We made it to Fredericksburg in the Texas Hill Country after our stops in Nacogdoches and Houston.
Keith Risch diagnosed our dash AC problem in minutes and fixed it in less than a day. It was a frozen clutch on the AC compressor. And it was very little more to get a new compressor and clutch than just the clutch so we did that. And he discovered that the electric fan for the evaporator radiator wasn’t working either so that got replaced. When he was all done we had 59° air blowing out of the dash vents.
And we had a nice visit and dinner with Rudy and Carolyn in the SE Houston area. Then lunch with Scott and Carol and Bill and Joyce way up on the north side. It was good to see all of them.
Then we drove across the southern part of Houston on I10. No issues. In places, it is 5 or 6 lanes wide each way but we just get in the second or third lane from the right and stay there and get through it. We have done it several times, more often than not on a Sunday. And usually with no big slowdowns for accidents, one time for maintenance.
We drove to Columbus TX on I10, stopped to fill up with fuel, and drove toward Austin. This leads us past Bastrop where the TV show “Iron Resurrection” is made. We like the transformations they do on cars and the personalities of the program. We always say we should stop but don’t. But it is fun to know they are on our way.
It is like stopping in Laurel, MS, where “Home Town” is produced. We like this home renovation show more than most. Maybe next winter on our way to Orange Beach we will stop.
The traffic across the South part of Austin is slow, with lots of stop signs and never-ending road construction. We made it through without going on the toll section like we did last year.
Fredericksburg is much like it has been many times in the past for us. Spring-like. Warm sunny days, cool nights, occasional overnight rains, sometimes a bit of thunder and lightning, even the chance of a bit of hail.
Many of our regular friends here are no longer in the park. Mike and Jackie bought a house and sold their coach. Norm moved to another park near Kerrville but still comes to Fredericksburg for lunch once a week and does his grocery shopping at the Fredericksburg HEB store.
Peggy is still here just across the road from us.
She recently turned 90 and is witty and as sharp as a tack. We go out to lunch once a week or so, we have coffee in the morning a couple of times a week, and we give her a hand with her laundry basked on laundry day.
The coffee regulars, Bob, Maureen, and Molly.
The drier-than-normal early spring kept the wild flower competition suppressed and the more than usual rain brought the wildflowers out earlier than usual.
They are abundant everywhere, especially on the Willow City Loop drive.
We saw just one of the pair of ostriches along the way.
And many examples of why it is called the Hill country. It is quite majestic.
We head to the dog park at Lady Bird Johnson City Park about three times a week so Maggie can get some running in. She chases a knotted rope throw toy, she is insistent that I throw it.
She stands at the ready or runs out a ways and turns and waits.
And brings it back, usually, dropping it in front of me, sits down and waits for a treat.
Sometimes she runs out ahead while I throw it and she doesn’t see where it goes. She looks at us and we point and she goes where we point and she finds it.
This is mostly new for her and she does pretty well, not perfect but we are surprised how well she is doing.
When she is starting to get tired she takes the throwing toy and heads for the nearest shade. She wants to keep playing but it is her way of letting us know it is time for a break.
Her best buddy, Scooter, has been down in Florida for the last three months. Scooter’s Mom, Luann, sent this picture.
Scooter is three months older than Maggie and about the same size. And just like Maggie his favorite spot for a nap is curled up under a piece of furniture. In the coach it is my chair. At home, the dining room chair. We though this was pretty funny. Maggie remembers Scooter. We get quite a reaction when we say his name. They will be reunited in a month or less.
March came to an end in Fredericksburg. We have been here often so no new major adventures. We are visiting with friends, go out to lunch a couple of days a week, lots of walks with Maggie and a bike ride or two. We do Wordle every day, read, follow the news because it is hard to avoid. We are not on a vacation, this is just where we are for a while.
The trees were starting to leaf out when we got here and most are full now. The pecan trees are always the last and even they have the start of their leaves.
Springtime in the Hill Country has always been pleasant with abundant wild flowers, greening trees, warmer days, and still cool nights.
It is starting to warm up some at home but Brown is the dominant color for another six weeks.
Orange Beach and its neighbor to the West, Gulf Shores, take pride in their clean white sand beaches. They are miles long, wide, and unfortunately not dog friendly. We can take Maggie to the walkways along the beach for walks but not out on the beach itself. She is probably OK with that, almost everyone who walks by stops to give her a pet.
The beach stretches to the West and just as far to the East. Gulf Shores and Orange Beach are doing a beach restoration project this winter. There are barges off-shore maybe 1/4 to 1/2 mile that suck up sand from the shallow bottom and pump water and sand through large (maybe 2 ft in diameter) flexible hoses back up on the beach. The sand piles up and the water runs back into the Gulf. Bulldozers push the reclaimed sand around ready for the summer hoards of people. Winter here is the off-season. We can only imagine how busy it must be here in the summer.
And there are the ever-present tower cranes that mark the location of another high-rise beachfront condominium going up. The beachfront property is becoming somewhat limited as is Bayfront property so they are starting to build more condos, townhomes, vacation rentals, and more on the North side of the intercoastal waterway. And another bridge from the mainland to the island where Orange Beach is located.
This is a big-picture view of the Alabama Gulf Coast.
And Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.
And a Gulf State Park map. Our RV Park is adjacent to the park on the North Central side. The bike trail we access crosses the corner of the RV Park property.
Naval Air Museum
Susan and I, my cousin Sue and her husband, Lloyd, and my Habitat friend, John and his wife Cheryl went to the Naval Air Museum at the Pensacola Naval Air Station. We were going to go there the first time we were in Orange Beach five years ago but a shooting on the base caused the base to lock down and the Air Museum was closed.
It remained closed until last year when it was reopened to people with Military IDs and retired Military members. So we didn’t go last year either. This year it reopened to the public. So we went. Everyone had to have a valid US driver’s license or ID. We all had to show our IDs to get on the base. We got in, parked, and went into the free museum.
