Giagantic spider and web

Northern flicker

Sunbathing vultures

Good looking candles

Inspiring our youth

Well, we got through the most strenous part of our job here. The park has an annual event called Spanish Tracks and Trails. On Friday 1000 school children stepped back into time to discover what kept pioneers and settlers busy every day. Demonstrators included people carving (guess who), candle dipping (guess who else), leather working, blacksmithing, hair rope making, cord making, making home remedies, making Indian flutes, discussing what the area looked liked when people started colonizing--including the topography and animals, knitting, pottery making, geneology, and two re enactors who represented the clothing and accroutements available. Saturday was open to the general public, so our jobs weren't as demanding.

To prepare for STT, we used our day off on Thursday to take a long nature walk. In the morning the turkey vultures sunbathe as they dry the dew from their feathers and warm themselves. Most trees have have a dozen or so, but we found one that had about a hundred. Amazing! Since we weren't walking fast we took time to locate the Northern Flicker and get a good shot. The big web represents the hundreds of such spiders around here. Most of these large ones are above head level so most people don't notice them. The webs average 2 feet in diameter and the spiders could straddle a 50 cent piece. The one above was about 3 feet above our heads. We would have missed it but we were looking for birds and the sun hit it just right. After our walk we went to Victoria for a little shopping and lunch.

To help us recover from our long days, we were relieved of night duty Sat. night (good thing since the place was packed and would have taken us more than an hour) and given Sunday off (since we worked our usual Friday day off). Duane didn't need it so much since he sat all day, but I was on my feet and full of smoke (couldn't keep the logs burning). Now we are back on our regular schedule. Now we can concentrate on our Christmas projects. Duane has finished his ornaments for the grandchildren. I have finished the birth announcements for the twins (framed them on Sunday), so its on to other things.

Smart-alec at the hanging tree

Fannin memorial at the battleground

Red shouldered hawk

This was taken at the mission grounds Tuesday

We are now comfortable in our new routine. We think we have the leak fixed and that we know the routine and information about the mission. The weather has been beautiful (if a little chilly at night) and we have been able to get our exercise in every day so we feel good. This enables us to get back to our carving and sewing of Christmas gifts. All of this is going to change next week when 1000 school children converge on the mission for an annual program called Spanish Tracksand Trails. Everyone will be helping. Duane will be carving and I will be dipping candles.

This week was quiet, though, so we were able to do a little sight-seeing yesterday. We drove to the little hamlet of Fannin and missed it when we blinked. Past that is the Fannin battleground. This is a very nice well maintained monument on the actual battleground between retreating Texans and the Mexican army. The importance of Fannin is that he honorably surrendered his men to the Mexican army as prisioners of war. They were marched back to the Presidio La Bahia and imprisioned there. Then General Santa Ana decided they must be shot. So they were. All 350+. The original rallying cry was "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!"

While we were out we did a little geocaching. We found all four on the road the memorial was on, including one at the memorial. We weren't that far from the highway, but we were in the middle of nowhere. It was very quiet. No sound but the wind, a few birds, and the buzz of grasshoppers. Very refreshing. Back on the road we let Wataburger feed us in Goliad, then found the local history museum was open so stopped by for a visit. From there we went to the local cemetery to find a cache and to read some of the old headstones. Then we drove to the west edge of town and stopped to read an historical marker. Across the road we happened to spot the remnants of Mission Rosario, the sister to our mission, four miles away. This is protected behind a high chain link fence, but has not been excavated or rebuilt. From there we took off to visit Beeville 30 miles away. This is the closest big town on the west of Goliad as Victoria is on the east. We knew nothing of the town so we decided to take a look. We didn't find much of historical interest, so we went back to Goliad. The light was still good, so we decided to stop by the courthouse square. We walked around reading all of the historical signs and happened on the one pictured above. Justice was swift at the courthouse and the tree was in regular use at one time.

That was our touring day. Today I intend to make inroads on my embroidery. Duane has decided it is housecleaning day. This means the clutter has gotten to him and he can't stand it any more. This also means I'd better get my stuff put away so he will not bug me!

Our digs

Mission church

Inside the restored church

Welcome to the Goliad State Park and adjacent Mission Espiritu Santo de Zuniga. This is our home and our job for the next two months. Our job description is Park Host, but our job is at the mission. We are to be available to greet visitors and answer any questions, and keep the place looking neat and clean. The mission is comprised of several rebuilt buildings and the original stone foundations of some buildings. The CCC restored the mission after years of decay, so the museum has information about why the mission was rebuilt the way it is, in addition to displays of typical Spanish mission life in Texas in the late 1700's and early 1800's. The park is very nice as is all the staff and the other park hosts. There is also a very nice paved hike/bike trail from the town of Goliad, through the park to the Presidio La Bahia, Fannin Memorial and Zaragosa monument. These are all involved with the early settlement of Texas.

