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Hello everyone! 

Here are just some random pics that I took, and like. 

Tell me what you want to see! I can't show you all the pics, or tell you everything we do, so let me know what you want to see. TravelgirlUS@hotmail.com 

She  let me take some head-shots of her at the beach. I really like this one. She hates it, but that figures.

Here I am, chatting with my friend Hannah. 

The wedding reception in NY. I think this one is very... artistic. It wasn't even posed! I hate posed pictures.

Ok, I am just going to blab now. I'm really sorry to those (few) of you who check the site often, hoping in vein for new info, because I just can't keep up. My Dad does a pretty recent update of what we have been doing day-by-day, so please go to those pages if you want that. In the beginning of the trip I was doing that too, but now...I'm not so organized. 

I am looking forward to New York, although my Mom and Dad aren't too keen on all the "hubbub" of the city. That's what I like. We will be attending a wedding there, and my cousin Kevin is graduating from High School around that same time. We are also meeting my Aunt, Uncle and other cousin Kenny, as well as my Grandma and Grandpa. 

I have been playing around with the pictures I take recently, and It's really fun! Dad gets kinda mad when I take about 100 pics, but he gets over it. Here are some:

Jordan, in the car.

As you probably noticed, Jordan is my primary target, since she is the only one who doesn't mind having someone in her face, saying "hold still! Smile!" all the time. 

Jordan in the State Park, where we had our car fixed.  There were no showers, and so we had a little home-grown hair washing day.

I'm home! I had a fabulous time at EnCompass. I missed everyone, honestly, I did, but I had a really incredible experience. There were approximately 20 participants on the course, some of which I knew from last years course, home schooling events or home, others I was meeting for the first time. 

A couple of my good friends from Santa Barbara were there; Hannah and Shelly. Hannah went on the course last year, and Shelly was coming for the first time. Tessany is also my good friend, and she had been staying in Santa Barbara with my other good friend, Kai. So they had all been seeing each other just a few weeks before. It was great to see all of them. I also reunited with the people I had spent a week with last year, but didn't get to know as well. 

I don't think I will go into too much detail about the course itself, if you would like to know about something specifically, please ask me. Email: travelgirlUS@hotmail.com , IM me: pooka358 and call me: (805) 689-6277!!!

As you probably know, we built a sweat lodge. We built it by hand, on the EnCompass land (they have around 180 acres). We made it rammed-earth style, which means that it was part earth, and part cement. The floor was mostly earth, not as much cement, and the walls are mostly cement, not as much earth. We did a rebar frame to begin with, and then did wire mesh encasing the insulation. Then plaster. It's supposed to have three layers of plaster, but in order for us to be able to take a sweat in the lodge before the course was over, we had to leave it in stage 2. The third coat will have to be done by other people, another time.

We also went down the Eel river for the last week. We paddled down 25 miles of it, in Canoes. Two people to a Canoe, and we switched partners around. It was a total blast!

Here are some pics. I only got one roll. In other words, I took more than this, I just don't have them available to me at this time.

Here is the list of participants:

Guys:

Bodhi, Nathan, Artec, Andre, Bjorn, Christoph, Tristan, Wayland, Zach, and Cesar.

Girls:

Sasha, Hannah, Shelly, Rebecca, Tess, and me!

Here are the canoes, at our put-in spot. It was 25 miles down the river to our take-out spot. 

Hannah, throwing gang signs.

Shelly, jumping off of one of the many "jumping rocks" we passed (and jumped off of) on the river. 

From left to right: Rebecca, Bodhi and Yoko.

Here is the base to the sweat lodge. The center ring is where the stove will go. As I said before, I don't have all of my pics, and all the ones of the sweat lodge completed are with the "Lost Rolls".

At our take-out spot, me, Hannah and Shelly. We took the pic ourselves...

On our way back from the river trip, we stopped in the redwoods. Here is the whole group.

Nathan, being his alter-ego Sid.