The museum is organized in chronological order starting back before World War I. The museum was much more about just airplanes, it included the support services that make an air service possible. Everything was restored to excellent condition including this Model T ambulance.
Susan, Sue, Lloyd, Cheryl, and John
The Navy used a lot of different aircraft over time including this Curtiss JN “Jenny”. They were introduced in 1915 and over 6,800 were built. Top speed was just 80 mph. These were very popular after WWI as barnstorming planes. And put to good use by the early Air Mail services.
And a Sopwith Camel, a British single-seat biplane fighter introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was a difficult airplane to fly but to an experienced pilot, it provided unmatched maneuverability. A superlative fighter, the Camel was credited with shooting down 1,294 enemy aircraft, more than any other Allied fighter of the war, and was flown by Lieutenant Junior Grade David S. Ingalls, the Navy’s sole ace of World War I.
The airplane on display depicts one that operated from a makeshift wooden flight deck on board the battleship USS Texas (BB 35) in 1919 evaluating the operation of wheeled airplanes from ships.
The airplanes were not just on the floor but suspended in mid-air like this Beech D17 Staggerwing. The Navy renamed them as JB-1, GB-1, and GB-2. These were built just before WWI and were faster than almost any plane in the armed forces’ inventory before the war. They were used in many roles in the US, Britain, and the Pacific Theater.
The Staggerwings were first purchased by the Navy in 1937. Designated JB-1, it served as a staff transport for two years. In 1939, the Navy purchased ten Beech D-17s, designating them GB-1s. In all, 360 of the aircraft, 342 of them GB-2s powered by up-rated engines, were purchased by the Navy to use as executive transports and for transporting ferry pilots to factories around the country to deliver new aircraft to the fleet. Some were also given to Britain under Lend-Lease for use as liaison aircraft.
The Beech Staggerwing has always been one of my favorite airplanes. Of the more than 780 built, about 150 are still registered and about 50 actively flying.
When we go to the EAA Airventure show in Oshkosh, WI, there are always several there. Including a few of these G17S models whose parts were built before WWII and the final 20 Staggerwings were assembled right after theWar.
These 5 passenger airplanes cruise at 250 mph. And they just look cool. I have a Byron Originals 1/5th scale model of the G17S kit in my radio control fleet. Maybe someday I will finish building it.
There was a spectacular Plymouth too.
We (at least me) will go back. There is way too much to see in detail in just a few hours. We were glad for the chance to finally see this important museum.
Dog Day Afternoon
Both Orange Beach and Gulf Shores have nice dog parks. There is one at Gulf State Park that has one side open to Shelby Lake for the dogs to swim. We didn’t get Maggie there to try her swimming prowess. Maybe next year.
We go to the dry dog parks and prefer the Orange Beach dog park. It is big, with lots of trees, and it is mostly sand which lets Maggie get in some digging time.
She is a very productive earth mover.
She will dig until she is exhausted, burying both her throw toy and herself as deep as time will allow.
She gets pretty dirty. This activity is often followed up with a bath.
Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras is a big deal down south. In the month before Fat Tuesday (the day before Ash Wednesday) there were more than a dozen parades in the communities around Mobile Bay. In Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, there are daytime parades, evening parades, and parades at the Wharf. Kid’s parades and pet parades allowed everyone to get in on the fun (and noise)
This was at the Wharf Entertainment District for an evening parade. Police Cars start the parade and part the crowd. Lots of floats with people riding and throwing beads and trinkets. Small and loud marching bands. And finally, a fire truck to mark the end.
This video clip shows a bit of the festivity. Lots of fun – a few more plastic beads to add to our collection and a couple of Moon Pies to remind us why we don’t eat them.
Our three months in Orange Beach is quickly coming to an end. My total bike miles has reached 652! The total number of shrimp consumed was surely in the hundreds. Grouper, redfish, clam chowder, every kind of cheesy grits, and a sample of gumbo at every stop helped fulfill our salt life needs. Yum!
A common window decal.
We will go to Nacogdoches, TX for a day of service with Keith Risch – a Foretravel legend, a nice supper at Auntie Pasta’s, and then on to the Houston area to visit friends (mostly eat). and then on to Fredericksburg, TX for the spring wildflower season, to see good friends there, and to see the Solar Eclipse in early April.
We are grateful for the opportunity to travel as we do, together, to see friends we have made along the way, and to be where the weather has been nice. And for the folks at home that help make being elsewhere possible, Thanks!
December was nice in Alabama. The weather appears to us to be like October and November at home. 50s and 60s are common daytime temperatures. Mostly 40s at night with an occasional 30s. When the winds are from the north it is cooler, from the Gulf, more humid and warmer, and rain chances go up.
During our three months here we have had 3 or 4 nights a bit below freezing. More days than that in the low 70s. A few storms have moved through. Mostly the bad weather slides up the west side of Mobile Bay and over the top of Mobile at the North end. We have had a few overnight thunderstorms, and a couple periods of 2-3 days with on-and-off rain. Even in those periods, there will be dry periods between showers. Pretty easy to deal with.
One particularly windy night Maggie discovered she could indeed jump up on the bed in the coach. It is 36” high and not much room so she just leaps up. We let her stay for a few hours until the wind calmed and things quieted down. She is a bit of a bed hog.
Maggie got a raincoat before we left. She has used it several times when we go out for those important tasks. I have a new raincoat as well, finally one that doesn’t leak.
All ready for a wet walk.
Bike Riding
We brought our three-wheeled bikes with us. I added an electric assist to mine last June. Susan’s bike was electric assist when we got it. These bikes make it easy for us to get out and keep moving. We can do several miles without even leaving the RV park or follow the short connector trails to Gulf State Park where there are more than thirty miles of paved bike trails. The electric assist lets us ride more often, longer, and at least for me, faster. A 17-20 mile ride for me is usually about 2 hours. When we ride together we usually go 12 or 13 miles at the same time. The slower pace is just as much fun and we get to ride together.
