Estero, Florida in the rear-view mirror.

This is Bonita Beach and our piece of heaven in Florida.

One of the most mysterious effects of being in one place for a long time is how time folds in on itself and neatly puts itself away.  We’ve been in Estero, Florida for nearly five months and in that time, Christmas and New Year’s have come and gone, we witnessed what south-Florida calls the seasons – winter (temperatures in the high 40s);  spring (temperatures in the mid-70s); and currently, summer (temperatures in the mid-80s).  We pulled together a wedding reception for two of our fellow volunteers here at the park, complete with a cake and champagne toasts.  We made a quick trip to the deep and frigid north for a wonderful family weekend, we celebrated a reunion dinner with Triangle X friends who winter here in Florida, met up with people we met on the road in Ann Arbor, and enjoyed a reunion with our first Airstream friends who met in the panhandle of Florida in 2015.  We continue to delight in the company of our Koreshan State Park fellow volunteers following our official fourth anniversary living full time on the road.

48 hours in my Koreshan life.

The wedding rehearsal underway at the Art Hall.

Today, during my docent shift, there was a wedding rehearsal in the Art Hall.  I am so in love with weddings that I even find rehearsals wonderful.  The acoustics in the Art Hall are lovely and after a few bars of Pachabel Canon in D Major, I was reaching for my handkerchief. That’s how deeply wired I am for these ceremonies of connection, commitment, and love.

Snapshots from the front porch.

The lovely and gracious Art Hall, seen from the front, is my vantage point for the snapshots to come.

Photographers have fallen in love with the evening light at Koreshan State Historic Park. I have discovered how they flock, like birds, toward the buttery, golden light that precedes the weekend sunsets. Some of them are like detectives attempting to find just the perfect slant of light, others are on a reconnaissance mission to stake a claim to a spot where they know the shadows will be most dramatic at some future moment.

The new kids on the block at Koreshan State Historic Park.

We cross the Estero River as we walk from our Volunteer Village to work in the settlement.

Getting settled into the Volunteer Village is like moving into a neighborhood. Our new neighborhood is tucked along the Estero River and has just one street made of hard packed sand and crushed shells. A total of about twenty of us, living in RVs and travel trailers and 5^th-wheelers, make up this temporary community of travelers volunteering at Koreshan State Historic Park in Estero, Florida. All were here when we arrived, making us the “new kids on the block”.

We were welcomed into the Village by the volunteer supervisor, Ron, and his warm and friendly wife, Joan. Our campsite is directly across from the bathrooms and showers, which is wonderfully convenient.  We discovered clotheslines for air-drying laundry, which presents the delightful prospect of sleeping on sheets that have dried in the generous Florida sun.

The Docents at Koreshan State Historic Park: an overview.

Here we are in our uniforms as we begin our docent gig at Koreshan State Historic Park in Estero, Florida.

On our pilgrimage to here, we have arrived at our three-month winter home in Estero, Florida.  As I was preparing to write this first blog, it occurred to me that the next three months of our pilgrimage suggest a different approach. The blog becomes less of a travelogue and more reflective, more like chapters in a book, or pages in a journal. It may unfold as if one were floating down the figurative branches and streams that come up as Peter and I learn about the place, and about ourselves, as we volunteer at Koreshan State Historic Site as docents.