Texas 2010

We began our trip to Texas in the cold, and it really has not warmed up much! On Saturday morning it was very blustery and cold when we pulled out of the drive at 2020 Tricaso and it was still very cold when we arrived at Wright Patterson AFB. We ran into several bad snow bands between Akron and Columbus, but then no snow into Dayton – just cold. The water was frozen in the campground so it was a hike to the bath house for business. And to top it all, we could not keep the furnace running for some reason.

Sunday morning the truck thermometer read 7 – that’s right 7 when we pulled out and met up with the Rush’s for the remainder of the trip. It was somewhat uneventful, although Bill did miss the 71 cut off and we drove all the way to Lexington. We spent Sunday night at a campground near Buffalo, TN. No water here either as the campground plumbing was froze. Played with the battery and furnace and did get it working. Beginning to wonder if the battery might not have a bad cell as it will run the furnace for a while and then it drains down. The bath house did have water and heat so we are clean. We walked a half mile in the cold to a restaurant for a nice hot dinner.

When we arrived in Texarkana it was 35 degrees and the sun was shinning! We have a full hookup site and took full advantage of the cable TV, wireless INTERNET and water. All was good until we checked the local weather. It was to drop to 20 so we thought we could leave the water on, and dripping. Ah well, the best laid plans…..it froze!

Wed Jan 6: We finally arrived at Garner after a long (in time but not in distance) trip from our stay in Schertz just north of San Antonio. The couple we are traveling with experienced some problems; seems that the right rear tire on his truck “popped” a cord or two. It took AAA several hours to finally get the correct unit out to change the tire and air up the spare. We arrived at 3:30 (had planned on being here before noon) and were directed to our sites. We are located in one of the camping areas on a site assigned to one of the contractor/vendors during the summer camping season. It’s a nice open site and will have plenty of sun – when it comes out. Our temps are not all that great here. Our low tonight (Wednesday) is supposed to be 39, and that is to be the high for tomorrow when the low will be 15 and then on Friday the low will be 13!!!

We are pretty much set up and have our satellite TV all hooked up and working. (It only took 45 minutes to get Direct TV to send the local San Antonio local channels to the receiver) We will finish settling in tomorrow and get our first tasks. This weekend is a ‘kid’s hunt’ in the park and they are expecting a pretty full campground. Not sure what we will be doing but will add it to the blog.

Our cell phone is dead here – no bars and no roaming. But, this AT&T air card we bought is giving us a connection for the INTERNET anyway. Will look into a way to make calls through the computer to cell or land line phones.

Thursday Jan 7: Very windy and chilly day, but the sun is out and you can see just how cruddy looking the Cougar and Ram are. It will be a few more days before we can wash them off – and then be able to see out the windows. We met with the volunteer coordinator and are registered on our sites. Later in the day we met with Greg the maintenance ranger to find out what we would be doing. This first week we will be helping with “the hunt” in the park. Saturday and Sunday is a youth hunt and next week the adults. We will be helping to set up portable deer blinds and then transporting hunters to and from the blinds. The ladies may be helping in the ‘kitchen’ as they prepare 3 meals a day for folks involved in the hunt. Or they may help in the transporting as there must be two park people in each vehicle for safety reasons. We take the hunters out at 6, check on them at 10, 12 and 3 and final pickup is at 6. If they get a deer at 12:30, they have to leave it until 3 when we come back to check on them.

We are having trouble keeping the satellite dish aimed in all this wind, so no BCS game.

This is our 'home' for the next 6 weeks.

Friday Jan 8: Friday Jan 8: We finally started to work today. The morning was spent just dong odds and ends at the RV (the satellite dish is now working) and then at noon we walked to the shop. From there we set out to place and erect the deer hunting blinds for the hunt which begins tomorrow. It will be only 'youth' on Saturday and Sunday and then the adult hunt will be next week. Bill Rush and Jon will be driving a run taking adults out. The hunters will be dropped off at their blinds at 6 in the morning and then will be checked or picked up at 10, 12 and 3. Final pickup will be at 6 in the evening. We will have some long days for sure.