Pics: 

As you can probably tell, I am way into black and white photos. I have been having lots of fun playing around with Adobe software. I love it! So, most of these I took, and then fiddled with for a while until they looked like this. If you want to see what we did in the other (colored) pics, please go to the main part of the site.

This one I took of Jordan, Tessany and my Mom on the beach in Ocracoke.  

Tessany.

I took this one too. Pretty talented, huh? We were on our way to the beach.

Jordan, riding her bike her favorite way.

Tessany, the lone beach-wanderer. . . 

And my favorite one of all: My Mom took this one, and I changed it some, and I love it! It really captures the moment well, in my opinion. It was taken on the porch of the ice cream parlor we made regular visits to, during our stay on Ocracoke.

Another Jordan pic. She is swinging at the playground at our campground outside Williamsburg.

This one I took while in the sound that surrounds one side of Ocracoke. Yes, they really did dye their hair, and there really was a shark there, and there really were the words "Dun dun dun dun!" floating across the scene. Amazing, isn't it?

I'm back from EnCompass!:

Ok, here is some news about after EnCompass:

We were in Ocracoke the first week back from EnCompass. Tessany was with us, and we were both feeling sort of sluggish, and we were (are) missing everyone from camp TONS! So Mom and Dad had sort of counted on having relaxed, napping kind of days, which was very nice for all of us. 

We rode around the island on our rented bikes, and laid on the beach, took naps in the hammock, and ate extraordinary food! Quite nice. It was all very relaxing. 

For Mother's Day we just hung out at our campground in Raleigh, NC. Here are some pics from May 13th: 

Mom, reading Jordan's Mother's Day card to her.

Mom and Dad, on a little walk we took for Mother's Day.

Jordan and I waded into the lake a ways -- in our clothes!

I am gone from April 15th through May 5th, on an EnCompass course, and so will not be updating my page during that time. EnCompass is an Outdoor education course. We will be building a sweat-lodge from scratch for the first 2 weeks, and for the last week we will be on the Eel River in California. My Home State! I am really looking forward to it! But that's not the point. Well, I guess that's it! Enjoy!

We went to see part of the Masters golf tournament, as you probably read on "born again". Well, it was pretty cool, even though I would definitely not call myself a "golf person". My mom and I went for about an hour, and saw Tiger Woods, and Vijay Singh, as well as others who's names aren't jumping out at me... But it was all very exciting. We got the tickets from Dave Caddell (below) who got the "badges" from a neighbor. He kindly gave them to us for the day, and we split up the time between us.

We just (late March) left the Mulroy home, and a great visit with them! Here are some pics we got of the family, using my Uncle Mike's digital camera:

From left to right: Dave, Caragh, and Joe Caddell.

.

Uncle Mike and Aunt Judy. (They are actually my Mom's Aunt and Uncle, but Jordan and I call them that all the same.)

John and Grace, my two little cousins, playing in the pool, in 85 degree weather.

Joe and I in his natural habitat.

A tree frog -- in the trash can. Cool, huh?

 And here is Chelsea! We got the pics from Ralph, Chelsea's Dad, using his digital video camera. We had a 5 day visit with Chelsea, and we stayed right outside of a small town near Atlanta, GA, called Helen. My Mom's description of it was "Kitchy". My Dad used the word "dysneyesque" and I think the town was a combo. It was a "wannabe" German town, and very tourist oriented, to say the least. We walked there! 3 miles. One way. But that was after a 10 mile hike (both ways) the day before. I firmly stated that I would run away if they were going to make us go on another hike, after 17 miles of walking!

Some of you were wanting to see some "after" pics of the trailer, so here they are!

Email me @ travelgirlUS@hotmail.com ... Although I won't be checking it for three weeks, and I return on May 5th. Please feel free to email me after that, as you all know I love to hear from you!

Love, Joya

Disneyworld!

This past week we have been staying in a town called "Kiss Me", FL. Actually it's called Kissimmee, but if their going to sort of call it Kiss Me, I would go all the way, but, that's me. We went to Disneyworld, Epcot, MGM, and Animal Kingdom, which are all around 10 min. away from our campground. We got "park-hopper" passes, to see all four parks in four days. The first day, we went to the "Magical Kingdom", and went on all of the usual rides: Space Mountain; Thunder Mountain; Pirates of the Caribbean; Autopia car racing, etc. 