I managed to ride 126 miles since I added the electric assist at home before we left. My broken ribs paused riding for about 6 weeks. My goal while we are here in Orange Beach is 600 miles. Last week in mid-February I passed 600 miles. I will get some more in but am pretty pleased to have made this goal.
Susan doesn’t go on my power rides but we do more leisurely rides into and around the state park. But she estimates her rides add up to more than 100 miles. One of the nicer destinations is the Woodside Restaurant at the West End of the park.
We usually split something so we don’t have anything to bring home, and usually because it is enough. Everything tastes great, maybe it is just because we have been riding.
And Maggie gets out when we ride as well. She trots along beside the bike. We ride about 5 miles an hour, just fast enough to get in a good trot by not breaking into a run.
Maggie is pretty good at letting us know if she needs to stop and we are getting pretty good at recognizing the signs.
Susan got me a high visibility rain and windproof jacket. It is warm and makes a bike ride possible when it is cold and windy. It will be a nice jacket for Habitat work in the early spring and late fall.
If I put it on or my high visibility T-shirt, Maggie expects a trot/ride.
Going Fishing
We really didn’t go fishing although the fishing here in the lakes in the State Park is reported to be very good. I brought my fishing gear but focused more on bike riding this year.
But we did go to Joe Patti’s fish market in Pensacola three times to reel in a tasty catch.
Royal Reds are premium gulf shrimp found 60 miles offshore at 800 to 1,500 ft deep. You can buy them in many sizes, with or without shells or heads. We like shell-on headless large (10-12/lb) Royal Reds. They will steam them for you when you check out. All are packed in ice for the trip home.
Marinated and grilled make them a great dinner.
You walk in and there is this very long counter. Near the mid-point, an older fellow sitting on a stool hands out numbered tags. When your turn comes up a counter person helps you through the whole process of getting whatever seafood you want. Our last visit got us number 40. By the time we were checking out they were helping numbers in the 80s.
Five checkout lines (usually more busy than shown here) keep the people and fish moving.
Dining Experiences
We like to go out to lunch once or twice a week. Prices are more friendly and portions fit our appetites better. Last year we heard about the Tin Top in Bon Secour on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay.
It was really good, we went twice. Once with John and Cheryl Purcell. John and I work together at Habitat for Humanity in St Paul and they are in Orange Beach as well this winter.
My cousin, Sue, and her husband, Lloyd, we also here in Orange Beach during February. We tried many of the breakfast places on our list and some lunch spots as well. Another Broken Egg got high marks.
That’s enough for this post. There is more from Orange Beach.
We are leaving a week earlier this year than last. That will give us a week at the end of February to stop in Nacogdoches, TX, and Houston for a few days on our way to Fredericksburg without overlapping reservations.
Getting ready to go has seemed to be less hectic this year. We have spread it over several weeks. The last-minute things that needed to be done in the coach got taken care of. The clothes in the house that we were done with for the season got moved to the coach earlier. The refrigerator freezer in the coach is pretty full. We are bringing a lot less food staples since we can get almost everything down south that we want. Some things we can’t so we bring them from home. All of the perishables from the refrigerator in the house get moved to the coach as well, we turn the refrigerator at home off while we are gone.
We are watching the weather closely, some at home but mostly along the way. We don’t want to be driving into any nasty stuff. We leave a 2 or 3-day window for departure to allow for weather.
Finally, we were ready to go. We got the coach out of the barn and hooked up the truck for towing the night before. When we got up in the morning there were just a few last-minute things to do, all of the lists were checked off. We locked up and left.
We stopped at the second rest stop heading south, about an hour and a half away and double-checked the towing gear and lights, walked Maggie, and had breakfast. We drove to Eagleville, a small town in Missouri, and stayed overnight. The next morning we continued south and then SE towards St Peters, still in Missouri on the north side of the St Louis metro area. We stopped here last year, two nights this year to visit Amanda and Douglas.
This was last year, Maggie was just 10 weeks old.
And this year Maggie is just over 14 months. Maggie likes Amanda.
We have a picture like this every year or so with Amanda and Douglas since we first met them 9 years ago. We met them in Nacogdoches and they are some of our first Foretravel friends. We have seen them at least once a year ever since.
Last year at this park in late November it was below freezing and very windy. Much nicer this year, shorts for Douglas.
The Park added a new dog run. Maggie got a new retrieving toy. She gets very excited to chase it down and bring it back. And jump for it as well.
We left St Louis and Amanda and Douglas on a rainy day, a long drive down towards Memphis and the West towards Little Rock to stop and see Chris and Elke Lang. Most of the day was steady to hard rain. On I65 South we went by 5 crash slowdowns and a bunch of construction. West on I40 another crash slow down and heavy rain. We got to Chris and Elke’s rural farm and it was still raining and pretty muddy. We parked in a covered parking spot, had a nice visit, and slept well. In the morning it was still dribbling. We had to disconnect the pickup, back the coach out, and reconnect the pickup. We checked lights, said our thank yous and goodbyes, and headed back east on I40 towards Tom Sawyer’s RV Park on the west side of the Mississippi River in West Memphis.
Tom Sawyer’s RV Park, WestMempis, Arkansas.
It was a nice park, nothing fancy but right on the river. And there was a steady stream of barge traffic. At home, a full tow is 15 barges and the tow boat pushing. These can get through the lock in two sections, 9 barges first and then 6 more barges and the tow boat. They have to break apart the barges and then reconnect after they are all through the lock.
Here where there are no locks and dams to contend with they use much bigger tow boats and up to 30 barges connected in a single tow.
The river was low, with lots of sand bars on the far side, but the channels were deep enough for the towboats.
We thought about going to Elvis’ Graceland in Memphis across the river. It might have been interesting but it was $80 each. That sort of soured the milk on that idea.
