Here is a sunset photo we took near our new home that houses our entire business..

and the Sunset oil painting our customer Sandra created from this photo that now graces our bedroom as a headboard to the bed, and the teak elephants:

and another painting of Sandra's that we purchased and hung in the bedroom also, of a pier ocean sunset:

WE CAN EXPLAIN THE WEIRD STUFF IN OUR STORE!  REALLY!

Glenn Reed used to have a shop in Myrtle Beach of shark and marine related items.  He closed the shop in 1994 and "went walkabout" with Darel, his beloved wife, for the remaining years of her life with M.S., meeting Heidi Lee who had been doing arts & crafts shows with her line of jackets, scarves and jewelry.  Heidi joined the "family" with Glenn, Darel and their two cats, and for the next four years, they both cared for Darel.  They combined their businesses, traveling in a Class A motor home, touring the country while doing 40-50 arts & crafts shows per year, with the wire-wrapped shark's teeth and gemstone bead necklaces Glenn was now making and Heidi's work with something for everyone!

Prior travels of Glenn and Darel have included 54 countries covering all continents except South America.  This included 8 summers chaperoning high school students on a six-week educational tour of Europe.  Road trips of the new "family" resembled what they called the "poor Charles Kuralt tour-with-no-sponsor" as they found the back roads and small towns that ALWAYS hid fascinating people, stories and treasures just waiting to be discovered.  Darel enjoyed every bit of it - an ever-changing scenery of interesting things that kept her mind more active than most.  Glenn had already been "an avid collector with a short attention span", so when they all settled in Boulder City, Nevada (midway between Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam) there were oodles of weird things in the store right away.  They have since added considerably to the shop's inventory with things that "wowed" them.  Darel's condition merited staying put, hence the choice to open the store instead of traveling further.

The store was educational in nature, for all ages, with self-guided information cards throughout the store describing where things were made/obtained, and how they were made.  If they don't make it themselves, they either know the artist & technique or have dug the materials and met the miners themselves!  Their store was on the Approved List for educational sites for field trips in the Clark County School District.  During the school year, they gave weekly educational seminars on varieties of the way-too-cool stuff in the store.

The store theme was to display beautiful things from all eras and continents for others to see, learn from and perhaps purchase.  We hope you enjoy the "mentally nutritious journey" through the website in the same way.

Darel passed away in June of 2000 in Nevada.  She was a gentle soul with admirable stamina under the circumstances - she is sorely missed.  For those of you that knew her and her struggle with M.S., she never allowed the disease to beat her, and fought right up to the very end.  She died with a sense of fulfillment - she knew that she had touched at least one child's life and made a difference.  It turns out that she did that many times over, as so many of you parents know from the experiences your children had in their contact with Darel.

Heidi comments that Glenn's faithful care of Darel kept her comfortable right to the last, keeping his promise that she never be put in a nursing home.  Not an easy promise to keep, especially those last few years.  Many never knew what an effort this took.  A quote from one of Glenn's friends was "what a statement that makes about the kind of persons we all can be".  How true.

Glenn and Heidi got married in June of 2001 (classic drive-up chapel, Las Vegas style wedding!!) and continued to run the store successfully.  After 9/11, which changed the Hoover Dam tourist traffic considerably, they decided by 2002, for several reasons, to relocate back to the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina area.  The Nevada store had been open for 3 years by the time they packed it down and moved.  They opened the store in Myrtle Beach in June of 2002 for 18 months, at which time the website and Ebay business had grown phenomenally so they could not justify keeping the storefront open.  So they closed it down and have been running the net biz from their lovely country home, 20 minutes drive from the beach, since December of 2003.  They continue to travel and come home with new weird things every time, they can't seem to stop!

Fourth of July, our flag is waving proudly

Every afternoon we have a big thunderstorm, here is the view off the back porch of the cameo building and the dinosaurs in the back yard through the torrential rain pouring out of the eave troughs

One of our wild kitties, enjoying the coolness of the swing

Our fat, well fed raccoon family eating the cat food under the umbrella that keeps it dry.  Glenn took these photos from his office window with the zoom lens

We have known of a mother black bear and 3 cubs that have been visiting our side yard every night.  Now they are visiting the yard during the day!  

The young male (we think it's a male because he's bigger than the other 2 cubs and usually feeds separately.  Here he is standing guard at the crossover path at the ditch:

It looks like the bear is smelling the flower, when in reality the hibiscus bush is considerably closer to the camera:

And taking baths in the bear pool...together!  One cub entered the pool, then mama, then another cub..I don't know why the side of the pool (which is a boy's plastic car bed) didn't split.  We'll have to write the manufacturer and tell them how sturdy it is!

Then exploring a short ways beyond the hibiscus bush "barrier" before realizing they were "out of bounds"..

Here is Mama bear that came alone this morning.  She has apparently broken her left front ankle which has a large lump on it (or a snake bite), we have noticed since she began coming, as she limps but can put weight on it.  We hope it heals without an infection, we will continue to worry.

Day lilies that grew like weeds, 5 feet tall!