The mission and presidio are typical of Spanish colonization plan in the New World. The idea was for the padres to convert and domesticate the local natives into model Spanish citizens. The presidio was for the protection of the mission. Once the natives were all domesticated, the area was safe for people of pure Spanish blood to move into the area. The mission was secularized and became the local native village. The soldiers moved on to the next area to be colonized along with the friars. The presidio became the center of the new Spanish town. That's the way it worked on paper anyway. This particular mission and presidio were first situated further south near the coast. This is it's third location.

We worked our first shift yesterday from noon to five. We had a few visitors, but they had no questions for us. We were with another host, Ruth, who answered our questions and showed us the ropes. We are actually here a week early, so our "real" schedule won't start until next week. On our off time we do our usual things: Duane computers, watches tv, and carves. I embroider, read, cook and keep the laundry basket empty. We both educate ourselves about the mission, work Sudokus, and take our daily 2 mile walk. We have also been tracing our ongoing leak. We think we have it isolated at last. Time will tell.

The weather has been very fickle. We arrived in pouring rain wearing shorts and quickly changed to long pants. Next day was sunny and chilly in the am, but quickly warmed up in the afternoon. Monday and Tuesday evenings we ran the furnace, Wednesday night we ran the air, Thurs night neither. Thunderstorms were predicted for yesterday afternoon, but after 2 days and nights of overcast and high winds, the afternoon cleared, the sun shone and it was beautiful for a couple of hours. Then we had a brief heavy shower. Hurray for Texas!

Basta por hoy!

Louise and Duane

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge

Tower view

Babies!

Nineteen in all

Hogging the sidewalk

Sharing the road

Quite a rack

Regal

We arrived yesterday in Victoria, TX, just a skip down the road from Aransas Pass. We will be staying in the Lazy Longhorn RV Park for the rest of the week. We like it here. The lots are big and paved, it is quiet, it has a pool, it is nicely landscaped and will give us the Passport America price for up to 14 days. Yesterday we did a driving tour of the town. Today we visited the shore via the little village of Port O'Conner. We found a little park with a little strip of shore we could comb. There were lots of tiny shells, broken shells, and broken glass, but we found a few treasures, and enjoyed a windy lunch at one of the half a dozen picnic tables. We wanted to visit Matagordas Island, but the ferry was no longer running. The only access was by boat, so we were out of luck. From there we drove back through Seadrift, Long Mott and Bloomington, and through Austwell to the Wildlife Refuge. Our Senior Pass came in handy again. After a brief visit at the visitors' center, we drove through the park taking a couple of the little side trips. We decided to save the long walks until most of the migratory birds arrive. Good thing too. The mosquitoes were out by the hundreds. We managed to find just enough insect repellent in the car (available at the visitor's center, but we have lots at home) to get us through the day. We drove slowly to better view the wildlife, which, of course, was more visible at dawn and dusk than at 3pm. We did manage to find some, though, as you can see in the pix. Ironically, we saw the most deer--2 dozen--on the lawn along the road as we exited the Refuge!

More touring later.

Louise and Duane

Padre Palms RV Park

Entrance

Padre beach

YECCH!

Shore Garbage Collector

Our tour

Hello from the Padre Palms Rv Park in Corpus Christie. We came here for some white sand beach action before starting our job in Goliad, but were doomed to disappointment. The dreaded red tide made its presence known as soon as we stepped out of the car. The so called red tide is an angae bloom that sometimes appears red, but can be brown or green. It depletes the oxygen in the water and results in a massive kill of fish, eels, jellies, man-o-wars, crabs, etc. These wash up on the shore, making the beach a stinking mess. In addition, the bloom releases a toxin that is irritating to the skin and mucous membranes of humans. Breath it in and your eyes start burning and you start coughing. So we gave up on the beach idea and toured inland. We ended up at the famous King Ranch. This started out as two Spanish Land Grants and has mushroomed to over a million acres in two states. It is the largest privately (family) owned entity in the U S. It just purchased a pecan orchard, has large citrus orchards in Florida, and produces massive amounts of cotton in Texas, but began primarily as a cattle ranch breeding Santa Getrudis cattle, then branched into horse breeding. King managed the acreage by dividing it into four main sections with an onsite manager in each section. The ranch is run the same way today. There are several different tours to choose from. We opted for the museum and ranch tour. This means we walked around the museum in Kingsville, then drove to the ranch and boarded a little bus. All in all it was a very interesting and informative way to spend the day. Son Jesse was in town job hunting, so he stayed with us and toured the ranch with us. Today he left to return to Temple and work. We are spending a quiet day doing our things. Tomorrow (Sat.) we are moving to Aransas Pass. Our Passport America discount isn't good here on weekends, but it is at the Ransom Road Rv Park. Monday we head inland to Victoria, getting closer to our job.

