Whelan's Wheels (go round and round, round and round)

busy busy and busier

2012-02-01T18:49:00.000-08:00

Seriously busy since the last post - thank you Bonnie Jeanne for prodding me to get with the program, and Marsha for shaming me (your comment to my last post, however many weeks ago that may have been!).

We've been in lovely (??) Lake City area for a month now. There is a lovely mural on the side of a building in the downtown area (that's all I know about it ... lovely and downtown), but I DO love these murals ~ remember the post from LA and the frog capital of the world? NOW those were some outstanding murals!

If we aren't in "lovely downtown" Lake City we are watching big huge bugs sauntering across our window ... well not exactly our window ~ this is one of the two window in front of which is my chair ... yup, where I sit as I create this literary masterpiece! Thankfully this creature was on the outside - cause I sure as heck would NOT be capturing it on "film" (huh) if it were on the inside ...

I might have been capturing it in a vacuum cleaner or mashing it with a broom or something! I did record a video, but once again I am video/blog challenged so you won't be seeing that sloooooooow moving video (consider yourself lucky is what I'd suggest)

And if we aren't watching bugs we might be taking a teeny tiny walk about the campground enjoying a sunset such as these (yes I did close the previous post with a sunset photo~my bad)

BUT, we do sometimes leave the area. Indeed we do because ......

We've left Sir Arlo at "camp" to go house hunting!

When we've been in this area before and have flown north from the "local" (Jacksonville) airport we've left Arlo here at Pet Paradise Resort, which we've referred to as "camp" when we mention it in his presence!! Call us crazy for sure, but we are what we are, and we ain't what we ain't! Upon our return we always quiz him about the new camp songs he learned and what crafts he did in our absence ... you know camp things, like Popsicle stick houses, leather belts or wallets, funky finger paintings ... you get the gist I'm sure ... Strangely enough Sir won't discuss it with us, in fact we get a glazed pissed off look if he will even look AT us ... mostly its just stare out the back window and totally 'dis us ... for a day or two or three ...

As for the house hunting, well we've sort of been checking out properties in the areas where we've stayed the last year or so, but the major factors have always been that we need to be close to GREAT hospitals and a reasonably large airport that has Southwest Airlines and hopefully Jet Blue and probably the east coast, but that wasn't as key a factor as hospital/airport ... and Florida just seemed to be what kept coming up, and the Jacksonville area specifically ...

We have taken a bit of a break from all that, however, to put Papa on an aforementioned Southwest plane to head north to our Princess Paigie Pie Muffin Face (not to mention Patrick and Beth)

Lucky lucky lucky Papa got to be there for a tea party before our Princess headed off to "school" ...

How great is it to have a tea party with an almost three year old grand princess and her special friends???? I do think, however that T~T (aka yours truly) should be making some fine and festive place mats for said tea parties.

While Papa was up north having tea parties and fun with his friends at his lodge and birthday celebrations with Beth's family I was hard at work ....

You know, earning our site here at this wonderful National Forest campground (one of the top three places we've been in four years on the road)

And, if I wasn't at my "work job" earning our site, I was home creating .....

Oh what great therapy my quilting is for me!!! However, my six month old Singer had a mechanical failure the night before Rick returned ... Because Singer has ONE (seriously) authorized dealer here in the huge state of FL it's been a challenging decision .... send it away for who knows how long or ....... but I can't be without my sewing machine, and I was just starting a project for my Princess .... UGH .

So, stay tuned for the Singer status as well as house hunting travails .... or whatever might bring you back to whelanswheels!

Where the heck are we?

2012-01-11T18:16:00.000-08:00

Seriously, where have we been. Yup I know Sisters Candy and Kimmy and dear friend "Good Paul", wherever we've been I haven't been on blogger!!! As John, Paul, George and Ringo said ... yeah yeah yeah ... here I am with tales to tell.

I guess the last post was a very brief one (I'm too lazy to even check) when I got my lovely pink, oh so very pink, cast off. That would have been when we were in the Richmond, VA area (where we'd been before and I did a post or two or three from there on our first, delightful visit there, in yet another area we loved). The post prior to that was probably when we were in Coatesville, PA, where the "accident" aka, broken arm happened, also did a post from there, more than one I am certain when we were there a couple years ago (another area we LOVED).

With all that said .... after we left the Richmond area this time around we headed to North Carolina. Again we stayed at the Neuse River campground of the Crotan Nation Forest, just down the road from my son Joshua and his wife and son (Trisha and Connor). We'd stayed at this lovely, peaceful campground before, but the last time we were there the new ranger had an issue with us leaving the trailer in the parking area where we had put it twice previously. With that being the issue we stayed elsewhere when we were in the area the last two times, but I really wanted to try there again, so I made a couple phone calls and spoke with the latest ranger there who had NO issue with the trailer being where we'd parked it before! The forest had suffered some tornado and hurricane damage this past season so it appeared a bit different than we remembered for sure! Still loved it though!

So, we were with Joshua, Trisha and Connor for Thanksgiving .... ahh what a wonderful time we had. We were there for about 10 days, got to see Connor and his class perform a Thanksgiving "pageant" for parents and grandparents etc. Unfortunately I am unable (my ignorance ... damn, damn, damn) to post videos here so trust me when I say it was awesome!

Also a missing video is one of Connor reading Rick "The Napping House" ... oh it was so much fun to watch them. Connor taking great joy in reading and Rick's antics acting out what Connor was reading!

After we left North Carolina we headed south to .... you guessed it, South Carolina. Where again, we stayed somewhere we'd been a couple times - Huntington Beach State Park in Murrells Inlet. A campground we all love, especially Sir Arlo because he gets to run and run and run on the beach and swim and play in the surf (sorry, no pictures of that, but there have been previously!)

One of the reasons we stopped here again was to purchase a new trailer .... oh such a pleasure! (not) But after replacing tires and axles it became quite obvious that we (the trailer, at this time I am not referring to the human(s)) were indeed overweight and in addition to being unsafe it was expensive!

Yup, she's a beauty! UGH

Next we are off to Gaffney, SC for repairs to the coach's exhaust system! Do ya think it's been an expensive few weeks!?!?

Then, finally we are in Florida and it is Christmas. Meanwhile, in New Hampshire we are missing our Princess set up the nativity scene made by her Grandmother (Patrick's Mom, Nancy) years ago. We had the Nativity set up in our house each year, but passed the tradition to Patrick (Rick's son) and his wife and daughter (Beth and Princess Paige) when we sold the house and "hit the road"

Isn't that marvelous picture of our girl with wonder in her eyes!!! Oh how I wish we were there - I had such a "melt down" on Christmas Eve when we spoke and she was telling me (aka "T-T") about her day and that she was eating ice cream cake that Uncle Tim made - I asked what kind (Uncle Tim is a cook from scratch guy, so it is ALWAYS outstandingly delicious) and she tells me it is "mint pepper" .... (aka peppermint) I had to hand the phone to Rick, I was incapable of continuing a conversation ... I wanted to BE THERE ;-(

Thankfully, we also got a photo of our Princess and her Vovo (I can't get the accent marks correct), Beth's father Roy, wearing "boppers" that we brought last year for the celebration, and thankfully got saved!

Meanwhile in North Carolina, Connor's class went on a field trip to the local airport to sing Christmas carols, sporting shirts they made. How cute is this? I can't imagine anything better to greet people getting off a plane than a group of six year olds, sporting these terrific shirts (look closely at what created the reindeer) and probably most of the boys and girls with missing teeth, singing carols!

Meanwhile, Christmas in Florida looked like this ...

On the 4th of January we moved over to the Osceola National Forest (Ocean Pond Campground) where I am doing a volunteer stint for a couple months .... more on that later, but I will leave you with a photo of our view ....

As the saying goes, stay tuned ....

the King's field trip

2011-11-30T18:47:00.000-08:00

So while we were in Coatesville, PA (where we were "landed" on our third day back on the road after our volunteering stint in VT from May-October) we went into Philly to meet up with a very dear old (as in long term friendship, NOT age because he and I are the same age) friend of mine.

Robert is the Chief Engineer of his ship

and graciously offered to give Rick a tour of said ship (he offered the tour to me as well, up until the time I had my mishap and broke my arm, at which time said offer was rescinded - no broken appendages allowed on board!!). Sadly, neither himself, King Richard, or I took a photo of the "stairs" from the parking area up to the ship ... with or without said broken appendage I don't think this blogger would have scaled those steps ...

Rick, surprisingly enough, didn't strongly object to the stairs and I think he has a worse fear of heights than I do ... then again, he knew a great tour was in order after the stairs so I guess that may have been what fueled his bravery!

Robert and I have been friends since junior high school ... (yes, that IS a looong time) ... his mother and my mother worked together and our parents were friends beyond that.

Robert went to Mass Maritime and traveled the world before "retiring" ever so briefly ... some people just aren't meant to retire and he is one of those people ...

The Regulus ("Robert's ship") is in what is referred to as a "ready reserve" status by the military and can be ready to sail per the military within 96 hours of order! She (why are ships referred to as she??) is 946 feet long and can carry 700+ military vehicles ~ YIKES! The link provides some interesting statistics - well worth the quick read.

While on the Regulus Rick got to see the USS Kennedy (foreground) and USS Forrestal docked ("moth balled"). He did find this quite distressing, although he did say that these ships were available as a donation to "anyone" willing to maintain them (??) I had hoped that the King himself would provide some personal thoughts about his tour here, but alas, that was not to be ... try as I might just not gonna happen ;-(

While Rick and Robert were touring I stayed in the car with a good book and my camera ...

Enjoying a pretty nice sunset and some seagull noise .... Indeed, a wonderful time was had by all (Thank you Robert, as always, it was great to see you, and hopefully we'll catch you on our April north bound journey somewhere in Baltimore!)

hopefully this post, and lack of cast, will get me back in blog mode .... stay tuned to find out ....

My arm is free free free at last

2011-11-14T16:17:00.000-08:00

From its hot pink armor!

Let the rehab fun begin ... bring it on (and my faithful heating pad and bottle of acetaminophen!

