Thursday, 2/4/2016  I wake up at 4 a.m. with a crampy pain in my left hand and it takes an aspirin to help me get back to sleep again.  It’s an interesting pain–puffiness mixed with tingliness in my hand, and when I place my arm just so on my bed I experience a ray of […]

Wednesday: 2/3/2016 I awake with puffed up hands in the early morning, unable to make a fist.  It’s the same problem I had two years ago in the Amazon and I’m betting an aspirin–or several–will make it better.  After showering, I head with Mark to the breakfast cabin.  There, Bobby shows me the note I’d

Tuesday: 2/2/2016 Third Full Day’s Fishing I start the morning with a couple of aspirin because my left hand is all puffy.  I also wrap the fingers on my left hand with some very cute duct tape because I have a few blisters.  I’m feeling more like a wuss every day. It rains on and

Monday: 2/1/2016 Second Full Day’s Fishing – Camp Moves I’m awake at 5:20 thanks to Mark getting up, turning on lights, and announcing it’s time to get up.  We get our Coke/coffee fix in the main cabin before 6 a.m. and are ready to fish by 6:30. It’s cloudy but no rain (yay!), giving my

Sunday, January 31, 2016:  First full day fishing We’re up at 5:30 and are ready for breakfast at 6. Breakfast is homemade chocolate-yellow bread, homemade dough balls with gooey stuff inside, fresh pineapple, slices of melon, fried eggs and pieces of white bread. It’s plenty to get us going. Before we leave the dinning room,

Saturday January 30, 2016: from Manaus to the Jungle We’re up at 7:30—before the 8 a.m. wake-up call—and take a water-blasting shower in our room at the Caesar Business Manaus Motel.  We go down to breakfast on the mezzanine and find scrambled eggs, lots of breads to choose from, various cereals and lots of fruit,

Friday, January 29, 2016 – Miami to Manaus, Brazil I start the morning by sending our last-minute dog sitter, Kim Bailey a text. She says the pups finally ate some food last night. She also says that Snickers now has kennel cough so she’ll make sure he gets meds like Winston. The good news is

Thursday, 1/28/2016  – Detroit, MI Days Inn, to Miami,FL I am up before 3:45 because Mark is rooting around the room, excited like a kid at Christmas. We get ready and are downstairs by 4:25 for that 4:30 shuttle we were promised.  There are 8 people in the lobby when the shuttle arrives at 4:55,

In July, 2105 Mark and I flew to Miami, checked into a motel and spent the afternoon lounging around a swimming pool.  The motel elevator had two buttons, both of which read “UP,” so we thought that was a good sign for the start of our trip. Hours later, however, as were nodding off in

I am all for the idea of celebrating groundhogs and actually having a day where we take a few moments to see if one particular groundhog sees his shadow. The thing is that Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog we put so much faith in, is a pet groundhog which is likely removed from some comfortable hole or house