Here is a pic of me on the race track, wishing it were a real car! I LOVE to drive, and Mom and Dad have only let me drive the van once. One night in Epcot though, we were leaving the parking lot at around 10:30PM (the park closes at 9:00PM) and it was almost empty, and I SO wanted to drive around for a little while, but Dad wouldn't give in. "Too many cars," he said. Oh well. I drove the jeep around at the Sisks too, that was a blast!

Do you see the smears in the upper right hand corner? That is just a hint of what has taken over our camera. Don't be surprised if we don't have any pics for a while. We are going to be sending the camera in for repair, as soon as we can get the receipt from the store we bought it from. 

No pics of MGM. As I said, the camera is acting up, and we can never tell when it's going to work or not. The best thing at MGM by far was the Rockin' Roller Coaster, by Aerosmith. It goes from 0-60, in something like 3/50ths of a second! (I made that exact time up, but I bet it's close!) It was SOOOO fun! We went on it twice: the first time Mom didn't go, and so we went back the next morning to go again, and it was even better the second time! I loved it. The next best thing at MGM though was the Animation tour. They showed you the short version of how to make a animated movie, what jobs the animators have, and a sneak-peek at Disney's next animated film! We even got to see the animators at work through glass windows. It was very interesting.

Animal Kingdom:

Here are some pics from the "Safari" we took in the Animal Kingdom:

Elephants. We have all acquired a new respect for these large, but gentle animals since we read the book "Modoc". I recommend it to all of you, adults and children. An Amazing story.

This young Giraffe waked right in front of our tram, so we had to slow down and wait for it to move aside.

Hippos! There were around 20 Hippopotamuses at the park! 

Here we are in line for "It's tough to be a bug" ride, next to "the world's largest ball of dung". Don't we all look SO attractive...? It was kind  of "bugging" me...

This ride was the most fun (I think) at the Animal Kingdom. It was a raft ride, and then when you get to the bottom of the big drop, there is a huge splash, that (unfairly) gets the people in the back mostly. I, of course, was in the back both times we went on. You might say that I was in the SOAKED! category.

Dad took this one because of the Airstream! We were in the "Dinosaur" Area, and Dad was wondering why they put it in there, and I suggested that it was because it was Jurassic, just like everything else in the exhibit.

Epcot:

Here is a belly dancer in "Morocco" at a Moroccan restaurant we ate at in our first night in Epcot Center.

My Charming Mother and Father, enjoying themselves in Morocco.

Well, I love you all!! Please email me ALL the time!

Nice flower, huh!? These hibiscus, and other species, are all over Florida. There has been a drought in the Keys though (meaning it hasn't rained there in 2 months) and given that hibiscus need water almost everyday, it is naturally a concern that they, among other things, will die in the drought. It did, however, rain while we were in Fort Lauderdale dropping off Angelika. Yes, Angelika left us on Sunday, March 18th. It was a very nice visit though! We had a really good time with her. 

Alligator Alley. That's where we are driving right now. It's actually highway 75, but everyone around here calls it Alligator Alley...can you guess why? I bet you're right. 

Right along the highway, about 6 yards away from the road there are bayous. When one stops, another starts 10 feet later. And living in these bayous are Alligators. TONS and tons of Alligators. We see them floating, swimming, basking, and laying all over around and in the bayous. I'm sorry Angelika isn't here right now, because I know she wanted to see an Alligator while she was here, but she didn't.

Jordan, sipping coconut milk from a fresh coconut that Steve got for us, thinking we might enjoy them (good guess!!!). 

Here is a nice pic of my Mom and Dad, hanging out after just taking a dip in the "Salt-water Pond" at our campsite on Sugarloaf Key:

This one is of Jordan serving in a Volleyball game that she and I participated in at the RV park. It was guys against girls. It was a crackup!!!!!!!  They were hilarious!!!! It was fun though, and we won twice, the guys once! 