Oh yes, and himself, King Richard, is certain that I should be back on the trailer roof tomorrow completing the repair I was up there working on when the "mis~hap" occurred!!!! FAT CHANCE, maybe Thursday but NOT Tuesday!)

Stay tuned.......

Humpty dumpty

2011-10-28T05:32:00.000-07:00

(and I)

had a great fall (not autumn, but f-a-l-l).

Additionally, I had loaded 25+ photos to do a post about leaving Quechee last Sunday, it was waiting for text ..... it will be waiting a bit longer since I don't do so well right now typing left handed!!

As the saying goes .... stay tuned ....

the fungi (and fun guy) of Quechee

2011-10-04T21:57:00.000-07:00

This, below, is what started this whole pictoral post several ~~weeks~~ alright at this point it was more than a month ago ... We were sitting out at another of our wonderful, delightful, relaxing "campfires" (which often times start around 1:30 in the afternoon) and what to my wondering eyes should appear but this most interesting fungi photograph opportunity .... (gotcha didn't I ~ you thought it was going to be an early Christmas tale since we are in the land of snow ~ a post for a different time)

But seriously, this photo (above) was what started this post oh so very long ago .... As Sir and I had been walking about the campground it "dawned" on me that oh what a plethora of fungi colors and statures there are in just this tiny bit of land we are on (well "tiny" is a relevant term here).

So off I went a time or two, camera in hand, thinking oh what a photographer of fungi am I ... Seriously, who knew all these colors and shapes, sizes and hiding places these fungi would have. Well since at this time it has rained, I believe, eleven days in a row, causing the fungus to grow fungus and the mold to grow mold, and the people and canines to, perhaps, grow webs between their toes ... not to mention that some of "them" get just a wee bit "testy" and short tempered and perhaps a bit "irritable" (just thinking a bit, of course)

and lo and behold I come across a site from my "childhood" (a photo of the site above, certainly not a photo above of my childhood) .... "Indian Pipe" Such an interesting fungi it is, and reading the wikipedia info, I had NO clue there are, somewhere in the world, a red version of said Indian Pipe!!

Who had any clue there were so many shapes, sizes and colors of fungi. Speaking of fungi, how about the fun guy below .... is that a happy, fun guy face or what ....

Truth be told here (of course the truth would be told), He, the King, was out cleaning sites one day (or something I can not attest to witnessing, because I was not with him at the time, and only heard about it some time after the fact ... and what should He come across .... the fungi of ALL fungi ....

Are you ready for this???

He was quite proud to be the finder of such a treasure, so proud and honored was he that he proudly displayed it for anyone showing the most remote (really and truly remote) interest, including his female boss (not his wife, but his boss at the campground) ...

Oh yes, he carried this around in the campground pickup in case, just in case, he should cross paths with anyone who might like to see this wonderful specimen of fungi a fun guy can stumble upon in a damp, very damp environment up here in VT ...

BTW, there seems to be an issue with my "spell check" on blogger tonight ~ I did my best, but sometimes, hard as I try it just isn't good enough!

Do stay tuned ...

A happy day for himself

2011-09-18T21:02:00.000-07:00

I ask you my friends .... is that a happy face or what?

Many many (well two, which often feels like many many) months ago, himself, King Richard, celebrated another birthday, for which we are aways delighted and gleefully doing the "happy dance".

To celebrate said natal day his son Patrick (himself an air traffic controller) hired his friend, a pilot, to fly his Dad to the destination of his choice for lunch.... His highness the King is "all about" all things aeronautical and didn't really care too much about the lunch or the destination, it was all about the getting there, getting there way up high where the birdies fly .... lets just fly fly fly

Not so quick there your highness .... first and most importantly a pre-flight inspection must be done ... check things in the aircraft, check things under the aircraft and check the oil .....

then ....

YOU, your highness can pull the plane out of its hangar ....

and finally, after all this work is done you will go up up up and away

to Martha's Vineyard for a delightful, delectable, enjoyable, love filled lunch ....

devastation and destruction

2011-09-18T20:32:00.000-07:00

Not a particularly pleasant title is it? It has, however been the tone in these parts for a couple weeks, but it has also been a great motivator for communities to "come together" and do what has to be done ...

I think I may have posted the above photo a few months ago when we first arrived in Quechee, showing just how beautiful the Quechee Gorge is. The photos below, however, are quite a different view of said Beautiful Gorge .... don't you think!!!

Taken from the same spot on the bridge looking down into the gorge - the first one when the water level was at a "reasonable level" mid-June ... the next two were taken a couple days after Hurricane Irene reeked havoc on this area ~ tearing towns, villages, houses and families apart with wild abandon! As you can see from the photos the water level was considerably higher through the gorge - the rock cliffs along the side are under water! The trails (which by the way are maintained by "us", the State Park) and still impassable because of the damage done to them. The park system has been working to get them "passable" by the coming Columbus Day weekend, which in these parts is a major tourist weekend because of the gorgeous foliage that will surely color the area in a couple weeks (stay tuned, I just may be back in the blog swing of things and post a photo or two).

Above is a photo of the hydroelectric station just down the road from us (in fact across the street from the Park Rangers house). I don't have a comparison photo but this link is a terrific video (tab #1 at this link) of what was happening during this chaos, as well as a still shot (tab #2) which is a great comparison. There is mention during the video of propane tanks .... a store in Woodstock (about seven miles west of us) had several propane tanks lost in the disaster, being close to the flooding river, of course they floated away with several of them bursting, causing the bridge over the gorge to be closed for a while as a precaution ~ as if there wasn't enough going on!!!

Above, just a random shot of a small building that had "floated" off its foundation!

I think the worst of the local (within a one mile radius of us) tragedies was the photo directly above and those below of the Quechee Bridge. As you can see the bridge is "fine" but there is no longer access to the bridge, making it an island! Word has it that repairs will not start until sometime in 2013 on this devastation, as there IS other access to this area. The photo above was taken approaching the bridge from the south, the photos below were taken from the north side .... amazing the force of nature isn't it! That mother nature was one "pissed off woman" when she came through here that day!

An interesting note to the photo below, as well as one similar above, the building to the right of the bridge is (was) a real estate office - the entire back wall of the building was washed away! I do expect that any day now the building will be razed - I can't imagine that any insurance carrier would cover it in the future?

With all this said, there is progress being made - a couple of the businesses in this little area known as Quechee Village have reopened, but more surprisingly the main thorough fare from east to west across the state (route 4) at this point has finally been reopened, as of yesterday, with one lane passage. The closure of that road had a huge impact on the moral of the entire area with many many small towns being totally isolated.

With all this said I will close by saying I have photos loaded for two additional posts, but well ....... we shall see, but please do try to stay tuned ....

just because

2011-08-30T19:06:00.000-07:00

The beauty abounds

2011-08-26T18:36:00.000-07:00

At the Vermont State Parks. A while back we took a field trip of sorts to Barnard, VT to visit the Silver Lake State Park. We thought perhaps Sir Arlo needed some swim and water play time, if not a change of scenery. We don't have a lake or pond (or any day use area for that matter) here at Quechee (yes we have a gorge, but that's a hike and not always the best choice with a dog who isn't particularly social!

I don't know how big the lake is but it was beautiful and we were able to find plenty of places away from the day use beach area where Sir could frolic!

I turned around to look at our surroundings while Sir was swimming and look who else had been quite active in this particular spot recently!!! He must have heard us approaching because this sure looked like fresh chewing!

And as the saying goes, I'd say this fella had been "busy as a beaver" for sure!

It's hard for me to believe that we are three months into our five month commitment here in Quechee. We have been busy busy busy between our volunteering here, travel back to MA, travel to NH and company, lots and lots of company which we have LOVED! Also, we had the annual "Peck Family Christmas Bar-b-que" (aka PFCBBQ) here at our site a couple weeks back. Perhaps, just perhaps I'll get around to loading some pictures and doing a blog post about that major event~which was fun fun fun for all (I think, but I am certain it was fun for me!)

I'm thinking that's it for this post, stay tuned and see if another post happens soon .... we shall see .....

decisions decisions decisions

2011-07-11T19:27:00.000-07:00

Seriously, how on earth could I possibly chose which photos to post when I took over 300 then "edited" it down to about 180 and am trying to post maybe 15-20? UGH like I said ... decisions decisions decisions ..

With all that said, who knew that balloons have names? Certainly not I! The beauty above is "Abraxas" owned/piloted (according to the Quechee Balloon Festival insert in the local paper (aka The Valley News) by Mario Di Stefano from Worcester, MA.

As you may recall from my most recent (yeah yeah yeah) post, the 32nd annual Quechee Hot Air Balloon Festival was held here June 17-19. One of the benefits of our volunteer positions here at the State Park is that we pretty much "front and center" for the event ~ a first for me, which truly sparked an addition (that I've done nothing towards fulfilling, BTW) to my "bucket list" - being part of a chase team.

"Last Penny" (don't you just love that name ...
Bill Colyer from Fairfield, CT

Abraxas, again, so does this second shot confirm that it MAY be my favorite?

"The calming Effect of Sunshine"
Time Strand, Bloomsbury, NJ

I think a large part of my attraction to these balloons was that they made me think of quilt patterns - big, bright and bold colorful quilts ... now if I could just duplicate them!!

"Uplifted"
Denny Welser, Tallmadge, OH
now is this a quilt pattern just waiting to be created or what!

top and closest is again, "Uplifted" with
"Going My Way" Dick and Mary Beth Young
Parsippany, NJ

Sadly a poor photo of a beauty called "Reflections"
James Regan from Kensington, CT

again, "Going My Way"

"Thunderbuster"
Paul Sena, Worthington, MA
decent shot of the flame ~ yes?

A random, colorless, evening shot of balloons at the field looking from the Quechee covered bridge, with Simon Pearce workshop and restaurant (still haven't been there - seems to be perceived as a bit too "foo foo" for us!!

"Thunderbuster" again

hmmm, I don't know the name and owner of this one, but isn't it great ~
so colorful and one of those that makes me think of a quilt pattern!

