Wednesday, October 6th
mums the word

I am happy to report that we arrived in New Bern today, in time for today's experimental opening of the Moo Cafe (free ice cream to all visitors who offered suggestions), and the annual Mum Fest - although it takes a bit of getting used to when pumpkin and mum ornamentation appears as a contrast to the 85 degree weather. Actually it was 53 degrees this morning - our first brisk sail. And, New Bern boasts of its title as home to the invention of Pepsi..whatever...New Bern is really pretty nice so far - we're docked off a picturesque town park, within walking distance of 2 good coffee shops, although unfortunately no book stores...which segways nicely into my latest interesting children's literature reading assignment - Did you ever notice that the illustrations in Where the Wild Things Are increase in size with the fantastical nature of Max's dreams, and then decrease as he returns home (awakens), with his final size larger than his original size, symbolizing his development experienced through his dream - pretty cool stuff! - I guess I also never really viewed children's literature as 2 art forms in one (writing and art - duh), with the added quality of the art serving to enhance the text's unstated meaning - as an adult reading to a child, I think I sometimes don't take time to enjoy the art, while the children naturally do both - I'm going to make a concerted effort to pause for the art, rather than my tendency to primarily focus on the words - somehow that sounds like a good life philosophy as well

Sunday, October 10th
mum's the word - not

So, after we ate our complimentary breakfast, and drove our complimentary car (whose dashboard stated "engine service soon"), we arrived at the farm - we chose the one without battleships. We fed and petted the animals (Elias reminisced about Boots and demonstrated how you showed him to hold a cat), took a hay ride, and made butter - after which, the program leader distributed some lipitor chasers. We returned to the mum fest - maybe it was supposed to be a mum scavenger hunt (we found 3 or 4 specimens), for the police K-9 demo - with dogs for Elias and simulated police chases for Jonas.