We made it from Assateague to home without incident. When we arrived home, we found that the internet and phones weren’t working. That wasn’t a surprise, because I had lost communication with our home monitoring system, and this was the most likely explanation. I called Verizon. After going through a long menu of stuff, I didn’t punch a number quickly enough and was put in the 30 minute hold queue (as opposed to having them call me back). When I was finally connected, I could hear Verizon, but they couldn’t hear me. I had to hang up and call again. On the second call, I got a loud screeching sound. The third call finally worked. Their call center equipment is in terrible shape. They agreed to come out at 9 on Wednesday, which was good enough for us. The tech showed up at 9, declared the fiber interface was no good, and that he didn’t have one on his truck. By Noon, he had installed his third interface, none of which worked. I found out that we had the “old” interface, which was over 8 years old. After 3 strikes, Verizon updated me to the “new” interface, and our service was quickly restored. All in all, it was 4 1/2 hours to get FIOS working.

I also had some unusual warnings from the sump pump during a heavy rain. My neighbor came over and said nothing was flooding. It could be that the pump was having a hard time keeping up with the water flow, or it could be that the backup pump was running. This turned out to be good news. The pump was running fine, and by the time we got home, the heavy flow of water was over.

The third issue was that parts came loose in our disposal. We aren’t big believers in disposals, but the sink is set up for one, and if you can’t run them the quickly get clogged up. That was a call to the plumber, who replaced it without drama.

I went out for a couple of bike rides this week and was shocked to see how bad the Ellicott City damage was from the flood they had recently. The damage to the historic downtown section was well publicized, but they had much more damage than I knew about. I like riding several roads that run along streams. Most of them are closed, because the streams overran their banks so much that the undercut the roads and the road is totally washed out. I have no idea whether some of these roads will ever be repaired. I’m sure glad Danita and I don’t live in one of those cute houses with a stream in the front yard and a short bridge in the driveway. Whether the house is damaged or not, it’s not very useful if it can’t be reached.

Everything is working. We’re caught up on chores and food prep. It must be time to go to West Palm Beach and start The Great Northern Loop Tour!

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We went to Dover, DE yesterday. We saw the John Dickinson Plantation (signer of the constitution) and the Air Mobility Museum (all about air transport, at Dover Air Force Base). Then we decided to stop sight-seeing and watch “Oceans 8”. It was a typical summer movie. Since we had to drive through Berlin to get home, we decided to have really good ice cream for dinner. It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun.

This is our last week at Assateague. We will check-out about 10:00 Monday, then drive home. We have several days before The Great Northern Loop Trip with Mom and Dani.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We spent some time Saturday at an old furnace town near Show Hill. It’s a kind of Jerusalem Mill on steroids, based on an 18^th century iron furnace “company town”. They have a dozen or so buildings reflecting different aspects of life in the town. The day we were there, they had a blacksmith and a printer running their respective shops. Both were interesting people.

We will drive home immediately after work Tuesday. Mark is defending his thesis Wednesday. We will attend his presentation, along with Jiajia, Ed, and Lynne. We aren’t invited to hang while Mark’s committee discusses his thesis with him, so Jiajia will take us to visit the University of Maryland ice cream creamery. Danita and I will take everybody out to dinner Wednesday evening to celebrate. Besides being an interesting and fun day, it gives us an opportunity to take our cold-weather gear home. We will return early Thursday morning, so we can get back in time for a school group presentation we will lead on Thursday.

The last school group visit at Assateague Island is Friday. After that, we will transition to a Wednesday – Sunday work week so we can do traditional interpretive ranger programs with park visitors.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Our supervisor Kelly has a new hobby. She is learning how to be part of the Salisbury roller derby team. Saturday they were playing their only home game during our stay here, against the Reading, PA team. Naturally we had to go see it. It was our first roller derby. We don’t know that much about the sport, but it was a lot of fun watching. Too bad the game was so lopsided, with a score of 180 to 105 in favor of the visitors.