Hibiscus:

One of the flourishing flower beds:

Mimosa blooms, resembling an exotic Fourth of July fireworks, from a tree down the road:

June 23, 2008  The Texas Rose (a species of Hibiscus) began blooming yesterday.  The blooms are as big as dinner plates.  We have been awaiting their arrival.  Many more to come, the stems are over 5 feet tall with a dozens of blooms on each of the five stalks.  A testament to Miracle-Gro, I'm sure, and Glenn's loving hands:

Here's my tough big guy:

Little  Miss Bitty Kitty checking out the sprinkler head:

Mama boots, with her  litter and a couple of her mother's (Big Mama's) litter.  Boots' litter is 2 weeks older than Big Mama's litter:

Big Mama lapping milk with the kitties:

Big Mama, acting lovey, and another female we call Mrs. Black who did not bear a litter this year, thank goodness!

Update 6/14/08  This kitty has now disappeared, the casualty of one of the many predators in these woods.  We are glad we had some time to help a young creature, however long her life. 

Fat & sassy raccoons (there are 5 or 6) share the space under the storage building, and the cat food amicably with the cats.  The umbrella keeps the food dry..another pampering by Glenn:

Friends Frank, Cathy, their kids Josh, Noah and baby Danielle during their annual visit, posed under Mr. Cave Bear, and photos from the Fresh Catch Seafood Restaurant down the road

Beautiful hibiscus blooms at the new Market Commons (the old Air force base area of Myrtle Beach)

And our own azaleas blooming:

then they explode into real bloom!

and our early wildflowers:

Candy striped amaryllis:

More roses, more vivid each year it seems:

The hyacinths, azaleas, irises and crocuses have been out for a couple of weeks already, here in South Carolina, here's one of our hyacinths..

February 10, 2008

Open letter from Glenn:

It is with a very distinct amount of pleasure that I make my following intentions known to our loyal customers, friends and fellow business associates.

I have reached a point in my life where I have had the pleasure of building a very successful business.  My ever-growing curiosity over the past 38 years has led me to the far reaches of the earth, pursuing my dream of finding the strangest, most bizarre oddities that you see on our website.

These past 11 years, Heidi has been involved in my business. Early on, our businesses were combined, creating another whole dimension encompassing many beautiful categories of things we have found from new travels together.  

So I have decided it's time to hand over the reins of this partnership to my lovely and capable wife Heidi, making her the sole proprietor of Where on Earth effective retroactively to January 2008.  

I will continue to support Heidi, but in a much different role.  This change in management will allow me more time to pursue other creative choices.  Working on gator skulls and cameos and restoring our cave bear skeleton is like putting together model planes and cars that I never got to play with as a kid, now I can do so with even less distractions...

One weekend's work with cameos & eyeglass loops: 

I hope you will join me in further support and interest in Where on Earth as we continue our travels to find the unusual, as well as educational endeavors.

As a sign of her mutual interest, she has taken a quantum leap in the new direction of the future of Where on Earth.  Heidi has made her first sole selection, a large addition to our outstanding collection.  It is with admiration and love that I share with you and showcase - Direct from Romania - The Romanian Cave Bear Collection (link below)

Cave Bear Fossils

and a lovely white wildflower sprouted nearby:

Glenn came home with a 50 pound watermelon.  It took the two of us a week to eat, but eat it we did!

A rare day visit by big papa bear, he usually comes at night.  Magnificent.

THE BEAR BATH

The juvenile (over 200 pound) bear actually sat in this white Tupperware water dish one day in July, he was so hot.  We took pity, and found a boy's plastic car bed, sealed the screw holes, and filled it with water.  It only took two days for Mr. Bear to decide to take a bath, a ritual he performs at least once a day:

Today he was a good boy and cleaned his claws during his bath (smile):

They go from the cracked deer corn pile, to the cat food, and back again

What big PAWS you have:

Carrying off a half a bagel we put out for the coons:

Occasionally stopping to scratch an itch:

Heading over to the cat food for dessert:

On the far right you can see one of the cats eating from the large dish, this is a daily occurrence.  A few times the bear has playfully chased the cat, who is not alarmed but plays along:

Just for fun, he stretched high on the tree, reached around and knocked off the tree face, then sat and played with it (no damage done):

We finally figured out why the fence rail was broken, it wasn't deer jumping the fence at all!

The tiger canna lilies are awesome that Glenn planted for the first time this year:

Note the fly on the left side that has lit on the petal:

An interesting beetle on this hibiscus:

and the Crepe Myrtle bushes:

Below you will note Glenn enjoying the fruits of his labors, from the comfort of the swing

Fooled you!  These ones are glass:

Wildflowers blooming in the side yard that Glenn planted earlier:

Few roses, but here were two beauties:

Close up, then panning away so you can see how invisible the cat is where she is hiding:

We won't say how old he is, but he got his first train, thanks to good friends in Virginia.  A kid at heart.  Nothing wrong with that.

Another gift of tree faces to make the woods a special place:

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?  And gator?  Not this toddler, she thrives in our weird home.  (remember, they're just rugs but they DO still look alive). 

Danielle's first real visit to the beach

Enjoying the feel of the waves

Danielle with mom, and her two brothers Josh and Noah

Glenn has gone to the industrial strength/size of home-made cat feeder to take care of our "stray" critters when we are gone (cats, possums, raccoons, rabbits).  Of course, now the bears think this is a major food source too, so he has had to reinforce it even more since this photo was taken:

Enter our ever-humorous Sherman's Fox squirrel ("Sherman" for short)

As our smiling Tree Faces look on:

Our "stray" cats sunning themselves before their daily milk treat:

And a lone turkey has visited our yard the past few mornings: