What's Next?

Oops, I went 3 weeks between blogs! But does anyone care? I’m thinking of getting out of this computer business – at least cutting back – I can't seem to cope with some things. For instance, I can't get these darn pictures to go into the text at the right place. What’s Next?

Well things have been different at the park. The water is up. Here are some pictures to compare to my earlier ones that showed the extent of the drought.

The drought effect is still with us though. Here is a green tree that just fell over one night. Notice how the limbs just snapped off because they were so brittle. It seems that the sap all goes to the leaves and the rest of the tree suffers.

Since I am an extra host, I have been doing a lot of extra effort on the new nature center and filling in as needed during the holidays. I had fish for Thanksgiving, but we will have a turkey day for the staff next Wednesday, since the park will be shut down for a deer hunt which will reduce the over populated herd.

The South East Texas geocachers were here on Thanksgiving – but only 2, besides me, showed up.

Last week we had SNOW. I thought that I had escaped that! It only lasted for about a day. The snowman took about 4 days to disappear.

I’m thinking of discontinuing my computer service and getting an I-phone in February. If any of you have had experience along those lines I would also like to hear from you.

Tomorrow, I am going to D’Hanis TX to check on a co-op lot to buy, so that I will have a permanent place down here in the south. More about it in my next blog – if anyone wants to know.

Social networking is not for me!

Social networking is not for me!

I keep getting invitations to be “friends” with people on Facebook, Myspace or other such sites (at least 4 others). I feel it is time for me to tell family and friends that I intend to be UN-sociable – I will not even go to these sites to reply. If you are a friend or relative or even someone remotely interested in me from this blog – you can contact me by email at vagabondmarlatt@gmail.com. I will respond to personal emails and if you have a blog, I will come to it to see what you are about. My computer is slow and my network is sometimes unreliable because of the remote places that I visit and that causes me much grief when I have excess communications. During a brief exposure on Facebook a couple of years ago my email was filled to the point that it took me several hours to get to the mail that I really needed ad wanted. It was a devastating experience. Enough of the soapbox – here’s what’s new!

The road up to Cathy's property is now packed down and has proved to be very good. When I left OK it was an easy exit. We spent an afternoon playing board games with the grandkids the day before I went to Texas. Cathy and Michelle, Mary and Jeff, and two of Gary’s AA friends all met at the courthouse for Gary’s hearing. We didn’t hear much, but we were there to support him. The DA offered a plea bargain, which Gary accepted, for 5 years of penitentiary time to be served. Since his jail time will count double as time served, he is already doing time. We don’t know when he will be transferred to the pen, but he is in good spirits and very hopeful for a reduced time and that his parole will be better than probation has been. It seems that the Texas probation system is just a trap set for getting the felons back into incarceration – making any kind of normal life impossible.

After I left Waxahachie I went to Livingston and delivered 13 quilts and some old recordings to the CARE Center for Cathy. Then I went to the Houston Chapter of the Red Cross and did the groundwork for a Disaster Kitchen Training course that is scheduled in January. Now I am settled in at my favorite state park – Lake Texana – as a Campground Host. I will be here until the first of January and then will take a months break and come back for February thru April. I’m in site 79 – come and visit – family can stay free on my site!

At Cathy's in Oklahoma

While waiting for my Doctor’s appointment in Livingston I spent 2 days at Lake Livingston State Park. It rained all of the first day, which really messed up the geocaching on the next day. It took me about an hour to clean the mud off of my bicycle – but I did find eight caches in and around the park.

The doctor appointment was for an echo cardiogram and I guess that I’m still alright because the nurse called me to tell me to come back in 6 months, since nothing changed. After the appointment I went to Waxahachie to visit Gary in jail. His spirits are good and I left him a little fund to get more to eat, since they don’t seem to feed him enough. His revocation of probation hearing will be on Nov. 18th, so I will head south then

Arriving in Oklahoma, I started by working on Cathy’s projects – surfacing the driveway up the hill and patching the roof. Since it hasn’t rained yet we don’t know if the patch job was any good. Michelle got rid of the old cars (3) to Pick a Part. Then we put down 2 loads of clay to fill in the big holes in the road and got a load of gravel spread on the top. Hopefully the road fix will hold for a while! It sure is nice going up and down that smooth road now.

