Enrichment Classes

Reading: Wanderlust Book Club 
Intertwine your love of travel and a good book with a travel-themed book club. Each month enjoy the selected book from the list and conclude the month at the clubhouse with a group discussion on how it relates to your travel, and how it may inspire your wanderlust.
1- 1 hr. classes - $5 / $6 nonresidents      

Book List:

“Down Under” by Bill Bryson 

It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still Australia teems with life – a large portion of it quite deadly. In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else.

Ignoring such dangers – and yet curiously obsessed by them – Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging: their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water; the food is excellent; the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines.

24814     Meadowbrook Park Clubhouse           2/7        Tue        2 pm NEW DATE

“The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho       

Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found.

The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us, as only a few stories can, about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, above all, following our dreams.

24815     Meadowbrook Park Clubhouse           2/28        Tue        2 pm   

“Love with a Chance of Drowning” by Torre DeRoche

A city girl with a morbid fear of deep water, Torre DeRoche is not someone you would ordinarily find adrift in the middle of the stormy Pacific aboard a leaky sailboat – total crew of two – struggling to keep an old boat, a new relationship and her floundering sanity afloat.

But when she meets Ivan, a handsome Argentinean man with a humble sailboat and a dream to set off exploring the world, Torre has to face a hard decision: watch the man she's in love with sail away forever, or head off on the watery journey with him. Suddenly the choice seems simple. She gives up her sophisticated city life, faces her fear of water (and tendency towards seasickness) and joins her lover on a year-long voyage across the Pacific.

Set against a backdrop of the world's most beautiful and remote destinations, Love with a Chance of Drowning is a sometimes hilarious, often moving and always breathtakingly brave memoir that proves there are some risks worth taking.

24816     Meadowbrook Park Clubhouse          3/28        Tue        2 pm

“The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific” by J. Maarten Troost

 At the age of twenty-six, Maarten Troost—who had been pushing the snooze button on the alarm clock of life by racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs—decided to pack up his flip-flops and move to Tarawa, a remote South Pacific island in the Republic of Kiribati. He was restless and lacked direction, and the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals tells the hilarious story of what happens when Troost discovers that Tarawa is not the island paradise he dreamed of. Falling into one amusing misadventure after another, Troost struggles through relentless, stifling heat, a variety of deadly bacteria, polluted seas, toxic fish—all in a country where the only music to be heard for miles around is “La Macarena.” He and his stalwart girlfriend Sylvia spend the next two years battling incompetent government officials, alarmingly large critters, erratic electricity, and a paucity of food options (including the Great Beer Crisis); and contending with a bizarre cast of local characters, including “Half-Dead Fred” and the self-proclaimed Poet Laureate of Tarawa (a British drunkard who’s never written a poem in his life

24817     Meadowbrook Park Clubhouse          4/25        Tue        2 pm

Special Interest: Be in the Know...Alzheimer's and Dementia
Learn how to recognize common signs of Alzheimer's and dementia; how to approach someone about memory concerns; importance of early detection and benefits of diagnosis. Presentations by Alzheimer's Association.
1 - 1 hr. class - FREE

24820     10 Warning Signs                                                 Virtual                       2/8          Wed        2 pm

24821      Healthy Living for the Brain & Body                       Meadowbrook Park Clubhouse           3/8          Wed         2 pm

24822      Understanding Alzheimer’s and Dementia           Meadowbrook Park Clubhouse           4/5          Wed         2 pm

Special Interest: Travels with Granddad Travelogues (Virtual)
Join presenter, Hal Costly, as he shares his explorations of destinations he’s experienced with his grandsons.  
1 - 1 hr. session- FREE             

24866     Travelogue 4 - Dude ranch in Wyoming, North Dakota’s Badlands, and South Dakota’s Badlands           Virtual            2/3                Fri           10 am

24867     Travelogue 5 - St. Augustine Florida and other Florida Cities                          Virtual            2/10         Fri           10 am

Special Interest: UFO Museum (Virtual)
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a UFO! Enjoy a virtual presentation by the staff at the UFO Museum in Roswell, NM. 
1 - 1 hr. sessions - Free

24765     Virtual           3/14     Tue         10 am