of Honiara and then dropped off at our hotel for the rest of the day.

Days two and three were WWII tours to different places around the island where there are pieces of the war still standing. War monuments, pieces of machinery and troop carriers left over just staying wher they wer left, and a "museum" where a very kind islander had collected planes and cannons and stored them in his yard for people to come and see. Amazing things to see and hear about. Day three we went scuba diving on two Japanese ships that were destroyed right off the shore. One was in two pieces and the other was shot up pretty bad. All in all it was kind of creepy to be underwater (i mean in a crushing silence) around these ships where men fought and died on, but still a very cool thing to see. Day four and five were more relaxed. We went to a few moreWWII sites, but otherwise we went snorkelling in the warm water and on day five we went shopping. The local markets are open air markets for everything from gifts to vegetables to fish. The fish were fresh ocean fish (some of which were quite massive), but they didnt smell so great. Then on the final day we went snorkelling in the morning and then onto a plane in the afternoon. It was just the right amount of time to spend in that tropical little island and we were glad to be home.

Introducing Miss Ellie

Becky presented us with our third granddaughter this last Sunday, April 5, 2009 at 12:59pm - Miss Eleanor Renee Fowkes 10 lbs 11 oz., 22 3/4inches. There is no doubt what family she belongs too - she is a Fowkes through and through - she and Scout at this age could be twins. Mom and baby are doing great!

Isaak and especially Scout think the new baby is pretty special, as as do we.
I posted a "when will Becky's baby be born?" pool on Facebook and unbelievably I won the day and Mary was closest on the weight; nothing like keeping it in the family!
As you may have guessed, I am now in Northern Virginia enjoying another new beautiful grandbaby. Almost every tree is in bloom - it is a beautiful Spring here, albeit a little chillier than Florida - I am wearing long pants for the first time in 6 months!