See you in Victoria. Louise and Duane

Wild turkeys on the ranch

King cattle

Emma and Aunt Stacy
Happy Ava

Duane's latest

Diamond willow

Now we are parked in the Dallas area, visiting the last of the grandchildren we will see on this trip. (There are two in CA that need to wait a longer.) We are here until Monday. We will be visiting Jr. and Brandey and Emma and Ava until then. By chance daughter Stacy and her mother Colleen are also visiting. We will all be attending the the twins' dedication in their church Sunday. They surely have grown. When we saw them last in June they were tiny infants. Now they are chubby, laughing little girls. They are still the same but different. Usually we have to have them together to tell them apart. It will be interesting to see how much they resemble each other as they get older . We will try to get our "baby fix" in during the next two days. After that we head to Temple for a one day visit with son Jesse, then keep on heading to Goliad and our Nov., Dec. work camping job. We will be making some stops in between, so keep reading.

Basta!

Louise and Duane

Grandma Weezie and Luke
G W and Allie

Climber

Awesome treehouse

Laughing boy

We are back in Texas! We arrived without incident on Monday after breaking our rule of not driving on the weekend. We spent Saturday and Sunday evenings enjoying the Wal-Mart campgrounds in Mississippi and Alabama. We got lucky and didn't have any truck running or rv generator running next to us either night. Sunday we made a detour to the Vicksburg National Battleground for a short visit to the visitors' center. We learned the importance of the battles fought there. We opted to postpone the 22 mile driving tour of the battle sites until a return visit. We didn't feel we could do it justice in the rain. We arrived back "home" at Shallow Creek RV Park around the corner from Jeremy and Jennifer on Monday. We spent Monday evening and all day today visiting and playing. The kids in the pix above are Texas cousins to Madeleine, Simon, and Judah in Ohio. Allie (4 1/2) is 6 months younger than Maddy and Luke (1) is a year younger than Simon. Duane and I really enjoyed playing with these two as much as with the Ohio cousins. Their personalities are very different, so we had to power down from the high-energy Ohio kids. We were sad we only had two days to get reaquainted, but tomorrow we move on to Celina Tx (north of Dallas) to play with the twins. Ava and Emma have changed a lot in the last three months and we are ready to see how much they've grown.

Enough for now!

Louise and Duane

Hurray we're rollin' again!

Wild turkeys
One of many little valleys

See the deer?

Appalachian folk art and humor

At last we are turning our wheels again, doing our tourist thing. The month we sat in Ohio was fun, but with the turning of the weather we like to head for sunnier skies. We have been 2 1/2 days here in Raccoon Valley (Escapees) RV Park and have made good use of them. When we arrived and set up we joined the afternoon social hour and met some of the friendly folk who make the park a nice place to stay. Both mornings have been overcast and damp, but by afternoon have made way for sunny skies and dry air--perfect for sightseeing. Yesterday we headed for the Great Smoky Mts. National Park and Cades Cove. This is one of many little settlements in the mts. It is an 11 mile drive to visit some of the home places. I can't say homesteads because the people who settled here actually bought land. Some places are right by the road and some are a short walk away. There were several roads crisscrossing the cove. Some have been preserved as walking/hiking trails and some are now paved and drivable. Since we were there in the early afternoon we didn't see much wildlife (dawn and dusk are best for this), but Ole Sharp Eye managed to spot the deer and turkeys even though he was driving. (I was reading the info booklet). After we exited the cove we headed for Gatlinburg and took the artisans' loop outside of town. We found a nice quilt shop and a couple of local carvers and the ice cream shop before everything closed up.

Today we took off under cloudy misty skies to visit the Museum of Appalachia. This is a large complex of several original historic log buildings that have been moved to the site to represent Appalachian Mountain living. The tour is self-guided. The buildings are full personal belongings--tools, toys, clothing, utensiles, etc. that were used by the original inhabitants. One of the buildings is called the Appalachian Hall of Fame and features notable, historic, famous, interesting, colorful and unusual folk that lived in the area. We thought the cost--$15 each--was more in line for a living history village, but we still enjoyed ourselves.

As of now we haven't decided whether we will move on tomorrow or stay for the weekend. We are done touring the area for now, but don't really like to travel on the weekend. We'll see.

