Pompeii, like any Roman city, was built around The Forum. Temples, government buildings, businesses, and baths surround the stadium-sized open area where citizens gathered in the shadow of their ultimate demise, Mount Vesuvius… CONTINUE READING >>
Thanks to Princess Cruises for inviting us along and providing this adventure! As always, all opinions are our own.
Pompeii, like any Roman city, was built around The Forum.
Temples, government buildings, businesses, and baths surround the stadium-sized open area where citizens gathered in the shadow of their ultimate demise, Mount Vesuvius.
The Forum Baths maybe the most intact of the ruins of Pompeii. These are one of three public baths and survived the eruption remarkably well.
Top to bottom; the ceiling and floor
Unlike most all of the other buildings, the roof of the baths remained in place so the inside was relatively unharmed.
The ornate decorations and many of the frescos survived, so we got a fairly good feel for what it would have been like to take a soak back in the first century BC.
Our daughter, Decibel, spent a whopping twenty minutes at the college of her choice, Tulane University. She never attended a single class. It has to be the shortest college career in history.
There was a storm a brewin‘. And it was a whopper.
On a beautiful August day, Decibel landed in New Orleans ready to take on the world. She was especially giddy since she had been chosen from the pool of incoming freshman in the Musical Theater program to sing at orientation — a high honor indeed. Not to mention instant… CONTINUE READING >>
Our daughter, Decibel, spent a whopping twenty minutes at the college of her choice, Tulane University. She never attended a single class. It has to be the shortest college career in history.
There was a storm a brewin’. And it was a whopper.
On a beautiful August day, Decibel landed in New Orleans ready to take on the world. She was especially giddy since she had been chosen from the pool of incoming freshman in the Musical Theater program to sing at orientation — a high honor indeed. Not to mention instant popularity — a chance to be a rock star right off the bat.
After getting her student ID and visiting her fourth-floor dorm room, complete with a picture window overlooking the quad, David and the understandably nervous/eager Decibel headed to the orientation and the Big Debut.
But it was not to be.
Upon arrival, the president of Tulane took the stage and announced that the school was to evacuate immediately. Any student without means to leave the city was to report to the buses waiting to whisk them away to Shreveport. A Category 5 hurricane was barreling toward New Orleans. Katrina was on her way, and she was pissed.
Here’s the irony of the situation:
Decibel and her siblings graduated from high school on the Caribbean island of St. Croix. Every hurricane season we became Weather Channel junkies. For nearly half the year water cooler discussions were almost exclusively limited to storm tracking, survival stories and theories on tropical weather patterns.
We all lived in steel reinforced cinder-block houses piled high with canned food, drinking water and generators. When living on an island everyone must prepare for the worst – it’s not like we could get in a car and drive away when a hurricane was on the war path.
In the eight years we lived on our island paradise, we encountered one small hurricane. No major destruction was reported. Electricity was amazingly restored within twelve hours.
Now, in New Orleans, our luck had run dry.
Fortunately, David had rented a car because by that afternoon the only way out was by road. After stocking up on food and water for the drive — and very afraid Katrina would make landfall while they were stuck in traffic — Decibel and David headed north on the packed interstate with all lanes heading north.
It took fourteen hours to get to Memphis, normally a six hour trip, where they found a hotel room at four in the morning to wait it out. Meanwhile Katrina destroyed New Orleans.
Tulane University announced later in the week that they would not start classes until the following January.
An amazing outpouring of goodwill was extended by almost every college in the nation. Tulane students were offered immediate placement for the fall semester, with the tuition to be worked out with Tulane after the dust settled. Decibel chose to join her older sister, The Piglet, at school in D.C..
As a mom of multiple spawn, I am regularly astounded at how different each of my offspring are. The college that had opened up so many opportunities for The Piglet was a complete disaster for Decibel. A mismatch of epic proportions.
All of the labor Decibel had put forth in high school to find her best-suited college was blown right out the window, quite literally. She was miserable. I constantly worried.
That Thanksgiving, our family met up in New Orleans to see if the city was in any shape for Decibel to return for classes in January. It had to be the saddest trip I’ve ever made. The city was a wasteland. Mile upon mile of utter devastation.
