Smiths Visit the Manatees on March 22, 2010

Our friends from Canton, Georgia came down for a day to swim with the manatees. This is Barron and Irene Smith and Irene's son, Cody,visiting from Denver. The Smith's have two kayaks which they brought. Barron & Cody used them while Irene & Jim went in our canoe.

This is Barron Smith. He enjoyed just swimming around the manatees and watching them.

Cody was very brave and went right in to swim with mask & snorkle among the manatee. He did want to touch them, since this was his first encounter. (They have rough skin.)

He did manage a touch or two with the manatee. Note the one-handed touch, in keeping with the regulations in dealing with these gentle creatures.

This is Irene in the canoe as a mantee comes up for a breath. (I was unable to go on this trip due to my back surgery on March 3rd.)

Irene is making sure she gets lots of photos.

Jim is also there with my camera to get some good shots.

The night before their trip to Three Sisters was very cold, so the manatee were really gathered in the spring in numbers. This was unusual. For five years we have made trips to the spring to see if the manatee are there and have only encountered one or two in those years. This cold winter made for great manatee watching & swimming.

This shot shows quite a few of them gathered. If you did not know what you were looking at you would think they were big rocks on the bottom.

And here is a cute manatee face!

This is another shot showing the numbers of manatee there. The nice thing about the spring is that the water is so clear that you can photograph the manatee from above the water with some success, as opposed to the rivers where the water is not as clear.

March 18, 2010-Michael Chevrier & Aubrey Ames Come to see Mamatees

Our second oldest grandson, Michael Chevrier, and his Fiance', Aubrey, came to visit us and to see the manatees in the Three Sisters' Speings.

They used our canoe, while Jim rented a kayak to guide them there. I was unable to go due to my back pain. Here are two manatees, perhaps a mother and calf.

Here are Michael & Aubrey, after swimming with the manatee. I think they had a very successful trip. They used Aubrey's Dad's underwater camera & were able to get some great shots as well as two videos. If you are interested in the videos, let me know & I will send them to you.

Note the "bite" out of the tail of this manatee. Most have scars and other injuries, mostly from run-ins with boats.

Coming right at ya! These are marvelous photos, taken by Michael & Aubrey.

This is a manatee cow & her calf.

This is another close-up!

This is a cow & her calf swimming away. You are not to scare them but may only touch them with one hand.

This is rare...a calf nuirsing off her mother! The nipple is just under the flipper.

This is another shot of the calf nursing. I now want an underwater camera like this one! :-)

Here are the two lovebirds at another park near us called Rainbow Springs Park. They seem happy, don't they! Actually they will be married in Denver oin June 18, 2010. It was so great to have them spend time with us and the manatees!

February 19, 2010-Ellsworth's Visit

Last winter was not the greatest for us, health-wise. About two weeks after after arriving at Sandy Oaks RV Park, in Beverly Hills, FL, about Nov 3rd, we each had some major health issues. Mine was a wrenched back which resulted in extreme sciatic pain down my left leg to prevent me from walking. Shortly after that happened to me and I was on major pain medication, Jim had a detached retina. Soooo.... we asked some good frinds to drive us back to Atlanta to have surgery on Jim's eye the next day. Jim could not drive nor could I, so our friends, the Annis', drove their car with Jim lying across their back seat and drove our Jeep with me in the passenger seat.


Bottom line is all went well. Jim has better than 20/20 in both eyes and I had my back surgery at Emory University on March 3rd and am doing fine.

The best thing about the winter was that we had lots of guests in Florida, when we were there, to go and see manatee in the wild at our Three Sister's Spring in Crystal River. It si wonderfulto swim near the manatee in the wild.



The first group to arrive were the Ellsworths. That includes my daughter, Katy, her husband, Dan, and their boys, Tad, Jared and Reed.

We took our canoe for Jim and I and Reed, while the others rented kayaks. Reed is watching his brothers and Jim load the canoe into the water.

