6/10/08 (Tuesday): Things continue to go well for Joyce and Wiley. We've landed dream jobs for the upcoming winter season. In November and December, we'll be in Tallahassee, FL at Maclay Gardens State ( Maclay Gardens State Park ). Wiley will help maintain the gardens and grounds and I think they want me as a docent in the museum/store and to lead tour groups (it's not totally clear yet). If you check out the link, you'll notice that there's a big lake for our brand new kayaks (more about that later) and, of course, for fishing. There's no campground, just sites for two Workamper's RVs. It sounded so perfect that we accepted immediately, even though it was only for two months. We were right to follow our instincts, because the very next day we got posistions at Gold Head Branch State Park, and the only months they had available were January through March! We'll be doing a variety of tasks in the campgrounds and trails and for the rangers in the office.

Our second big news is that we bought kayaks! We've been wanting to do this since we rented kayaks in Maine, but even used ones were very expensive. I was perusing the Sunday paper two weeks ago when I saw one advertised for $199. We drove to Hickory (about a hour away) and I got the one on sale and Wiley got one for just $299 (it's better for fishing). We took them out the next day on Price Lake for a tryout. We love them! They're very light--I can pick mine up with one hand. When we hit the road again, they'll fit right in our bedroom on the bed--so we don't have to buy any fancy racks.

The boat launch area where we put our kayaks into the lake was all aflutter with butterflies. I guess they were having a drink and getting some minerals out of the dirt. In addition to these yellow ones, there were black ones with blue markings. Just beautiful!

We've finally warmed up a bit here in Boone. There's a heatwave in Charlotte and the rest of NC with temps up to 100 a couple days in a row. We've been in the upper 80's, but it doesn't feel that warm because there's always a breeze. We've had quite a lot of campers here, even on the weekdays, and many of them say they're trying to escape the heat. Our pool has been heavily used, too.

My son, Tom, and his family are making a quick visit this Friday on their way back from Hilton Head. We'll have a little birthday part for Margo on Saturday and they have to leave Sunday morning. The boss has told me I can have the day off on Saturday to maximize my time with them. This is a great place to work!

That's it for this time. Stay cool, and have a great week.