New Stuff

Since we had to drive 30 miles from our rv park to Kilgore to get the bike licence sticker, we combined the chore with a visit to our son Jeremy and his family.  He has added a lot of new things to his property since we were there last December.  The fishing shack is now enclosed except for the bottom, which will stay open, and the top on the other side, which will be closed later. 

The concrete steps are installed.

The porch is ready for concrete, which will be poured tomorrow.

There has been a driveway of sorts here, but Jeremy has defined it more in an attempt to funnel rainwater away from the river here to cut down on erosion of the banks.  Recently the river flooded this area to the top of the handrail (seen next to the tree in the middle of the picture).  It is still high; it's usually not visible from this viewpoint.

He hopes to drain it here to the top of the boat ramp where it can run down concrete to the river.  After the porch is poured tomorrow, the leftover concrete will be used here to help funnel rain runoff down the boat ramp.

When Allie and Luke arrived home from school, they came to help get ready for the "concrete party" tomorrow.  Several of Jeremy's co-workers and friends have volunteered to help spread concrete on the porch tomorrow.  In return he has promised them a crawfish boil and other good stuff.

The kids spruced up this area under the fishing shack and set up tables for lunch tomorrow.

Jeremy has worked a bit on his new pond, grading the bank on the left and cutting trees and brush.  The recent flooding uprooted this pine tree, which saved him the trouble of cutting it down.  This entire area will be under water when the pond is complete.

The right banks of the pond with the outflow of the creek bed on the right.  The dam will be placed here.  The flooded river has raised the water level to the completed pond level.  Normally this spring fed little creek contains just a few inches of water about 10 feet down.

Another new addition is this zip line.  Unfortunately Jeremy hasn't figured out how to keep the wire from sagging.   Most kids come within 3-4 feet of the ground.  He will get this right one day, though.

After preparing for the party tomorrow and a few other chores, we joined Jennifer at the house to share pizza for dinner.    We enjoyed a leisurely visit before we collected our mail and left for our long ride home.

The rest of the evening we went through 6 weeks of mail.  As full-timers, we use Jeremy's address as our domicile, and he is our mail service also.

Tomorrow we will probably visit again.

Louise and Duane

Beautiful Drive

A beautiful day for driving and a beautiful route to drive sums up our trip today from Lake Conroe north of Houston to Tyler.   Tyler is directly north of Houston, but our route took us northwest on I45to TX79 where we turned north east to Palestine (Palesteen), then picked up CR 155 to Tyler. 

On all of the roads, the views were very scenic.

In addition to the beautiful spring foliage, we enjoyed Lake Palestine sparkling in the sun,

the giant statue of Sam Houston,

large displays of wisteria covering large swathes of trees,

and carpets of wildflowers, including the Texas state flower--bluebonnets.

Except for some areas of heavy traffic, our 180 mile trip was mainly very pleasant.  We arrived at the Five Star RV park without any incidents, and settled in for the next month.

The park is misnamed, as I will show next time.

Louise and Duane

Goodbye Again

The weather remained perfect again today.  Duane used the morning to pack up and secure the stuff in the garage.  I can't secure my part of the house until after breakfast tomorrow morning, so I was free to goof off.  At 2:00 we walked to Sandy and Ralph's house, jumped in their van and went to lunch.

We ended up at The Fish Pond, a locally owned and operated cafe that serves a variety of dinners, sandwiches and breakfast all day.  The guys ate breakfast, Sandy had a sandwich, and I went Mexican with fajitas, rice and beans.  Ironically, none of us had fish.  I took my camera, then forgot to get a picture.  The one above was taken at Colorado River TT.

After a leisurely 2 hours we meandered home for a rest before pickleball with Sandy, Mike, Hal and Val.   After 2 hours of evening fun, we had to say goodbye to all of our new friends--again.

Tomorrow, we set up near Tyler.

Louise and Duane

What A Day!

Here in Willis, TX, 50 miles north of Houston, Spring sprang in with a clear sunny sky and a brisk wind.  The temp this morning was low 50's climbing 20 degrees throughout the day.  The wind was brisk, making jacket weather for our trip to the grocery and lunch, but perfect for pickleball after supper until after dark.  The sickle moon was beautifully bright. 

One more day here and one more day of beautiful weather.

Louise and Duane

What?!!

I keep my vegetables in a basket on the counter.  When I cut one that had been in there for several days, I found seeds sprouting!

Blew my mind!

Louise and Duane

Nothing But Pickleball

Mike, Duane and I played pickleball this morning while my Sunday pot roast was in the oven.  We all holed up during the hot, humid afternoon. After things cooled off in the evening, a couple of players who just arrived in the park came out to play.  Mike, Duane and I were glad to oblige.

  

Since we did nothing in particular, I thought this  might be a good time to share some of the profuse wildflowers we encountered during our walk around the Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park yesterday, beginning with the Texas state flower, the bluebonnet. 

 Only three more days in this park.

Louise and Duane

Flying The Eagle

Cloudy skies didn't stop us from hopping the bike for a short 100 mile round trip ride.

