Failed Again

We had good intentions of testing Lin Yutang's theory about how to live, but by 3 o'clock we were ready for some activity.  High winds ruled out pickleball.  We opted for a 3 mile walk down the road looking for geocaches.  Caching is a hobby that we haven't done in a couple of years and decided to resurrect.  We downloaded the GPS coordinates for four nearby caches and set out. 

We found three of the four.  One had apparently been removed and not replaced.  The other, not pictured, had gotten water in it.  The log was kept dry by a plastic bag, but the other tradables were soaked.

 Here is the first one we found. That red spot in the middle of the picture is an old canister holding the log to sign and a couple of trinkets to trade.

That little bit of color at the base of the post is another cache, just big enough to hold the log and one or two very small things.

The sky was back to being totally gray overcast with a chilly wind, but I found some bright colors to cheer me.

Wonder what's in store for tomorrow.

Louise and Duane

Not Working

The other day I came across a quote by Lin Yutang, (1895-1976).  He said:  "If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live."
Today I tried to see first hand if that was true.  I spent the morning in my pajamas goofing off watching "Bones"  on tv.  After heating leftovers for lunch, I tried to repeat my morning's activity.  Duane was not in the mood.  He said that we should take advantage of the mostly sunny, warm, summer-like afternoon to play pickleball.  Rats!  He shamed me into it by reminding me how much I'd been complaining of the cool, cloudy winter.  Off we went and played several games with our friend Mike and his grandson Rowdy (not sure of his age, but guess he's around 10). 

O well.  I guess I'll try to learn to live tomorrow.

Louise and Duane

Springing

A short walk looking for signs of spring revealed:

new grass

new wildflowers

new tree leaves

and tree flowers,

and the best colors of all--any time of year.

Spring has definitely sprung around here.

Louise and Duane

Beautiful Moving

Moving day today, from Colorado River (TX) Thousand Trails park back to Lake Conroe TT park for a couple of weeks.  In spite of gray skies, the ride was quite nice--interesting roads and very scenic. We decided to take the back roads instead of the interstate highway. It takes a little longer but we avoid Houston traffic, well worth the extra time.

Now we're back at one of our favorite parks.

Louise and Duane

Goin' Up The Country

I'm goin' up the country

 don't you want to go?

I'm goin' up the country

don't you want to go?

I'm goin' to some place

I've never been before

Just exactly where we're goin' I cannot say

It's a brand new game that I want to play

We had no idea where we were going.  We just jumped on the Eagle and let him fly.

Thanks to Canned Heat for the unauthorized use of their song.

Louise and Duane

It's Comin'

Spring was in the air today.  Granted, that air was rather chilly, but the sun was warm and bright, the grass was nicely green,

and a few wildflowers were poking their heads out of the grass.

Since we are leaving on Thursday and our our new friends Ralph and Sandy are busy all day tomorrow, we spent the afternoon visiting them at their "house".  After a nice "getting to know you" visit, said "see you down the road" and went home.

Meanwhile their cat enjoyed being out in the nice weather, too.  

(On a leash)

Pickleball tomorrow with our other new friends Chuck and Lucie.

Leaving on Thursday.

Louise and Duane

Remember This?

The last time we visited the Colorado River (TX) Thousand Trails park--at the end of 2017, we would drive past this big field when we made a trip into Columbus.  It was filled with cars and trucks that were drowned by Hurricane Harvey.  New vehicles came in every day.  This was one of four big fields in this area.  

This time when we drove by we were surprised to find the field empty.  It looked weird.

Only two more days here.

Louise and Duane

Laziness

The overcast persisted most of the day today, with short periods of thinning clouds which didn't quite let the sun shine through.  These bright periods came between longer periods of dark clouds and misty showers.  We braved (?) the clouds and mist through a couple of teaching games of pickleball with our students Craig and Tommy before we decided that the court was getting too wet and went home to hole up for the rest of the day. 

Mostly Duane watched tv and played around on computer.  I cooked, which means that made a dish which takes some time and effort.  I did some outdoor chores, but most of the day I read a book I borrowed from the park library.  The book is Forrest Carter's Josey Wales,  the story that Clint Eastwood used in his movie, The Outlaw Josey Wales.  The book is comprised of two stories, Gone To Texas which is the basis of the movie, and The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales, which is a sequel to the first.  I finished GTT and was pleased to note that, with a few small changes, the movie held pretty close to the book.  Mr. Carter was a good story teller and writer.  I always enjoy good writing and am happy to recommend this book to any Western readers.  I'll let you know about the next book.

Not a bad way to enjoy a Sunday.

Louise and Duane

Not Again!

After waking to a beautiful sunny morning with a light breeze, we were delighted to head to the pickleball court at 10:30 to play with Sandy and Lucy (who showed up yesterday for the first time).  The breeze was a little chilly, but was tolerable once we started moving around. 

Duane and Sandy warmed up by sweeping the leaf debris from the court.

By the time we completed an hour of play the sun had completely disappeared behind a thick cloud cover which made the breeze seem cold.

In the afternoon we came back to give a lesson to Craig and his cousin Tommy, a couple of guys who drove by while we were playing this morning and asked what we were doing.  We taught them the basics for about an hour before the wind blew in a misty shower.  Chilly and misty was the order for the rest of the day and evening.

O well, the sunny days were fun while they lasted.

Louise and Duane

Old Friend

The fourth beautiful day in a row.  This morning's pickleball game reeled in another player, who, incidentally, is NOT leaving in the morning.  Yay!  This afternoon Duane was inspired to renew our acquaintance with one of our hobbies that we haven't done in a while--geocaching.  To play this game we dusted off our hand-held gps unit and walked .8 mile to the rv park entrance.

Along the way we crossed the stream running under the driveway.  Here is what it looked like when we arrived a week ago.

Two days later, after a whole day of rain, it looked like this.

Today it looked like this. 

It ran under the road to this area, which was also dry when we arrived here last week.

  The cache is literally between a rock and a hard place.  It sticks out just enough to see it if you're at the right angle.

Our resident deer herd out for their evening graze.

It was fun caching again, especially in the wonderful spring-like weather.

Duane and Louise 

Perfect Day

The weather was perfect today for being outside.  We played pickleball this morning under perfectly blue skies, sunny and cloudless.   The wind had changed directions and was only 11 mph.  Duane and Sandy are picking up balls fairly close to the court since the wind didn't carry them very far.

After 1 1/2 hours a guy out for a walk stopped to watch and ended up getting a pickleball lesson and joining us for a game.  Unfortunately, he is leaving tomorrow.  O well.

After lunch we decided to go to town to do laundry and get a couple of grocery items.  As we passed the court, we saw a family playing pickleball.  Duane invited them to play tomorrow, but they are leaving too.

During the afternoon and evening clouds gradually took over, but the weather was still nice enough to enjoy being outside.  We couldn't believe that we have finally started drying out.

Tomorrow?  Only AM pickleball so far.

Louise and Duane