Home Again, Home Again

4:45AM


Flying at 4:00 in the morning is awful. No, I correct myself. Flying is awful. I love to travel, so I should blame myself. But since moving to the Caribbean I have been on 34 separate flights. Many of these flights are segments, but they all have required long waits and lines.

This morning is very bad. My bag weighed in at 55 pounds so I had to remove 5 pounds in order to check in. This may sound easy. But the reality is much different. I am now carrying a plastic bag filled with tea, Glad sandwich bags, a carton of Whoppers, and a computer modem. The biggest loss is I am having to wear my the clothes I just had dry cleaned.
This should be a reminder that I need to always travel with a second luggage bag that I can check when I buy extra things. I did this last time, but stupidly thought I would not need a second bag on this trip.

There use to be a real romance to flying. But now I hate flying. From now on its cruise ships only for me.

5:30PM

I have arrived safely in Providenciales. Though just my luck, I missed the early flight to Grand Turk by about two minutes. The time it took me to clear customs. I am on the 7:00PM flight so I have jumped into Gilly's to get a hamburger. I have not had any food today. I try not to eat to insure that I won't have a bathroom problem on the plane. It makes long days, but I guess not as long as one could be...

The conference was very good. I made one very good contact, Frederick Smith, the author of Rum. I have a museum, a research library, a publication, and unlimited opportunities for original research. He has a Ph.D. program looking for thesis opportunities at the College of William and Mary and is a Caribbean specialist. I think we might try and work together.

Well I am going to eat. By the time I get home it will be dark. But still 82 degrees.

I Should Have Made a Left at Albuquerque

Someone emailed today to ask why I had not written a blog this week. The end of the week and weekend I have been at the annual meeting of the Society of Historical Archaeology in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Today I presented a paper titled "The Few and the Saved: The Shawnee Tower and the Civilian Conservation Corps, Building and Preserving Fire Towers in the Wayne National Forest." This was part of a symposium on the loss of fire lookout towers throughout the United States. Knock on wood, this will be the last Ohio-based paper that I will be giving at a conference for a while. But at the same time, I have sat through three days of papers on archaeological and under-water survey projects in the Caribbean. I have also met many good contacts of people working in the West Indies.

I am only in the states for four days. The trip out here took four flights and 18 hours. The trip back is only four flights and 14 hours.

Like any trip to the states, I had a long list of things to buy while I was here. I spent $438 at Walmart and $164 at Lowes. Deneen was giving me a hard time about not getting the picture frames and the Swiffer mop that she wanted, but I am trying to bring back 92 other individual items. I had to take ten items worth about $150 back to Walmart because thy just would not fit into my luggage. Seems crazy. For the last four days I have been either sitting or shopping. I also brought back some dry cleaning.

I also had more Starbucks coffee than food. Its funny what you miss. Before I left, the boys were all talking about what I would buy to eat. Everyone thought ice cream. Martin wanted me to bring back a Chipotle burrito. Lucas thought this was ridiculous because all we eat is rice. I guess what I miss is really good coffee. I also had a huge $7 bag of peanut M&Ms in my shopping cart. But at the last minute I put this back, just too hard to get them back.

I am getting up at 3:30am to get to the airport in the morning and I am still trying to watch New England and Jacksonville play right now. This is the only NFL game I have been able to watch. I will be back in the sunshine, though, by the time most of you read this.

Everyone Knows Its Windy

Deneen thought that the last blog was boring. Well, here is a short entry for those of you who think like Deneen. It has been very windy here the last two days. The waves out front of the museum were reaching six feet today. We shot a quick video to show this, but it did not go as planned.

Liar, Liar, Business Fire

There are no actual lies in this post. But last week the business school caught fire. This was the day after Christmas. I was the first person on the scene. I noticed smoke pouring out of the building, but flames were coming only from the area where the electrical service came into the building. I drove to the police station to report the fire. I fully expected that by the time the fire truck arrived from the airport, the entire building would be lost. Later, I went over to the property to tell them what I had seen.

A couple days later, the administrator of the school came to the museum to get me. She wanted me to go through the building with the contractor that had been hired to do the repairs.

I really thought I was leaving the stress of constantly fighting for the preservation of buildings that should, without much of a thought, be restored. I am the only restoration professional on the island. Everyone knows this from the article in the newspaper.

The business school is housed in a timber-framed house that dates to ca1800. The timber framing is incredible, very well done, very English. The frame is made from ship timbers and Bermuda Cedar. Surrounding the historic structure are newer classroom areas. The contractor wanted to tear the whole building down and build a similar structure in concrete block.

The building actually was very intact. The Bermuda kitchen, where the fire started, was totally lost. The rest of the building was salvageable. I spent an hour showing everyone how well the timber frame held up in the fire. Most rooms were intact and only required cleaning. There was so much paint on the wood paneling that the paint blistered and burned, but the wood remained intact. I thought that a full evaluation should be done on what could be saved.

Two days later I returned. All of the finishes were removed down to the timber frame. I met with a government official, the contractor, and school administrator. I went through the building and advised what should be replaced in kind, what part of the structural timbers should be replaced, and what finishes should be reproduced. The plan now is for the contractor to complete a major restoration of the interior finishes, including all of the wood paneling. I am to complete periodic construction reviews and advise on preservation issues. I think I can feel my ulcer returning.

Happy New Year

Well, we shall see what 2008 will bring. 2007 brought many changes. Here we sit on a small desert island in the Caribbean. That should say enough.

2008 will have big plans. My first book will be published in May. We have three grant projects to complete at the museum. I am consulting on three major restorations on various islands. We need to get two new vehicles. Martin and Lucas start high school next week.

