On the road Day 1

Today we left Gainesville at 5:55 AM. 

• Florida - Done
• Georgia - Done
• South Carolina - Done
• North Carolina - Done
• Virginia- Half Done

Spending the night in Lexington, having arrived exactly 11 hours after we started the trip. Tonight - Meg, Steve, their 3 dogs, good beer, great cheese, wonderful sushi, hugs, love, joy.


Tomorrow, more to come

Off to see the country from south to north

The dog has had his pre-getting-in-the-car-with-humans bath, the house sitter is all set, and we are off tomorrow for Star Lake in the Adirondack Sate Park in NY. Jake is particularly eager to get his Golden Retriever body to a cooler place...with a lake to wade in and a camp where he is allowed to sit on the sofa. We are already thinking about cheese curd treats. 

We did two telephone interviews yesterday with media from up in the North Country. North Country Public Radio will air their interview with us about The Summer of a Thousand Cheeses and the talks will will be giving about cheese on August 5. When we get the link, we'll post it. The Watertown Daily Times is going to write something about the book and the talks too. Yipee!

Fourth of July in Cedar Key

Our weekend in Cedar Key started on a totally gross note. We opened the gate and found a dead gray fox on the walk right in front of the front steps! It had been much enjoyed by the vultures...thank you very much vultures. However, they left us the skull, bones, furry tail, lots of fur, and a smell previously experienced only by walking or driving quickly by road-killed possums and armadillos. Whew! We disposed of the vultures leftovers and then hosed the smelled into the ground as best we could. Our vet told us distemper is rampant in the fox population and we are need to keep our dog immunized. He's up-to-date, thank goodness.

The rest of the weekend was totally lovely. We had dinner with friends Marci and Jim at the Neptune Bar at the Island Hotel while enjoying the live band and joining in on such tunes as "I love this bar!"

We spent Sunday with thousands of others at CLAMerica in the city park, ate clams of course, and worked in the education booth of the Friends of the Lower Suwannee and Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuges. We stayed home and listened to the fireworks, watching what we could see of them behind the trees outside the living room window...all the time comforting Jake while he tried to stopped quivering in fear. 

We never thought to take a photo of the fox. I bet you're sorry too.