Oh geeez this may really be my favorite - "Great Balls of Fire"
Owned by Bill Whidden, Tavares, FL

The last evening of the festival we went to watch the balloons launch and as we had hoped they went right over the gorge ...

There are a couple balloon businesses in Quechee so we do see (and hear) them fairly often either early (6:30 or so) in the morning or around 6:30 in the evening as they are launching. I thought it would be a fun adventure while we are here, but since it is in the vicinity of $250. per person, I don't think it is realistic for us to fulfill that adventure!

So that's the latest ~ albeit a month or so old from us ... stay tuned for more adventures!

the flora

2011-06-26T05:03:00.000-07:00

In what seems to be my usual way of blogging of late, I loaded these pictures a couple weeks ago and am finally adding some text! For those of you that have followed us since blog day one, you may recall there was a new and hopefully interesting adventure posted nearly everyday - my things have changed haven't they! I knew when we started our volunteer position that the posts wouldn't be as interesting or as frequent but jeeesh louise, this isn't good!

Anyway, one of our tasks a few weeks back was to walk the trail to and along the gorge and pick up rubbish (hikers and campers in these parts are very very conscientious of litter so there was very little to pick up!).

The gorgeous swimming area at the bottom of the gorge. Sir Arlo would LOVE to swim down here and the walk down and back would certainly be some good exercise for him (as it was for us).

Along the way, of course we passed lots of mushrooms (since it rarely stops raining here there is a plethora of fungi) and flowers

A "Jack-in-the-pulpit"

And a "lady's slipper"

and a man and his dog!

Last weekend was the annual Quechee Balloon Festival - I got some great photos - even a couple of the balloons over the gorge. I think that I want to add "balloon chaser" to my bucket list.

Stay tuned ...

oh yes we are

2011-06-19T20:53:00.000-07:00

HERE in Kwee Chee (aka Quechee)

Himself even has a golf cart (on occasion) to peruse his digs (as in we have a golf cart to use to do our "tasks" as well as our "rounds" a few nights a week) which concerns me - if we owned one how would we "enhance" it .... oh what would himself, Mister "Gadget Man" do?

Our site is HUGE and I am trying to make it into one with a couple of enjoyable garden spaces - we even have a few hummingbirds (such interesting creatures they are to me ...Sir Arlo is in charge of counting them each day)

a poor and dark shot above but trying to show the size of our space ...

as always, stay tuned ... photos for a post loaded a week ago, this one is, however, just to let anyone know we are alive and well in the land of Vermont's "grand canyon" (trust me I did NOT coin that phrase .... it is beautiful and all, but ...)

so, as the saying goes, stay tuned.....

just a ducky small town

2011-06-09T19:03:00.000-07:00

A perfect small town America scenario. A cool (60 ish degree) Sunday after what seemed like weeks of rain. The community gathers to let the ducks out - at the Duck Race - an annual event here in New Boston, NH. Until "researching" links for this post I had no idea what exactly the event was about other than a couple thousand rubber ducks (as many of you know, since Rick and I were married on a "Duck Boat" in Boston, I have a love of all things yellow duck like!). I digress ... the duck race in New Boston is actually a benefit sponsored by the Community Church there in memory of a young man who passed away a few years ago - what a wonderful way to remember him.

Not only is the event about the ducks, it is about a community coming together

with thousands of ducks in the bucket of a bucket loader

and precious Princess' sitting on the edge of said bucket

as well as face painting

and games for small children

including a fishing derby (her first I'm sure) oh T-T those aren't fish she is fishing for, they are, of course, ducks! Silly T-T!

and finally it's time - the big event .... the bucket loader of ducks is on their way, with Police escort, mind you, to be put in the river about a mile down the road for their race!

about 15 or 20 minutes later the first of them round the bend in the river

some get caught on the curves (yes, after the race is completed, someone comes along and gathers all those that made stops along the way!!)

Some travel in large groups ...

After the race is completed and the winners are announce and the prizes awarded, the booths packed up, the ducks bagged up and put away for next year, it is time to go to the playground

and practice climbing

and seeing if the old folks still know how to have fun on the big kid swings! Yes, we still know how!

Now, since I have been so, shall we say lax about blogging .... here is a brief update.

We arrived at our volunteer position here at the Quechee State Park on May 23 and have been trying to adjust to it - not a difficult adjustment but an adjustment, the worst of which is that we have to "work" every weekend (not so good, in fact not good at all - we'd much rather be with our families when they are off for the weekend ...)

stay tuned for pictures and details of this chapter in our lives ...

trying to settle in

2011-06-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

I will I will I will do a post soon - I PROMISE. I loaded pictures some days ago and just haven't gotten to the text.

We are (well I am trying, Rick seems to be able to more easily) settling in to our volunteer/host position.

Be assured we are alive and well (and Marsha, we are no longer in Africa without electricity).

crazy, crazier, craziest

2011-05-20T06:23:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah yeah ... these pictures have been loaded waiting for accompanying text for nearly a month I'd guess!

I'd planned on adding a couple of Easter festivities of grandchildren Connor (in NC) and Paige (aka Princess Muffin in NH) but didn't have the photos in jpeg and they were very poor quality so only Princess Muffin in the Easter bonnet she created and that won her the blue bunny she is hugging in the photo below. She won for her age group in the local make your Easter bonnet contest!

We'd been in MA for five weeks (we left there a week ago today and have been in NH). Most of the MA time was insanely crazy - with doctors appointments and meeting up with old friends and and family. If nothing else, we did get a great deal accomplished and King Richard is waiting for his vision to complete the healing process from his two cataract surgeries that were done while we were in MA! Amazing how "easy" and quick those surgeries were! I am fairly certain that Sir Arlo constantly at his side helped as well in the recovery!

The weather for the most part of the last month and a half has been cold and rainy, and continues to be such. Fortunately it was a gorgeous, perfect for running a half marathon day on May 1 when Chad ran in the Providence Marathon with Dreamfar (please note at the bottom of that website who designed and created it!) ~ the group he's been "mentoring" with. One of the "kids" from Dreamfar is in the orange tank top just behind and to the right of him in the photo below.

Providence has always been one of my favorite small cities, and it was especially so on such a beautiful early spring day. We used to enjoy going down for their Water Fires a couple times a summer and spending the weekend at a Marriott property overlooking the river.

The photo below shows the hurricane barriers along the Providence River in the "Fox Point" section of the city.

We will be leaving NH on Monday heading to VT to start our five month (oh dear five months) volunteer stint with the Vermont State Parks!

Stay tuned ...

Happy Birthday to ...

2011-04-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

Himself ... Camelot's Sir Arlo. He will be six years old on Wednesday April 27.

As much work as he is, he is equally as much fun ...

And he sure loves to swim and play in the water, be it an ocean, lake, pond or puddle!

or romping in the desert

or just chillin' while enjoying the surroundings

or trying to figure out just how he got that "pollen face"

it is a tough life but some one's got to do it ... unfortunately he has no clue how lucky he is!

Oh my, what a handsome boy he is

a photo of the birthday cookie (one of them) he enjoyed last year in NC

well he enjoyed it after staring at it for a few minutes while trying to figure out what it was he was suppose to do with it (he isn't a bit fan of cookies)

Happy Birthday Sir

Rich rich Richmond

2011-04-23T20:23:00.000-07:00

After we left New Bern, NC we headed to the Richmond, VA area where we stayed at a great lodge in Glen Allen. Glen Allen is about a 10-15 minute ride into what I believe is the "downtown" area of Richmond.

The area of the Lodge property that had electric and water hook ups was outstanding and we had it to ourselves most of the week and a half we were there ~ Arlo was delighted to say the least! Yup, we were too, as well as delighted that the Lodge was full of fun and friendly people ... too much fun and friendly on a couple occasions!

We headed into Richmond a couple times. One warm and sunny afternoon and one evening for dinner. Downtown Richmond has a river running through it (that would be the James River, I believe). We've been to several "river walks" over the last six or so months (San Antonio being my favorite by far). Richmond's seems to be a work in progress and at its beginning stages as there were many vacant "store fronts" and/or restaurant areas available for rent. Hopefully within a few years it will be well on its way to be a close second to San Antonio!

As I've said many times before, history just "isn't my thing" but this may be another case in point where I'm mellowing a bit ... check out the lovely brick street in the photo below.

As well as this interesting shot of raised rails running through/along the river walk area (perhaps an example of why I say it is a work in progress?)

The Poe Museum (no we didn't go in) ... so I can't critique it!!

Below is a photo of Richmond's Main Street Station which really intrigued me. What a beautiful old building, inside and out with such a history. Built in 1901 it has survived fires and floods. I had two very informative booklets I picked up while we were there, but darned if I can find them now that I am finally (yeah) doing this post. The link I've added here has a bit of that information as well as a nice photo taken in 1971 showing the tracks going into the station - looks much nicer back then than it does now ... now there are many over passes and not such great views of a beautiful old building! Foolishly, I didn't take any photos inside the building - DAH, what was I thinking?

Sadly, much of Richmond's history is based on the slave trade. As I felt when we were in Charleston, SC a year or so ago, the horrors man kind subjects on another to just baffles me.

So we left this very interesting area on April 9th and spent that night in a service area on the NJ Turnpike. I have been strongly opposed to rest area/service area stops since we hit the road three and a half years ago. If Sir Arlo wasn't with us I wouldn't care at all where we stopped, but I have huge issues walking Arlo in the morning in rest areas. This stop along the NJ Turnpike however was really a good stop (especially since we were pushing the envelope on a travel days maximum mileage and there were NO campgrounds for miles and miles and miles).

We arrived in Middleboro, MA (our old "stomping grounds") on April 10th and will be here until May 13. We've had many doctors appointment etc. in the time we've been here, as well as seen family and many friends. The weather, however, has been less than delightful - we went to New Hampshire to visit Pat Beth and Princess Paige and spent the night, waking up to snow on Saturday morning!

That's all for now ... gonna do a quick spell check, but no proof reading, I'm beat and headed to bed.

Hope everyone enjoys a delightful Easter with loved ones.

