Savannah, Georgia

We really, really liked Savannah! It is an old historic town where there was lots of cotton exchange in the old days. We were charmed by its cobblestone streets and oak-shaded parks drizzling with silvery Spanish Moss.

We went to an art coop where an artist showed us around and invited us to touch the pieces (instead of telling us NOT to touch as it is usually the case in art stores). It was such a warm and welcome change!

It was warm on that day. Really warm and heavy. A storm came that night and cleared the air and it felt really good. But at that very moment, we all had enough of the humidity...

There are tons of beautiful squares like that in Savannah. It is one of these (Chippewa Square), that the famous bus bench scene from the movie Forrest Gump has been shot.

I love what the Lonely Planet has to say about Savannah:

Like a Southern belle with a split personality, this grand historic town revolves around formal antebellum architecture and unbridled public debauchery. It sits alongside the Savannah River, about 18 miles from the coast, amid Lowcountry swamps and mammoth live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss. With its gorgeous mansions, cotton warehouses and Colonial public buildings, Savannah preserves its past with pride, grace and a slight smirk. Unlike its sister city of Charleston, SC, which retains its reputation as a dignified and refined cultural center, Savannah revels in being the bad girl – the town has been described as ‘a beautiful lady with a dirty face,’ and in some ways it resembles a pint-sized New Orleans. Savannah loves its sinful pleasures, be they cheese grits, cocktails, or the bump and grind of partying local students.

And then, they were 5 again

As much as we enjoyed our beautiful weeks of community living, we were quite happy to be back to our sweet little unit of 5. We stayed put in beautiful Skidaway Island State Park (we even had a private pond on our campsite with once again a really cool magical forest as a playground beside it), near Savannah, Georgia. We played games, crafted and sewed, watched The Sound of Music, made green juice and Mathilde and I went for a bike ride, while JF, Mara and Aïsha were in Lego building mode. I love being with those guys so much!

 

Anastasia State Park, FL: Teamwork

**Please note that from now on, I will mostly write the blog posts in English and will only translate the very short ones in French. I spend many hours a week translating professionnally (most weeks!) and feeling like I also have to do translation for the blog has become a drag that keeps me from writing longer reflexions that I really want to share here. My English is not perfect, but I know that most of my readers understand English (whereas many do not read French) and this is why I chose this langage. I know some of you will be disappointed and I am sorry about that.

**Veuillez noter qu'à partir de maintenant, le blogue sera principalement en anglais et je ne traduirai que les billets très courts en français. Je passe déjà plusieurs heures par semaine à traduire dans un cadre professionnel (la plupart des semaines!) et le fait de sentir que je dois aussi traduire pour le blogue me pèse de plus en plus et m'empêche de partager ici les réflexions plus longues que j'ai envie d'écrire. Mon anglais n'est pas parfait, mais je sais que la plupart de mes lecteurs comprennent l'anglais (tandis que plusieurs ne lisent pas le français) et c'est pourquoi je choisis cette langue. Je sais que certains d'entre vous seront déçus et j'en suis désolée.

When we arrived at the beautiful beach of Anastasia State Park, we were quite surprised and disappointed to see the purple flag up (dangerous marine wildlife). It was the first time we saw a purple flag. We expected either jelly fish warnings or sharks. We spoke with local surfers and they told us they always keep the flag up and that it was not the season for neither jelly fish or sharks and that we could swim no problem. We called the rangers office and they confirmed that. We thought it was a weird decision, but were quite happy to find out we could throw ourselves in the water since it was so warm outside!

Teamwork for little ones and bigger ones, all day long!

Le travail d'équipe, chez les petits et les plus grands, toute la journée!

Those last two weeks of camping with friends made me realize how much traveling can be lonely and how much I miss having a community. It's a hard realization for a traveler at heart like me. I also saw how happy the girls were to be with their friends, how they learn from other children... I am not saying that we live in isolation while traveling but we sure do not belong to a community the same way we did when we lived in the Yukon, for instance. And a part of us misses that, of course. A part of me sees how much our girls are thriving on that too... I know that some traveling famillies choose to stay put in some specific location for a year or two, together, for that reason. For instance, there is a bunch of great families in Bali right now. If the time difference would not be such a big deal with our clients, that might have been an interesting option for us. But staying up all night to be in touch with our clients and do rush contracts is not the quality of life we are after...

However, I must confess that the lack of community has been the main drag for us in Costa Rica and living on the road (obviously, on the road, there is not much of a community... unless, you have a big network of people that you visit along the way. And since we left our friends Pascale and Anton, we haven't stopped at anyone's place... because we didn't know anyone!). So, there is a lot of thinking going on here... We'll keep you posted, of course!

Community camping at Hanna Park with our friends

What a dream week of camping we just had at Hanna Park in Jacksonville, Florida. Our friends Val and JF flew from Ottawa to come camping with us for a week and Helen Anne and Dan and the kids camped right by us too. A little community on the road. Exactly what we needed at this point of our trip!

Val and JF are also translators and JF is really good in the marketing stuff, among other things. I remember when I worked in an ad agency in the old days and I had a pitch to come up with for the next day. That night we were going out together to a Mexican restaurant and he was just firing up the best ideas over sangria and tacos. This time around, when a big rush contract fell on my lap Friday at a quarter to 5 (for Tuesday morning - and advertisement is not my usual line of work), I was so grateful he was there. Coming up with ideas together over gin and tonic while washing camping dishes didn't even felt like work!

Mountain biking with friends. Dropping our bikes in the middle of the trail because we spotted a barred owl that looked back at us for a while. Further down in the thick jungle-like forest, finding a very loud meowing and snuggly cat that looked so out of place that we felt it might have been a lost RV cat that needed to be saved... until JF and Mara caught up with us and reminded us that we were not in the middle of Big Bend National Park, but in a county park and that there were houses 350 meters away... I guess we were still in animal life saving mode...

Seeing how fast birds can build a nest when our friends left the back door of the van open one morning (in 4 hours they had brought a lot of material in there to start their nest!) 

Removing a tick from a very brave 5 yo little girl's neck (so glad for Google search even while camping!).


Organic frozen yogurt at Happy Cup in Jacksonville. Walking hand in hand with friends.

Hilarious Seinfeld impersonations. A shrimp peeling marathon. Hauling moss in firewood bags and made up games.

Hair cutting lessons. Flute lessons. Juice making lesson.

Very wet days and nights. Bike bruises. Sun burns. Bug bites.

And many, many, MANY games of Carcassonne at *almost* every hour of the day and night.

This is what group camping memories are made of...

Days at sea in good company

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**Veuillez prendre note que vous pouvez maintenant aimer Catherine et les fées sur Facebook (cliquez sur le bouton dans la barre de droite) ou inscrivez-vous pour recevoir un courriel chaque fois qu'un nouveau billet est publié pour ne rien manquer!

There are lots of treasure hunters along the Florida East Coast. There are always at least a couple of these guys every time we go to the beach.

We were so surprised to see a fisherman catch a baby hammerhead shark (by accident, he said it happens quite frequently around these parts..). The kids were fascinated!