As many know, this winter I spent huddled up with Scatter (my cat) in Florida. To be exact Wauchula, FL with a couple jaunts to Ft Myers, Tampa, Orlando, and Miami area (Coral Castle).
While there I had a great opportunity to enjoy Christmas and New Years with my parents, who were also in town with their trailer, and we camped back to back, which was great! Many fun nights of Yahtzee were enjoyed. For me this sure beat staying on the computer till the wee hours of the morning, which is my typical go-to activity, especially as of late.
In February or March a group from the Escapee Park I was at (Florida SKP Co-Op) went to an Orangutan sanctuary. The Sanctuary is called Center for Great Apes. Was a very humbling, and great, experience. They take in a wide variety of apes and I have a hard time calling then animals in the traditional sense. There is a lot of wisdom and caring in a great number of the apes. Just like humans there are also those bad apples. Some of them were members of the family and had their own bedroom when all of a sudden they were whisked off to the center and they don't understand what happened. Others are retired from show business and/or private zoos. One of the pets Michael Jackson had is also here (not sure which one). This post is also devoid of my pictures as they requested that every one we take is for our private use except for one, and I can't remember that one.
While it's not the same this sanctuary reminded me of the work that Willie Smits has done in Borneo. He created a sanctuary for animals like these, and also created viable income for many people in the area who who also help to protect the animals. The link above goes to the TED talk he did in 2009.
The sanctuary is truly wonderful! And they survive only on donations if memory serves me.
On the other coast, am now in Florence, OR., just down the street a little ways from where had my epiphany in The Meaning, and very close to the ocean. I wasn't planning on going to the coast just yet but had a feeling to come. Tried to go further north but this was the only place available for a week that's part of the Thousand Trails network. Some people disagree in this but I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason, and so that's why am here.
My initial goal was to toodle up I-5 on way to Seattle for the Firkin Scooter Club rally. While I still plan to be there on time have just taken a detour for unkown reasons. The name Florence is also interesting to me as that's name of the only grandmother that I knew that I got along with pretty well but didn't see often due to other dynamics..
After arriving today at campground toodled over to the beach, walked in the surf a little and sunk my bare feet into the sand as the surf was swirling around my ankles. Felt really good though today was little chilly in the mid 60's. Well, chilly compared to the 109 degrees experienced in Pahrump, NV, and the 95'ish degrees in Sutherlin, OR.
A super great thing about the coast, notwithstanding the ocean's proximity, is that it seems like in every small town there's a food coop, or other such smallish natural food store. I like going to these small places as there's a definite.
Not sure what will be doing tomorrow or this week though plan to go with the flow. Need to work on scooter brakes as there's something that's troubling me since was in Colorado. Looks like will be heading north again Saturday, not exactly sure where to as life's a mystery.
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