Stay tuned ...

fun fun fun in NC

2011-04-13T15:57:00.000-07:00

Yes Chester, the big peach was getting a bit old huh! It's only been two weeks since a new post -- what's the problem?

After we left Gaffney, SC (the previous blog post) we headed to my son Joshua and his family in New Bern, NC. We stopped along the way and spent a night at a Moose Lodge in Selma, NC just down the road from Rick's favorite cigar source (JR Cigars), so of course we had to spend some time there to stock his humidor! Not only do they have a HUGE humidor (that smells awesome), they also sell assorted "junk" that you had NO idea you wanted or needed! This time it was a good source for "tacky" flip flops for yours truly, the tackier the better!

While we were in New Bern we took a "field trip" one day to Oriental, NC, a tiny fishing town. Unfortunately there were no restaurants open in town (I think the town has three) the day we were there, but Sir sure had fun playing on the dock and at the boat ramp at a nice little park we found. Then we took the ferry (free ferry fun by the NC DOT) from Minnesott Beach to Cherry Branch, crossing the Neuse River. We visited, sort of, the Elks Lodge in Morehead City, but after 15 minutes of waiting we couldn't get the bartender to acknowledge our existence, so we said the heck with it and left. I did pick up a couple books from their book swap, so it certainly wasn't a bad stop in spite of lack of service.

Another day we had "the kids" over to the coach for dinner. It sure was enjoyable to watch Connor do his homework. I was shocked at the amount of homework required nightly in kindergarten these day! It was about 1/2 an hours worth and that didn't include the required "journal entry", which was going to be done when he got home! I will say that it was much easier and much much more enjoyable to watch a grandson do homework than it ever was to watch his father or his uncle "do" homework! Ahhh one of the many joys of grand parenting!

After homework, Connor and Grammie (yours truly) played hide the toy (which was a stuffed animal that Connor brought with him). It was a whole lot of fun, with Connor telling Grammie if she was "hot" or "cold" (far from or close to) said toy. At one point he told me I was with the penguins I was so cold!

It was absolutely delightful to see how Connor has grown and "matured" over the last few months. He had gone through a very difficult time with my daughter in law (Trisha) when Joshua was in Yuma for some training a few months ago and was not particularly good for his mom! Joshua had told me that Connor's behavior greatly improved when they switched one of his asthma medications.

Obviously, from the photo above, Sir Arlo enjoyed having Connor visit as well! We took Sir to the kids house one night and he played so well with their ten (or so) month old pup - "Bowser".

We stayed at a wonderful KOA in New Bern located right on the Neuse River. Unfortunately, the weather was horrible while we were there - cold and rainy all but one of the days.

After we left there we headed to the Richmond, VA area.

Stay tuned .....

just peachy

2011-04-01T05:08:00.000-07:00

Yup, we were back in Gaffney, SC last week for our chassis maintenance (every 15,000 miles or so). I believe this recent stop was our fourth at the Freightliner facility. Our maintenance can take four hours or an entire day, fortunately there's only been one visit that was eight hours. We've always been at a loss to find much to do in the area that we can include Sir Arlo in so we usually go to a state park or something.

We were so pleasantly surprised with changes we saw in Gaffney. We'd always thought of it as a rather depressed little town (with a per capita income in the range of $18,000 I'd say our thoughts were correct). There has been a lot of new retail development in town since we were there a year or so ago.

We did some "tourist" things this time we were there, one of which was to visit the "Michael Gaffney House". What an interesting history this little building has! Michael Gaffney came to the US from Ireland in the late 1700's and eventually settled in what is now his namesake town. This recreation of his home does have 27 (I believe, but the brochure is still in the car!) boards from the original home which was vandalized and burnt.

After visiting the Gaffney home we went to the Possum Trot School built in 1880. Apparently the restoration was an Eagle Scout project and what a great job they did.

After leaving Gaffney we spent a night at the Moose Lodge in Selma, NC then came to New Bern, NC to spend some time with Joshua, Trisha and Connor.

We are leaving New Bern in an hour or so and heading to VA for a couple nights then on to snow covered MA. We finally got doctor and surgery appointments scheduled on Monday, as well as getting our campground booked (that turned into quite an ordeal, but with the help of a very accommodating KOA employee it finally worked out). It has been cold, rainy and windy all week here in New Bern so of course, as we are about to leave the sun is shining in my eyes! We met with a realtor in the area yesterday to look at a property Rick had discovered ... nothing will come of that one for us but we shall see what develops down the road as the realtor has been sending me more listings!

Stay tuned ...

whistling Dixie

2011-03-23T00:27:00.000-07:00

At the Hattiesburg Elks Lodge ~ which is located in Dixie, MS, an area we fell in love with. I once again, had a mental image of something that was so out of the realm of what the real picture is! Trust me when I say this is a gorgeous area with beautiful green rolling hills ~ who knew? Certainly not I.

Below is the view I started my day with while walking Sir at 7:00 each morning.

The Lodge is built on a 1400 acre parcel of land, of which 70 acres is the lake. The photo above was taken just outside the coach, the three photos below were taken from the lodge looking out at the lake.

this is part of the "camping" area looking at it from the lodge

This (above and below) is the original lodge building on this property, which I believe was built in the 1930's. The shot above was taken with the lake at my back and the shot below was taken from the other side of the building with the parking lot at my back.

It was springtime in full force with the wisteria smelling so lovely and in full, beautiful bloom as well as the forsythia.

There was lots of time for play, for man and beast.

Sadly, the lodge is only open on weekends for a few hours. The property is very very busy with people fishing on the lake from their boats or turkey hunting way way way out on the property. There is also an Elks youth camp as well as a horse camp on a different property down the road. While we were there we went to a Lodge meeting and had the pleasure of meeting several very friendly members of this Lodge.

After we left Dixie we headed to Anderson, SC for one night, then on to Gaffney where we are at the moment awaiting our chassis maintenance, then over to NC to visit with Joshua, Trisha and Connor before we head to New England.

Stay tuned ....

caliente caliente caliente !!!!

2011-03-23T00:06:00.000-07:00

Another thing we did while we were in LA was visit the Tabasco factory on Avery Island. Their tour was disappointing to say the least, but it was a lovely place to visit. The "tour" consisted of viewing a 10 or 15 minute video and walking down a hall beside windows overlooking the factory. There was no tour "guide" except to tell you very briefly about the history of the company then start the film! Being that we were there on a Saturday the factory wasn't working. All in all the day amounted to a very nice ride on a lovely day ... not bad, but not what we expected!

I have absolutely no clue what the significance of this fish is to Tabasco, but he is indeed a colorful character so what the heck! The background in the photo below shows the "country store" where one can purchase anything imaginable with a Tabasco logo on it as well as sample some interesting treats. One of those treats was Tabasco ice cream and it really wasn't bad. One of my favorite discoveries in the south this year was pickled okra and they had it in the store, mildly flavored with, of course, Tabasco - oh yummyness.

The critter below was in what they referred to as the "museum". Again, I have absolutely no clue the significance of it to Tabasco, but an interesting critter it is!

I've loaded photos to do a post about the Lodge we stayed at in MS ~ hmmm it's 3:04 AM and I can't get to sleep (dah, I think it may have been the coffee at 8:00 pm not to mention the two iced coffees around 5:00 pm) so I might start the text for that post now as well!

Stay tuned ...

Let it Rayne rayne rayne

2011-03-19T08:50:00.000-07:00

The Rayne of it would be Rayne, LA, which claims (and I have no clue why and can't seem to find the answer in any of my online research why) to be the "frog capital of the world" or some such thing. Anyway, as you enter the town there is Jacques on the right hand side off the interstate just welcoming one and all

who visit his fair town - be it with two or four paws, he is a welcoming site for sure.

The town's other claim to fame is that they are the "Louisiana City of Murals" not to mention something about a place in Ripley's Believe It or Not about a cemetery going north to south rather than east to west (who the heck knew cemeteries should, or are normally planned, with that in mind!!!). So who am I to negate any of it?

So who was the frog in the Beatrix Potter books? I am sure that the frog in the mural second above is one from the B. Potter books. Come on Joshua (not that HE reads the blog, but he had all the Beatrix Potter books on this neat little white plastic bookcase. The collection was started the day he was born by my dear friend Candy L.)

Check out the beautiful snapdragons surrounding the frog statue ~ spring had certainly spring in Rayne!

We left Rayne umm, a week ago (I think) and went to a gorgeous Elks property in MS for three nights then headed on to AL where we are now, but leaving in the morning as we have routine chassis maintenance scheduled for next week in SC.

Stay tuned.

tis the season

2011-03-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

Mardi Gras season of course! Well it was until midnight Tuesday (that would be fat Tuesday).

Of course we had to enjoy the festivities at a local establishment (well it was local when we were in Stafford, TX, but we left there on Wednesday ~ oops). Rick collected a few beads during the evening ~ I did as well, but mine are still in the car.

Amongst the gems was this awesome one with a crawfish!

Among the other gems of the evening, King Richard made a new friend ~ didn't she do a fabulous job with her outfit? In fact she was the only person truly dressed for the occasion in the place we were at (which by the way was called Ragin Cajun, and was outstandingly wonderful)

It's also crawfish season in these parts ~ oh yum yum yum, bring on the crawfish ettoufe and the fried tails ~ so delicious they are. Rick doesn't particularly care for them, especially boiled, as below, I think it's the eyes and the amount of work involved to get a tiny bit of "meat" that gets him!

Spring has sprung in these Texas and Louisiana parts as well. I spent a while at a local garden center before we left Texas. After all I did need to get my double impatiens for my hanging baskets. It's already become a pain in the posterior to bring them in at night because I'm afraid it will be too chilly at 40 degrees for them!

Since Sir was such a "good boy" while Rick was in New Hampshire we went to Petco ("where the pets go") and he got to choose a new toy. He chose a squeaky duck and a squeaky crab. The new crab (under his chin) got to meet the old lobster (that once was a squeaky lobster).

BUT, he feels compelled to hide the crab under his chinny chin chin for fear of theft! Oh Sir Arlo you are a clown.

