Tuesday January 19: Awoke Monday to thick fog but we made the hike to the maintenance shop to see what the lead ranger (Greg) had for us to do. Turned out he wanted us and other volunteers to work on all the brush and limbs which had been dropped by the tree trimmers. We are to cut the longer sections and drag all of it to the edge of the road so it can be chipped. However, it was too foggy and wet at 8:30. The fog finally began to dissipate about 11 so we tackled the job. At first it was only the four of us, but soon several of the other volunteers joined and we went at it. They want to reopen this section of the park to campers, but can’t until all this stuff is gone. Our temperatures have increased greatly to the point where it’s in the mid 60’s during the day and only down to the low 40’s at night.
Judy and Lois are dragging some of the smaller sections to the road. That’s the ‘Group Shelter’ in the background, where we ate our hunt meals and where we will set up a game night for the volunteers.
This is other volunteers doing the chipping. The dump bed on the 2 ½ ton truck does not’t work so we are just blowing the ‘mulch’ on to the ground in the park.
By Tuesday afternoon we had nearly all of it cut and dragged to the road. We will have some to do on Wednesday and that should take care of this task. Hoping that soon we will get the painting jobs assigned.
Needless to say, we do take breaks as often as we can. The lady in the blue peering into the trailer is Jo, Burton’s wife. She is 86 and walks every day and gets out to pickup trash and was helping us with some of the brush.
The inverter board arrived by FedEx on Monday afternoon. It was not too hard to install, but I did need to call on Burton, the 88 year old volunteer who does electrical work. Needed to come up with a connector for the positive battery wire connection to the circuit board and he made me one. It’s all in and everything is working great.
Something interesting about the board and its route to Garner SP, the place I ordered it from is in Boise, ID. It was shipped from there to Memphis, to San Antonio to Del Rio and then to the park.
Wednesday January 20: Another foggy morning with 100% humidity in the park. Though it is not “raining” the air is so full of wetness it feels like it. There are even poodles forming on the roads. This means no chipping today but we did talk with Greg about what we would be doing after chipping. We will be working with another volunteer on prepping the old workshop, it was built by CCC workers, and then painting it. As we could not work we decided to take Burton and Jo out to lunch for the use of their charger for nearly a week. We rode into town with them – interesting riding with an 88 year old. Driving was not a problem, but he had the heater cranked up to 87 and it was blasting me in the face. Even Judy, in the back seat could feel it.
Anyway had a nice lunch at a real Mexican place called Mama Choles. Burton and Jo know the owner’s father from earlier years at the park. Burton enlisted in the Navy on December 8, 1941 and they were married the following May before he shipped out. They have some good stories.
After lunch we rode to Kerrville (about 80 miles) with the Rushes in search of a new shower faucet for their RV. We arrived back in time to make some popcorn and get ready for ‘game night’ at the group shelter. Not much of a turnout, but 7 of us played chicken foot for nearly two hours.
Thursday January 22: Another day of chipping. We worked two hours in the morning and then took a two hour break for lunch and rest. Danny (Park Ranger leading the volunteer crew) does not want us working too hard as it is getting warmer and the brush heavier. We quit at 3 and have about 2 plus hours more to go before we can wrap up this task.
We drove into Uvalde as we had read about a lady going to tell some history and folk tales about this area. The program was to be at the library at 5:30 so we just had a light dinner and took off. Well, it was not that great! Not like what we had experienced in Florida. None the less, we needed a few grocery items anyway so the trip was not a complete bust.
Cleaned out the camera and here are a couple more pictures from the hunt week. This is Judy, Lois and Bill the evening we had Axis Chili.
This was the house two days before we left.
Judy and Lois are dragging some of the smaller sections to the road. That’s the ‘Group Shelter’ in the background, where we ate our hunt meals and where we will set up a game night for the volunteers.
This is other volunteers doing the chipping. The dump bed on the 2 ½ ton truck does not’t work so we are just blowing the ‘mulch’ on to the ground in the park.
By Tuesday afternoon we had nearly all of it cut and dragged to the road. We will have some to do on Wednesday and that should take care of this task. Hoping that soon we will get the painting jobs assigned.
Needless to say, we do take breaks as often as we can. The lady in the blue peering into the trailer is Jo, Burton’s wife. She is 86 and walks every day and gets out to pickup trash and was helping us with some of the brush.