Thursday, on our anniversary we went out to Chili's for baby back ribs and battered onions. It was a good time.

In my spare time I have gotten a lot of little jobs done for myself as well - things like installing a new propane changeover regulator system and, of course, geocaching.

Rally Rally Really

Oktoberfest was a big success. I won a couple of raffles (nothing I needed) and first prize in the egg throwing contest. We all ate more than was needed. I helped serve and clean up at the BBQ dinner. Here are some pictures from Oktoberfest.

22 of us cooked up our favorite soups and sold them for 1 meal. We donated the proceeds, almost $500 to CARE. My selection was Vagabond Stew/Soup. It's what I eat about 1/3 of the time and was one of the most popular of all the soups. It disappeared really fast - and I was afraid of having too many left-overs to put in my freezer!

Immediately following the hitch up breakfast, I went to the Chapter 30 rally in Gun Barrel City. I ate some more and geocached a little – it was a good time. More pictures of my rallying there.

Between rallies I went to Dallas Chapter of the ARC and serviced the mobile kitchen. All was quiet and uneventful there.

Chapter 10 Rally in Belleville was with a lot of old friends and boy are we ever getting old. None of the old active games were played just board and card games and, of course, more food. It was a good time though, with lots of free time to share.

At the rallies there were meetings and auctions - the proceeds going to a good cause - more food and things for the future.

I took a side trip to Steven F Austin State Park and checked it out. It is a nice park, but I wouldn’t want to host there. They expect their hosts to be “on duty” 24 hours a day and I know that the other parks don’t think that way. I plan to check out some other parks in the next few weeks. On the way to S.F.A. S.P. I found 7 geocaches.

After the Ch 10 rally I checked out Huntsville State Park and it sounds a lot better. I think that I will try to take a tour there in April or May, if it fits into my schedule..

Really Ready to Rally

It’s been a busy week at Rainbow’s End Escapee Park. Frank Williams (my temporary landlord) and I painted parking stripes in the CARE Center vehicle lot on a very warm and humid day. That is the first time this year that the heat has really gotten to me. I guess I’m showing my age. Of course Frank is still just a young man at 92, so it didn’t bother him.

The stage is set for the Oktoberfest that starts tomorrow. I am going to make and serve Vagabond Stew for Tuesday’s Soups for CARE. Different soups will be served and the proceeds all are donated to CARE. There will be a big BBQ dinner and lots of food all through the week. It seems that that is the main theme of most Escapee events – we don’t go hungry.

After a week of fun in Livingston I will go to Gun Barrel City for the Chapter 30 Rally and then a few days later head to the Chapter 10 Rally in Bellville.

With all of the rally traveling and also because my van is now 6 years old, I figured that I ought to get my wheels checked out and up to date. Joel West in Livingston has been doing mechanic work for the Escapees for years, so I took it to him. Service work sure has gone up since I had my service station in 1957! But on the bright side, I now have a good feeling going down the road that my home on wheels isn’t likely to give me any problems.

Another new thing in my life is a rear view camera! I made it up so that I can install it on either the van or the trailer and see what I am backing into – or what is following me too close. I feel it will make life a lot easier when I arrive in a crowded campground – or parking lot.

Last Sunday I went geocaching after church and got stuck in a ditch when I pulled “just a little bit” too far to the right on a 1 lane road. A few minutes later a nice young couple in a jeep came along and rescued me, so another bad moment turned good! There are a lot of new caches in the Livingston area, but I am saving them for the time between the rallies and my cardiologist appointment on the 30th. After that I may even head to OK for a while.

I’ll try to remember to get some pictures to show you all of the fun things as I “Rally around Texas!”

Almost time to leave Lake Texana again

There have been lots of improvements at Lake Texana. Best of all – we got about 3 feet of our water level back. Here is a picture of the cove that I had previously shown as completely dried up.

With the water our wildlife has come out to play (and eat the green foliage). Here is one of our larger bucks.

We have a new Nature Center and we saved some of the murals from the old center to put around a storage area and hide the wheels on the new center – I did the work. Here are some pictures of the murals at the new nature center.

The old nature center was torn down except for the porch which the Director hopes to keep as a porch for a rental cabin (our first). Here are the pictures of the old nature center’s demise, starting with a view showing the murals removed and ending up with the final demolition.

I did some of the work of decorating the new nature center – hanging the taxidermy next to the mural that is being done by the same artist that did the old center. He will return and fill out the mural to work in the taxidermy better. Here is the work in progress.

We also put in a bird viewing area and trail in the woods behind the center. I helped with blazing the trail and irrigating the pond and birdbath in the bird area.

Before I leave, next week, I hope to get the new information kiosks installed at the 4 host sites. Then I will be off on my October adventures – mostly RV rallies in Texas.

The other day I had one of those small world experiences. I was geocaching in Victoria and when I looked up from my computer, logging in a find in an RV park, there out the window was my good friend, Frank Williams. We spent over an hour sharing what we had been up to and agreed to meet again next week at Rainbow’s End in Livingston. I will even be staying on his lot there and we will go to at least one of the rallies together.

Well, I guess that’s all for this blog – I’ll share again in a couple of weeks.

Back home in Ganado TX

I am back at Lake Texana State Park and back in the ABVM parish in Ganado. I was welcomed home by three of the guys with whom I went on the ACTS retreat. I will spend a month here working at the park helping to set up the new Nature Center. The Labor Day weekend was very busy but the rest of the time has been pretty quiet. My first days off I went to a geocaching meeting in Houston and also visited the Ingurgios. Victor seems to be recovering from his hip surgery just fine. After supper I went to Sara and Matt Spinks to visit. Sara is my granddaughter – David’s daughter. I had never met their family. They have three great dogs – 2 terriers and a black lab. Of course, I was using my new geocaching program to cache along the way! After spending the night at Hotel WalMart, I geocached my way back to Lake Texana via Galveston Island State Park, Mud Island, Freeport, Brazoria, West Columbia, and Bay City. The program is great and I have learned to use my Nuvi to geocache. The project for this weekend is removing two outside walls on the old nature center that are painted with murals and taking the walls to the new nature center where they will be used to fence in a storage area and decorate the back of the building. The man who painted the murals is making new murals on the inside of the building and we are helping him by fitting in some of the taxidermy from the old center. There will be visiting dignitaries from TPWD on the 22nd, so we are all going to have to work hard to finish our part of the move! Monday and Tuesday will be days off again and I will head west geocaching.

Moving on - Heading West

It’s a sad and a happy time for me now. I’m leaving all of my friends at CARE and heading back to Lake Texana State Park, where I will be camp host for at least a month.

The work at CARE has been harder for me this year. I am sure that it is not that the work has been harder – just that I am losing some of my younger year’s energy. Dan Duryea, the volunteer coordinator has done an excellent job of organizing the volunteer job and I appreciate that the job has therefore become easier. The work is the same however and volunteers are scarce these days. We only had 3 teams this month – 5 teams is the desired number. Since the new September teams are now arriving, our team is bidding adieu to the routine and going back to our regular (?) lives.

I have been working feverishly in my spare time to get a program to more easily load my geocaches in both my hand-held and my auto GPS units. A couple of days ago I succeeded and I now have over 470 caches loaded – ready for the Victoria area! I did manage to have enough time to get to a few of the new geocaches in Livingston – but I have to leave a few for next time. I will be returning to Livingston for a cardiologist appointment in late October.

