I'll Admit it...I'm a horrible blogger by Tricia Baehr

Seems like I had good intentions with this blogging thing but living in the moment can really distract me from going backwards to recollect what we saw, did or learned about on this confounded blog! I love to write, so much so that I find myself doing it at random times. Long hand flows out of me into notebooks and journals. Finding the inspiration to re-type my musings into the blog not so much. We have seen and done some amazing things since the last blog post. Traveled around quite a bit and generally just enjoying the freedom, love and joy of being able to do so. John is working and enjoying what he does. We all seem to be finding our groove in this quirky little lifestyle we have created. The children are expanding in ways that is hard to describe. Some things are coming full circle and some are coming to a close.
I am grateful for that closure.

Another excuse I have is my new digital camera. Seems I turned it on when charging the battery which resulted in the rechargable battery going dead. I've looked several places, several times and they are always sold out of the type of battery my camera needs. A picture is definately some mighty fine inspiration for me to write upon, when it comes to blogging. Any hoo...I will try to blog more but I'm not making any promises. Follow my twitter--maybe you'll catch a glimpse of our wonderful life on the road.

Until next time...embody the love and the light within you, this moment is all we have.

Tracks by Birke baher

Today at Blythe Island Regional Park B.I.R.P. for short. : ) Anyways I went on a walk with my brother Brandt on a sand trail.While we were walking we stubled upon DEER TRACKS!!!!!!So I pulled out my Kodak camera and took pictures of the tracks.(as you see below)Sooooooo.... we walked on and on and on and on......................Finally we came cross garbage so to be good to mother earth I picked it up and put it in recycle bin!!!(Please recycle,be good to mother earth)Anyways we came upon racoon tracks so I took a picture of those.(as seen below)Soooooo....... That's my blog called TRACKS by me(birke)

Educational Information

The Sponge Docks by Birke Baehr ( a written report)

The sponge docks in Tarpon Springs, Florida is one of a few areas where natural sea sponges grow in the Gulf of Mexico. Two kinds of sponges that grow in the Gulf are the yellow sponge and the wool sponge. Another type that grows in the Mediterranian is called the silk sponge. A sponge is a living breathing animal, the sponge has a membrane on the outside which is called the gurry. The yellow part is the skeleton for the membrane. I bought a yellow sponge at the Sponge Factory (watch the video there it's free) Come Check out Tarpon Springs, FL and make sure you visit the sponge docks.

The Sponge Docks by Bailey Baehr ( a written report)

There are different kinds of sponges here are some, silk sponge, yellow sponge, finger sponge, wool sponge there are also the loofah which is not a sponge at all. The part that they take is the skeleton. They sort them by placing them through circles cut out of wood for the different sizes.

And how they get them is by a SCUBA diver. It was amazing. The end.

Road Poetry by Tricia Baehr

Silently they all slept.
Their breath was all that was heard.
The beauty of the in and the out.
Inside my own chest I could feel the beating of my heart.
I could feel the blood pumping through my veins.
For the first time in years the feeling in the pit of my stomach was gone.
I knew that I was on the right path.
Peacefulness swept over me as I flipped on the blinker and changed lanes.
In the side view mirror I saw the hills of my upbringing slip away.
Eyes forward.
The adventure, the possibilities lie ahead.
Change.
Chances.
Renewal.
The corners of my lips upturn and spread into a most glorious smile.
Yes, yes.
This is it.
It's on it's way.
And the movie orchestra music in my head strikes up a score and I can hear the angels playing our song.

Tarpon Springs & Dunedin Florida by Tricia Baehr

We've just left a great area that we want to share with everyone. Tarpon Springs, FL is located on Florida's Gulf Coast just north of the St. Petersburg area. The area known as the Sponge Docks provided us with a wonderful cultural and educational experience. The Baehr kids learned all about sponges and the sponge industry there as well as a great deal about the Greek culture and best of all Greek food. We would recommend the following restaurants, Mama Marias, Costas and Hellas. The kids already loved calamari but have now added, saganaki (Opa! cheese), keftedes, greek salads, greek chicken/lemon soup, gyros, souvlaki and baklava to their ethnic foods they love.

We also found a great little shop there, The Spice & Tea Exchange http://www.spiceandtea.com/ where we bought some great teas & spices. The proprietors, Jen & Dennis Macke were so friendly and informative. Birke is in love with the Phoenix Oolong tea and we are anticipating their "Florida Sunshine" salt blend on all the seafood we hope to be eating while in this part of the country. We also liked that they had bulk spices, spice mixes and teas in large jars so you could purchase a little or a lot. Which means less packaging and a smaller impact on the environment.