That anchored our weekend. We decided that while we were in Salisbury, we should definitely visit the Salisbury Zoo. Unfortunately, we found the zoo was closed, simply because the entrance was under a foot of water. Imagine! After all, a good pair of wading boots is at least two feet high. Who on the Eastern Shore doesn’t own a decent pair of waders?

I was hoping to spend the morning at the zoo, but since that wasn’t going to be possible, we moved on to our next activity, the Ward Museum. This museum is about hand carved duck decoys. I couldn’t imagine anything more boring than a bunch of old, faded carved ducks. When we arrived, the museum “lived up” to my expectations with a retrospective room, a history of duck hunting on the Eastern shore, and a room full of old faded carved ducks. But the room after that go much more interesting. With decoys being made in a factory out of plastic, carving ducks out of wood has become an amazing art form. (Plus, their gift shop had some way cool coffee cups.)

The Ward Museum is home of the world-wide water fowl carving contest. Many winning carvings were on display. The carvings look exactly like a live bird. Artists even carve individual feathers and then place them on their carving to enhance the realism. Some carvings are carefully balanced on impossibly thin support wires, cleverly disguised as part of a wing or tree branch.

We rounded the day out with the movie “Rampage”. It was a combination of Japanese monster movie and an American disaster film. It had every formulaic stereotype in the book. Critics panned it. It was also funny as all get out. Danita and I found it totally entertaining and a great hoot.

We enjoyed an excellent lunch at the Back Street Grill. Today we attended a Church breakfast – all you can eat for $10. The food was good and plentiful, and the money went to a good cause.

Even our professional lives are doing well. The accolades are rolling in, as you can see.

That’s it for this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We finished our busiest week. Our primary job is to run the presentations for schools that schedule visits to the park. Last week, we had up to 8 presentations in one day. We needed all hands on deck. Now the very busy part of our job is over. We have half days of work for the rest of the month. We’ll be helping out with other aspects at the park, but there isn’t all that much that’s important until the big crowds come, starting on Memorial Day weekend.

We’ve had to make adjustments. Our internet plan provides 10 GBytes of data a month. I was shocked to learn that the web pages we visit and our Email use nearly 3 times that much data. Adapting is not very hard. We also get a bonus of 50 GBytes of data a month, provided it is used between 2 and 8 AM. We are early risers. We start our work day at 8:30. So we’re doing our internet in the morning. We turn our connection off for the rest of the day. We have two new housemates starting today. Ben is living upstairs. He is doing a bat survey and will be here for a couple of weeks. Karen is living in one of the bedrooms downstairs. She is a “free spirit” and quite a talker. She took a seasonal job here because the ocean is her “healing place”. She’s a very nice person, but definitely works at a different wavelength than Danita and I. After dinner, we sequestered ourselves in our room. We knew that more people would eventually live in the house with us, but we thought that they would tell us a day or so ahead before people came. We learned of Ben and Karen when they showed up.

We had a very uncharacteristic weekend. It started out normally. Saturday was sunny and warm. We did chores and took bike rides. The strangeness started Sunday. We went out to breakfast on Mother’s Day. Normally, we consider that the worst day of the year to eat out, but we went to 7 AM Mass, and got to the restaurant before the crowds. Then went up to Rehoboth Beach to visit the outlet stores. We’re looking forward to our trip to France. In our previous travels, we’ve found that there are times when the best plan is to wash clothes in the hotel sink. That doesn’t work for heavy pants and shirts, because the clothes don’t dry fast enough. I still remember working in Paris, unable to find a wash and fold, and spending a small fortune to get my clothes laundered. (I was on an expense account at the time.) We got some light weight clothes that dry quickly. This was a desperation trip. We tried shopping in Columbia. The stores don’t carry a broad selection of these kinds of clothes (even REI). I looked online, but felt uncomfortable buying clothes I couldn’t see or try on. It was a productive trip. I found all the pants and shirts I will need. Danita found a couple of things. The discounts are astounding, but shopping at the outlet stores was stressful. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Danita’s support.