Lots of changes in my life

After the trip to Kristi’s in Clear Lake south of Houston, where I gave Mary some books and picked up a new antenna tripod, I got down to work. The tripod helped a little – then I extended the pole to 20’ and that helped a little more. But, alas, it was not quite enough. So I ordered an 8 bay Channel Master Antenna from Fry’s.
SUCCESS! Now I get a great picture on 34 Houston channels free (for about $137 in parts). I am happy with the results and now I think I am ready for the Lake Texana park host job again, since I will be able to get TV there as well.

Another of my ongoing projects is my LOCKet. It is a USB memory stick with a secure program on board where I have now stored all of my passwords, credit card information, addresses, medical information, and other sensitive information. The information all stays in the LOCKet which now is my secure vault. I have backed it up to another memory stick, so as not to worry about losing the information. My computer doesn’t contain any sensitive data, so I don’t need to worry about identity theft via e-space. I have also found it real convenient to have all of this information so handy. If you are interested in the LOCKet you can go to http://www.technorv.com/ – that’s the place that I got it at the Escapade in May.

I have also made a dramatic change in my bookkeeping procedures. I have perfected my use of Quicken 2009 and it has totally freed up the time I spent in reconciling all of my financial files. I still have to do a little manual entry, but very little! For only $9.95 I even have an offsite backup that I can access, if (when?) I have a computer failure. With the Locket and the new Quicken backup I am free of fear of a crash of my computer now.

Another new thing in my life is a program to develop better visual skills and improve my reading speed (which has always been slow). The program is called eyeQ. I have only done one day of the eye exercises and reading practices, so I can’t tell how good it is yet. I’ll let you know in my next blog if it seems to be working – and how good.

My time at the CARE Center has been greatly appreciated. There are only 3 volunteer teams left and there are lots of needed chores. Most of them center on getting meals prepared and served to the residents, staff, volunteers, and guests. Sometimes that comes to as many as 70 people. Here is a picture of our great kitchen and dining room serving area.
We also drive residents to appointments, shopping and some eat out events. The other day 12 residents and volunteers had a great dinner in Coldspring TX. Our other chore is being on call for the needs of the residents overnight and on weekends. Sunday I will be going to Kristi’s to take care of the greatgrandkids while Kristi takes Victor in for his hip replacement. I am cramming that in between “on call” and kitchen duties.

I have not had much time to go geocaching, but there are quite a few new ones in the area – maybe in the next few weeks……..

Because I CARE

Well I got everything Cathy could think of up to date – installed the French drain, fixed the dryer, installed the ceiling fan, got the refrigerator replaced – and so I headed south.

The first stop was Dallas, where I went to my Red Cross chapter and did the monthly maintenance on the mobile kitchen. While there I also completed my papers and details about my “promotion” to supervisor. I won’t be doing anything different for Red Cross but I guess it makes them happy to be able to call me a supervisor. Also while in Dallas I got together at Outback Steak House with David one afternoon. He was able to check out the kitchen and I think he would make an excellent replacement for me as its custodian. Of course he would have to retire first – and maybe buy an RV. He didn’t sound too interested though, so I won’t hold my breath.

After Dallas I went to Livingston to the Escapees CARE Center (Continuing Assistance for Retired Escapees). It is staffed by volunteers and in the summer it is hard to find people to volunteer because of the south Texas heat and humidity. I will be here for at least a month and maybe in my spare time I will be able to catch up on some of the new computer programs that I have acquired. Many of the volunteers will be leaving this month so I may not have much spare time. It feels good to work hard for a good cause, so I am not complaining.

A project that I have started this week is to improve my TV reception. Livingston is on the fringe of Houston and the reception is very poor – especially since the analog to digital changeover. So far I have added a yagi reflector bar to my portable antenna and that has made a big improvement. I still lose channels off and on. I have ordered an antenna tripod so that I can get better clearance for the signal. I will let you know next week blog (2 weeks) how well it works.
Tomorrow (Sunday) I will go to Houston to see Mary and the Ingurgios and pick up the antenna.