We stayed at the Dunedin RV Resort on Alt. 19 which was clean, neat and lots of friendly folk there. The kids LOVED all of the many dogs that live there with their people (just a note, I believe they have a pet free section) http://www.campingfriend.com/dunedinrvresort/

We also enjoyed the beach at Honeymoon Island http://www.floridastateparks.org/honeymoonisland/default.cfm on December 30th the kids played on the beach and Brandt and Bailey even swam quite a bit in the Gulf. The sand was white like granulated sugar with lots of stones and shells to play with.

We watched all the fireworks on New Years from the Dunedin Causeway, we could see from Port St. Richey all the way down to the St. Petersburg area. We found the Dunedin recycling center which was great except we felt that they needed to take plastics 1-7 instead of just plastic bottles. The downtown Dunedin area http://www.dunedin-fl.com/is great for walking around, shopping and restaurants-we had breakfast at a little coffee house there.

There was so much to see and do in this area, we barely scratched the surface...luckily for us the job John was working on there will require us to go back there and for his company to do another 10k sq. ft. in the future so we're excited about that!

Our First Christmas "on the road" by Tricia Baehr

This is our first Christmas as a “family on the road” and we put quite a bit of thought into what we would do. We didn’t want to celebrate in the RV so we had several ideas. One of them was to drive half way to Illinois and stop in downtown Louisville, KY or Indianapolis, IN. I researched different hotels, Bed & Breakfasts, Inns, etc. I actually even e-mailed a group of Inns in Indianapolis to see what kind of accommodations they would have for the 23rd of December through the 25th. They didn’t reply, so I took that as a sign.
Also, because of our busyness I contacted an on-line concierge service to plan something in one of those cities for us. Apparently, that was a sign too because they didn’t reply either. Amazing to me in the economic climate that exist right now that we were ready and willing to give our hard earned money to someone in business and they didn’t respond.
So that bring us to our first Christmas “on the road”. We are at a cabin in the mountains http://www.smokycabins.com/rayoavista.htm. It is Christmas eve morning as I write, there is a lovely wood fire burning in the fireplace. When we made the booking the property manager went on and on about how nice the cabin is decorated for Christmas. The large tree fully decorated. I told John that not having to put up a tree or take one down was worth at least a Ben Franklin right there. We oohed and ahhed at the pictures on the internet, there was even a picture of the tree!
We arrived the night of the 23rd of December, it was dark and we had a little trouble finding it at first. But soon we turned off the GPS and read the directions from the cabin rental company. We pulled up and found the key in the lock box, opened the door turned on the lights and much to our dismay there was no tree! The kids ran up the stairs to see if perhaps it was upstairs…no tree. There were some lovely decorations on the mantel, the table was set with pretty red dishes and gold chargers but no tree. We are really not the type to complain too much but with three little kids experiencing their first Christmas without a “stick” house it was kind of a deal breaker. I called the property manager and asked about the tree. She called me back and said she really didn’t have a good answer for me but the next day she would bring us a small tree. She also said we could move to another cabin that she knew for sure was fully decorated. We had already unloaded our groceries, gifts and stuff into the cabin. So I told her we would discuss it as a family and decide what we would do and I would call her back. Everyone was unanimous in deciding to stay, so when I called her back I inquired about the beautiful tree in the pictures. Was it here somewhere locked away, could we put it up ourselves? She let me in on where it was and how to get to it. What at first seemed like a disappointment turned into a beautiful, fun and memorable experience. It’s a beauty, a 7 footer with gold decorations, white lights, signs that say, “Peace” and white doves. We all enjoyed trimming the tree last night together. And even better, we won’t have to take it down!
It reminds me of so many things in life. It is how you look at them. We could have been angry, demanded our money back, schlepped all of our stuff over to the other “decorated” cabin probably all being short with one another over the extra work. But instead, we chose to make it work. We made the choice and then the goodness and energy flowed bringing us a beautiful memory that we enjoyed making “in the moment” and will have forever more. I pray that that kind of acceptance and ingenuity will continue with our life “on the road”.
We have the rest of today, Christmas eve and all day tomorrow here together. The day after Christmas we will be back “on the road” visiting family up North and hopefully the kids will get to see and play in some snow. I will attempt to blog some more about this holiday. If not you will all know that we were all busy being in the moment and enjoying this gift I like to call life.

