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!

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.