The rest of the weekend was a bit of a bust. After the beautiful weather Saturday, Sunday was 60 degrees with occasional rain. We cancelled our other plans and spent the day at our temporary home, relaxing until we found ourselves talking with Karen.  ;-)

We had some very good news this week. Mark is scheduling his thesis defense. We’re looking forward to attending.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We drove a day to get down, a day to get back, and spent a day a the Reeds. It was worth every minute of driving.

Elizabeth, Bryon, Pat – Waiting for time to leave

Four Generatons (The dress was warn by Danita, Jul, Elizbeth. The pearls were from Leona.)

Pat getting into trouble (Elizabeth might fall in!)

During the service – Elizabeth reading, Bryon alter serving

The Women – Danita, Jul, Godmother Barbara, Melody, Elizabeth

We coasted through this work week. We were asked to come down early. Truth be told, we could have come a week later and done our duties without failing. Programs for each grade (pre-K through 4) are already designed. Most of the programs are pretty good, but we had to overhaul one activity. The program is about how animals adapt to their environment. It included the “5 bucket” game. Each bucket has 4 clues. Kids are supposed to use the clues to guess the animal. It’s not a bad idea, but most of the clues weren’t about animal adaptations. One of the clues was totally ridiculous. Our new game has better clues, each of which addresses one part of the animal’s adaptation to its environment.

Monday we will have our official orientation. This is where we are corralled into a room. We are supposed to keep our eyes open until lunch, when we are released. Tuesday we attend a program offered by a full time ranger. Wednesday and Thursday we will sink or swim. Each day we will receive about 90 kids. The kids are divided into 3 groups. The groups will rotate through 3 programs. One is a session is led by the teacher. The second is a forest walk, led by a ranger. Danita and I will lead a beach walk. So we will do 3 beach walks Wednesday, 3 more Thursday. The beach walk is pretty easy. We talk about mole crabs, ghost crabs, and sand dunes. We let the kids run around barefoot in the sand. We dig in the sand, sift it in sand sifters, and look at the sand with magnifying glasses. I’m pretty sure the kids would be happy just to run around for an hour. There is one part of the program we won’t do. Some of the smallest sand particles are black. These are magnetite. We were told the magnetite could be picked up with a magnet. That didn’t work. Then we were told the sand had to be totally dry for this to work. We dried some sand. Totally dry. It still didn’t work. I tried using a horseshoe magnet and a metal bar, with a small gap on one side to focus the magnetic field. It still didn’t work. We had some plastic covered “wand” magnets that a few particles would stick to, but that could have been from static electricity. It didn’t impress us. It certainly wouldn’t impress 30 4th graders. It has nothing to do with the theme (what a plant or animal needs to live on the sea shore.) It’s off the program.

Yesterday was quite nice — Sunny, 65, and a slight breeze. We have a very large screened porch on the back of our house. We opened the back door and aired  the house. We spent the morning cleaning the house and porch. I took a bike ride in the afternoon. Danita did a little riding and some yoga. Then we kicked back and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Today after Church (in Ocean City) we visited the Life Rescue museum, about how people were rescued from ships that foundered off the shore. We saw life saving equipment and techniques used 150 years ago. Then we walked out onto the boardwalk and watched the kite convention. We saw plenty of kites, including some synchronized kite flying. We were inspired to buy a tacky whirley twirley. The bicycle theme suites me; the pink flamingo is a Baltimore thing. (You can also see part of our porch and our Internet satellite dish.) For lunch, we stopped by the Island Creamery in Berlin on the way home. They have the best ice cream we have ever had. Their “one scoop” cup has as much ice cream as anybody else’s 3-scoop jumbo. I can’t begin to imagine what their 2-scoop cup must have.

