I'm Pretty Sure It's Not Poison Ivy (cont'd)
Cabbage Key, Florida - February 2005

My student also learned how to “almost catch” a fish as big as himself - or so it looked. Fishing is a big deal here. Many people have large fishing poles on their boats and we can see boats sitting for hours in shallow water fishing. I always imagine what it is like for the fish. It would be like if my cup of coffee here was the bait and when I drank it I would be ripped out of this chair from the face of existence as I know it. Wow.

DAY 6
Today I am going to have another cheeseburger. The main activity yesterday was to find out what the attraction was at the main building at lunchtime, and now I know, it was the burgers. Boy were they good. The other big thing scheduled for today is to talk to the captain who will be taking us back to the mainland. The big decision is to go on Saturday morning or on Sunday morning. The front they predicted arrived, there’s no rain but there are tremendous winds. The temperature dropped from the high 70’s to the mid 50’s, so it’s difficult to do nothing on the dock today. Even a hike on the island’s trails would be difficult because the sand is blowing. We met a man yesterday on the dock that was going camping at Cayo Costa. I thought about him this morning as I made my coffee in semi warmth. He didn’t have a sleeping bag, so I imagine he was pretty chilly. Today is also the first day I had trouble getting my student to do his reading. I suppose everyone who chooses to home school hits difficult days. I think back to the days when I was in a classroom and remember how I longed to be anywhere else but in that classroom and I look at my student being stubborn about reading this morning in this beautiful place. I wonder how many other homeschooling moms play with the idea of sending their students to a school just so they understand how the many of their peers are being educated.