Tulane seemed to be in fairly good shape — but it was difficult to imagine sending an eighteen-year-old to a city with so many challenges to overcome. The decision was, of course, ultimately Decibel’s and she had other plans.
While in Washington, Decibel had auditioned for and was giddily accepted into a performing arts school in New York City. That first disastrous semester in D.C. had taught her many things and academics were no longer on her radar screen.
I’m not gonna lie, I had huge reservations. But at least she wouldn’t need a car in NYC — and we’re ALL safer for that — I love the girl with all my heart, but she’s a terrible driver.
It’s funny how the world works. My kids attended a tiny high school on a tiny island with only forty kids in their graduating classes. Two of them now live in a city with a subway system that stuffs more people than that into each car.
Decibel’s journey into adult life began with a storm. Like New Orleans, she came out of it with grace and beauty.
Text $10:
It’s so easy to help! Text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund
Moral Support:
The Nomad Couple, Heart & Matt, grateful that their family has been spared the worst, have lovingly created a forum to send thoughts and prayers of hope to the people in the midst of this tragedy. To offer your support in this way, click here
Take a rip-roarin’ ride down the Exploits River with us (trust us, that’s not the strangest name we saw!), meet the Beothuk People, enjoy a lobster picnic, and find out more about the fishing culture of this wonderful land… CONTINUE READING >>
In Newfoundland, almost everything happens on the water.
We had been out on the ocean, and even a giant pond, so it was time to give a river a try. Why not the largest river on the island, the Exploits River?
We figured it was aptly named as we prepared for some exploits of our own involving rushing whitewater and a rubber raft.
Rolling on the Exploits River
Hiking down to the Exploits River.
Riverfront Chalets and Rafting Newfoundland, just outside of Grand Falls – Windsor (that’s all one town), sounded like just the spot to tame some wild water.
While we have had some experience with river rafting, the safety briefing was making it clear that what we were about to encounter was a whole lot more water than in our previous escapades.
We received instructions on how to lock our legs under the seat in front of us in hopes of staying aboard the boat, and in case that failed, we learned the finer points of ducking down onto the floor and hanging on like terrified spider monkeys. Screaming like one is optional, but most likely unavoidable.
OK, so we may have to go into a protective fetal position, but it beats bobbing in the rapids… wait, what? How to properly bob in the rapids was the next lesson.
Keep your head up, look for the boat, try not to slam into any huge rocks, grab the rope… got it!
Just to make sure we were all cool with the drill, the first thing we had to do was jump off a cliff into the freezing water, just to get comfortable with the idea of getting slung out of the boat.
We were beginning to wonder why we even had a raft, this was sounding more like it might be whitewater swimming.
Truth is, it was all for our own good, better to be safe than sorry and the crew was proud of their safety record.
They haven’t lost anyone yet and weren’t about to start with us. So we dragged our soaking butts aboard the raft and began paddling.
Nothing to it, until we started aiming for the rapids. Then we started rowing like our lives depended on it, and it wasn’t hard to convince us of the possibility.
Even though the current overwhelmed us, rowing like crazy was our only hope of any control over our path.
After surviving the first couple runs we began to feel safer, and maybe even a little cocky.
Our trusty guide took that to mean it must be time to bury the nose of the raft right into the teeth of a huge wave.
While this certainly seemed crazy, we were all grinning like idiots and, due to our training in hanging on for dear life, no one went overboard.
When we finally made it to some calm water everyone enjoyed a swim, going into the water by choice. This also gave us a chance to take in the gorgeous countryside of The Exploits Valley.
As tired as our arms and backs were from frantic paddling we still would have gladly started all over again.
The next day we followed the river downstream, north beyond The Bay of Exploits where it meets the sea, and stopped in at the Beothuk Interpretation Centre Provincial Historic Site on the shores of Boyd’s Cove.
The site marks the spot of one of the last settlements of the Beothuk people, and most of what little is known about them can be found here.
Talismans are hung in the Spirit Garden.