Chattanooga, Tennessee by Tricia Baehr

Having lived in Knoxville, Tennessee before we became a “Family on the Road” the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee wasn’t much more than a city that we passed through on our way to somewhere else. Yesterday we had on our agenda to attend an event hosted by our dear friends from The Sequatchie Valley Institute www.svionline.org . So a stop in Chattanooga was in our plans. We arrived a little after 2pm and headed down Market Street, we found a great place to park our rig on Main St. just around the corner from where the event was to take place later that evening.

We set off on foot to discover this newly revitalized section of town, the kids were hungry and wondering what we were going to be doing. Of course the best part about being us is sometime we don’t know what we’re going to be doing…sometimes it’s just all about the adventure!

As we went down the block one of the first things we noticed was some incredible art installations right out on the street. We always enjoy outdoor sculpture because it allows our imaginations to soar. We even found a gate made from scrap metal that was an amazing piece of art--see pic. Another sculpture looked like a piece of a large colorful boomerang.

The next gem we found was the historic, Chattanooga Choo Choo. I remembered being there as a child in the mid 70’s, it seemed just as grand yesterday as it did to me then.
The kids loved climbing on the choo-choo itself and we wandered around the gardens outside admiring the dozens of varieties roses many still blooming even with it being mid November.

“We’re hungry!” the kids cried, and since it was pass two o'clock in the afternoon the restaurant appeared closed. So it was back to the streets of Chattanooga we roamed. As we wandered down the street, I noticed a small sign in the shape of a teapot across the street. I wondered out loud if it was a gift shop or possibly a tea room. Much to our delight it was both! It didn’t take much convincing to get the boys, John or Bailey to venture in and partake in a proper English tea.

What a treat it was! The English Rose Authentic British Tea Room & Shop located at 1401 Market St. in Chattanooga www.theenglishroseonline.com and it is a warm and inviting place. We were lucky enough to have the place to ourselves and were surrounded by hundreds of beautiful china teacups, tea pots, tea accessories, lacy table clothes, roses and the like. Our server started us out with pot of tea, surrounded by what, I explained to the kids, was a tea cozy. At each place setting was a lovely tea cup with a tiny tea spoon. On the table was a bowl of sugar and a container of cream. Bailey put on her proper, tea party voice as she politely asked for the cream and sugar to be passed. We ordered the Victorian Tea which came with assorted finger sandwiches, scones, strawberry jam, lemon curd, English biscuits, English Cheeses, crackers and a dessert. John had a banger (sausage) on a crusty roll smothered with onions and Birke added a half cup (a bowl really) of delicious homemade tomato basil soup which came with a crusty roll. I jokingly suggested to the boys that an afternoon date to a place like this with a girl when they are older would make any girl's heart melt.

We all enjoyed it so much, it was fun watching the kids “put on” their best manners as they asked politely for “more tea. please” or “to pass the cream or sugar, please”. The proprietress shared with us pictures of the old building that they renovated to become this amazing little jewel that we just happened upon because we were open to adventure that afternoon and had no plans. She also shared with us a story of her childhood in Zimbabwe and boarding school and how her love for “knickerbockers” got her in a pinch more than once (if you want to know the whole story, you’ll just have to visit and find out for yourself!) It was evident that much love had gone into The English Rose and our server let us know that it was listed as one of the top 25 tea rooms in America. We were all delighted and grateful for our afternoon tea time experience!

Afterwards, we continued to explore the area, poking our heads into little art galleries, antique shops, and such just wandering around just enjoying the experience. Sometimes people look at us a little funny with three kids on a school day looking like we’re on vacation or something. Sometimes it opens up a dialog about what we are doing on the road and other times not. I suppose the folks we do end up having conversations with or a connection to, are those that we are suppose to meet out on the road and our grand adventure!

Around 6pm we wandered back to Green Spaces where we could all become informed, enlightened and amazed by the collaborative artwork and message of The Bee Hive Collective http://www.beehivecollective.org/ a non-profit, donation funded only, group of worker “Bees” who research, dialogue and investigate political, environmental and social injustices then put them into a form of storytelling artwork. The project that was shared with us is about mountaintop removal and “The True Cost of Coal”. The images, metaphors, stories that are told through their art is an incredibly moving form of media and art. All of the 5 Baehrs would highly recommend anyone reading this blog to take note of the impact mountain top removal has upon this planet. This issue isn’t just about what is happening locally where our beautiful mountains are being destroyed but about how the process is effecting the entire planet in more ways than I personally could have ever imagined. I am grateful to have become more aware of this process and will be asking Spirit to guide me to ways in how we personally as a family can help to heal this and assist in some small way to make it better. Go to http://www.stopmountaintopremoval.org/ and sign the petition--especially if you love the beauty of mountains and nature, but even more so if you enjoy clean water and air to breath!