We did drive over the river to get a late afternoon take-out lunch from the Central BBQ near downtown Memphis. Construction and lots of turns through the downtown and nearby areas made what looked like a short trip much longer. But the BBQ was worth it. We got some smoked sausage, wings, brisket, rolls, baked beans, coleslaw, mac-n-cheese, and an assortment of cheese. Enough for both of us twice and we still had leftovers.
We were at Tom Sawyer’s for three nights over Thanksgiving. Time to rest and not drive on Thanksgiving day
We left Friday after Thanksgiving heading for Alabama. The weather was much better. South into Louisiana to Natalbany. We stayed overnight at a small RV park on a lake. It looked like most that were there were there for a long time or permanently. It was quiet and easy to get in and out of and room for Maggie to get out for some longer walks.
The next day was just a short drive to I10 and then East to I12 North of Lake Pontchartrain and New Orleans and then more I10 towards Mobile. We have been this way before, in both directions, so it looked familiar. In downtown Mobile I10 goes into a tunnel under the ship channel in Mobile Bay and then up onto a long bridge, 8 miles, the rest of the way over the bay. And then another 15 miles to Buc-ees. And then 35 miles south to Orange Beach.
Hard to miss, it has its own exit lanes from I10. More than 100 gas pumps, no waiting usually. And more food and stuff inside than you may have ever seen. Many of the newest Buc-ees have more than 70,000 square feet, half the size of a Target store.
We made it to Orange Beach. Pandion Ridge is now called Sun Outdoors Orange Beach. Pandion Ridge sounds better to us and more inviting.
We took a couple of days to get everything set up. The screen room is set up, bikes out, flags up, and chairs ready for action. We are in the site next to where we were last year with more room on either side of us. We face a Long Leaf Pine wooded area. It is a nice site and feels private. And we are away from most of the traffic through the park. They added almost 350 sites further to the south and all of that traffic goes in and out on the same road. Parts of the new section were just opening last year while we were here. The clubhouse, bar, restaurant, dog wash station, some of the sites, and more of the amenities are still not finished.
But we are here. The weather is generally nice, most days are sunny and in the upper 60s. Some warmer, some cooler, and a day or two of rain each week. And no snow to shovel! Happy to be here.
Our Maggie Mae was about nine months old when we got home from last winter in May. We talked to her Vet about getting her spayed. Their schedule put that out into early July. Just a day or two later she went into heat. We had her in lady doggie diapers for about three weeks. The Vet said Maggie needed to wait until August. We got her on their schedule for then.
In the meantime, she was on a short leash on walks and a close watch when she was out. We wanted no mishaps, there were none.
I was a bit anxious the day of her surgery. There was no real reason to be I guess, just the pre-surgery flutters. Maggie had a big patch of her tummy shaved for surgery.
The stitches were not dainty but functional. Maggie left them alone so no “cone of shame” was needed. We did take an old Tshirt and made a snug tube top for her to cover the stitches. It was all she needed.
In two weeks the stitches were out and Maggie was just fine.
And just up the hill, Maggie has a best friend, Scooter. He is about 3 months older than Maggie, has a curlier coat, and weighs about a pound more then Maggie. They have very similar color coats.
Maggie has a red collar. The two of them have an off-leash play time four or five days a week. They run and wrestle until they are worn out and have to stop for a break and then they do it some more.
Sometimes it is wet and a bit muddy. No matter, they just get dirty.
No problem, Maggie gets an outside bath in her wading pool.
These play dates always wear Maggie out. You can see here that her tummy is back to normal.
Maggie’s 1-year-old birthday haircut and picture.
Roger
After riding my three-wheeled bike last winter and trying out Susans’s electric one, I decided to add an electric assist to mine. I got it done in early July and then rode about 60 miles a month. I like it a lot.
There is a bike trail that runs near our home and it leads West out to Schaar’s Bluff Park overlooking the Mississippi River and then further to the trailheads at Spring Lake Park. It is about 8 miles one way and if you add up all of the ups and downs, it has about 800 ft of elevation change each way. It is some work to ride but it is a beautiful trail. Near the trailhead, Dakota County has a small but growing bison herd.
There are about a dozen bison now and the herd will grow to about twice that.
Several cows and calves.
And a single bull.
I enjoy riding. This winter in Orange Beach I am hoping to ride perhaps 150 miles a month. We will see.
Good news on the medical front. In the Spring and again in the Fall, lab tests and physical exams show no return of the lymphoma from 20 months ago. Six PSA tests in a row indicating undetectable mean that surgery, 6 months of drug treatments, and 8 weeks of radiation treatments have done what we hoped for, the prostate cancer is in full remission. I am on a 12-month check-up schedule for lymphoma and a six-month (up from three) PSA test schedule. Good news indeed.
Ribs
I like smoking and eating ribs but in a moment of very little grace, I got tangled up in my own feet and fell over into the grass. I landed on my right side and without thinking tucked my arm in tight perhaps to protect my shoulder which had been damaged and repaired about 9 years ago. I don’t know the mechanics of what happened but it hurt quite a bit and when I went to see the Doc the next morning the X-rays showed three broken ribs on the upper right back side.
They gave me enough Rx drugs for about 6 days. Believe me, it was not enough. I had to get by on Tylenol and ibuprofen. I also tried the pain relief patches and cold packs. It all helped some. I slept in a chair for almost a week and then finally got back into bed at night.
By three weeks I was doing some easier tasks. I got back to Habitat in the fifth week. That was a tough day. I was back at it the next week.
The Docs told me six weeks to heal up. Maybe for 30-year-olds. For me, it was longer. I had another broken rib and some other internal damage from a car crash 20 years ago. They seem to be back to haunt me as well. But now most is all well and good. My best advice? Don’t break your ribs. Don’t fall. We are old and much more fragile than we were 40 years ago.
Garden Projects
We refinished the bridge over our front yard dry creek bed. It is a task done every 4-5 years. The bridge is over 20 years old now and holding up well with regular maintenance.
It looks good after a good cleaning and a coat of oil-based finish. Once it was all dried up we replaced the anti-slip runner (which fits over the darker color on the bridge deck).