Around Conroe Lake we went,

and down TX105  

through Montgomery 

and 

to Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Park.  The park consists of this nice visitors' center/museum/gift shop, a large convention center, a circular walk around the area of the original village, and a farm from the period.  We had toured this place thoroughly 3-4 years ago, but today the village and the farm were hosting historical reenactors and we were here to see the blacksmith.  (Duane was an historical reenactor blacksmith in his former life and doesn't pass  up a chance to see a blacksmith in action.)  

Washington-on-the-Brazos is considered the birthplace of Texas because the site is where Stephen Austin brought 300 families to settle in 1821.  The Mexican government invited them to settle on its northern frontier to provide protection to the area.  When the government of Mexico didn't provide any support for the new colonists, the settlers decided to become a Texas republic independent of Mexico.      

The blacksmith was at the town hall--the only building in the village site.

On our arrival we found that the blacksmith and the woodcarver were both home with the flu.

We decided to walk the "street" around the village site.  The site was chosen because of the confluence of the Navasota and Brazos Rivers.

The walk was pleasant  but we were hungry.  Back we went across the Brazos

and Navasota Rivers,

 and through the city of Navasota to try out this BBQ restaurant.  Inside we ordered our meat choices and paid, took our trays to the vegetable table for our two sides, and to the dispenser for our drinks.  Duane said that his ribs tasted very good.  I found my brisket right at the top of my Texas Brisket Scale. 

Stuffed to the gills, be flew the Eagle back the way we came.   

All in all, a very nice day out.

Louise and Duane

Good Day

At our ages a good day is whenever we can get out of bed without a winch and cable.  That meant our day was excellent, even though it started with a heavy rain shower.  The gray skies soon gave way to a sky of blue patches and thin clouds the rest of the day.  The cool air turned warm, the humidity level climbed and the temperature ended up in the low eighties.  What a contrast to the last four days!  We celebrated the change in weather by doing laundry.  We lucked out.  No one was in the park laundry room.  Yay!  We were done early enough for me to make some really yummy cheesy  mushroom risotto for lunch.  After lunch we rested from our labors for a couple/three hours before Duane couldn’t sit any more.  We walked to the pickleball courts to get in some exercise.  We played a couple of two-person games, then Mike showed up for a few three-man games.  Mikes friend showed up for three or so games before he had to leave and I had enough.  Duane and Mike got in a couple more games before they were done. 

Tomorrow we have a bike trip planned. 

Louise and Duane

Good Times

Whenever we are in the Houston area we always try to meet with our long-time friends John and Anita.  We met in 2007 at our first work camping job.  They have since "come off the road" and bought a house in Dickinson, TX.  They are very active in Red Cross, but we try to visit with them whenever we are in Conroe, the Thousand Trails (club) closest to their home (east of Houston).  Luck was with us today.  We met in this little cafe in Humble (pronounced Umble.)  

We hugged and yakked and ate and yakked until the lunch crowd cleared out, then Anita and I moved to an adjacent table and we yakked some more.  Too soon we had to enjoy one last hug before we said goodbye until the next time we are in the area.

One more week here. 

Louise and Duane

Keeping Busy

Duane and I can’t sit still with such nice weather and excellent pickleball courts available. We practiced pickleball this morning by playing a two person game on half the court.  This snagged us an hour of exercise and practice at ball placement.  Our friend Mike works during the week, so that during the week we’re on our own.

Tomorrow we’ve planned two activities in one.  We’re taking the bike to Humble (pronounced Umble) to meet with friends Anita and John for lunch and an afternoon of gab. 

Fun times!

Louise and Duane

Good Stuff

We had some icky stuff to do today—scrub the oven, spend way too much money at the grocery, trying to keep the smell of old wood smoke from invading our house.  On the plus side, Duane had a good time at the local Y playing pickleball, (way too early for me).  I had more fun at home chatting on the phone with our soon-to-be 13 year old granddaughter Allie.  Before that I was fortunate to catch a view of the last little sliver of the old moon before it disappeared for a week.  While I was scanning the sky I saw a flash of red. Through the field glasses I was very lucky to see a passenger jet with its whole east side smoldering orange in the rising sun!!!  It was truly awesome!!!  I’d been fortunate to see a jet one time in the setting sun.   It was beautiful, but this time the plane looked as if it was on fire.  Wonderful.  To top off the day, we found  a really good pizza at a place right here in Willis Tx.  It’s an Italian restaurant called Pizza Shack and we enjoyed a great New York pizza.

All in all a pretty good day.

Louise and Duane

Semi Lazy

What a beautiful sunny day!  Granted it was a bit nippy.  The sun warmed the air to 62 d., usually plenty warm enough for shorts and a tee shirt, but a north wind kept t things quite chilly in open areas.  Duane spent several hours on the phone with tech’s getting our satellite working again and  walked to the top of the hill several times to see if anyone was playing pickleball (perfect weather for it) but the courts were always full of kids.  We didn’t think about Spring Break when we made our reservations at this “very kid friendly” park.  I made another elaborate casserole for lunch and spent a couple of hours making a special birthday present for our granddaughter Allie’s 13th birthday.  Otherwise we eschewed outdoor exercise for slumming around.

Lin Yutang, we’re learning.

Louise and Duane

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