Jacksonville

After the Bahamas it was time for some football so we flew to Orlando, rented a car, and drove to Jacksonville where our Denver Broncos were taking on the Jaguars. We had set up a couch to stay on via couchsurfers.org and called our hosts Drew and Sara to let them know we were on our way. They recommended we stop at Blue Springs for some swimming on the way up and boy was it beautiful!!!

Crystal clear water and swampy vegetation.

Fun climbing on logs.

Fun splashing in the beautiful water.

Some colonial house and amazing looking tree.

There were snorkelers and divers swimming around at the head of the spring so I asked another swimmer what was out there and he let me borrow his goggles to look. There is a gigantic hole that goes 100 feet down where the spring seeps out. It is ominous and creepy swimming over it. Many people were swimming down into it to take pictures and apparently you can feel the spring pushing against you even just a few feet under the surface. Great stop! Will definitely come here again to camp someday! The rest of the drive was cool because we ended up in an awesome thunderstorm and actually had to pull over just to watch the lightning. There was this one crazy huge cloud just hovering in the sky and lighting up ever other second. We actually decided to treat it like microwave popcorn after a while because it was lighting up so constantly. We said that we would leave when three seconds went by with no lightning just like you're supposed to wait until three seconds go by without a pop... We were there for a while. We got a good video but I can't figure out how to load videos correctly. I'll give it a whirl though:

Once we got to Jacksonville our hosts (Alise on the left, Sara on the right, and Drew laying across) showed us a wonderful time the night before the game. The game was disappointing but we found pretty good seats. It was a scorcher out and Brian was practically getting heat stroke. Then all of a sudden big drops of rain started pouring on us. The game got delayed due to lightning threat and all of the fans were asked to find cover. Some sections cleared out but ours stayed pretty strong. I got completely soaked in about 30 seconds and just basked in the coolness. About 30 minutes later the sun came out, the game started up, and I was dry in no time. Up next: Bogota, Colombia!

Days 2-3 in the Bahamas

Day two in the Bahamas brought new All You Can Jetters. Paul, Tae and Millie were scheduled to arrive in the afternoon but apparently Millie was too sketched out by our little Bahamian ghetto to get out of the cab and had the driver take her to the Sharaton. Her loss we decided. In the morning we walked to the store for water and for some reason brought back 10 milk jug gallons! Our companions filled up the grocery cart thinking it would be no big deal to just steal the cart. Turns out that is frowned upon in the Bahamas...

That night we went to the famous Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island. Atlantis is like a Vegas hotel and casino dropped in the Bahamas and was super touristy and super American. But hey, they were showing the football game! Also, I accidently left my camera in the cab on the way over and our cabbie, Goldie, came back to give it to me. I'm telling you, Bahamian people are just wonderful! Everyone we talked to was so nice. It might be noted that even though as soon as you talked to someone they were extremely plesant, walking around I constantly felt like I was getting the stink eye from everyone...

Brian and Paul are on the top. Moonlynn, Me, Ivanhoe, Ryan and Tae are on the bottom.

The next morning we went to the beach for Brians first snorkeling trip! The reef and fish were not the greatest in the world but there were some pretty blue fish. The better part of the trip was the second leg, when they took us to some grassy beds to dive for conch shells. starfish, and sand dollers. The captians assistant (first mate?) even climbed in the water to help grab the conch shells. I was way too scared to pick anything up through the long grass but Paul found a really rare shell. Swimming back to the boat a 6-foot Baracuda started circling Brian and I in the water!

When we got back to shore the capitan cut up some raw conch meat for us to eat and the first mate helped Paul get the meat out of his shell. You can't boil or cut it out without ruining the shell so you have to beat it against the sand for about 45 minutes!

After snorkeling we walked around town a bit and were approached by a lady that braided hair. I asked if she could to dreadlocks instead and she could! She then proceeded to braid Brians hair for some reason. I kept asking if she was going to make them actual dredlocks and she would say, "At the end!" but then she never did... Brians hair did end up pretty cool though! He's got three rastafarian beads on the right side and we're both suprised he hasnt been hassled more at airport security since. On the plus side, he gets to have a sweet 'fro when we take them out. Also, we can take them out, where dreadlocks would have been a shave his head deal.

Day One in the Bahamas

After three flights over one day and one night we found ourselves in Nassau, Bahamas this morning. We'd been through the tiny Long Beach, California airport where temperatures were mild and the sky was cloudy. We'd been through Ft. Lauderdale, Florida too, where thunder and lighting were booming all around.