It was somewhat dry this summer but the gardens looked very nice with Susan’s care.
We added a wooden screen in front of the electrical boxes, switches, and meters next to the garage door.
It looks good and Susan found plant holders that hang on it.
We added roll-up screens to the garden deck on the back side of the shop. They hide the view of the garden bench and equipment from the house and provide some afternoon shade. These were inexpensive and very functional.
We added steel roofing below the solar panels on the garage so that snow will just slide off the panels into the steel roof and off the roof. I think it will work, we hope we won’t be here to see it.
It was a busy summer. We stayed home to get projects done. There were other projects, too many to list them all. We had a great 4th of July Picnic with long-time friends. Busted ribs threw a curve ball at us but we worked through it. Once again Susan’s care and help made all the difference.
Fall is upon us. I am quite sure the number of leaves falling from our forest is in the billions. It sure seems like it blowing them all back into the woods where they belong. We had our big oak trees trimmed as we were getting ready to head south. A final grass mowing and winter fertilizer and seed were laid down. Our lists of get-ready-to-leave tasks came out and are getting checked off, one task at a time.
I missed quite a bit of the last two summers at Habitat for Humanity. I wanted to try to make up for some lost days.
My 3M Retirees Habitat Regular crew worked 4 days a week starting in April through early November and then switched to 2 days a week until next spring. We are building 6 homes, three twin homes, in Saint Paul Park. That is nice for me, just 20 minutes from home. By mid-May the first home was well under way.
Scaffolding follows the building up on each building. It helps with each level and provides a lot of safety for us old folks.
Two of our crew turned 90 this year.
Joe on the left, and Dick on the right, both celebrated their birthdays at the work site. Dick brought cake, I brought ice cream. And Jim Ramberg in the middle, came to join in. These three are all special friends and we are all glad to see Joe and Dick still working one day a week or more.
Many hands make the project forward quickly. The first building is ready for siding. The second building is getting framed up.
Garages too.
The second building had a hip roof. The ends were built on the ground and lifted using a crane.
My job was getting the trusses lined up.
The first building is sided and the interior work is underway.
By late September, the second building was ready for siding and the third building was going up.
Jim Ramberg has retired from construction work but passed on his many skills to everyone he worked with. I learned a lot from him especially about building stairs and framing porches and decks. He always said he learned as much from me as well. It was an honor to build with Jim and every day that I can pass along new skills or methods to another builder reflects back on all that I learned from Jim.
Building stairways is an exercise in careful measuring, paying attention to details, doing the math, marking the lines, and sawing as precisely as you can. After you have done twenty or thirty stairways the process gets easier and faster but the details stay the same. In this summer’s six homes, there are 24 sets of stairs. Lots of practice and opportunities to help others learn new skills.
I also worked at two other HFH homes this summer. One was a rehab of an old home in St Paul and the other was a new home in Minneapolis. They were with the Builder’s Circle Group of financial supporters of Habitat. I work on one or two of these homes each summer, usually one day each. I enjoy working with different people and getting a chance to meet other supporters of Habitat. They come from all walks of life and backgrounds. We all share the vision of safe and affordable homes for families.
I worked on the front porch stairs and handrails on the home in Minneapolis.
This work with Habitat is more than just building homes, it is building a community. We work together for a shared common goal, the fellowship we have with each other, and the friendships that form and grow over time. For a group of older folks, this gets us out of the house, moving, and doing. We call it Senior Day Care. In a way it is, we care for each other. All of us benefit in many ways from the work we do, especially the families that will live in the homes we help build.
We arrived home somewhere around May 1 in the late afternoon or early evening. All that seemed to matter was that we got home.
On our way home from Fredericksburg, we stopped at the Winstar Casino just into Oklahoma, then another Casino at Tonkawa, and a third casino at Osceola, IA. Nothing terribly exciting, but spaced out conveniently. From there we pushed home from Albert Lea, MN where we filled up with diesel fuel and arrived home shortly before dark.
When we left last November, Maggie was just 11 weeks old. Now she was almost 9 months old. Quite a difference for all of us. She had gone from a little puppy to a young lady. Still a puppy but a bit more grown up.
We went into the house, turned up the thermostats from 50 to 65, and turned on the water heater and the water pump.
We left the house to warm up overnight, opened the barn, pulled out a big cable, and plugged in the coach. We raised the satellite dish, made some supper, walked the dog, watched something on TV, went to bed, and slept soundly after a long day’s drive.
The next day was the start of several days of moving from the coach back into the house. It doesn’t happen quickly. Like loading in the Fall when we depart, it is a slow process. It happens every year, there is a lot of shared clothes and equipment. And food to move as well. As we empty the coach we try to clean it as we go so it is ready to go next time.
Second Spring
When we left Fredericksburg it was spring. The grass was green, the trees had leaves, and the spring wildflowers were everywhere. The days were warm, the evenings just a bit on the cool side. Perfect enough that it was hard to leave. We said goodbye to our many friends in Fredericksburg and headed North.
Each day turned back the seasonal clock by at least a week. Our second day saw fewer leaves on the trees, and not quite as much green in the fields. On the third day there were only the very early tree buds and now green on the fields was much less than the brown. On our last day heading home, the trees were bare, the fields brown and it looked just like it did in November when we left Minnesota.
It would have been nearly the same if we had returned home at the beginning of April or the end of April. The big difference is suffering through an extra month of the end-of-winter brown. When we get home in early May the grass is waiting for that first warmish day to almost overnight turn green. The trees have been sucking up the juice that makes them do what trees do for some time. The buds are stuffed with it and some plant trigger makes them explode, unfurling themselves to grab as much sunlight as possible.
All of this happens in what seems an impossibly short time, it is a couple of weeks of course, but the time-lapse in our attention span speeds it up.
And those new leaves, just opening to the sun, are an impossibly pale shade of green. This shade of green in the morning sun which is at lower angles than later in the summer, is soft and delicate. And it only lasts for a few days.