Found some interesting plants in the woods. It is a plant that oozes sap at freezing the sap then freezes around the stem of the plant. It looks like little bundles of Styrofoam around the woods. Guess it protects the plant roots from the sub freezing temps we are having at night.

They will be setting up a 'mess hall' in one of the shelters where they will be cooking and providing (for a cost) three meals a day plus and afternoon snack for the next week. It will be for all the hunters and those of us working the hunt. They also have stations setup cleaning and dressing out the deer. It will be interesting to see the kids.

Saturday Jan 9: Woke up this morning to frozen pipes in the trailer. We had left the water running slowly in the kitchen, but it was the shower/vanity that froze. This is where the pipes run through the ‘basement’ area. Set up one of our small heaters and let it run for over an hour and it thawed….and no leaks!! Only one more night of below freezing and then our lows will be in the 30’s and highs in the 50’s to low 60’s!!!

Here is a picture of that strange plant.


At noon we went to the ‘big shelter’ for lunch and the youth hunter briefing. For the next 6 days we will be eating our meals there – at about $2 a meal. It was interesting to see the kids (8 boys and one girl) receive their instructions and then at 3 they were loaded into trucks and taken to their assigned blinds. Each has and adult (all males except for one mom) with them. They are allowed to shoot one Axis buck and as many females as they want. They will be out until after sunset today and then again tomorrow from 6AM until noon.

Here are the kids loading up to go out


And this is Judy and Lois sitting around the fire.

Heading To Texas Soon

Here it is Monday December 28 and we are finalizing preparations for our trip to Texas. Thursday we will move the Cougar to the drive for ease of loading. We plan to leave Saturday morning to make the drive to Fairborn, OH were we will stay at Wright-Patterson AFB for a night. Sunday morning we will join up with the Rush's for the trip to Garner SP near Leakey, Texas.

So Sad

Tomorrow is November 1, and the camping season is over here. The Cougar has been winterized and all the 'lost wheel' damage repaired. Soon we will begin putting things in for our winter in Texas. We will head south sometime after the 1st of January (2010 can you believe).

Made one last trip the week of the 18th (October that is) to Salt Fork SP. It was primitive hunting season so there were lots of hunters in the park. Every day we saw deer in the campground - where hunting is not allowed.

Met the Rush's there for our usual game playing-sightseeing-laughing-find different places to eat trek. Made the long drive to Newell, WV one day to tour the Homer Laughlin factory. They make, among other things, Fiesta ware pottery. Had a good tour and did pick up a few items from the 'seconds' room.

To the Beach

September saw us heading to Myrtle Beach for 10 days of fun and sun. Enjoyed the time and pot-luck dinners. Mark, Kyra and the boys drove down for a day and left Niko with us. We had him four days and he enjoyed being buried in the sand and the ice cream cones.

Trip home was uneventful until we were 14 miles from our exit. Front wheel on the curb side came off some time and we were stuck with three wheels on the ground. Appeared that one or more of the lug bolts snapped and we lost the tire, rim and lugs. Jon and Dale came to the rescue and we made it home using a brake drum and lugs from Jon's trailer. Got it all replaced but still working on the broken plastic fender.

No Major Summer Travels (May- August)

We've stayed pretty close to home this summer. Did get out with the Rainmakers for Memorial Day and then the weekend after the 4th of July (group tried something different). In mid July we met with the Rush's at one of our favorite locations - Delaware State Park.

TRAVELS OVER

We spent a week getting back home. Three nights in Georgia and four near Davidson. Enjoyed the time with the boys and Judy got to visit two old friends in Georgia.

It was good to get back home though. We had rain much of the trip from Davidson but we did manage to get most of the trailer unloaded on Monday. Tuesday we awoke to nearly 2 inches of snow - welcome to Ohio!!!

Anyway that is about it for this trip. Not sure when the next one will be. We calculated that of the past 15 months, we have been on the road seven so maybe it's time to spend some time on Tricaso Drive.