Ft. Lauderdale did have some of the most amazingly tall, ominous clouds ever though:

Even so, you can imagine our happiness to see these beautiful blue skies:

We met up with some travel companions (Ryan, Moonlynn and Ivanhoe) and headed to our rental apartment. We got settled in and took to the streets. We hopped on a Jitney bus full of Bahamian school children headed for downtown. The kids were lively and fun. One of them was very interested in Brian's hair. We walked around downtown and saw the cruise ship docks and a nice open air market. We wanted the beach but found out that it was another bus ride away. That is, until we noticed the hidden sliver of white sand and bobbing swimmers in front of the Hilton hotel. We walked through the lobby liked we owned the place and moseyed down to the beach. Of course, we were stopped by the beach attendant, "Are you hotel guests?" No, we're not, but good ole Ivanhoe sweet talked us in with no effort. So we enjoyed the private beach and crystal clear water for some time.

Then we got hungry and asked the concierge where to get authentic Bahamian food. He sent us to Twin Brothers Fish Fry and assured us it was about one block down the road. After a good lesson in Bahamian 'blocks' we finally arrived. And the food was worth the wait. The Bahama stable is Conch Shell meat. We enjoyed Conch in fritter, burger, and salad form. Brian and I also got the fried Snapper that came whole with the head still on and bones in! It was very exciting.

One Month Home in Washington: Highlights

A "Best Of" list for our time home in Washington:

Best Birthday Photo! We had an awesome welcome home when we pulled in on my birthday.

Best Camping Trip: Birch Bay
(Also best puppy)

Best Lynden Fair Attraction: Eye massage helmets and shiatsu space vests.

Best Goodbye Party: Ours! Lots of friends came out to send us off right and it was an awesome time. Thanks guys!

Next step, vacation!

Alaska Road Trip

We took off from Anchorage on Monday the 2nd and drove to Tok, Alaska where we stayed at the Sourdough Campground. This was a nice place with a Sourdough Pancake Toss every night and a community campfire with free marshmallows! Lots of RVs though and lots of retirees. We tossed pancakes at a bucket... we missed... and paid for breakfast. The pancakes were not nearly as good as the ones we had in Seward that Grandma made.

Tuesday we drove to Whitehorse and on the way we stopped to make a heart out of white rocks in the hillside.

That night we stayed at this little hippie commune campground right outside of town. There were no sites left so they said to set up the tent on the lawn and that's what we did. Us and a few other campers including two bikers from Edmonton. They offered to share their picnic bench with us and so we stayed up late with them swapping road stories. We really liked this campground because it was tent only. We've discovered that RV parks have a much older and stuffier feel.

Then in the morning, to Liard Hot Springs and Campground. We heard there was skinny dipping after midnight! On the road there we ran into a heard of buffalo and saw 5 bears!!! Including a momma and two babies! We talked to some folks at the hot springs that had driven through this heard of buffalo as well. One twelve-year-old girl said, "Did you see the giant buffalo testicles?!?" Unfortunately, we missed those. :)

The hot springs were a blast! Really beautiful and natural pools.

Because the bears were within about 15 minutes of the campground I was a little nervous and we decided not to head up for a midnight dip. But the Springs are open 24 hours for campers!

Today we woke up with no set plans or destination in mind. On the road we stopped for a short hike to some salt licks and ran into some Stone Sheep! We stopped at Charlie Lake campground near Fort St. John and found a pretty good site at about 8:30 pm. We were really in the mood for a shower so we used our heads and found a really cool swimming pool with a slide where we could have some fun and get showers in! So after setting up the tent we headed into town to find the pool and get some food for a campfire. We ended up showing up at the pool just in time for their last swim of the night. After that we got to Safeway just in time to get our groceries. We got lots of great grilling food like corn, zucchini, and dogs. Then, just to make it perfect, we pulled into the liquor store/bar to get some beer to go five minutes too late, but the girl was nice and sold us the beer anyway. After all of that, we showed up at the campground to find the gate closed to vehicles! So, we hiked in, packed up the tent, and here we are at the motel. It's 900 degrees in this room (Celsius, mind you), and it has little to do with the strip club downstairs.

We're really looking forward to getting home and seeing everyone soon! We will probably have a long day tomorrow and stay somewhere in southern BC. We're definitely going to find a campground with fire pits because we were both bummed we missed out on our campfire tonight. We're hoping to get into the states early afternoon on the 7th.