* * * 

This is pretty much the first time on our trip we have not had an at least a semi-immediate destination, and it's nice! We just look at the map, and say "let's not go to the Everglades, I want to get tan, so how about a beach somewhere?" That's what I said anyway. It's been cloudy, rainy, and we even had some thunder and lightning storms! I swear, we bring the bad weather with us. The only reason we had good weather for a while was because it had to run to catch up with us!

Here's a new recipe for ya'll (I'm getting kind of into this "suthun" talk) and please just trust me on this one, it doesn't sound too...appetizing at first. All it is, is Mango, sliced up and put into a cheese quesadilla. It is sooooo good. You can do it with pretty much any kind of cheese, we had it at a restaurant with brie, but if you don't have that laying around, almost any strong cheese will do. Please let me know if you try it, and how you like it!!!

Next:

Jordan, Angelika, Marina and I went swimming with dolphins! It was...unbelievable. No pics though (we didn't bring the digital camera). 

The owner of the boat "Amazing Grace", Sherri, took us out to what they call the "Dolphin Playground", but for a while there weren't any signs of the beautiful bottle-nosed dolphin, native to these parts of Florida. Finally, we saw a pod close by, but they were all asleep! But not asleep to my standards, because when a dolphin sleeps, only half of it's brain goes to sleep, so it can keep breathing...otherwise they would drown. So, they were all swimming around in a big circle, sometimes with their fins out of the water. Sherri played music in the boat, so the dolphins could hear it. She says they really like it. We even saw a pic of a guy playing a clarinet on a boat, and a dolphin swimming right up to him!!! So the dolphins finally woke up, and we got to swim around with them! They were smiling at us, playing, jumping and everything. We saw one who had a sand dollar, and was throwing it to him/herself, and then falling back to the water. It was amazing. The water was really warm and shallow too, around 74 degrees, and the water we were in was about 7' deep, and so clear!!! You could see 15' down to the bottom, and see nothing but white sand. Oh, it was sooooo beautiful!!! I had a fab time. It was really a bummer they could only take the four of us...Mom and Dad couldn't come. It was very generous of them to let us go. Very.

Here is a pic of Angelika, after just getting her extremely long hair cut, obviously, not too short.

This is my Grandma and Grandpa at the Key West Sunset Celebration.

Jordan, Angelika and I played in their hotel pool. (I was just about to fall off.)

This was taken at the Sunset Celebration, and this pic is of an amazing man, who does tricks (this one and others--yes, just a dangerous) on hard cement, and he makes good money for it too! (No, that guy didn't get...squished.)

This is my midwife Marina, and her husband Steve! They have a booth at the Sunset Celebration. (The Celebration happens every night in Key West.)

This pic, well, I think it explains itself.

Below is the only pic we have from Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum. What a shame. Can you guess who took this photo? The Cellist, of course, my Dad! This is a Cello made completely out of matchsticks... believe it or not! The rest of the museum was really cool too. They had real shrunken heads, and a two headed cow, a guy who could smoke a cigarette out of his eye, a man who was 9' tall, whine made out of fetal (un-born) mice,  the 7 wonders of the world painted on a toothpick,  a guy who could pound 6" nails into his skull (and live to tell the tale), a bowl made out of a skull embellished with silver, a three legged man, laundry-lint art, Vincent Van Gogh made from Jellybeans, a lady with a 17" long neck, a man with a 15" horn coming out of his skull (they call him "The Human Unicorn"), a man with two sets of pupils in each of his eyes)***, etc. It was mind boggling. We couldn't have seen it all before it closed. ***By the way, these people (three legged man, etc) weren't actually there, there were wax sculptures or photos of the real people.

Well, I love you all! Please email me, and let me know how ya'll are doin'! travelgirlus@hotmail.com

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO, hugs an' kisses! Luuuv, Joya

(Next)

We were in Fort Pierce, at the Roadrunner PV park. It was pretty nice, complete with pool, and both tennis and shuffle board courts. Jordan and I (of course) took full advantage of the opportunity, and used all three.