As I said we left Texas on Wednesday. We are now in Duson, LA about ten miles west of Lafayette. My intention for this stop was to enjoy some cajun and zydeco music and partake of some cajun food. Come to find out there is no place in this tiny town to listen to local music (we have to travel into Lafayette or beyond), further, it comes to light that King Richard isn't a big fan of that particular genre for more the 20 or 30 minutes ~ oops!

We will be leaving here on Sunday heading east to somewhere, I suspect, around Biloxi then northeast to be in Gaffney, SC for an appointment on the 25th.

Stay tuned.

Our heavy heavy hearts

2011-03-01T18:19:00.000-08:00

This blog post was written by our daughter in law Beth (aka, Bethie, Bethalene, Sweetie, Mama Bee), married to Rick's son Patrick, parents of our precious Paigie Pie (aka Muffin). Someday I hope I can understand why such things happen to such wonderful, loving parents as Pat and Beth ....

Our sweet Tatum Iria

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Bee

made by our nurse, Terri

her quilt that I have been taking with me to sleep, the shell that held the water for her baptism, her hat, a dress that was never worn, the toy they gave her, and a measuring tape showing her length

who would have thought such little feet could leave such deep prints?

I don’t yet have the words to talk about the last few days. I hope that someday soon I will. But, I will say this. I will forever treasure every moment of holding our Tatum in my arms. I love her so much, so fully, and it hurts to know that I can never hold her again. I am so grateful for her, for the way she made my heart grow even larger, even if it is now heavier with the grief. I carried her for only 21 weeks, but I will love her for the rest of my days.

“A Mother’s Love cannot be measured
by increments of time …an entire lifetime
of love can be squeezed into a few brief
miraculous moments when necessary….”

Needless to say, I will be making some tiny quilts to send to the hospital so others can have the comfort of a warm quilt made with much love for their baby.

Rick has been in NH since last Thursday while I've stayed in San Antonio where our niece Elisha and her friend Charyl came to spend their February vacation. He was originally scheduled to return today but will not be returning to SA until Thursday night

Thank you Bethie for allowing me to post your blog on my blog!

yeah but but but

2011-02-28T19:17:00.000-08:00

I just "can't" do a blog post tonight ...

Yup, I'll try tomorrow (seriously) in the mean time enjoy this photo that I took at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Antonio last week when Elisha, Charyl and I had a picnic there ...

as the saying goes, "stay tuned" ....

Open Mic and the Quilting Ladies

2011-02-20T07:12:00.000-08:00

Yikes - I'm a slow blogger again. We've traveled miles and stayed at two Texas state parks and are now back in San Antonio since my last post (well alright, I wasn't so bad, I did do the roadrunner post).

I think I'd mentioned that the "resort" we stayed at in San Benito (when we were close to South Padre Island) had lots and lots of activities and was a very social pleasant group of "winter Texans". Well every Monday they have an open mic session from 1 - 3. We loved it!!!

While the tunes are happening so are the quilting ladies ~ I loved that ... it was nice to be with a group of quilters and help them with their projects that day. Seems they donate these quilts (queen size and crib size) to a local homeless shelter. When supplies run low they raffle off a quilt to provide funds for more fabric etc.

After we left there we headed to Falcon Lake State Park. Well this is on the Great Texas Birding Trail. As I've mentioned before, I think the only bird I can recognize is a cardinal and a robin, so what is that green beauty right in the center of the trees below?

Little did we know that Falcon Lake was the scene of a very nasty event last fall involving and American citizen jet skiing with his wife and a group of Mexican "pirates". And to correct a misconception ~ Kimmy we don't hate Mexico, in fact Mexico has some beautiful areas and lots of history. What we hate is the corruption, the "politics" and the inability of the "authorities" to get a handle on it and stop all the violence.

So once we found out about the tragedy that happened on the lake (thanks Chester) I was fearful to even walk the dog! The lake was beautiful to look at and the park was nice and quiet, but there was nothing, and I mean nothing in the area, no where to eat, no where to buy groceries, another of those very depressed areas so common lately!

After we left Falcon Lake we went to another lovely state park. This was Lake Casa Blanca in Laredo. Oh my what a find this was (Laredo, well not so much, but the park well WOW). I must admit the state of Texas, in spite of some nickel and diming, does a marvelous job taking advantage of and marketing their natural beauty. Another huge quiet space with nicely sized sites.

There was an air show while we were there and we got to watch it from the campground - it was like a private show! Rick thoroughly enjoyed it, as well as the old military planes, one of which had crashed in Alaska several years ago. The pilot and crew walked away and the plane was encrusted in ice for many years. It was rediscovered in the 90's, I believe, and repaired etc and that particular plane was flying in the show!

There was this really neat old building at the park as well. Rick asked one of the rangers and was told it was the "science center" at the park and has been out of use for about 30 years. At least it can still be used for a photo op with the bikes. I loved how the doors and exterior woodwork blends in with the blue sky so you wonder if you are looking through broken windows!

Check out the dog in the front of the pontoon boat below. We were out on the bikes one day last week and stopped for fuel and saw this boat/dog at the gas station. When we got back to the park that afternoon the boat had just come out of the water and we recognized it. I asked the man if I could take some pictures of his dog (whom Rick and I named "Petey"). Well, as has happened often over the last few weeks, communication was an issue .... um how to put this and still be pc .... I thought the language in America was English, not the case in these parts, not the case.

As I said we are back in San Antonio for a week. Our niece Elisha and her friend are arriving tonight! They needed to escape the cold and snow of upstate New York .... and the San Antonio weather is going to cooperate!

Beep beep

2011-02-16T17:47:00.000-08:00

Chester, this one's for you. You said it couldn't be done, but I did it and got a photo of a roadrunner from the front/side ~ anything but the back.

There are a few of them here at Lake Casa Blanca State Park in lovely (not) Laredo. In fact we were all sitting outside yesterday and one "walked" by us and stood about three feet from Sir Arlo and the silly boy never reacted other than to lay there and look at the bird. I was quite surprised by Arlo's lack of reaction.

boca chica - cha cha cha

2011-02-10T18:02:00.000-08:00

Bubba Gump is that you in either of these shrimp boats?

Our last trip while we were in the South Padre Island area was out to Boca Chica for a warm peaceful day. Our neighbor at the campground told us about it and our original plan was to take the bikes there, but between mine having a dead battery and no one in the area having on, and the cold nasty weather the bikes never made it out there but the car did.

As it turned out Boca Chica is right across from the south end of South Padre Island. In the previous post I did there were a couple pictures (I think) that show the channel that runs between SPI and Boca Chica. The photo below is of the Island looking north from Boca Chica as well as the King and Sir enjoying the view of the channel and the Island.

Below is a view of the bridge leading from the mainland out to SPI - and this photo was taken from Boca Chica as well. Rick has commented that uh oh we're going to be driving the coach on that bridge next year!

Lots and lots and lots of people fishing here. Lots and lots of people catching fish here! This fella had been at it for an hour and a half he said and had three fish when we passed him. He said the one at his feet was a "sheep head" (I believe that's what he said, language was a bit of an issue between us) and the one further out from him was a red fin or red tail (hey I thought red tail was a hawk).

As we were leaving I said to Rick, I wonder if there are any dolphin here (we'd seen a couple playing when we'd taken Arlo to go swimming on South Padre a few days earlier). I no sooner got the words out of my mouth when I spotted one then another. Well let me tell you it isn't easy to get a picture (never mind three or four pictures) of dolphins at play, but gosh darn I DID it!

Oh what a great day that was. Wish we'd had a picnic with us and a cooler of water.

WOW have I been on a blog frenzy tonight, perhaps an advantage of having no alcohol in the house, but then again there hasn't been any here for months so I guess that's not why the blog frenzy but I suppose it does help!

Stay tuned ....

more beach time

2011-02-10T17:38:00.000-08:00

Sure looks like "our kind" of place above huh! It was, but the ceviche was absolutely disgusting ~ one bite and that was it for me ... I don't even want to think how old it was. My stomach doesn't have enough problems without bad ceviche.

This was our last trip over to South Padre Island and Port Isabel while we were in the area (we left there two days ago). We stopped at the Pirates Landing as we were heading home and discovered the worlds largest fly rod and reel. I can't imagine how we missed this when we were there the week before but we sure did.

Made me think of my siblings and question how it is that out of four of us, I am the only one who doesn't fish? In fact I can't stand the thought of fishing?!?! Go figure.

While we were on the Island we checked out the Cameron County RV Park there. It is in three areas, one very large, one only seven sites and the third is about 40 or 50 sites. It is of course all on the water and over seen by the statue below.

Well we fell in love with it all and made a reservation for March and April next year .... oh I can't wait. We really fell in love with the area, much smaller and perhaps less intense than the Florida Keys which we love love love but there was something about South Padre that really clicked for both of us. As I mentioned in a previous post we loved it enough to consider looking at property - too bad the realtor wasn't into showing properties that day!

That's it for this post ~ stay tuned, I seem to be on a blogging roll tonight trying to play catch up I guess!

Baldemar Garza Huerta

2011-02-10T17:17:00.000-08:00

WHO???

Hey it's not everyone that gets their name and likeness on two sides of a water tower now is it? Seems when you're staying in San Benito for 12 nights you certainly should go to the Freddy Fender (born Baldemar Garza Huerta) museum, don't ya think?

Now I can not get "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" and "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" out of my head and it's been a few days! Trust me, if I could figure out how to play music on the blog (when you blog on a Mac) you too would be listening to Freddy/Baldemar right now!

Now Chester, when we told you we were going to the museum I don't believe you had a clue who we were talking about ~ your comment was something to the effect that "oh the guy who made Fender guitars" well honey, you weren't far off ~ sort of. If you can enlarge the photo above you will see what I mean - read what it says above the picture of him to the right of the bike.

Speaking of the bike, the day we were there all the ice from the major ice storm was melting and falling from power lines etc. Of course the roof of the museum was leaking, of course it was leaking on the bike - Rick offered to help the man working the museum move the bike - no way, no how was that man going to let Rick help him - he was waiting for the maintenance guy to come with two others - he said when they put the bike in there it took four of them ... HUH? Seriously, I don't make this stuff up, but as far as I can tell, motorcycles have wheels so they move easily ~ just a thought!