The inverter board arrived by FedEx on Monday afternoon. It was not too hard to install, but I did need to call on Burton, the 88 year old volunteer who does electrical work. Needed to come up with a connector for the positive battery wire connection to the circuit board and he made me one. It’s all in and everything is working great.
Something interesting about the board and its route to Garner SP, the place I ordered it from is in Boise, ID. It was shipped from there to Memphis, to San Antonio to Del Rio and then to the park.
Wednesday January 20: Another foggy morning with 100% humidity in the park. Though it is not “raining” the air is so full of wetness it feels like it. There are even poodles forming on the roads. This means no chipping today but we did talk with Greg about what we would be doing after chipping. We will be working with another volunteer on prepping the old workshop, it was built by CCC workers, and then painting it. As we could not work we decided to take Burton and Jo out to lunch for the use of their charger for nearly a week. We rode into town with them – interesting riding with an 88 year old. Driving was not a problem, but he had the heater cranked up to 87 and it was blasting me in the face. Even Judy, in the back seat could feel it.
Anyway had a nice lunch at a real Mexican place called Mama Choles. Burton and Jo know the owner’s father from earlier years at the park. Burton enlisted in the Navy on December 8, 1941 and they were married the following May before he shipped out. They have some good stories.
After lunch we rode to Kerrville (about 80 miles) with the Rushes in search of a new shower faucet for their RV. We arrived back in time to make some popcorn and get ready for ‘game night’ at the group shelter. Not much of a turnout, but 7 of us played chicken foot for nearly two hours.
Thursday January 22: Another day of chipping. We worked two hours in the morning and then took a two hour break for lunch and rest. Danny (Park Ranger leading the volunteer crew) does not want us working too hard as it is getting warmer and the brush heavier. We quit at 3 and have about 2 plus hours more to go before we can wrap up this task.
We drove into Uvalde as we had read about a lady going to tell some history and folk tales about this area. The program was to be at the library at 5:30 so we just had a light dinner and took off. Well, it was not that great! Not like what we had experienced in Florida. None the less, we needed a few grocery items anyway so the trip was not a complete bust.
Cleaned out the camera and here are a couple more pictures from the hunt week. This is Judy, Lois and Bill the evening we had Axis Chili.
This was the house two days before we left.
Saturday January 23: Finished up the chipping in this area of the park, but we will have more to do. Next week we will have to work on some cuttings down by the rock beach in the day-use area. It’s good to have a break from that brush hauling and chipping. We were so tired we were in bed by 8:30.
The first part of the week we will be working on the old shop building. The object is to restore it as it was originally built by the CCC as part of the original barracks for the CCC workers. One of the other volunteers has started chipping and scrapping the old layers of paint and we will assist him. Three weeks from now we plan on being in San Antonio. We were finally able to make contact with the Vet Clinic at Lackland have an appointment for the afternoon of the 12th. Today we plan on taking advantage of two programs in the park. First is a session on the geology/history of the park and then this afternoon is a hike.
Saturday January 23: Finished up the chipping in this area of the park, but we will have more to do. Next week we will have to work on some cuttings down by the rock beach in the day-use area. It’s good to have a break from that brush hauling and chipping. We were so tired we were in bed by 8:30.
The first part of the week we will be working on the old shop building. The object is to restore it as it was originally built by the CCC as part of the original barracks for the CCC workers. One of the other volunteers has started chipping and scrapping the old layers of paint and we will assist him. Three weeks from now we plan on being in San Antonio. We were finally able to make contact with the Vet Clinic at Lackland have an appointment for the afternoon of the 12th. Today we plan on taking advantage of two programs in the park. First is a session on the geology/history of the park and then this afternoon is a hike.
We missed the start of Ranger Frank’s talk about the geology of the park and Texas but did join him for his afternoon hike. It was a 4 plus mile jaunt through, up and over several hills and along some sections of trails that had been constructed by the CCC. We learned much about the formation of the Frio Canyon and the various trees and small plants unique to this area. The hike was difficult in some areas and very rocky with several steep switch-backs. All in all we climbed to a point were we were 400 plus feet above the campground level.
Ranger Frank and part of the group on the afternoon hike.
This is the view from one of the scenic out ledges.
No comments:
Post a Comment