Visiting the Fish.

 The Atlantic Aquarium is the largest open-air marine habitat in the world.  The lagoons hold more than eight million gallons of sea water and are home to over two hundred and fifty species of fish and other varieties marine life.  

You can visit the lagoons outdoors or you can go through The Dig, a series of tunnels that take you under and through the lagoons where you are almost face to face with fish everywhere.

Each day Trish and I try to visit the fish.  We often end our day with a walk through The Dig and tell these beautiful creatures goodnight for the day.  They are so beautiful.

You are so close in The Dig and get to see them right as they live.  We are very impressed at the healthy environment of this giant aquarium.  They do a great job here caring for the marine life.

From large to small these creatures are fascinating!

Sunshine!

 On Saturday we had a stormy and rainy day.  The rain fell and the wind blew all day. We actually needed a day like this since it had been 80 degrees all week and we were at our capacity for sun.  We rested and watched movies happily.

Yesterday the sun came back!  There are so many pools here that we have not yet been at the same one two days.  We look down from our room and decide where to go for the day.

Just below us the Rapid River ride starts.  It begins as a lazy river, but, it doesn’t stay calm for long.

There is so much to do here, including doing nothing!

Bahamas

 Trish and I had three weeks between the Pike Piddlers Festival in Alabama and the St. Simons Island Festival in Georgia. So, instead of driving home and back, we decided to leave the car at the Atlanta airport and fly to the Bahamas for a February warmup.

We have now been at Atlantis at Nassau for a week and have ten more days to go before we have to go back to work.

There is a wonderful aquarium here that you actually walk through.  Each day we go see the fish for a visit on our way to or from the sunshine.  They are beautiful!

Pike Piddlers

 For the past seventeen years the last weekend in January has been the Pike Piddlers’ Storytelling Festival. I have been privileged to be an all of those festival events.

The weekend starts on Friday evening at the We Piddle Around Theatre in Brundidge, Alabama. That evening is a dinner theatre where, with music from local musicians, we eat and then each teller tells a story.  This year I am here with Bil Lepp and Tim Lowry.

The theatre itself is interesting. The building was once the town offices of Brundidge.  It burned in a fire but the walls were standing and undamaged. A new roof was put on and the theatre, with sawdust floor and a wooden stage, came to life.  The interior is highly decorated with folk art. 

Tellers love this space. It is intimate and fun. The tickets sell out the first hour they go on sale.

Deerfield

 On Thursday evening Trish and I were at the beautiful Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Community in Asheville.

I got to tell stories in the evening to a full house of wonderful and supportive listeners.

One of the nice things about being there was meeting so many people who are happy about where they live.

They had had Bil Lepp earlier in the year and also many of the people we met go to Jonesborough each year to the National Festival.  This is an audience that loves and appreciates storytelling.

We even got to spend the night there and eat with the residents.  Trish and I both hope to come to Deerfield again.

Best of Our State

 Our first event of the New Year was  The Best of Our  State event put on by our wonderful North Carolina definitive magazine, OUR STATE.

This event is held once each year at the historic Carolina Hotel Resort in Pinehurst, North Carolina.  It features speakers, authors, musicians, all from the state of North Carolina.  It has been my privilege to tell stories at four of these events and to be invited back for 2024.

It is a special treat to be at the Carolina Hotel and Resort because my daddy used to come to this same place each year during my childhood to the State Bankers’ Convention. He would tell us all about it and  I’m sure he loved coming here.

Elizabeth Hudson, the brilliant Editor in Chief of OUR STATE, opened the event following a two year hiatus due to COVID.  She explained the editorial decision to keep the positive tenor of the magazine going through the pandemic by never using the word “COVID” in an article and by never showing a photograph of a person wearing a mask.  She is so upbeat in every way.

I then opened the full event with a fun hour of stories for me with a wonderful audience.

Other presenters for the weekend included Eliot Engel with Edgar Allen Poe and bluegrass music with Balsam Range.

The event next year will be back in Pinehurst the first full weekend of the New Year.  Among others, I will be joined there by dear friends, The Chatham Rabbits, with their original music.

If you are not an OUR STATE subscriber, you must not be a real North Carolinian.  They have been publishing North Carolina since 1933.

My Aunt Nancy

 My mother was the oldest of nine children, seven girls and two boys.  Only two of those aunts and uncles of mine are still living: my Uncle Steve (Mama’a baby brother), and my Aunt Nancy.

Today my Aunt Nancy is ninety-five years old!

Her adult life was spent in Morristown, Tennessee, near where her husband, my Uncle Jim, was a chemist for the American Enka Company.

In the past couple of years two things changed for her: Uncle Jim died, and her daughter, my cousin Nancy Carol, retired from teaching in Texas. Nancy Carol and her husband, Gordon, moved back near home to Lake Junaluska, North Carolina.  With Uncle Jim gone and Nancy Carol nearby, a lot of rethinking was done.  The result was that in recent months Aunt Nancy gave up her house and moved to the Brooks-Howell United Methodist Retirement home in Asheville.

This puts her on the route we frequently travel and so Trish and I get to stop off there and see her.  A big treat for us was for me to get to tell Christmas stories to the residents there back in December.

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday to Aunt Nancy!

It is so much fun for us to spend time with her!