After we left the museum we went to the San Benito Memorial Park where Freddy is buried. Freddy's site is above, very well done, very close to the road. Since we had no clue where in the cemetery to look we rode through the entire place before we came upon this plot that look considerably different than the others!

I did a lot of scratching my head going through here. Yup a clear case of different strokes for different folks, ya think! Interesting how this varies between cultures.

I'm so glad we did this little "field trip" while we were in the area, seems it's been a long long time since we did one of these blog worthy "adventures" hasn't it.

Stay tuned ....

She stopped by

2011-02-08T17:36:00.000-08:00

So I'll set the stage here before the video (the video that I hope I've "loaded" correctly so my readers have the pleasure of seeing it!) and three photos ....

My Daughter in law announced a few weeks ago that our grandson (Connor) had his first loose tooth. I had seen this youtube video (Chester was it you that sent it to us??). I in turned sent the video to my son and daughter in law for their viewing pleasure but strongly suggested they not let Connor watch it. You see, Connor was very nervous about his tooth, convinced it was going to hurt when it came out and it was going to bleed copious amounts of blood (Connor is quite a worrier as it is, so this uncharted territory for him was particularly perplexing for a nervous almost six year old).

So Connor had an dentist appointment for a six month check up yesterday and the hygienist just plucked that tooth out of there - not even Connor knew it happened before she showed it to him, but I am fairly certain that Connor was probably a wreck walking into that office yesterday for that appointment ... my poor grandson.

Oh, another thing about Connor, he is very "into" stickers and "taptoos" (aka tattoos) ...

So, when he got home he had a cookie or two and another photo shoot (below)

Now would y'all please take a trip down memory lane for me ~ what was the going rate for the tooth fairy when YOU were a kid, losing your first tooth? I'm quite certain it was one shiny quarter back about 1960, or so, when I lost my first tooth. When my boys lost theirs it may have been a dollar.

The going rate in 2011 is five neatly folded one dollar bills (or "dollar bucks" as his father used to call them when he was three or four years old)

Congrats Connor ~ Grammie and Rick are very proud of how brave you were about your tooth.

Ice Ice baby

2011-02-08T06:01:00.000-08:00

Just so y'all know it isn't always beach weather here in the Rio Grande Valley, here are photos I took last Friday morning when Sir and I went out for our first morning walk around 7:00 AM.

Three days last week it never got above 37 degrees during the day with terrible winds and the mornings when Sir and I got up it was 28 or 29 degrees! Then on the weekend it warmed up to temps in the 70's, thankfully.

Check out the photo below of the front of the car ~ see that funny icicle that as Rick says, looks like a whisker, sticking out then up!

We are leaving the San Benito area today. We've been here 12 days and are now heading west to a small state park that I believe is in the middle of nowhere, then on to Laredo for a week before we head back to San Antonio where our niece and her friend will be visiting us for a few days of warm weather (unlike what they are having in upstate NY) so I sure hope it stays between 75 and 80 for them!

I've really loved this area, although I would like to have been closer than 20 miles to South Padre Island. With that said, we booked a stay there on the Island for two months next year, unfortunately it won't be until March and April ~ no space available in January and February there! Also we had intended to look at a home down here yesterday but the realtor called back to say the homeowner was sick and unable to have showings until the end of the week. Strangely enough the realtor didn't offer to show us other properties ~ I guess business is so strong here they don't need to "work" at it! Oh well, I guess it just wasn't "meant to be"!

Stay tuned .....

it was a beach day

2011-02-02T16:48:00.000-08:00

We arrived in San Benito (or is it Los Fresnos ~ I truly don't know!) last Thursday to the weather that Rick has been searching for! Mid 70's to mid 80's - in other words, motorcycle weather. Motorcycle weather that is, if you don't have a dead battery (my bike does ;-( A mission for today ... buy new battery.

Anyway, Thursday afternoon we went out on our "see what's in the area" ride. We ended up about 20 miles away in Port Isabel. Port Isabel is the most eastern town in the valley before you take the bridge and causeway over to South Padre Island. Above is a picture taken from Pirates Landing (a very fun place in Port Isabel). In the picture above the bridge to SPI is at the far right and in the distance is the Island.

We also went to Pelican Station before we headed home to Sir Arlo! Below is a photo of one of the doors in the restaurant - isn't it great. Having done some stained glass work in a previous life I can't imagine undertaking a project like this door!

Pelican Station is located on the site of the Rio Grande Rail Road in the late 1800's. Some interesting information on it here. Makes me think of my Dad of course, he was such a railroad fan.

Pretty flowers abound in these parts.

We went back over to South Padre on Saturday and took Sir with us this time so he could go swimming and play at the beach. We came across this great place ~ Boomerang Billy's right on the beach - dogs allowed! There is also a motel on the property. It reminded us very much of one of our favorite places in the Keys ~ the Ocean View Inn. The "OV" is owned by Gary Dunn, a former player for the Pittsburgh Steelers ~ sure would LOVE to be there Sunday night watching the game!

Now we are in a deep freeze like most of the rest of the country! It never got above 37 degrees today and with the wind it was like 24 degrees, which I believe was colder than our New England families! Friday can't come soon enough for us, when it is suppose to be back in the 70's. We had planned on going into Mexico today or tomorrow, but only went outside to walk Sir Arlo and/or take rubbish to the dumpster and the same will likely happen tomorrow! Perhaps Mexico will happen Friday ~ hopefully. Then I'd like to go back to South Padre on Saturday or Sunday. We shall see so ~

stay tuned

On a mission

2011-01-26T18:22:00.000-08:00

While we were in Goliad, at the state park, we "toured" the Mission Nuestra Senora Del Espiritu Santo De Zuniga. Well, most of the original Mission is long since gone, after all it was built in the 1700's. However, from 1935-1941 crews of the Civilian Conservation Corps worked to restore what remained. In the 1970's the Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. rehabbed the chapel and built exhibits in the restored granary.

The first photo above is of the chapel looking up from the parking area (the campground we were in is behind the parking area, with two other campgrounds on the same property, but a mile beyond the mission). Directly above are some of the grounds to the left of the chapel.

The restoration and painting within the chapel was pretty spectacular. I still have "issues" with the concept of what the Franciscan priests were trying to accomplish by "civilizing and Christianizing" three native American tribes. A mission that quite clearly failed miserably.

Below is the granary and weaving exhibit within. I found the exhibit quite interesting, but it was "fenced off", unfortunately! I understand why but darn, it would have been nice to get a bit closer!

Down the road 1/4 mile is the Presidio La Bahia (photos below)

Isn't the chapel below gorgeous!

Below is the description of the Presidio as quoted from the Texas Parks website. Rick toured this property while Sir Arlo and I waited outside and took a nice walk on a beautiful sunny day.

"Across the river, visit the Presidio La Bahía. Located 1/4 mile south of Goliad State Park on US Highway 183 and 77A and operated by the Catholic Diocese of Victoria. View exhibits, enjoy an interpretive program and exciting re-enactments and imagine life at the fort. Originally built in 1749 to protect the Mission and the frontier, it later played a major role in the Texas Revolution. Here, Colonel Fannin and his ill-fated men were held prior to being executed at Santa Anna's order, an act of infamy later recalled at the Battle of San Jacinto with the cry, "Remember Goliad! Remember the Alamo!" For a very special experience, make reservations to stay overnight in the comfortable Priests Quarters."

We left Goliad on Sunday and headed to the NAS in Corpus Christi where we had a reservation for 11 nights. What a nightmare that turned out to be! The military campground website I used clearly indicated that this particular facility IS open to civilians (most military campgrounds are for active or retired military only) and there was no issue with that when we made our reservation on the phone.

The problem came when we stopped at the entrance to the base - UGH .... the woman who took the reservation didn't tell us the hoops and passes and security checks we would need in order to be granted access - a process that in the end would have taken weeks! So there we are, for an hour trying to get through this, while tying up one lane of traffic and keeping one guard busy trying to wade through the red tape ~ to no avail!

We ended up at a less than desirable KOA in the tiny town of Mathis, 40 miles from where we thought we'd be! The closest grocery store is 12 miles away, the closest Walmart is 25 miles away!

We will be leaving here tomorrow and headed to the Rio Grand Valley for 12 nights, before we head back to San Antonio. I tried about 10 campgrounds in "the valley" before I found one that had sites long enough for us to leave the trailer connected to the coach. That is one of the down sides to "resort" areas. I'm not even sure it is "resort" like, but it is where "northerners" go in Texas to try and stay warm during the winter ....

stay tuned .....

Go go Goliad

2011-01-22T12:57:00.000-08:00

We left Stafford ("south Houston") on Tuesday, another cold, gray rainy day in that area and arrived here in Goliad to a nice sunny, 65 degree day.

We are staying at Goliad State Park. A beautiful state park, although we are "nickle and dimed" constantly. In addition to the camping fee we've been charged $3.00 per person, per day to be here as well as $2.00 per day for the car! Good thing we haven't had the bikes out because they'd be $2.00 per bike, per day as well! A bit much but it is a lovely place.

Quiet and peaceful, and watched over by many many birds ~ the only species of which I know is the fella above. We were sitting out the other day just "chillaxing" when the cardinal spotted Sir Arlo's water bowl and helped himself (of course the camera was inside at that moment!!). After a lengthy drink, he decided he needed a bath ~ you guessed it, Arlo's bowl now served as a birdbath! Surprisingly Sir didn't care at all ~ not sure if he was in total awe and therefore "speechless" or if he really didn't care!

Some views of our "back yard" here!

I unintentionally wrote a non-truth in my last blog post. I forgot that we had indeed done some "sight seeing" while we were in Stafford. We headed out one day to Kemah (on the Gulf of Mexico) about 35 miles away. The plan was to let Arlo have some ocean play time, well that was the plan, but we couldn't find any public beach access! Another of those charming (not) towns that any access to the water are all marked "private" ... UGH.