And once, maybe twice a year, sometimes never, an overnight or early morning rain wets down the tree trunks, not yet quite sheltered by the tree canopy umbrella. They turn a dark chocolate color to contrast with the soft green of the damp and glistening new leaves. At least in our backyard, if we are looking.
You will recognize this place name, we have been here several times over the last 8 years. It might seem repetitive. Maybe so especially for those in a constant state of exploration, seeking new places, and moving on more frequently. We have friends who rarely stay anywhere for more than two weeks and others who will land in one spot and be there for six months. We are somewhere in between.
When we started our RV journeys back in the 1980’s we had a camper van. It was perfect for us when we were in our 30s. We traveled for 10 months with our Malamute, Xenia, and carefully came to a balance sharing our 54 sq ft of floor space. We had a small refrigerator, a small water tank, and a small waste tank. And limited battery capacity with no solar only a small 600-watt Honda generator. All of our stops were without any hookups except for an occasional overnight in a real RV park or at a friend’s place or for a week in San Fransisco and a week near Disneyland. So we would run low on food and battery every three or four days and would move on. Sometimes a long way, sometimes just to the nearest grocery store and used book store. We spent a month going from Portland, OR to San Francisco. We stopped in just about every state park down the coast. We remember the Oregon Parks fondly and have been back to revisit many of them, at least the ones we can get into now with a bigger motorhome.
The California parks had a much different feel. Just not as friendly. But that was a long while ago. Maybe things are different now.
In 10 months we had reservations in only a few places. With no phone or computers, it was just hope for the best. It worked. Times were simpler then, we rarely stopped to find there was no room. We even stayed in Yellowstone NP for 6 weeks changing campgrounds when batteries ran low and we didn’t want to run the small generator. We never needed a reservation, there were no reservations then. We got up in the morning and went to the next campground and got in line and got in, first come, first served.
When we got our motorhome it was a lot of three and four-day trips, then a week, then two. It was a steep learning curve. How does everything work? Where are we going to stay? These days reservations are needed for most stops. You even should call ahead to stay overnight in a Walmart parking lot.
It was a year before we had enough confidence in our coach and ourselves to try a month. Would we survive? Could we leave the house? Yes. We went to Nacogdoches, TX where our coach was built for service, and saw another Foretravel for the first time. And started meeting other owners, many we still know today. Then on to Big Bend National Park. And Santa Fe. And a state park just north of Denver and then home in a big rain storm (we stopped in a rest area) that produced hail not too far ahead of us. And then to an overnight at a Walmart in Omaha where there had been a tornado an hour earlier, and then home. All in a month. We survived and were ready for more.
We have been to Florida, North Carolina, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Oregon and every state that you go through getting there. We have seen places that are calling us to return for so many reasons. And we return.
We also want to just go somewhere in the winter where the weather is nice, the accommodations are friendly and there are things to do. Most places offer significant discounts when you stay for a month compared to a week or two. Some, like the park in Alabama, have all of the things we like and an even bigger discount for 90 days or more. So we stay for 3 months.
Both Orange Beach and Fredericksburg are smaller towns. Everything we needis nearby, 10 minutes or less and we think the small-town feel is appealing to us. And winter weather in Orange Beach is pretty nice compared to Minnesota. There can be some cold days, days when it rains, and those gray, blah days. There are also sunny days, days in the 70s, a nice beach walk, a great bike ride, and many more days that are just days when we just do whatever we do. Not a lot of plans or too much organization. We are not on vacation, we are living in our coach right where we are.
And Fredericksburg brings 70 and 80-degree days, often with big puffy clouds. A bit of rain sometimes, usually overnight. The warming temperatures of March and the increasing sun and some rain wake up the Hill Country. The wildflowers start to bloom, by April, everywhere. People’s front yards, along almost every highway and back road, along most fence lines. The most popular are the Texas Bluebonnets.
One of our favorite drives is the Willow City Loop. It is a narrow, winding road through private ranch country north of Fredericksburg. Up over ridges and down through gullies, a fence line on either side, and each ranch starts and ends with a cattle guard.
We saw many fence lines like this, with a cowboy boot on each post. It was supposed to be a sign that the owner was home, maybe he was just drying the boot out.
It is either a lot of ranchers at home or one guy who has been here a long time.
It is the Hill Country, hilly. Big hills and valleys. It is really quite nice.
And why would you not expect to see an ostrich? It is Texas.
And of course, a calf.
And more flowers of all types, colors, and sizes.
The Willow City Loop is a nice drive, most of the time you will only see a few other people on this road. You can go as slow as you want and see what is there.
Maggie was now about 7 months old. Her favorite spot in the coach was on the back of the couch and on the window sill.
She gets to see out of the side window and the front window. She just got trimmed so she looks small.
We went out for lunch with friends once or twice a week. We like the Airport Diner, Alamo Springs Cafe, Backwoods Barbeque, Woerner’s, and Camp Verde. One of our favorites, Emma and Ollie’s closed in January.
Airport DinerAlamo Springs Mike, Susan, Judy, BruceBackwoods BBQ Peggy, Jackie, and Mike
Several of us went to Camp Verde for a nice lunch topped off with a peach cobbler (and chocolate camels) that got shared.
Camp Verde has army camels in its interesting history.
Mike and Jackie had us over for lunch one day. They had moved to Fredericksburg from Nacogdoches last winter and finally had their new home the way it needed to be to be their home.
Jackie, Mike, and NormAnd Peggy on the left.Debbie, Dave, and RogerAnd Roger and Susan
It was a nice lunch and fun to see their home. They have lots of small collectibles in glass cases, many handed down from their families. Mike likes to collect paintings and pictures. Almost every spare wall space is covered with them.
My sister, Judy, and her husband Bruce came to visit Fredericksburg while we were there. They also drove on day trips to see Austin, San Antonio, and New Braunfels.