We had an incident a while ago. Not just any incident, but a major-big-deal-one. We were on our way to Miami, to pick up Angelika, when Dad noticed that the door of the trailer was wide open, and had been for some time. We quickly pulled over in a rest station and had a look. We discovered, that the door has slipped slightly off the hinges, and slammed into the pin that is supposed to hold the door on, only it missed. The result, was a huge hole in the wall of the trailer:

Also, we couldn't get the pin out of the door, which had the affect of a harpoon. Finally, my Dad just pulled the pin anchor out of the wall, and wiggled the pin out that way.  The screen on the door, which we were counting on big time in this hot weather, had blown off in the time the door had been flying around on it's own. Unfortunately, Jordan had been the one to lock up the trailer before we left, meaning that Jordan is the one responsible for all of our problems with the door. Ouch. This was the result...notice the duct-tape:

Yes, it wasn't a happy sight as we left the rest station that sunny afternoon...

Well, as the saying goes: The stupid forgive and forget, the mean-spirited don't forgive OR forget, and the wise forgive, but don't forget. Ah well, that's not the last you will hear about the Airstream door problems. :oC

Angelika is here! We picked her up in Miami, after she had endured a night in LA with a United Airlines flight attendant, and many hours in airplanes and airports. We drove to (through) the keys, and we are now quite happy with our place on the Sugar Loaf Key.

The weather here is SO nice, I love, love, love it! Hot, humid, with plenty of water to jump into, in case you get too hot. I did get too hot though, and burnt. All down my back, and the backs of my legs. BIG BUMMER. Ouch. I never get burnt! Only tan! What's going on here?

FISH! We spotted only a couple of this rare, tropical species. (Actually, their names are Jordan and Angelika, and this was their third time in the pool that day!) 

Mom and Dad reading in the tiki-hut by the lake. It was (is) SO nice out.

Jordan, Angelika and I took a little kayak trip around the lake (ok, salt-water-pond) and Angelika and I ended up in the water! Jordan, however, was afraid of the "shark" that was carried to the pond in a hurricane a couple years ago, when the water was 5' above ground level , and now lives in one small corner of the pond. It isn't even really a shark. It's called a "Nurse Shark", and is allot like a sting-ray, except without the sting. It's supposedly harmless, but you never can tell with pond-sharks.

 We are in the nicest place ever! (Well, maybe not ever, but it's pretty nice). The weather is perfectly warm and sunny, there is a pool, salt-water-pond (I say it's a lake, but, whatever.) and tiki-hut! It even has karaoke night on Tuesdays! This is my kinda place!

I send my love to you all! XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Luuuv, Joya

Welcome indeed! And boy were we glad to see it! (Texas was starting to seem never-ending). And we've now gone on to "M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I" Alabama, and Florida...YAY!

No more desert, no more rocks, and dry red sand. We have entered the land of water, the land of lush greenery, the land of hot summers and... Alligators. We've seen 6 so far! They aren't big-- between 3-6 feet long, and they hang around in Bayous (small, slow moving rivers). We even saw one catch and eat a fish! 

Here is a pic we took of a 7 foot "Gator", on a swamp tour of the Atchafalya Basin in Henderson, Louisiana, near Baton Rouge. Our tour guide told us that the Alligators hibernate, and that right before, and right after hibernation, they lay in the sun with their mouths open, absorbing the heat. Alligator hunting is very popular in this area, but the season is only open one month a year for them. There were 20,000 permits for dead Alligators last year, in just the month of September. Unbelievable. 

Here is our guide, named Curtis. He was born and raised Cajun, and living on the water!  Literally, his house was built up on some logs, floating in the Basin! Wow. We also saw these odd little huts on the water, camouflaged with the surrounding swamp, which we learned were called "Duck Blinds" used for hunting ducks!  

Here is a crab we found at the first ocean we have been to since home! It was on the Gulf of Mexico.

