Well, we made it home. We had a great time, but I don’t think we’ll be doing anything quite that adventurous again. At least not anytime really soon. I’m planning to write more about each day of our trip in the coming days so stay tuned. In the meantime you can peruse our pictures, many of which are blurry (it is hard to shoot in near total darkness inside a huge cavern, especially when you are rushed), are all here.
Tags: Carlsbad, Caverns, New Mexico, vacation
Later this evening, or very early tomorrow morning, we will load the kids in the car, and start driving to New Mexico. We won’t arrive until mid morning and hopefully Wesley and Jillian will have slept through most of it. At least that is the plan. Even short car rides of 30 minutes or less can be a challenge. Wesley complains, Jillian cries. So we are hoping that they’ll sleep through most of this one.
We are going to be spending a few days exploring Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The park is famous for its cave systems and the rock formations contained therein. We’ll be meeting up with Amy and Jason and their kiddos, Gracie and Emmett. They are driving in from Yuma, AZ. We’ll do family stuff as well as take turns babysitting so that the adults can get some of the more strenuous tours in. Frankly, I’m pretty excited.
The park doesn’t have a campground, only back-country sites. Not really an option with so many little kids. So we are staying at the Carlsbad RV Park and Campground which is fairly close by. We’ll be roughing it with such amenities as a pool, showers, and free Wi-Fi access (so do expect photos while we’re gone).
The only thing left to do is figure out how to get all that stuff in the car and still have room for both the kids. Do you think Wesley would mind riding on the roof? We’ll just strap is car seat to the kayak racks.
Tags: car, Carlsbad, Carlsbad Caverns, Caves, New Mexico, NM, vacation
It was quite a while ago that I first heard about Librivox.org, but our upcoming trip (specifically the eight to ten hour drives in each direction) brought it back to my attention. Librivox is a site that as they say “provides free audiobooks from the public domain.” They do this in a marvelous way. Once a book is chosen one person steps forward to manage the project. They then recruit volunteers, folks just like you and me, to record one ore more sections of the book. The sections are generally one chapter, but it depends a great deal on the format of the material. While most books are read by a number of readers, it isn’t uncommon for someone to read the entire book. The readers use their computer to record their reading to an mp3 file which is then checked for accuracy, clarity, etc before being approved. Once the entire book is recorded it is made available for download at no charge.
The projects greatest strength lies in the fact that anyone can read and record a section. Readers often identify themselves or their location at the end of each chapter (the text is approved beforehand by the project lead). So I can tell you I’ve heard heard books read by at least a dozen people from at least the following countries: the US, UK, Turkey, and France. The quality of readers varies to put it simply. Some readers you hope will only read one chapter while others would be at home recording books professionally (ah… Chip from Florida, you made Treasure Island come alive) . Part of the fun for me is thinking how I would have pronounced this or that differently or being grateful that I didn’t have to pronounce that part at all. Some of the readers simply read the words, others do voices, and others almost act out the parts. Voices, accents, pronunciations are ever changing.
It certainly isn’t a “professional” quality product. But I think it more than makes up for it in its sense of community. I have to admit I’m tempted to try my hand at reading a chapter or two. If I do, I’ll post the link to the book I’ve read some small part of. Until then we’ll be listening to the first three books of the series as we head west across Texas. Who knows, maybe at some point in the future, we’ll each take a hand in voicing a children’s book that Wesley and Jillian will listen to.
Last night we went to dinner at Chris and Tiah’s house. Mat and Becca were there too. We shot some hoops, played with the kids and basically just hung out and had a good time. We got home late, but the kids got up just as early as usual despite losing two hours of sleep.
Jillian was giggling her head off as I snuck up on her to give her a tickle.
Wesley is now catching the ball! I tossed him a football last week and it didn’t just bounce right off him. He reached out and grabbed it. New reflexes! This opens up a whole new set of games to play.