LTI Page 8

Woke up Monday morning to overcast skies, a chance of rain and close to 100% humidity, but we decided to try to get some painting in before the sky opened. Well, the sky never opened and finally after lunch we finished up the back of the bait shop. We had thought about waiting until Tuesday, but we were already paint spotted and had so little to do that we ate lunch and wrapped the task up. We were returning the paint tools and paint to the shop when we ran into Aaron.

When we told him we were done he showed some surprise and wondered if we felt we had time to work on another task. The equipment shed at the Park Manager’s residence will be done on Tuesday so we will paint it beginning Wednesday.

He again told us that we did a fantastic job on the trail and that he has never in his years at the park seen it look so good. It will now be up to the park folks to keep it cleaned up!

Tuesday we were at the Reed house doing laundry when one of the rangers told us that a large turtle had washed up on the beach. He said the shell measured 3 feet by 4 feet and was dead. So, after we had lunch and had done some errands we stopped by the ranger station to find out where it was located. We went home and rode our bikes to the beach and had to walk about ¼ mile down the beach where we saw Kathleen, and three other employees with their trucks. As we approached Kathleen shouted out that it was not a turtle, but a fish! When we got close we could see that it was not really a fish – just part of one. It was at least three feet high and what was left of the length was a little better than four feet. You can see by the size of the nearby truck and shovel the size of this thing.
They were trying to drag it up further on the beach and then bury it deep. No matter how they tried they could not move it. They had tarps under it but the ropes just pulled through the grommets. They finally gave up and were hoping the high tide – which was coming in – would wash it out. We will go try to check it out in the morning.

Kathleen, in the middle is flanked by ranger Michelle and Judy.

This is the small shed we are now working on. We were painting on the sides and back even before the other volunteers had completed the doors. The sides are made of ‘hardy’ or ‘cement’ board so they do not soak up paint and will not rot in the sun and moisture. We completed the base coat and now have only the trim to paint. We really don’t want to complete too soon as this will be our last project.












In the afternoon we rode our bikes on the blacktopped bike trail to the ‘south end’ and made our way through the sand to the beach. We rode on the beach back to the first boardwalk…a very pleasant ride as the tide was coming in. We found the fish, it moved up the beach – north – by the tides. According to Michelle it is/was a Sun Fish - not like we would think of at home!

Another task completed! We finished up the shed a little before noon. We are sure that we could be assigned another painting task, but the chance of rain this afternoon is 70% and runs the same through Friday morning so no need to tackle anything else.


Here’s a painter’s trick we leaned. See the blue tape on the one brush? This keeps paint from going all the way to the heel of the brush, which makes cleaning easier. It also keeps the bristles all together.

Friday at the shop when putting the painting tools and ladder away, Kathleen asked if we might want to go to the Home Depot in Jacksonville to pickup some material. So we took off in the old Ford dump truck (standard transmission) and drove into the north end Home Depot to pickup thirty 12 foot composite boards which they will use for bench seats. They are slowly moving from wood to composite as it lasts in this salt/sand climate. That will be our last job for this park as tonight we have a pot-luck with volunteers and staff.

Friday late afternoon we had a rain move through and it certainly cut down on the pollen! Between the cedar, the live oak and the flat wood pines it was getting pretty bad. Later that evening we had a potluck with most of the volunteers and a large number of the staff. Lots of good food and socializing and nice to see the staff out of uniform and to get to know them a bit more.

Michelle verified that the fish found on the beach is commonly referred to as a salt water ‘sun fish’ - really a Mola Mola - and it can weigh up to a ton! Here’s a link with more information about this strange fish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_sunfish

Saturday we did some packing and made a final trip to WalMart. It was not too sunny so we made one final ride on the beach. The winds were pretty strong out of the south so it was a hard ride to the south end of the island. The sand was really blowing on the beach, but we did not have to pedal much on the way north. It stormed hard nearly all night so things are wet and soggy. Some of the stuff we pack away will have to be opened to dry.


Sunday afternoon there are three speakers at the Rebault Club talking about Florida history so we will go there to help fill in the day. We plan to be on the road by 8:30 for the two plus hour drive to Valdosta.

So this ends Florida portion of our travels.