Basta por hoy,

Louise and Duane

Back on the road

After a month of visiting in Ohio, we are headed south again. We really enjoyed our visit with friends and family. A big thanks goes to our daugter and son-in-law, Rachel and Benji for their hospitility and the use of their yard for the last month. I spent last weekend at the annual blacksmiths conference in Troy. I had a great time talking to old friends and meeting a few new ones. Barbara Harmon and her friend Gene came to the fairgrounds for a visit Saturday night. They had a good time watching the forging compitition and looking over the items in the gallery. Last evening we spent with daughter Stacy in Cincinnati. Today it was off to Knoxville, TN for a few days of driving around the Smokies. Tomorrow we will drive to Townsend, TN to the carving store and in search of quilting stores.
Still next time
Duane and Louise

All the girls liked the sparkly shoes
Checking out gifts from us

A beautiful princess card

We have been very busy doing nothing much, mostly visiting daughter Rachel and family. Friday was Madeliene's 5th birthday. We gave her our gifts then. The top pic is at her birthday party next day admiring pink sparkly shoes with mom Rachel and various cousins. Tuesday and today we actually went sightseeing, but both times SOMEONE forgot his camera. Tuesday we went to downtown Dayton (Ohio, of course) to the National Aviation Museum and Wright Brothers Complex. We went there primarily to get Duane's senior's national parks pass. Woo Woo!!! Now we can get in any national park, site, memorial, or recreational area for free for life. We also get 1/2 price camping in any national park run campground. We stayed for a very pleasant and eye opening three hour visit of the complex. This consists of a very nice museum and gift shop, the historic Hoffman Building where the brothers ran one of their print shops, and one of the buildings where they ran their bicycle shops. Just outside of this complex is the site of the house they built and lived in for many years with their family. This house has been moved to Michigan and is now a part of the Greenfield Village Museum. The Complex is part of the Aviation Trail, a driving tour to various places around the area which are important in aviation history. The museum also pays tribute to Dayton native Paul Lawrence Dunbar, the first nationally published black writer. He wrote plays, song lyrics, essays and stories, but is best known for his poetry.

Today we visited Amish Country with our friend Barbara Harmon. Our first stop was Dover and the Warther Museum. This was our second visit and Barbara's fourth. Ernest "Mooney" Warther was a self-taught master carver who specialized in carving steam trains in perfect detail and perfect scale. One of his most famous is the Lincoln funeral train, carved in ebony and ivory. All of his trains moving parts actually move. They are assembled with tiny pins, as the glue available was unstable. Awsome. He is most famous for his pliars tree. He fashioned this from a single piece of wood. It consists of 511 working pliars made with 31ooo cuts and no shavings. It took two months. More awsome. From there we drove through Sugarcreek to Walnut Creek and had ice cream for lunch at one of the new shop complexes. After making various purchases and a serendipitous meeting with one of Barbara's cousins and his wife (small world!) we drove through beautiful rolling farm country to visit various craft shops in Berlin (BER lin) and Millersburg. There were many other towns and villages to visit but we only had one day so we just drove along Rt. 39. Supper at the Cracker Barrel in Hilliard (outside Columbus) rounded out our day trip.

Enough til later.

Louise and Duane

A trip to the service center

Mud daubbers nest in furnace

We took the rv to the service center in Troy for an oil change and lube. We also had them look at the front furnace that was not working. I thought there was a bad part in it and my warrenty would pay for it, BOY WAS I WRONG!! They took the furnace out and found mud daubber nests on the burner and in the heat tubes. I knew that I had had a nest in the blower, but it worked after I took that out. They had built the nests when we worked at Hidden Cove outside of Dallas last year. It worked fine till I tried to use it since we reached Ohio. I looked at it and thought it had a bad part in it so I had them work on it. Oh well.... They also checked for a slow leak in the air system, didn't find anything wrong. After $506.00 we got it back. That was for everything of course. I think I will take the back furnace out myself and check it out. This has been a rough month on the pocketbook. Insurance and repairs both this month, almost a whole retirement check. If anyone out there feels sorry for us, we are accepting donations to pay for it...LOL While the rv was in the shop, I mowed the grass for the birthday party this weekend. Madeleine will be 5 tomorrow, the party is Saturday.

Till next time

Duane and Louise

Hangin out in Troy

Simon
Maddy and Simon chasing bubbles
Judah

We are hanging out in Troy, Ohio. Sunday we went to Piqua to the festival where the kids got to ride the ponies and do some crafts. They each got their face painted and all had a good time. After the festival, Louise and I headed for my brother Dennis's house. We rode with them to Kristy's, our niece, for her and Lisa's sons birthday party. This was first time we had seen some of the grand nieces and nephews in 5 years. Both my brothers were there too. We had a great time talking about old times and what the future holds for everyone. Monday evening was spent at Barbara Harmon's house. We met her friend and played cards after eating a great meal.

We got a call from the Escapees today. We start our training to work for Escapees parks in Livingston, TX on Feb. 15. It will take about 6 months to get through our commitment with them. After we complete our training, we have to work 3 months out of the year to stay in the system. They have 8 parks around the country that we can transfer among.

Till next time

Duane and Louise