There was a neat lighthouse there however, and we did find a very pleasant Elks Lodge in town. The Lodge was very nice, on a lovely piece of land. They had suffered major damage and flooding (four feet of water in their building) as a result of Hurricane Ike in 2008, but were able to get themselves repaired and back up and running in six weeks!

We've had a couple things happening in the last couple days. First, niece Elisha and a friend are coming to visit during February vacation (Elisha is a teacher) so we will be heading back to San Antonio for their visit. Prior to that we will be in Corpus Christi tomorrow for ten nights, then somewhere in the Mission area (hopefully) prior to heading back to San Antonio.

Secondly, we've accepted a work camping position with the State of Vermont for this coming camping season. We will be in Quechee State Park and looking forward to being equal distance to my "baby" sister and brother in law as well as Patrick, Beth, Paige and new baby (due in July). We're both nervous and excited about the opportunity. It is a five month commitment on our part - something we are totally unfamiliar with!

Stay tuned ....

blah blah blah

2011-01-17T12:15:00.000-08:00

Another cold, grey day in South Houston. We've done nothing, N-O-T-H-I-N-G, notta since we've been here ~ no sight seeing, no beer can house, no Igloo cooler plant with the guard house that looks like a cooler (just in case you hadn't realized we'd done no sight seeing by lack of posts about such events, I thought I'd mention it!).

Tomorrow we are leaving here and heading to Goliad for five nights then to Corpus Christi for ten nights - in search of elusive warm sunny skies! We may head down to the Mission area after Corpus for a while, but we shall see. Rick said the other day that he thinks we waited too late to go south, perhaps he is correct. Who knew!

That's it for today's very brief, boring post.

Stay tuned.

because

2011-01-13T22:09:00.000-08:00

I can and I want to

and besides that, it is outstandingly simple and beautiful

and sometimes (like now) that's just what is necessary

at a standstill

2011-01-11T07:18:00.000-08:00

We are still in Stafford, TX, just south, by 15 miles or so, of Houston. We haven't done any sight seeing hence no blog posts about the area!

The weather is going to be quite chilly the next few days - not expected to get above 57 until Saturday, with overnight lows of 31-34 degrees! No complaints tho, seems New England is getting hit once again with a major one, with predictions of as much as 17 inches of snow!

So going back to our delightful stay in Ottine a month or so back .....

As I mentioned in a previous post, the town of Luling with it's decorated oil pumps was a neighboring town (to the north) while Gonzales was the neighboring town to the south.

There is a great deal of history in this area, as Gonzales was where the battle for Texas Independence from Mexico started. We did do an afternoon trip to see some of the sites (there are a few small markers, but surprisingly not much else). There also is the story of the cannon, on loan from the Mexicans, who wanted it back - resulting in yet another battle which lead to the phrase and future festival by the same name "Come and Take It"! And they tried!

The photo above is a local watering hole in downtown Gonzales that we frequented on a few occasions. Very very old building, being a bank as well as a feed store in prior lives. This area has very odd liquor laws ~ most places serve beer only, but you can bring in your own wine or hard liquor ... so strange to go walking into a "joint" carrying my bottle of wine!

As I'd mentioned before, we feel in love with this area. The only negative I could find was lack of a good grocery store, heck there wasn't even a "decent" Walmart!

So many absolutely gorgeous older homes (most in the above photos were dated 1906 and 1907) and most of them were beautifully restored. The two in the photos below were perhaps my favorites, across the street from one another and the smaller of the two is a bed and bath ~ Sister Candy, I think you'd love it! The yard of the larger one was just absolutely beautiful, gorgeous and outstandingly wonderful!

And in closing, here is my new friend ..... posing oh so proud and handsome is he!

Stay tuned

A long long time ago

2011-01-06T07:25:00.000-08:00

well, a month ago, in a very little town (called Ottine) so far away, we stayed! Oh what a stop that was. We were there to see the decorated oil well pumps that were purported to be in the next town (Luling). Well we did see a couple of the decorated pumps and with the exception of the one below, they were pretty worn out (the painting on them) and had seen much better days!

I know it's not a decorated pump below, but it is an attention getter!

Another thing Luling is "famous" for is its "Watermelon Thump" held at the end of June. I'm not sure I want to be in the middle of Texas at the end of any June as I'm fairly certain you'd be able to fry an egg on the street it'd be so darn hot, but anyway Luling has this festival celebrating their watermelons and it does sound like a heck of a fun time. They even have a watermelon water tower!

Below are a couple pictures of the center of Ottine. Oh how we both loved this area (I fell in love with the hill country immediately) and this tiny town just really got me. I think the population is somewhere around 100. They have a lovely state park there. Unfortunately there were no houses for sale, in fact the only property for sale in the town is the Warm Springs Rehab center, which started as a polio treatment center many many years ago, then became an adult rehabilitation facility, but only houses a dozen or so patients now, as they built a new facility in Luling a few years ago. The center is on the market for $1.7 million ~ just a tad out of our price range, but what a great piece of property it has the potential to be restored to.

The top photo below was once the Post Office. The boarded up home's history I don't know, but I'm sure if it could talk it would have many a tale to tell ~ and I'd love to hear a few of them!

That's it for now ~ I'm gonna hit the publish button then head out to Walfart to pick up a couple things - maybe the King will be up and about when I return.

Stay tuned ...

It never fails

2011-01-03T07:10:00.000-08:00

We get on an airplane and inevitably one or both of us is sick within a week. This time it was my turn (thank you to the jerk across the aisle from me who saw no need to cover his nasty mouth when he sneezed or yawned - gross). So yesterday was spent in bed while King Richard went out to watch the nine hour football game (I'll spare the rant). He did bring me (??) back pizza ~ I got one piece and the next thing I know it's gone (I'll spare that rant as well).

So we flew to NH for Christmas. We saw my youngest son while we were there and attended to some medical appointments (Kings cataracts are ready, willing and able to be removed ~ probably next summer it will be done).

We started a "bopper" thing a few years ago (Patrick's college graduation I believe) ~ you can count on us to have them for any Whelan celebration ~ rehearsal dinner, Princess birthday, and Christmas. I can not believe I was able to get a picture of Snoopy wearing them ~ to say that he was not a fan is an understatement. Paige didn't particularly care for them either.

How about her Christmas sleeping attire - is she too cute or what!

Princess Paige, Muffin is all about her beloved baby, so when she woke up Christmas morning and saw that Santa had brought her a slide baby was the first to go down it (family presents were opened Christmas eve)

Then she waved to her adoring fans as she had her first slide down! Oh the child is too much ~ there is no baby talk spoken in their house and her vocabulary and diction is just amazing. She was able to use sign language before she spoke ~ it is a constant ASL refresher course for Rick and I when we are around her!

It did indeed prove to be an exhausting day!

Cousins!

As I said before, our Princess Muffin is all about her baby. See that "treasure chest" sort of thing front and center in the photo above? Well, T~T (that would be me) made lots and lots of baby clothes, as well as a quilt and blanket to put in that adorable chest (it was one of the most fun projects I'd done in a long long time)

Paige and Bethie enjoyed going through them all (I think). Over this past weekend Paige had a houseful of company and instructed the children how she wanted baby dressed ~ wearing nearly all of baby's new clothes!

We are still in the Houston area and have decided to stay here for two more weeks, as the monthly rate is much better and the weather is decent - usually in the 70's although it went down to 36 the last two nights! As yet we've done no site seeing, but perhaps we will soon ~ who knows!

Stay tuned.

YIKES

2010-12-29T05:21:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since a post!

We are just south of Houston now ~ been here since the 18th. We flew north on the 22nd to spend Christmas with a little Muffin Princess, and arrived back home at 1:00 AM yesterday.

Stay tuned for pictures of Christmas as well as a long overdue post of our terrific stay in Gonzales, TX!

Kim and John/Jack you are in our thoughts .....

A potpourri

2010-12-14T07:14:00.000-08:00

King Richard has this habit of observing people then looking at me and saying "we aren't them, right?". Case in point ... the last morning we were at Braunig Lake RV Resort (where we stayed outside San Antonio, where the King fell off the ladder etc.), a campground I really liked, by the way, I happened to look out the window and saw the gentleman above. I had to do a double take when I realized he had his "dash dog" in his bicycle basket! Seriously, can you imagine Sir Arlo in a bicycle basket! I give the gentleman a lot of credit tho ~ at least he is out on his bicycle, as Rick says, we just carry ours around! (I did, however, finally fix the latest flat on mine the other day as well as put a kick stand on it!) There was a plethora of dash dogs in that rv park. The area of the park we were in had a nice area to walk dogs, unfortunately it was loaded with dash dog poop - apparently the dash dog crowd doesn't see the need to be responsible dog owners ~ in fact the morning we were leaving I nearly stepped in some deposited right at our doorstep when I took Sir out for his first morning walk (when I am half asleep)!

Alright, my rant is over and I will now step down off my soapbox!

My youngest son (Chad, the marathoner) had his second knee surgery yesterday and hopefully this time it was successful.

My older son (Joshua, the Marine) is finally returning home from four weeks in Yuma tomorrow. Not a moment too soon, I might add, as his wife and son have been sick quite a bit since he's been gone. Speaking of which, their son (Connor) will be having tubes put in his ears again on Thursday (just like his Dad, this seems to be an annual event!)

We decided to stay here in Ottine, TX (a topic for a future post, I'm sure) for another week. We just love it here and we have the place pretty much to ourselves (a single guy at the front of the park, we are at the back). It is beautiful and woodsy, Sir can run around like a nut on this vast property, we can go for walks in the woods, we have campfires and we've gotten so much done here - upkeep sort of stuff ~ washing the trailer, washing the bikes, like I mentioned repairing my bicycle, washing the coach etc. etc. The weather has been outstanding during the day - usually somewhere in the 70's, past two nights have been cold - 27 Sunday night and 32 last night (well those were the temps when Sir and I got up in the morning).

Rick and I went out on the bikes the other day after we washed them and had a nice ride! So with that rambling ..... we will be leaving here Saturday and headed to Houston. I had wanted to get settled in there before we fly out next week, but the desire to stay here was greater I guess!

