We are doing well! We have had a great four months in West Virginia, have cleared briars and brush off our land, built a driveway, put in a septic system, put in water, and have leveled a small building site on the side of the mountain overlooking the creek.
We have started the foundation for a small cabin with the floor plans allowing for addition later. Now everything is on hold for the winter.
We have rented a house in Ansted, WV and Daryl has a full-time job with a construction company that he likes very much. I am applying for a 5-8 grade math teacher position for the 2008-2009 school year.
I will be arriving in Dallas on February 23 to begin packing the items we left behind. Daryl will be driving in on the weekend of March 15 and we will pack up and move Pat & the dogs out here to West Virginia with us.
The foliage was beautiful when we arrived in October and even in the dead of winter this is a wonderful wildlife refuge. We live just about one mile from Hawks Nest State Park and just behind our house there is a large creek, small waterfalls and a great hiking trail.
Love, C
West Virginia Update
All, We have been working since we left Dallas ten days ago and we are taking the day off today. We are at the library now.
We have completed the driveway. It is not as great as we would have liked, but is is as great as we could affoard. And it is 100% better than before. So we now have a driveway, a large percentage of the bottom cleared (although Hoppy did not brush-hog as much as he did last time), the pad cut out for the cabin, the parking area scraped out and graveled and we are ready to build a retaining wall for the building site and along side the driveway. Then we will pretty much be finished until spring.
We have met most all of the neighbors on LIck Fork Road, they all stop by and gaulk and if we are at the top of the hill they introduce themselves and chat for awhile.
We had to call 911-Addressing to get an address. The guy came out and we had to "name" our drive-way, which he called a road. So it is officially named "Harris Hollow Road". The address to our buildinng site is 48 Harris Hollow Road, Mossy, WV, 25917. Of course, we will not have a mail box there until next summer.
We have seen one large doe trot across the bottom while we were working. We may try to stay here until the end of February, but that depends on Daryl finding work. He will start to look sometime next week after we get finished with the retaining wall work.
The house that we are staying in was built in the early 1800s, I am sure that it will be freezing this winter. The guy that we rent from is a mess. He drinks a lot, but is just a silly drunk. He places a lot of personal ads in the local newspaper and has all kinds of nutty women calling him, of course, none of which work out. He has one of those eternal yard sales out back of the house, he also sells minows which he catches in the river. He is the first person that I have ever known that can fixup deer meat so that you think you are eating beef. He made deer roast last week in my crock pot with potatoes and carrots and it was fabulous. Yesterday he cooked deer ribs on the smoker. I think he is really enjoying our company. He talks way too much, it is hard to get a word in edge-wise, and we can only take him for short periods of time. However, since we have the upstairs to ourselves, we sneak away about 7:00 pm each night to our retreat and watch television and leave him to his beer, minnows, and phone calls.
Today we will go to the laundramat and do our laundry, Wal-Mart to buy groceries, and then we are going to do some site-seeing.
You may send us mail at P.O. Box 296, Victor, WV 25938.
Love to you all, Collene
Mossy, WV -
Hi to all,
In case you don't already know, Daryl & I left Mexico and we are in West Virginia working on Plan B. Our 10-week expedition was supposed to be a diving expedition with some hurricane relief work. However, after two weeks of no diving and only hurricane relief work, we decided to move on to plan B. We will keep you posted as things progress.
Collene and Daryl
Day Seven in Mahahual 10/17/2007
Hi to all. Things are trucking along here. We have finally gotten out of the still, humid heat and there is a great ocean breeze. However, our cabana is at back of the main building, so we still dont get much air at night. The strong breeze has blown away the mosquitos and that is wonderful.
We are pretty sunburned, especially Daryl since he has done a lot of digging and outdoor work. Even with sunblock, heavy sweating washes it away. We have just about gotten the base and boats in a condition where we can begin diving. Probably in a few days or so.
Some of you asked about the electricity situation... we have none due to the hurricane. However, the other half of Mahahual does have power. We have one generator at base to run power tools and we run lights for a short time at night.
Cooking is a difinite challenge. You can only be so creative with such a handful of ingredients available. We have pasta, rice, lentils and tomato sauce and a few spices and a few fresh vegetables and lots of fresh onion. Oh yeah.. and cans of refried beans. We are off today so many have taken buses to Chetumal to bring back their own supplies for cooking and such.
We are off this weekend (Fri-Sun) to work the annual Turtle Festival in Tulume. Typically thousands of baby turtles are released at the festival and the local children are taught about turtle conservation, etc. However, this year, the amount of turtles will be small due to the hurricane. At any rate, it should be a fun weekend and a nice break from the base work and the base food!
With all of our studies, we have been able to identify most fish and corals on our snorkel trips that we have made. It is difinitely neat being able to understand what you are seeing.
Since I will be working this weekend, I am not sure when the next email will arrive. And to my brother, will you please print this and take it to our mother?
Love to all
Collene - Mom
First Day at Mahahual 10/10/2007
Hello everyone. Well we have made it to Mahahual ... at least where it used to be. Lots of buildings down, some still standing but damaged. Lots of debris and damage everywhere.
We have done our swim test yesterday and today we went snorkeling to spot corals and work on our coral identification.
We are housed in a small cabana with 2 other couples, very close quarters, very hot at night and no electricity. Lots of work to be done here. We have worked at cleaning the beach and the mangrove of trash and dead foliage, Daryl has put up a door for them and helped build an equipment room. We are now building a "kitting up" area where everyone will don their dive equipment before a dive.
The food is not the greatest, oatmeal in the morning, some form of lentils at other meals. It is hard to be creative with so few food items in the kitchen.
From all of your return emails, it sounds like everyone is doing well. We love everyone and will email soon.
I am attaching a picture of our "house" and the research base. Let me know if you can view them, I'm on a Macintosh that is also in Spanish and I am having a hard time.
Love to all
Collene - Mom
Mexico - Day One 10/06/2007
We made it to Playa del Carmen today. Our travels were great, no problems at customs, etc. However, our hotel room is on the 3rd floor and of course no elevator, but a circular staircase that poor Daryl had to drag everything up. We stayed up all night last night, so we were pretty whooped today.
It has been raining since we arrived, so we slept some this afternoon. Our hotel is in the older part of town where the locals hang out. So at lunch, we were the only non-Spanish speaking people there. Our choices for food were beef tacos, or chorizo tacos. The bill was $4.60 as well.
Tonight we have gone down to the more touristy part and are at a internet pub. Hopefully we will recover from jet lag, no sleep, etc., and get out some more tomorrow. We have met two other people that will be on our expedition and they seem really nice.
We will be here until Wednesday morning, then I am not sure what kind of internet access I will have. I will let everyone know things as I can.