Two More Weeks

Where does the time go? It’s been little fixit jobs for Cathy and a lot of trips to town, doctoring – both Cathy and me. Cathy is visiting the chiropractor for her back pains and I am establishing myself with a new family doctor, who just happens to be “ScooterNerd” – another geocacher. Oh yeah, I did manage to make it into the city (OKC) to the Central Oklahoma Geocache breakfast meeting – and I have added a few geocaches to my list in OKC and in Norman. The big chore was renting a pole saw and cutting down all of the dead limbs and particularly the branches hanging over the house and the driveway. Cathy’s part of Michelle’s property is about an acre. Grandson Joe E. helped me and the job went smoothly in the allotted time of saw rental. The cleanup was the big chore. The Lynch family now has a good supply of fire wood for the winter – the leftovers have been burned – and I will probably be sore for a couple of weeks.

My case of hitch itch is getting worse and I think I will be leaving OK by the end of the month. There is still a French drain to put in the ground and a little administrative work but I am running out of real work. CARE says that they need me in Livingston and I want to stop in Dallas for a short time at the Red Cross to do the annual inspection of the Sysco Kitchen. So look for another update in two more weeks!

This I Believe

The last couple of weeks in Oklahoma have been full of chores – house and car repair and maintenance both for Cathy and myself. There has been, however, much time to reflect, read and observe. I feel it is time for me to share my belief – philosophy of life.

Who am I? I was born into a Methodist family, then baptized Lutheran, and finally chose to be a Catholic. I guess you could call me a protesting catholic because I do not believe in a lot of what the church does. In fact I do not believe in church, because most of the world’s ills seem to have been born in the various “churches” that compete with one another. My middle name is Thomas – and yes I do have a healthy share of doubt! I doubt that any religious practice is what God wants for us. I believe that good (God?) life practices are what he wants us to seek and what he wants us to reflect to others. That is –“being Christ for others”. My formation of belief has come from various sources – reading, observation, and practice. To recommend a few to you – “2001”, “Childhoods End” and “The Final Theorem” by Arthur C. Clarke and “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” (see recent DVDs - Norman Jewison) all of which I recommend you read or view and reflect upon. These show me that there are basically two conflicting ways to go in the world – murder and love. I can choose to make myself #1 and put others down (get ahead?) or I can choose to love and share my self with others. Since my Cursillo and more recently ACTS retreat I have experienced God’s love and I choose to spread it. A great philosopher, whose name I didn’t retain, said (and I believe) “We shall believe ourselves to be serving him only by promoting everything that is best in the world both in ourselves and others”. What do I believe? Two words come to mind – TANSTAFL and Dunthers. TANSTAFL, is an acronym for “There ain’t no such thing as free lunch”. In other words, we have to do it if we want it done. Dunthers is slurred version of “Do unto others” as stated by both the Golden and the Silver Rules.

Oh well enough philosophy for now and I’ll get back to the chores, so I can again become The Vagabond.

Down to the party

The trip to Texas is a long one – and we made it longer by doing some sight seeing. Saturday we made it to 6 PM mass in Litchfield. I looked around the congregation and only found 3 people smiling – is the economy really that bad? Since I had broken a tooth, there was a time out for a repair job at WalMart. The permanent repair can wait until we get back to OK. After supper in the Casita I did a couple of quick caches and watched some PBS. We had tried to find some decent radio on the road, but it was all loud and obnoxious music. I guess Illinois doesn’t support NPR (my favorite).

Years ago we went as a family to visit Meramec Caverns in Stanton MO. Well, Cathy and I decided to go on the tour again. The caverns are basically the same but the path through the cave is much more people friendly. We even saw the spot where Michelle lost her contact lens, some 35 years ago, only to have one of the guides find it.

After the caverns we proceeded to Turkey Creek SKP Resort where we ran into Sharon Bradshaw, a long time SKP friend. Tom did some geocaching (and discussion about same) and Cathy lay up to rest her weary bones after “caving”.

Cathy’s thermostat dictates that she have more air conditioning than is possible with the battery source in the van – so we drove all the next day to keep her cool and went as far as Texarkana where we stayed at Camp WalMart.

