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!

Here's Looking At You

A month after sticking it, I have recovered my norml(?) appearance. I no longer need the antibiotic ointment and I am down to just a little redness in the eye.

There is a little lump on the side of the eye, but I haven't reached the doctor's predicted 6 weeks mark yet. so that will probably be gone right on schedule.

I went to Kristi's house to visit with Cathy, but her plane was delayed. It was a good thing though. I turned the TV on to a digital channel for the first time since I left Lake Texana. It was fine for a few minutes - then it went to black and white. Evidently my old Magnavox TV's tuner wasn't able to take the strain of dealing with digital. So I went to WalMart and got me a new, larger (19"), and much better quality picture TV.

Cathy came in the next day and we had a good visit with much game playing, shopping and a wonderful lunch at Red Lobster. I think the GGKids wore her out though. I left before she did and got back to my host job at site 120 in Lake Texana State Park.

Now that my spacecraft and command module are back in place, I really appreciate the park slogan, "A Better Place To Be - Texas State Parks".

That's my new sign so that geocachers can come and find my "Track the Vagabond" Travel Bug. The wood pile is one of my assignments. I keep a couple of wagons filled up (when there's not a fire ban) and the campers take the wood to their campsites. Let me show you the rest of my little retreat in the woods.

That's my new TV antenna, that I found to be really necessary when you live in the boondocks.

That's my mule, parked under my covered table area and, in the center, you can see my shower house and bathroom.

Accross the road is my view - looking out of the cove toward the day use side of the park and on to the bridge that leads to Ganado, where I have found one of the best Catholic churches that I have ever been to. Even though this is a very small town, they are blessed with a very progressive priest and a very good music group. They have guitar, keyboard, drums, and some of the best singers that I have ever heard who lead us in good contemporary worship.

I really do enjoy it here!

My Vacation - My Eye

I had an enjoyable New Years in Kingsville with the Wiggins and Williams friends - and then I headed to the Valley. I went to Canyon Lakes RV Resort and found it to be very friendly. On my first day out geocaching I had a little incident while looking for a cache in a bush. I turned my head and one of the branches just jumped out and hit me in the eye.

Ouch! I got back in the van and started looking for an opthomologist, but it was Saturday so I ended up in the hospital emergency ward. The doctors there found a specialist and he checked me out and wrote a prescription for Tobradex which is all he said I would need - and about 6 weeks to recover. My eyesight was not affected and I am recovering fine. I visited the Kellers while in Mission and spent the rest of the week around the pool and hot tub, since my eye was too swollen to want to drive. Then I returned to Kingsville and the Williams' ranch where I helped Frank and Eloise get their TV converter box installed and the antenna upgraded. I also took on the task of replacing a burgler alarm, which had gone bad after about 26 years of service. There doesn't seem to be a replacement - so I am attempting to build one with Radio Shack parts.

The vacation over, I went to Houston to visit with Cathy at our granddaughter Kristi's place. While there, my TV went berserk and had a retrograde to black and white on the new digital signals. I ended up buying a new flatscreen 19" TV and installing it in the trailer. Boy, is it ever clear!

The eye is almost totally healed after only 3 1/2 weeks. I consider myself blessed that it wasn't worse.

Cathy's flight was cancelled due to the ice storms - I hope she gets here tomorrow. I will be heading back to Lake Texana State Park for 3 months as Host during February-April.

The end of 2008

The end is in sight. Just a few hours and 2008 will bite the dust. I enjoyed a Christmas Party with the staff and hosts at Lake Texana State Park.

Then on the 26th I spent the day at granddaugter Kristi's, joined by my son Jeff and his partner Al, and my daughter Mary, Here's some of the pictures from that event.

Then, on the 30th I said my goodbyes to Lake Texana in order to have a month of vacation in the Texas Valley. Right now I'm at my friends Frank & Eloise Williams' ranch in Ricardo TX to celebrate the New Year. Do you notice that I go farther south as the temperatures go down? I'll be geocaching in the Mission Texas area. If you are a geocacher, you can look for the travel bug decal in my windows (van and trailer) and "discover" me.

My new home and employment

I went to Kristi’s on the 1st, while she and Victor went to the closing and took the three great-grandkids geocaching.

On the 3rd I gave the seminar to the TPWD Interpreters’ meeting. It was well received and I got a surprise! Ranger Cindy from Lake Texana State Park said that she has a host position open for December. So now I live there and am again productively engaged.
I am enjoying the host opportunity immensely – the setup is different than McKinney Falls. Here I rotate the jobs, so I get experience in all of them. The staff and hosts here are happy and friendly, making it fun and not really work!

Here's the view out the front of my site.Tomorrow I will be back in Houston, on my day off, sitting the three GGKids, while Kristi and Victor go out and party. Then back to the park until Christmas with Jeff, Mary, and the Ingurgios.

Thanks

I’m thankful this Thanksgiving that I am still able to keep up with the life on the road. I enjoy being “houseless” and am glad that some don’t consider me “useless”. I have no idea of my future – after next week – and that’s fine with me.

I left Livingston and went to a Lake Texana State Park. I did some geocaching while I was there and found some of the caches in the park needed attention. I asked about them and found out that, not only the caches needed attention, but TPWD (Texas Parks and Wildlife Department) needs to update their program of controlling caches in their parks.
I got involved and stayed a week longer at the park explaining what was needed to the Interpretive Ranger, Cindy. Then she invited me to come to the region Interpreters meeting and bring the region up to date. That meant that I needed to get approval from the state, so I went to a meeting with the Regional Director to request to give a seminar to the region – and maybe later to the other regions. It is still in the “approval” stage – but I may be going to the Dec 3rd meeting with the PowerPoint presentation that I have worked up. And this may lead to a tour around the state in the future.

Now (Thanksgiving) I am cooling my engine and waiting for Kristi, my granddaughter and her family to arrive in Houston to move in to their new home. I offered to take care of the GGKids while Kristi and Victor go to the closing on Dec 1st and move in on Dec 4th. There is a geocaching meeting in Houston on the 7th and Kristi asked me about taking care of the GGKids on the 12th. So…..I may not go south as quick as I thought!

And….there’s the TPWD program – and park hosting – and the Red Cross Kitchen. No moss growing on this old man!