Ralph (from Illinois), Roger, Susan, Judy, Bruce, and Norm
Springtime evenings in Fredericksburg are usually pretty nice and perfect for a campfire. Sometimes there are S’mores and always interesting conversations. Ralph was staying over in Lady Bird Johnson Park on his way home in Illinois. We have seen them here before and last summer in Sault St Marie in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
A Late Day Cloud Formation
Judy brought all the fixings for a “Swedish” dinner. Our family on my Dad’s side all came from Sweden so there was a long history of Swedish meals with all of the fixings at most of the holidays. Swedish sausage and meatballs, pickled herring and beets, cheeses, fruit soup, scalloped potatoes, barbecued pork ribs, baked beans jello salad, cream cheese balls rolled in chopped nuts, lingonberries, julekage (bread), lefse with butter, sugar and cinnamon, rice pudding with raisins, lots of fancy cookies and deserts, and a whole lot more. We were kids, hard to remember but each of us remembered in our own way. And what we recalled after 60 years, each living half a continent apart was unique. If you asked each of us to put up a “Swedish” dinner, what we would serve would have common elements, some common preparations, and a few diverging items. But all in the realm of what might have been.
Dinner was wonderful, Judy brought all the right stuff. I ate more than I should have. My Dad’s brother, Jimmy, used to push back from the table, slap his bulging belly, and declare, “If I eat any more I will burst and splatter all over the walls.” We had a laugh remembering that line from almost every meal we shared with Uncle Jim.
Quiddler
On a few evenings and after our Swedish dinner we played Quiddler.
As always, way too soon, it gets to be that time to head for home. Spring is in its full glory in Fredericksburg, the trees have leaves, the grass is green, the springtime flowers are everywhere, and it is warm enough that the air conditioning in the coach feels pretty good on a few late afternoons. Evenings and overnight temperatures cool down and are quite comfortable.
It takes 4 days to drive home, 4 reasonable days, not too far, leave at a civilized time, and stop by 4 o’clock or so. Each day is like a trip through time, going backward. The first day, not much changed. On the second day, the grass might be green but not as many leaves. The third day shows us brown grass and trees with early leaves. The last day sees the trees change to just buds and mostly brown fields.
Arriving Home
We have been getting home later in the day for the past few years. We park outside the barn, go in the house and turn up the thermostats and turn on the water heater. Then we spend our last evening and night in the coach. In the morning the house is warm, the water hot and we can start the slow process of moving from one home to another.
The good thing is that when we get back to Hastings, spring is just on the verge of bursting out. Grass is quickly green, fields are planted, and leaves unfold on every branch. We get to experience spring again.
The woods around our home are bare in the winter and it feels open and visible. As the leaves come out there is a sense of the woods closing in on us, enveloping us, sheltering us. In a month the cocoon is developing and continues to fill in.
It is good to be home. The list of planned projects is long and many more will be added. Maggie is scheduled to be spayed. I can get back to building at Habitat for Humanity. Susan is ready for garden chores. Time to get busy, we leave again in just over six months.
We left Alabama in late February on our way to Fredericksburg. Houston is home to many friends so we stopped there on our way.
Rudy and Carolyn live near Baytown in the South East part of the Houston area. They have a covered parking space at the corner of a 200-acre plot, part of a much larger dispersed sod farm. The sod farm is owned by a family, Mark runs the business, and he and Rudy are friends.
Rudy and Carolyn’s Big Back Yard.
The sod farm has several thousand acres spread out in this area. The covered RV parking spaces in the corner of this plot are big enough for three RVs. Rudy and Carolyn are under the bigger cover and Mark’s chief mechanic and his family are under the other one. Rudy fixes Aqua Hot RV heating systems and there is plenty of room for visitors (like us) and people bringing their motorhomes in for service.
Having someone living at the field helps prevent unwanted visitors from driving on the grass field. The field is irrigated. While we were there Maggie enjoyed the wide open field, running and chasing her tennis balls.
Lots of Room to RunAnd for Visitors to Park
We went to see Scott and Carol and Bill Blackmon who are all on the far north side of the Houston area. It took almost an hour and a half to get there, all on several interstate segments. Scott smoked ribs for dinner. Carol made salad and side dishes. It was a wonderful dinner and fun to see everyone. Scott and Carol have a dog named Harley. He is smaller than Maggie but weighs about the same, a solid dog. We put down Maggie’s water bowl and she shared it with Harley. But when she tried to get a sip from Harley’s water bowl he was not so willing to share. There was some barking and snarling and snapping. Maggie’s lip was bleeding a bit. She retreated to my lap for first aid. It quickly stopped bleeding and then all was OK again now that boundaries had been set.
After dinner and dessert and some chat time, we headed back to the sod farm. There is a new toll-way around the east side of Houston. We did not have a Texas Toll-Way Pass so they bill you by mail after taking your car’s photo as you drive by. It took the same time but was longer. Very little traffic, very easy. It took two months to get a toll bill in the mail.
On Saturday we went to the Monument Inn in La Porte, Texas. Rudy drove. We followed an unfathomable route (at least to me) down this road and that until things started looking familiar and there it was, right on the Houston Ship Channel, just 45 minutes away, just over there in Texas. We have been here several times. Keith and Jo joined us for dinner.
Dinner was excellent as it always is. I tried their crab-stuffed jalapenos appetizer and a bowl of wonderful seafood gumbo. The stuffed jalapenos are large and very tasty, you get 6 for $10. And the gumbo was $7. And to get rolls and cinnamon buns too. I brought 4 of the stuffed jalapenos home. We always enjoy dinner at the Monument Inn.
After dinner, we all went back to Rudy and Carolyn’s to visit more. Keith and Jo got to meet Maggie. The trip home was across the Ship Channel on the free ferry and then just 20 minutes to home. Go figure.
Rudy is driving the ferry.
We were just along for the ride.
Good friends and a nice visit with all of them.
On Sunday we headed for Fredericksburg. We had to go across the south side of the Houston metro area on I-10. It takes almost an hour and Sunday traffic is not too bad. Half of the route to Fredericksburg is state and US highways which make it a pretty nice 4-5 hr drive.