We stopped at the Dallas Area Red Cross Chapter where Tom serviced the Sysco Kitchen and made arrangements for a promotion interview. After lunch we visited Jeff and he showed us around the Bachman Lake Library, where he is a librarian.

After stopping to see Jim at Omni Direct we ran into a little problem – or should I say a little problem ran into us. A car tried to pass the van and trailer as Tom made a wide U turn. The van stopped the car dead – totaling it. The van only had slight rear panel damage and a blown tire. In about an hour the tire was replaced and we were on our way to Holiday COE Park in Benbrook, where we stayed while taking care of all of the things planned for the week.

The 75th Birthday Party was a fantastic success. Daughter Mary did a great job of planning it and Jim and Gail were excellent hosts. We ate – we swam – we played – and we shared. We were presented with picture albums that had our whole life on display. Lots of memories and stories came back! Here’s just a few of the pictures of Tom, Cathy, and family.

Talk about procrastination!

It’s been over a month now since my last blog input. I guess I need to set a schedule – I’m going to try to input every two weeks – Saturday should be a good day. Anyway, here’s what I’ve been up to for the last of my tour at Lake Texana - all the way to Illinois:

The chiropractor treatments were successful in fixing my neck problems, and made my final days at the Lake Texana State Park much more enjoyable. I will miss the nice surroundings and the staff that I worked with. Perhaps next year???

After leaving Texana I made an ACTS retreat with 47 other men from the Catholic Church in Ganado. The worship atmosphere of this church is fantastic and has really been a boost to my spirituality. The retreat is based on the Cursillo movement but was, I think, a lot more spiritual and effective. Someday I hope to return to Ganado and be part of the parish again. Who knows, maybe I’ll be on an ACTS team. I was very warmly welcomed into their community – even as a Vagabond.

After leaving Ganado I went to Livingston for my bi-annual cardiologist visit. Dr. Mani said that all the pills seem to be keeping my problems under control and that I should keep on doing what I am for another 6 months. My valves are marginal and I still have hypertension and arrhythmia, but I feel good – even though I am slowing down. What particularly bothers me is that I am losing strength in my advancing age.

Leaving Livingston, I went north to Dallas and serviced the Sysco Kitchen at the Dallas Area Chapter. The tilt boiler failed while I was there and caused me to stay an extra day, but the kitchen is now ready for deployment during the hurricane season. And I am still ready to go with it.

Traveling on, I spent a couple of weeks in OK, at Cathy’s place, working on repairing a leaky roof and other “honey-do” tasks before leaving for the Escapade in Sedalia MO. While geocaching in the state park my grandkids and I came accross this fellow.

The Escapade was very wet, but enjoyable. I transported Cathy’s quilting stuff, but then I was free to attend many of the seminars and even give one myself (Materialistic Minimalism). I got a lot of new computer toys and tricks to try out when the trip is over. Cathy’s quilting group made a lot of charity quilts which were donated to the CARE facility in Livingston and to CASA (Citizens Against Spousal Abuse) Here are some of the quilts that they donated.

Traveling on, we went to Indiana and visited with Guy, Gary’s son. Guy enjoyed geocaching with me. Wow, is he ever getting big! Here is a picture of him with Cathy.
And here is another picture, taken with his mom, Laura, and his step-dad Bob, and step-brother Brian.
Sunday, we traveled west, slowly going through Chicago to Gurnee IL. Cathy enjoys visiting all of her relatives and friend there, while I geocache and do chores. I now have a bedroom in the truck so that it isn’t as crowded in the Casita.

Tomorrow we will go to Wisconsin to visit our dear friends the Casciaros and Wokwiczes. I am having breakfast Friday with Chuck Frieman, who I know from my Boy Scouting Leader days.

Life is good – next week we head to Texas and our 75th birthday celebration in Arlington, which the kids are going to host at Jim’s house.