They were known as the Red Indians to the early European settlers, not for their skin color but for their practice of covering themselves with red ochre, a dye made from the iron colored soil.
The Beothuk did their best to avoid contact with the new arrivals, just as they had done with the Mi’kmaq who would frequently cross over to Newfoundland from the mainland, so much of their background remains a mystery.
It is likely that they were the people the Vikings encountered at L’Anse aux Meadows and named skraelings, or barbarians, but we may never know for sure.
What we did learn came mostly from Shanawdithit, who was the last known Beothuk survivor before she passed away in 1829.
The drawings and interviews she provided during the last years of her life are by far the best resource for information on her people’s lives, and seeing them was without a doubt the highlight of our visit to the centre.
From Dildo Run to Virgin Arm to Main Tickle – and some lobster
David hugs a giant lobster in Michael’s Harbour.
Continuing on our way we came upon Dildo Run, which led to Virgin Arm, and onward to the Main Tickle.
Perhaps we should translate; a run is a channel of water between the shore and a string of islands, but no one seems to know why Dildo is a somewhat common Newfoundland name, there’s a town and island also tagged with it; an arm is an inlet off of a bigger bay, no word on why this one hasn’t had any relations with a man; and a tickle is a narrow, treacherous stretch of water, perhaps because the boat might get tickled by a rock.
See, perfectly normal names… or not.
After we passed over the oddly named straits, we stopped off to grab a bite at one of the many lobster pools in the area.
We weren’t really sure what to expect, but the name turned out to be quite accurate, think swimming pool filled with lobsters.
Hundreds, if not thousands of them just waiting for someone from a restaurant or store to haul them away.
Lobsters are so common in this area, that several folks told us that as children they had already grown sick of it as a food source. Lobster was as common in their lunch boxes as a bologna sandwich or PB&J was to us.
As a sideline, and happily for us who are not sick of lobster, most of the pools sell steamed lobsters to curious passers by like us.
We ordered a couple beauties and settled in at a picnic table on the shore.
No five star establishment could have been better. The view was phenomenal.
Fishin’ with Mannequins?
Just as we crossed on to South Twillingate Island we noticed a whale skeleton on a pier off to the side of the road. That’s not really something that goes unnoticed.
We noticed right off the bat that The Twillingate Fishery & Heritage Centre had a bit of a split personality, including to the fact that it has two names.
It couldn’t quite seem to decide if it was a serious museum, or a quirky tourist attraction.
Unusual mannequins performing old fashioned tasks dot the grounds, while interesting artifacts and photos are displayed, albeit somewhat haphazardly, inside old shacks.
The unpredictable blend had an endearing quality though, we couldn’t help but like it.
And we found ourselves learning a lot about the fishing history of the area, including a fascinating video of how one of the fishing shanties, known as a stage in Newfoundland, arrived at this spot.
We had heard stories about floating houses across the water to relocate, and it was pretty cool to see it on film. Mostly we were amazed that the building didn’t break into a million pieces.
The site marks the spot of one of the last settlements of the Beothuk people, and most of what little is known about them can be found here… CONTINUE READING >>
The site marks the spot of one of the last settlements of the Beothuk people, and most of what little is known about them can be found here.
Materials for talisman creation.Talismans are hung in the Spirit Garden.
They were known as the Red Indians to the early European settlers, not for their skin color but for their practice of covering themselves with red ochre, a dye made from the iron colored soil.
The Beothuk did their best to avoid contact with the new arrivals, just as they had done with the Mi’kmaq who would frequently cross over to Newfoundland from the mainland, so much of their background remains a mystery.
It is likely that they were the people the Vikings encountered at L’Anse aux Meadows and named skraelings, or barbarians, but we may never know for sure.
What we did learn came mostly from Shanawdithit, who was the last known Beothuk survivor before she passed away in 1829.
The design of the Centre is a tribute to the Beothuk.
The drawings and interviews she provided during the last years of her life are by far the best resource for information on her people’s lives, and seeing them was without a doubt the highlight of our visit to the centre.
Continuing on our way we came upon Dildo Run, which led to Virgin Arm, and onward to the Main Tickle.