One day last week we went to New Braunfels (about 40 miles away) for an afternoon. There is a section of town called Gruene (pronounced Green), originally settled by a German family. Below are photos of Gruene Hall ~ Texas' oldest dance hall ~ and the reason we went to New Braunfels.

Does it look at all familiar? This was where the dance hall scene in the movie "Michael" (with John Travolta) was filmed. Sorry about the darned wires in the first photo - I hate them to, and don't know how to remove them from the photo (I'm sure there is a photo program that allows such things, but this girl doesn't know it!).

We loved Gruene, just a charming old part of town with a couple interesting shops and a couple great restaurants. After we left Gruene we went to the New Braunfels Elks Lodge - not at all a friendly lodge - thankfully we've been to so many that we do know this is not an example of Elkdom, but when several officers sit at a bar and never acknowledge, never mind welcome, visiting Elks something is clearly wrong! We had a great day in the area so I tried not to let this event ruin it!

I'd like to go back to Gruene Hall one night this week for music, but don't know if we'll get there. Last Sunday night Willie Nelson was there - sold out at $105/per ticket! They have free music during the week .... we shall see.

Stay tuned ....

Pearl Brewery

2010-12-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

One of the neat things we did in San Antonio (other than eat and drink too much) was tour the Pearl Brewery. This wasn't a "brewery tour" (confused?) as in our Budweiser tour.

Pearl Brewery went out of business in San Antonio in 2001. The property was bought by an investment firm in 2002 and has been redeveloped into a multi-use facility - on ongoing project and what a project it is!

We just went there for lack of anything else to do (I guess) one Saturday morning and happened to stumble upon a tour just about to start. Talk about timing! I have no idea what our tour guides name was but she was so enthusiastic about this property that you couldn't help love the project.

There is so much "repurposing" of found objects from the former brewery - the great planters above and barely seen in the photo below were formerly gas tanks used in the brewery (nope, I don't remember what kind of gas!).

Isn't that knife in the side of the building awesome! One of the tenants here is the CIA (Culinary Institute of America). Another of the tenants is the Aveda Institute. I thought I should return (they weren't open on Saturdays) for a haircut etc., but it never happened.

Outside grill at the CIA (and our tour guide!)

More of the CIA area

Do you know what the photo below (and above from a distance) is?

It's a pandolier! Seriously, the light fixture is made of many many saute pans! Cool huh!

The stable is now an events facility - be it weddings, conferences, parties ... whatever!

Another great example of the repurposing done at Pearl is these light fixtures in the stable - aren't they awesome! Old bottles found on the property - I want one, seriously, I want one. I know there was someone in MA that made lights out of wine bottles - I know i need one!

How about the ceiling of the stable - hopefully the photo can be enlarged so one can see the outstanding detail!

The brewery was one more of the reasons we loved San Antonio - so much to do, so much to see, so friendly, so clean. We left there this past Tuesday - I with a heavy heart, I didn't want to leave. I decided there was still things I wanted to do and see, particularly after reading this post from fellow full timers about their tour of the San Antonio Missions (which we did not see).

Even the bus stops are fun in San Antonio!

rememmem, remememmember

2010-12-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

The Alamo!

I really had no interest at all in seeing it (also, rememember that I am not a history fan). Rick went into San Antonio one day to see it and to see a movie about it at the Imax theater.

I had a change of thought the second time we went into the city, which was the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend so it was packed/mobbed.

Photography is not allowed inside the Alamo so you won't see any from there - nope, no picture of Davy Crockett's vest, no pictures of big old guns - nope, none, notta, ain't gonna happen. You will see pictures of the grounds and outside area, and mostly I don't know what the things/buildings are!

Here is a link to the Alamo website. What I've linked describes the battle at the Alamo (I have a brochure of this which I was going to scan and include in this post, but the link is better and easier to read than a scanned brochure. The brochure does have a great diagram showing the original "property" and what remains of the original property, unfortunately I couldn't find that diagram on the website!

To digress a bit, when we were in Waco, Rick visited the Texas Ranger Museum. Silly me (keep in mind I never was a blond, but this is a blond move on my part for sure), I thought he was talking about the baseball team!

Anyway, I didn't go to that museum so I can't describe it other than the first photo below is the entrance to the museum grounds. The second photo describes the Texas Rangers involvement in the ambush of Bonnie and Clyde (in Louisiana).

Another river

2010-12-06T07:02:00.000-08:00

Another river, another walkway, another river walk! This is San Antonio's river walk. By far the best I've seen ~ yup I loved Oklahoma City's and I love the river running through Providence, RI, but SA has just done a spectacular job.

So many places to eat, drink and play. So much activity in this area, but it is also so very peaceful ~ yup I loved it, in fact I've loved this entire area around San Antonio, to the point that I've seriously thought perhaps this is where we should buy that small piece of property (Rick however still says east coast!). The campground we've stayed at is great as well ~ with very friendly and helpful staff with our continuous extensions to our stay. With that said, we do think we'll be out of here tomorrow morning (Tuesday) and making our way 200 miles or so east to Houston, with one stop along the way which may be for three or more nights, but who knows with us and the way we travel, the only certainty is that we fly out of Houston on 12/22!

I loved the lines of this stairway. On either side were water features (there were many many beautiful "water features" along the river walk (yes the obvious river but also sort of tucked along the way beside the walk itself). If you look closely in the above photo to the right of the stairs about half way up is a neat little wall fountain, then on the other side of the stairs (photo below) was this outstanding water fall which also ran under the stairway.

Water water everywhere!

Even these ducks have there favorite place (I think) along the walk way.

So we came around a corner and came upon these ducks just chillin' and I loved how the archway framed the colorful umbrellas across the river - lighting isn't the best but ya just can't have it all!

I really thought we should stay in this hotel (Omni La Mansion del Rio) in a suite overlooking the river ~ then reality hit and I remembered that the days of staying in such a place are behind us, I'm glad I had those days, but I suspect we won't again!

We did go into the river walk area one night to see the Christmas lights. Somewhere (I can't for the life of me remember where) we came across these planters with fire and water - outstanding!

As I've complained before I can not take good night shots, but here's a couple. The last second and the last ones are typical of my night time photography skills.

feeling the pressure

2010-12-04T15:03:00.000-08:00

yeah yeah yeah, so I've been a bit slow blogging. That does NOT mean I've been hanging around doing nothing ~ well I've been hanging around, but having days and days of sewing marathons ~ to the point that my hand and fingers hurt.

With that said, King Richard has been hurting far more than my hand and fingers, after his fall off the ladder! Nothing broken, but a beautiful head gash and a rather serious puncture wound on his leg that finally got him to seek medical attention, not in a timely fashion however because it required stitches (which is why it has been so difficult to stop the blood flow) but because HE waited beyond 12 hours there were no sutures to be had (hmmm do you think that was intentional??).

So, we've delayed our stay here in San Antonio first by two days and now by an additional three days so we may be out of here on Tuesday. I've LOVED this area for so many reasons, which I might "go into" in two posts that I truly do have photos uploaded for!

As the saying goes.....stay tuned

no photos but

2010-11-24T22:49:00.000-08:00

realizing how much I have to be thankful for without posting photos ...

the opportunity to take said photos
health to allow my honey and i to continue this journey
healthy siblings (glad you are celebrating 60 JRP) and healthy children and grandchildren, healthy extended family ... isn't that such a GREAT joy and reason to celebrate ..
a cousin who just came through what to me is inconceivable surgery - OMG Cheryl ... YOU are a hero to me ..
a son who was able to run a marathon and a son who is here on US soil (even if he IS away from his wife and son at the moment, he IS in the US)
videos of a grandson singing the fish song and happy birthday (cha cha cha to his Dad), and a granddaughter telling tales of tubby toes ....

thankful thankful thankful I am .....

along our merry way

2010-11-22T17:16:00.000-08:00

After leaving Oklahoma City a couple weeks ago we headed to a gorgeous Corps of Engineers park (our first stay at such a park) just outside the Dallas/Ft. Worth area of Texas.

Located on the very large Lake Benbrook (or was it called Benbrook Lake ~ hmmmm can't remember). Very nice sites although many were horribly unlevel, seriously wheels dangerously off the ground unlevel! NOT GOOD.

While we were there we went to the U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving in Fort Worth. No photos allowed, so no photos to post.

There are two photos, however, of our trip to "Strokers, Dallas" - the motorcycle store etc. on which the TruTV show Ma's Roadhouse (yet another "reality" show ... surely not the best show out there, but it did seem that if we were in the area, well we should probably go "see" it).

The owner, Rick Fairless, below.

While we were staying in the campground Sir found a new toy, which was his best favorite toy for about 48 hours ~ he'd never had, nor seen, a shuttlecock before .... he was quite impressed for sure.

After leaving the Dallas area we headed to Waco, where we stayed three nights at the local fairgrounds.

While there we toured the Dr. Pepper Museum. Who knew it originated in Waco ~ not I! Another museum very well done.

Check out those gorgeous pottery crocks high up on the shelf beyond this bottling equipment. They were just beautiful, reminding me of an old pickle crock that I used to have and probably sold for about 10% of its true value at the leaving MA yard sale three years ago as we were getting ready to hit the road.

After leaving Waco five days ago we headed to the Austin area. We went into downtown Austin last Friday night in search of what we considered "local" music ... a country western, rockabilly kind of joint. Never did find what we were looking for but found a decent blues place where we enjoyed a couple beers/wine.

I have no clue what the pretty building above is but it sure was nice all lit up just waiting to be someones photo op.

Below, the outstanding Driskill Hotel. The hotel was built in 1886 with lovely architecture. Unfortunately we weren't dressed in a fashion we felt was appropriate to even go in for a cocktail ~ sure would like to have though, I'm sure it is as outstanding on the inside as it is outside. Maybe next time!

Only in Texas would you find such a site as that below (I think!)

We are leaving this suburban Austin area in the morning heading to San Antonio. I thought while we were here that we'd see the LBJ library and the Lady Bird Johnson wildflower garden. It was a great plan, but not a reality ~ I had a serious case of the lazies today and never made it. OOOPS