A Blessed Holy Week

I will never be able to forget Holy Week 2009. Eloise Williams, a dear friend of mine completed her lenten journey this year. At about the same time that our Lord died on Good Friday, Eloise breathed her last on this earth. In prayer on Easter I realized her timing - now she is a resurected saint waiting for me to join her. I'll bet she greets me with some blueberry muffins, just like she did so often at their ranch in Ricardo. Here is the last picture that I have of her - taken at Christmas time. She is to the right side of the lamp. We will all miss her very much.

My neck is getting better - probably because I bought a table and installed it in the back of my van to serve as a desk. I replaced my refrigerator with a 2 drawer file - I usually eat out anyway when I travel with only the truck. I like my new office!

I went to Bay St Louis MS to take care of the American Red Cross Sysco mobile kitchen during a training event. There were a few little problems, including a tornado and torrential deluge coming on the day of the cooking and cleanup of the kitchen. But we got it all dried up and sent back to Dallas. The event was held at a casino and I enjoyed the luncheons all week and a luau one evening. It was a combined institute for Louisiana and Mississippi and hopefully the start of much more cooperation between the two states during the "season" which is almost upon us as I type.

Back at Lake Texana, on my host job, the weather has been great for the visitors - but not for the lake! The water level is down more than 8 feet now and the piers are on dry land. Here is a picture of the boat ramp taken from a dry spot - out in the cove.

The alligators have been forced out of the coves and are just lying around on the new sandy beaches. Notice the 14x18 Rubbermaid behind them, in front of a boulder - to get an idea of their size. I retrieved the container (flotsam or jetsam) and cleaned it up to use in the truck.

Here is a puddle that used to be a cove between the two camping areas in the park. There is still an 8 foot alligator that comes back every night, hoping that he will find his cove has returned!

This coming weekend I will be going to Kingsville for Eloise's memorial service. The park will be completely filled by a church group that rents the whole park, so I probably won't be missed. The group provides their own security and cleanup and other services.

It's Spring!

Yes its Spring already and I haven't updated my blog since the middle of winter! I've been happily busy with my role as a Park Host at Lake Texana.

Spring got off to a great start when I attended the Texas Challenge 2009 in Fredericksburg TX. This was the second Challenge that I went to and the seventh in the state. It was a lot more fun than the last one I attended in Inks Lake State Park. This was because I didn’t go in the competitive event, but chose the “Casual Cache Competition” where you just drive around and walk around and find the caches to log for your team. I overdid at Inks Lake, trying to keep up with my, much younger, teammates. Besides the competition there was lots of socializing with the geocachers from all over Texas. It was neat to finally put a face with some of the names that I have been seeing in cache logs. We even had a night out at Luckenbach – made famous by Hondo Crouch and Willie Nelson and the boys!

Spring break brought a lot of people to Lake Texana State Park and among them were my granddaughter Kristi Ingurgio and her family. Here are some pictures of them enjoying the spring weather.

Here's Kristi, Victor, and the kids - up a tree

Ski

Tony

And "Here's Gianni!"

We went fishing but didn’t catch anything. The kids enjoyed the nature center program and Ski even got up close with a corn snake.
During the week I did a geocaching seminar for the visitors and the local paper, The Jackson County Herald Tribune, published an article about it. Now I’m famous! The reporter sent me some of the pictures that she took when she was here.

"Here's how you set up the GPS
Mor Instructions
Looking for the cache
"Let's see what's inside of the Cache.

That looks like the Loch Ness Monster!

This is GGGator - the old and big one of the park

Here's an alligator enjoying eating a fish.

Ranger Cindy is happy, showing off one of the junior alligators
Even the alligator is happy

I will be leaving on Monday to go to a Red Cross Disaster Kitchen Training course in Mississippi, where I will maintain the mobile kitchen and demonstrate its care and feeding to the class. Then I will come back to Lake Texana SP

Recently, I have been experiencing more neck pain than usual. I suspect that it is due to poor posture when using the computer in the front seat of the van. I am in process of getting the neck fixed by a chiropractor and I am going to upgrade my office area in the rear of the van to a more permanent facility. Life is full of challenges and the fun is in overcoming them. Praise the Lord!