We go across the far south edges of the Austin metro area. It used to be mostly rural but is quickly changing with new residential, commercial, and industrial development. Tesla’s factory is down there somewhere, just another immense building surrounded by others. Where does the water and power come from to support all of this? This used to be a brief slowdown, but now it takes more and more time. Lots of construction, and eventually a new East-West toll road to speed things up.
Turn left at Johnson City and another half hour or so to Fredericksburg. When we first came here it was all rural ranch land. Cows liked it and someone discovered grapes do too. Ranchlands are now dozens of vineyards and wineries owned and developed by newcomers and investors. It is a huge new industry here and a big tourist attraction.
At home, it has been snowing heavily, then raining, then snowing again.
When we were kids, no one had a snow blower it was just a shovel and the snow went up on the pile next to the driveway, a snow canyon just wide enough for the family car.
It almost looked like this, for a five-year-old the piles sure seemed this high. And some winters they may have been.
We arrived, got settled in, started deploying the accessories, and checked in with Peggy, Norm, Mike, and Jackie. Springtime in Fredericksburg is quite pleasant and we are glad to be here.
This year in Orange Beach we had visitors. Usually, we are there on our own, we make new friends every year and often they are back when we return. This year we met a couple from North Carolina, Curt and Julia. They had two small dogs so we saw them often while walking Maggie. They were two sites away from us and are returning next winter. Curt and I went to see the new Avatar movie one afternoon. It was a good movie. We enjoyed their company.
This year there were many more electric bicycles and three-wheeled trikes like ours than we have seen in the past. There were many more electric bikes and trikes than non-electric ones. It probably is representative of the age of most of the folks in the park at that time of the year. If an e-bike gets older folks out and moving then they are a great addition.
Surprisingly, the winter is considered the “off-season” in Orange Beach. The condos and the RV Parks and the State Park are full of mostly older snowbirds, not like the crazy summer days with active families having adventures, eating out, and shopping every day. Family time at the beach in the summer is the “high season.”
In January our friends Jeff and Sandy from North Carolina stopped by on their way to Arizona as did Hans and Marjet from South Carolina who were going to Arizona with Jeff and Sandy.
I went to see the USS Alabama Battleship one day with Jeff and Sandy. I followed the tour routes one way, they went a different way. We didn’t have lunch there.
Big Guns from the Bow of the BattleshipAnd Big Ammo
There was a seaplane launching catapult at the stern end of the battleship and a crane to hoist the plane back on board after it landed in the water. It seems like it would have to be pretty calm for this to work.
And way down in the engineering spaces at the bottom of the ship, there were eight boilers each with six burners. The Alabama was able to reach 25 knots on only 4 boilers. The top speed of 27.5 knots took all eight boilers. The fuel capacity of the ship is 2.1 million gallons. That is more than 11,000 times the fuel capacity of our motorhome!
It must have been very hot place to work.
And the boilers needed fresh water. The ship was able to convert 40,000 gallons of seawater to fresh water every day for the boilers and crew. The ship’s water tanks held 118,000 gallons of fresh water.
We had a potluck supper one evening. We made Barbecue Shrimp using a recipe from Pascal’s Manale Restaurant in New Orleans. Jeff and Sandy brought southern gumbo from a local seafood place. Hans and Marjet brought salad. It was fun. Way more food than we needed which is always the case with a potluck. We had enough leftover shrimp for several more meals.
Hans and Marjet have two Goldendoodles, Jazzy and her son, Storm. Storm’s father is Jax and his father was Calhoun. Maggie’s father was also Jax so Storm and Maggie have a common grandfather, Calhoun.
The dogs all got along quite well, especially Maggie and Jazzy. They both piled onto Marjet’s lap one evening when they joined us for a campfire.
Jeff and Sandy and Hans and Marjet left for Arizona. We got back to our everyday routines.
Susan and I drove over to Pensacola, FL about 45 minutes away to get fresh scallops. Our destination was Joe Patti’s. It is a big fish market. They also have a nearby restaurant.
Inside the fresh fish market, there was a very long counter with every kind of fish you might want. You took a number and when a counter person called your number, you told them what you wanted and you moved to the appropriate place on the counter. I was looking for sea scallops for a special dinner (our 47th anniversary). They had just what we wanted. Dinner was wonderful.
In February my cousin Sue and her husband Lloyd came for a visit. They stayed in a nearby condo. They had been spending a couple of winter months in Panama City Beach, Florida for many years. Changes in the condo rental market there had them looking for other options. So they were exploring Orange Beach and Gulf Shores choices.
We went out for lunch at the Sea ‘n Suds restaurant which is on the beach in Gulf Shores. Food is good and you are on the beach. And several other meals as well. We played a couple of Quiddler games too.
There were many condos to check out and it seems there is no easy way to look at and compare several choices at one time. They had to call lots of different sources, most had no units to look at, they were all occupied. So they had their work cut out for them. They found a couple of choices that would work. They are working on what will work for them. One thing is for sure, they want to get away for a good chunk of the Minnesota winter.
We did manage to get to the beach one day while they were here, the very green lawn anyway.
Puzzles
We bought a puzzle for Maggie. Something for her to solve to get treats.
She figured it out quickly. We have two more puzzles for her, more complicated. She seems to like the challenge and figures them out without too much trouble.
After Sue and Lloyd left we had just a couple of weeks left in Orange Beach. The flowers were in bloom at the RV Resort.
We were off to Houston to see friends there and then on to Fredericksburg. But first Maggie needed her second visit to the groomer for a trim.
Still the teddy bear look but all trimmed up. She got a bath, her nails trimmed too. Maggie is 23 weeks old and 25 lbs at this time. Her puppy teeth are getting replace with adult teeth. We managed to find a couple baby teeth and then lost them again.
We made our reservations for next year, got out for dinner with Curt and Julia and started getting ready to leave.
Home2 with Roger and Susan 