Jared and Tad try out their yellow kayak as we leave the dock.

Katy and Dan are now at Three Sisters. See how clear the water is! They appear to be levitating!

Here they are again--Dan & Katy.

Due to an unusually cold winter, we saw lots of manatee in the spring. The water temperature in the spring is 72 degrees and the gulf is in the 50's.

Here is Jared, the brave one, getting his mask on to go see the manatees under water.

Jared is so brave he is trying to pet a manatee and does accomplish that. It was quite cold while we were there.Here is Jared touching the manatee. Katy took awhile to be brave enough to get in the water with those big creatures but finally did it also.

Here Dan & Katy are heading back out the entrance to the spring. It is a very beautiful place!

Jared & Tad are heading back from the spring. You can tell it is cold by the sweatshirts they are wearing.

Kamloops, BC, Canada to Othello, Washington, USA, August 29, 2009

We left the Walmart in Kamloops, British Columbia via route 97 in Canada heading east and then south. It was a very scenic road.

This is an old log cabin just south of Kamloops.

This is an old wooden barn with some tractors parked in the front.

This is a scene near Monte, British Columbia.

Another old barn near a modern field which is irrigated. This is a contrast between old and new.

This is a little old church. Note the spot on the winshield, in the photo, which is from a bug! :-)

I know, I know! I love old barns & houses almost as much as lighthouses! :-)

This is a Falkland street scene going now southeast toward Vernon, BC. These are very small little towns.

A lake scene coming into Vernon, BC. This is the beginning of a series of lakes connected by a river all the way south to the USA. It is very beautiful.

The next big town south of Vernon is Kelowna. This sign was beautiful with all the flowers out front.

We saw joggers near the river and tube floaters on the river as we traveled south from Kelowna. It was nice to see the people enjoying the recreational activities on a beautiful day!

Here the road turns at the end of the lake near Okanagan Falls, getting very near the U.S boarder. These cliffs were interesting.

From here south, we saw lots of vineyards. We are still in British Columbia, but wondered if this was similar to Italy's vineyards.

I don't think we were supposed to see these small houses for migrant workers because we only got a short glimpse since they were behind tall fences. This is the last scene we have from Canada. We continued south on Rt 97 to Rt 17 which we found just south of Monse in Washington State.

Although hard to see, the distant structure is Chief Joseph Dam, just west of the Grand Coulee Dam.

An abandoned ranch on south Rt 17, south of Chief Joseph's Dam. Can you imagine trying to make a living here for your family?

On the south end of Banks Lake, which has the Grand Coulee Dam at the north end, is this unusual dry falls. It is at the intesection of east west Rt 2 & south Rt 19. During the last ice age an ice dam would form in Montana, daming up a huge lake. Eventually this ice dam would break and the water would rush through here, making the largest waterfall the the earth has ever had. The water flow was larger than all the rivers in the world put together. This water eventually went down the Columbia River Canyon. Hard to believe.

This is what the dry falls might have looked like about 13,000 years ago!

This is the way it looks today, very "water worn" although it is located in a very dry area of Washington. Shortly after this Dry Falls area, we went through a small town where they had a town RV dump and available water for our fill-up. That was very nice.

This is our RV and Jeep parked at Dry Falls. You can see that this is a dry desert-like area.

This is a view of Soap Lake, just north of Ephrata, Washington.

This is another view of the road & Soap Lake.

This was a very interesting rock wall at the end of Soap Lake. We arrived in Othello, Washington by evening and stayed in the parking lot of their local Walmart. The next day was Sunday, so we attended church in Othello. We were introduced to Sister Andersen and several others who were so excited to pick our brains on genealogy. They were trying hard to get a genealogy class going but the class members were not present that Sunday, so we were able to help them with several new concepts, webpages, etc. Sister Andersen kindly asked us to dinner at her home after church! I felt like Sister Andersen and I were "kindred Spirits"; we got along so well. What a treat it was to be able to help the Othello Ward a little!