July is family reunion time

July has become our family reunion time each year. Butch's family has a reunion on the farm in Mt. Olive, N.C., each year around July 4th, and my family has theirs on Kingsley Lake at Camp Blanding in Starke, Fla., mid-July. It provides us with the opportunity to catch up with all the family and many friends in one trip, especially with the price of airfare. Now that I've graduated and am no longer spending my vacations studying, we also were able to go to Busch Gardens Africa in Tampa with our sons, grandson, and new granddaughter.

Everyone in the family loves roller coasters except me so I volunteered to take care of Lia - hey, even if I loved roller coasters, I'd be volunteering to take care of Lia. While they twisted, turned and flipped at warp speed, I could spend quiet moments just watching her sleep.

Anthony will be 8 in August and is a few inches shy of the required height for four of the roller coasters so we spent a lot of time in the youth section. Busch has a jungle-themed mini-park with sand pits, water spouts, tree climbing, flying kite rides, and a spider monkey habitat. Anthony loved the kite ride, screaming and laughing all the way. We were there early so there weren't any lines and the technician let them ride multiple times, which is great for kids who tire of standing in the long lines for the bigger rides.

The train rides through the natural habitats so you can get really close to the animals. They had to stop the train at one point because the youngest rhinoceros was sniffing around the tracks. He was born in April and weighed a mere 85 pounds at birth. In the first month, they gain 4 to 8 pounds a day so at 4 months, increasing steadily to reach the average 6,000 pounds of an adult. At almost four months now, the youngster weighs in at 1,100 pounds. While we were waiting for junior to move a safe distance from the tracks, we saw a pair of red-tailed hawks drinking from a pond. A gentle reminder that even though the hawks are in Florida, we here in Nevada have a much easier time of seeing them without all the trees.

Have a ramblin' good week, and rest of summer.

Reach Gail Davis at ruhenstrothramblings@yahoo.com or 265-1947.