Ft. Pierce Florida: HAPPY NEW YEAR

And here's to 2013!!! The Sparkle DReSs!

Ft. Pierce, FL: Finishing up 2012

It's been a few weeks since our last post, but we've got some news of things we've been doing, plans we've been making and overall sunshine that has been SHINING!

We're in that time right after Christmas and right before the New Years. The time that feels like you should be done eating all those cookies but then telling yourself "I'll stop after New Years". Everyone knows what we're talking about and don't try and tell us otherwise- We think about it everytime we break a cookie in half only to walk back to it and finish it seconds later. But alas, Tuesday will be here soon enough and that means no more even LOOKING at the cookies, because we're looking at Vegetables!!! And in our case, that is going to be true. We'll be starting to volunteer at another farm January 12th- February 11th: Cold Water Gardens. Their business idea is: 

"To develop a sustainable agri-tourism program while running a viable agriculture business where tourists can come and enjoy the land/wildlife, and also participate in sustainable farming and craft activities."

And we're excited to go and see what it's all about!

In other news, We've just locked down a couchsurf'ing place to stay at February 11 and 12th in New Orleans for MARDI GRAS!!!!! This will be an exciting adventure and we can't wait to meet Heather, our host who will point us in the right direction of where to go, what to eat, and experience while in New Orleans! Any of our blog followers with any Mardi Gras advice...?!?! From there, we'll be heading to Texas (hopefully to visit some friends in Houston and Austin), then New Mexico (Santa Fe), Arizona (Grand Canyon), and California (starting south and heading north- but should be ending our time here by the end of May)! Specifics are being modified daily and anyone with recommendations are encouraged to comment. We've made a great U.S. map out of the Welcome sign Jamie Depalma made us as a going away present that we can't wait to draw more dots on as we continue our journey!! 

As for our Sailing story, it was definitely full of SUNshine and adventure. Grandpa Chuck's neighbor Dwight and his wife invited us out on their boat for a short sail and a try at catching some Grouper! We left at 10:00 am as the weather was chilly in the early morning. We sailed around till noon and decided it was about time to haul back inland. We were about 10 minutes away from the dock when we tried to skirt around a boat that was going much slower than us, and THEN: **insert feeling and noise of a minor earthquake**, one of the keels got stuck in the sand. OOOPS! It was low tide and we wedged right into the sand so good that we were stuck there until 6:30 p.m. when the tide came back in!  It was a good thing Dwight and Laurie had some good stories of their lives full of travel and even some insight to the Burning Man festival their son had been to! We were lucky too that it was a clear day, the dolphins were swimming around us, and we got to enjoy a sunset and a moonrise all at the same time!

New Years eve will be here on Monday night! Kim will put on her sparkly dress that Curt made her buy (only $10) and we will bring in the NEW YEAR with Maggie and Grandpa Chuck, and some tasty Alligator Tail we got at the Saturday Farmers Market!  We hope everyone has a happy New Year's and feel free to spend your evening celebrating by looking at some of our latest pictures on Facebook! 

****ATTENTION: A CALL OUT TO OUR FOLLOWERS!!! We'd love to hear about personal stories involving Christmas, New Years, Mardi Gras, Traveling, Farming, Gardening, Sailing, or any other fun story you have! Sometimes it gets boring just talking about ourselves! And there's always a postcard that could have your name on it!!!**** 

Ft. Pierce, FL: A Monday Update

Well as you can see we're getting into the Christmas spirit down here in Florida, which is strange when it's 80˚ degrees out but hey whatever! We went on a nature hike, are continuing to run and eat healthy (still searching for some good yogurt) and reading interesting/educational books.  The roof coating project is complete and the ceiling is up.  Yesterday we scored a good haul of free food at Winn Dixie and nailed down our next farm starting mid-January.  We'll be heading north (Northern Florida) to Coldwater Gardens and we're pretty excited!  And it's pretty crazy to think that Christmas Eve is next Monday, boy time flies!  There's a few new pictures on Facebook and we've also updated the 'Maps' and 'Videos' pages (at the top of this blog) so check em' out and enjoy the Holiday season!

* P.S. - The View From The Van Witty Comment Challenge (or TVFTVWCC for short) has officially concluded.  We appreciated and enjoyed all the great comments and encourage everyone to continue to comment whenever they feel compelled to do so (which we hope is often!)  But alas there can only be one winner and to that lucky person let us just say that somewhere there is a postcard in the mail with your name on it that will hopefully reach you.  If you don't receive a postcard you were probably the winner but your postcard must have just got lost in the mail or something!

Ft. Pierce, FL: Update

We're still at Curt's Grandpa's house in Ft. Pierce, Florida and apparently the 'Ft.' is short for 'free time!'  We've got lots of it so we're trying to be productive while we're here.  We've been continuing our odd-job house projects which include putting up a new ceiling in the outdoor patio room, cleaning out the gutters, and sealing off a leaky section of roof.

We checked out a cool Farmer's market that runs every Saturday (pictures to come of that) and have been going on grocery runs looking for cheap deals, and free deals (with mixed results).  We've even started jogging.  That's right... jogging! That's how much free time we have here!  As awesome as it may be, we're already getting excited for the next leg of our journey.  We've contacted a few nearby farms and have made a loose itinerary that takes us through New Orleans during Mardi Gras and into Texas, New Mexico, and California.  We're even trying to link up with Sid's (Simonton Farms) sister in California and WWOOF on her farm as well!

And now that we have fancy fast DSL internet, check out some Facebook pics of Ft. Pierce here and see the final pics from the Simonton Farm here.

Ft. Pierce, FL: Arrival

Hi everyone! After spending 5 exciting weeks on the Simonton Farm we've now moved on to our next destination, Ft. Pierce, FL. It was hard to say goodbye to our friends on the farm (both human and canine) but we know someday we'll return to see how things have progressed in our absence. From raising puppies to cloning tropical plants to building new WWOOFer homes, there were many projects that we never got to see the conclusion of. But it seems like we've left the farm better off than when we found it which feels good.

We'll now be staying with Curt's grandpa Chuck for the foreseeable future as we help him with odd jobs around the house and avoid the cold winter weather for the first time in our lives. Every now and then we miss not seeing snow but when the weather is now consistently in the upper 70's it's hard to complain!

Our friends Danny and Kristel came along with us so they could catch a flight north later this week. We got busy right away with the satisfying and exciting job of tearing down a sheet rock ceiling. We also tested out one of the strangest (but potentially most valuable) skills we learned at the farm- dumpster diving. There's actually a pretty cool documentary called Dive (check Netflix) that does a good job of explaining this somewhat controversial activity. Aside from that there's been lots of lounging, book reading, and Billin' it.* We also just got Grandpa Chuck upgraded from dial-up to wireless internet so once the modem arrives we'll be able to upload some new pictures to Facebook. Until then it's 'thank goodness for that smart phone!' Talk to you soon!

* 'Billin' it' is a Delaware slang term which refers to watching long stretches of television and/or generally pursuing the pastime of couch potatoism.