Up until this week, it has felt like we have been in vacation for the last seven weeks. Once school and football (soccer to most of you) start vacation will be over.

This week has had its ups and downs. I would love to be more prolific, but instead I am going to try and include a short video of us snorkeling at Smuggler's Beach this past week.

Merry Christmas

It has not felt much like Christmas this year. We arrived the week after Thanksgiving and with getting use to the new home and island we have not planned or celebrated the Holidays. Plus it has been in the upper 80s and we go swimming a lot.

In lieu of sending Christmas cards this year I am posting this picture. It is our Christmas card. This is us on our beach on Christmas day at a shipwreck area we call the fence. Merry Christmas.

On Sunday we went to an open house, or an appreciation party, at the cruise center. Goodmark Jewelers opened all of its stores and was holding sales for the local population to buy presents. They were offering free food, so we thought we would go quickly and just eat.

For the last several years I have wanted to get Deneen a black pearl necklace but never have. Indigo Pearls was having a 50% off sale. I found a set that I really liked. Deneen found a set she really liked. There is some benefit, I guess, to living on an island with duty free shopping. We bought both.

After this we went over to the Dufry shop and bought Deneen a pair of sunglasses and a Nike sport watch.

It was about 7:30, so we went over to the Goodmark store to see if the 5:30 raffle was over, or to see if it was running on Grand Turk time. In fact, the guy was yelling that you had two minutes left to get your raffle ticket in the box. We all put our names in the box. They were raffling 10 items, all from various stores. Martin won the second to last gift, a diamond watch. It was a women's watch, so Martin gave it to Deneen for Christmas.

Christmas day. Deneen had a good Christmas.

Martin and I opened and worked at the museum from 8:30 until 3:00 on Christmas day. We had two cruise ships in, and Christmas day was inagural behind-the-scenes excursion the museum is doing for Holland America in partnership with a local excursion operation. This past weekend we had installed flat screen video monitors, a small temporary exhibit, cleaned all of the exhibits, and tried to revamp the shop. In two days, Melanie Clifton-Harvey, the visiting curator, and Martin were able to accomplish more than I have managed to get done inside the museum in three months. Christmas was the first day that the museum has met revenue goals. We were 400% above our average.

In the afternoon we went to the beach. Way down the beach I saw a couple catching conch and breaking the shells right on the beach. I walked down to ask them to teach me how to clean conch. Teh guy took a conch out of the shell, cleaned a lot of gooey crap off of it and said, "have you ever eaten fresh conch." He then washed the flesh off in the ocean and offered a bite of the freshest conch I think you can eat. I offered some to Deneen, Lucas, and Martin but had no takers. I took two live conch back to the house and made a fresh conch, tomato and cucumber salad for Christmas. You can't have a more island Christmas than that.

Christmas evening we made dinner consisting of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and conch salad. When Melanie came in from New York last week she brought a bag of fresh cranberries and two boxes of cherry jello. So we even had Deneen's favorite cranberry jello salad. We shared our dinner with Mel and two other young men who are working on island and have no family here. Then, on the museum's LCD player out on the screen porch, we watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3, which Martin had downloaded on Itunes.

We are far from home and family, but this is one of the best Christmas days that I have had.

Christmas Puppies

There are only a few indigenous wild animals in the Turks and Caicos Islands and most now are endangered or extinct. The Rock Iguana used to inhabit 90% of the islands, now its range of habitat is 5%. The Red Footed Bo0bie was eaten to extinction hundreds of years ago. In the 16th century, the Spanish introduced cattle to the islands as a food source for ship wreck survivors. In the 17th century the Bermudians left horses and donkeys to reproduce for draft animals. Because the original genetic pool was so small, today there is actually a separate breed of donkey known as the Turks Island Donkey.

These are now the wild animals that roam freely throughout the island. There is also just one breed of dog on the island of Grand Turk, the potcake. These dogs live wild throughout the island. Most are very ugly. Some are cute. They are like squirrels. They just run around and no one really notices. I notice tourists having compassion over them. But after about two weeks you just see them as squirrels. If you put a collar on one you can claim it, and then feed it. Animal control traps them and removes animals without collars from the population.

In November, before we came, a dog had seven puppies in the bush (the overgrown undeveloped part of the island) behind our house. These puppies have been running around our compound looking for food and sleeping under cars. We have two trucks parked in our yard (remember, this is a separate blog) so we have had the puppies sleeping at our house for the last two weeks.

There are five left. One has a hurt leg, one is a runt, one is black, and one is creamy. The fifth must be the alpha. It is mean and never comes up to the house.

I have been trying to keep the boys from messing with them. Our neighbors have called animal control several times. The one with the hurt leg is not fending for itself and has gotten very skinny. I told the boys not to become attached because the puppies are not going to last long. Last week Davis gave the one with the hurt leg some leftover pancakes. So we named it Pancake. Then we named the others Cupcake, Poundcake, and Patty. Well, that got the better of us.

We have started operation head-of-the-pack. Every night for the last three nights we have fed the puppies and tried to get them to come up on the porch. Three of them, Pancake, Poundcake, and Patty, are very receptive. Two nights ago they ate food from our hands. Last night only Patty and Cupcake showed up, but Patty ate from Deneen's hand and let Davis touch her.

We have decided that if we can get the three cute ones to cooperate, we will collar them and keep them. I went to get dogfood, but it was $40 a bag. Deneen said we should get the dog food and give it to Davis for Christmas. But last night when Pancake did not show up, we thought that we should wait to see if the puppies will be around long enough to domesticate.

Davis called work today to say that Pancake had returned. I think I am going to go get dogfood and give Davis dog collars for Christmas.