We’re looking forward to traveling to Jul’s next weekend for Elizabeth’s First Communion. We will leave Thursday and take a day of “vacation” Friday. Stand by for grand-kid pics next week.

After our second week of training, we feel comfortable in assuming our forthcoming duties. We have another full week before we will do our first solo presentations, so we’re pretty comfortable. I want to go over and formalize my notes, but I will have plenty of time to do that.

Yesterday was our goof-off day. We went to Pocomoke. Our original objective was to attend an ATV fest, but when we drove by that looked like a bust. So we visited the Pocomoke Discovery Center which is a museum of Eastern Shore life, and features two river otters. We also walked their nature trail through a small Cyprus forest, followed by a more traditional forest. When land is closes to sea level, a small change in elevation (just a foot or two) can drastically change the types of plants and wildlife. Here are a few pics of the otters.

It was an interesting first week. But we also had an “adventure” that affected the entire park. Our house has industrial toilet. There’s no tank or flapper valve. It’s just a water pipe that comes out of the wall. Push a handle, the valve opens, and lots of water noisily rushes out until the valve turns itself off a few seconds later. Except our valve ran for about 2 minutes one evening last week. I reported it promptly, then nothing happened. Monday night, it ran indefinitely. There are no water cutoff valves for the toilet. The water valve for the house is buried underground and requires a special tool. Danita and I had asked several times what to do in an emergency. We received a phone number for the housing coordinator. We called her, but neither she nor we could raise the head of maintenance. She suggested we sleep upstairs (which we ended up doing). I had heard that when this happens, one should flush another toilet. This will temporarily lower the water pressure, allowing the first valve to close. I don’t know if this ever works, but in our case we ended up with two toilets pushing water down the drain as fast as water would roll through the pipes. The head of maintenance finally got the texts and voice mails, and turned the water to our house off somewhere around 11 PM. We were sound asleep by them. The park has its own water treatment plant. The water that rolled through our house for 2 to 3 hours overwhelmed all the water plant systems. Everything was fixed by 9 or 9:30 the next day. But every last person in the park knows us as the folks who had a plumbing problem that affected the water.

Whatever adventures we end up having, they won’t compare to what some visitors experience. I was thinking about writing about the couple that lost a fender and wanted to find out if anybody had retrieved it from the beach. But a better example occurred just minutes before closing on Friday. A couple called because they were somewhere in the back country, driving in the surf, and their transmission stopped working. (Unlike in the movies, driving in the surf is a really bad idea in the real world.) Nobody was on hand to help. (One needs a truck with 7″ of clearance and 4-wheel drive just to travel safely on the sand.) The only thing we could do was to text them phone numbers for the 4 towing companies that have trucks capable of towing on the sand and wish them luck. Was the tide coming in? Did their car end up under water? I guess we’ll hear the rest of the story next week.

Our week was packed with positive experiences. We visited the back country in a truck that could safely travel on sand, driven by an expert who stayed well away from the surf. We visited the Virginia side of the island, learned a lot about the ecology of the area, and saw lots of horses. We spent all of Thursday and Friday outside. It was the first two warm days of the year, so we enjoyed excellent weather with no bugs. That’s very rare combination on Assateague Island.

Saturday we drove home to swap cars. We used our known-good charging station, which worked fine. We had no problems on the drive. We’ll be taking our gas car down tomorrow. I’ll end this with pictures of the area. It’s just about what one would expect.

The folks with Danita are Brooks and Travis. They are great guys with amazing knowledge of the wildlife, history, and ecology of the area. The tombstone is the only remaining evidence of an early cemetery. (It was the only stone tombstone.) The woods area is a typical back-country campsite. There’s nothing but a vault toilet and a picnic table. The water was very clear because it was still cold enough that there was a minimum of all those very small and widely assorted living critters in the water. The last pics are general landscape.