We took a long walk on the beach (and in the water) and enjoyed SO much, the feeling of sand between our toes. 

Here we are, collecting the many shells on the beaches of East Texas.

My Dad, gleeful over his birthday apple pie...

We stayed in a small town called Lafayette, and went to see a Cajun living history museum... it was really cool! Here is a pic of a spinner from the museum, spinning Brown Cotton, grown on the property, and picked by hand.

We went to NASA the other day, and it was really interesting. We did this ride-- it was supposed to be a 'flight simulator', it played a movie, and you sat in seats, and the thing moved around, to make it seem like you were actually IN space! It was really cool. 

On March 8th, 2 days before we are scheduled to be in Florida, a space shuttle will be taking off from Kennedy Space Station. We would really like to be there for it, but that would mean rushing through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and then the other part of Florida.

We don't know whether that would be a wise choice (or whether it is even humanly possible).

Here is a pic of the prototype X-38 (the 'rescuer' shuttle. It holds up to 7 astronauts.) they really made a big deal about.

So... we saw New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama. We are in Pensacola Florida... to pick up our mail! We pick up Angelika from the airport on March 10th.

Anyway, please write to me! travelgirlUS@hotmail.com !!!! XOXOXOXO

Joya

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Here is the last updated pages:

Texas!

We have arrived in the Great State!

We are in Austin, Texas. New Mexico flew by...we didn't exactly want to linger. We visited Mylie, a family friend, and went to Mardi Gras on fat Tuesday! That was very wild. 

Here is a pic of Jordan and I, reenacting the soldiers of Fort Davis. 

The Fort is in pretty good condition, and Jordan and I were following orders, bellowed from speakers on the rooftops. 

Here are some interesting animals, Javalinas, Jordan and I nicknamed Fish-Hogs. They seemed to enjoy our campsite the most... 

Anyway, I hope you all are doing well, and please keep in touch!!!

Love to you all!! XOXOXOXOXO

~Joya

Here is the last up-dated page:

We left Prescott, and we are now in Williams, another small town in Arizona. We visited the Grand Canyon...beautiful! And a ghost town!!! I was really exited to see it, but, we didn't see a ghost...bummer! (Tee-Hee). The Grand Canyon was...un-imaginable. It was really cool, and SO big! Mom, unfortunately, was extremely afraid of the height, and the fact that the railing only went up to mid-thigh! Here is a pic:

And here is one of a guy we couldn't help getting on film...

Our next stop is New Mexico, then Texas, and then Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and then Florida. For Your Information...;o)

We finally have a working refrigerator...what a relief!

It is definitely an adventure out here. It is very tight quarters, and we can't move too fast, or everything comes crashing down (which isn't too good for us big-footed-klutzes...) so we have to adjust. 

I love you all!

Here is the last up-dated page:

Feb. 13th 2001

After our 2 day stay in Las Vegas, and seeing the strip, Hoover Dam, and the house my Mom used to live in, I am ready to leave. I am tired of seeing people drink, smoke, and push quarters into slot machines all day, although I am happy I got to see 'FABULOUS' Las Vegas!!!. We saw the Bellagio lobby, who's ceiling is covered with Chilhuly blown glass flowers...beautiful! And their dancing fountain show; the Treasure Island Pirate Show; Siegfried and Roy's white Tiger show; and the inside (Casinos) of the Aladdin Hotel, Paris, and Circus Circus.

I found Sephora...a store devoted entirely to make-up!! I was in heaven, although Dad didn't like it much. Jordan let me have at her face, here is a pic:

And here is Dad...waiting for...a makeover!!! Hehe...not really, he was just waiting for me to stop playing.

Next stop is Prescott, Arizona! We will pick up a new fridge here (Yay!!!) and (hopefully) put in the missing cabinet. We will be staying in an actual camp ground there, instead of a slab of cement we just left.

My email: TravelgirlUS@hotmail.com My IM SN: travelgirlUSA.

Happy Valentines Day to you all!!

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

~Joya~