The Adventures of Flat Sam: Fort Stevens, Cancun, & Boston

FORT STEVENS

Hi Sam,

Flat Sam went camping over the 4th of July at Fort Stevens state park with the Crocetti family and 5 other families. We spent time hanging out at the cabin, enjoying roomy deluxe accommodations that the trailer folks didn't have!

Plus all of our neighbors were nice and quiet. We went on several bike rides with him, including a trip to the sandy beach to see the Peter Iredale boat wreckage.

Since we were so close to Astoria, we had to have our Goonies movie night because "it was our time" to do the "truffle shuffle" and have a few laughs. For our big group gathering, Flat Sam had a place of honor at the head of the table and was quite pleased with all the goodies everyone brought to share for lunch. The best part was, of course, getting to share a Coke with Flat Sam!

Thanks for sharing the 4th with us!

CANCUN

Dear Sam,

Our flights to Cancun were a bit long, but Flat Sam hung in there and took the trip like a champ. The President of the United States even decided to spend some time at Dallas/Ft Worth with us all while we waited for our connecting flight. It was pretty cool to see his plane, but the most amazing part was seeing his air "support" team taking off. 3 Chinook helicopters and 2 Osprey's (those are the ones that take off vertically) were an impressive sight.

Our first eco-park was Xcaret which has an impressive Macaw breeding program among many other accolades. We got to see the birds in at least 10 age stages ranging from just 1 day old up to full fledged adults which they have dozens of just hanging out in their sanctuary. We were able to walk around and see the various macaw species up close, with all of their different colors, eating and interacting with each other and visitors. Boy do they get noisy when it's time to be moved back to their cages for the night! It turns out birds don't like early bed times either.

On most days we got to spend at least a little time hanging out at the most amazing section of beach in the entire hotel zone area. The sand was a clean brilliant white, soft as powder, and filled with all kinds of shell treasures. The water was pleasantly warm, remarkably calm, and super salty (making floating effortless, but stung the eyes a bit!). Our times at the beach were moments of pure heaven that we were happy to share.