Today is the last day of May, so we're heading into summer. It's been feeling like summer already, with highs in the 90s. The campground has emptied out with the end of the holiday weekend. However, the mosquitoes are still here in full force.
Ken finally got around to taking a photo of our site. Our neighbors moved out this morning, leaving him a clear shot. The trees offer some welcome shade, but they had to be trimmed a bit to keep some branches from scraping on Venture.
Today is the official holiday, but as many reminders tell us, it's a solemn day of remembrance of all those Americans who have lost their lives or become missing in action. We also remember the countless others who have died as a result of wars. War, no matter how sacred the cause, is a tragedy. We recently re-watched Ken Burns' documentary on the Civil War. How sad to see families divided, facing their brothers and sisters on the field of battle, but every war is like that. Everyone belongs to the family of humankind. We pray for peace.
Except for getting more mosquito bites, today was pretty uneventful. We did some laundry and played some pool. We put some thread sealing tape on one of the water connections at the filter where we've had a leak. We looked over our route and plans for the next couple of weeks and changed a couple of reservations.
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It was hot again today, but windy, so it wasn't quite as oppressive. We sat by the pool watching the water volleyball games and reading our books. We played three games of pool, and Ken won all three (the first two were very quick, since I managed to sink the eight ball early both times).
We got a Skype call today, from Jan and Steve. The connection was weak, but it was really good to hear from them. They've been pretty much out of Internet contact for a while in their gate tending job in the Texas oilfields.
We have both been itching, with several large welts. We asked Connie, the office manager, what might be biting us, and she said "Mosquitoes....they're really large." They must be, but somehow I haven't seen any of them. I've been suspecting fleas.
There are lots of cardinals flying about. One landed on a branch just outside our window and stayed there quite a while, putting on a show for us. We could see the feathers in his crest being blown about by the wind. Tonight on our walk we saw a bunny, a comical little critter that wriggled its nose, munched greenery, and seemed to be completely ignoring us.
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I complained about the heat yesterday, but that was mild compared to today. The high was 96.7 (heat index 109), which beat the earlier record high recorded in 1998 of 96.0. It sure beat me! After brunch, we started out on our walk. We usually do a longer walk in the morning and a shorter one later in the day. After a few feet we turned to each other and said, "We could do our short walk now and a longer one later...."
When we got back from our 20 minute walk, I started to feel pretty sick and actually thought I might be coming down with something. Now I think it was probably just heat and mild dehydration. I took a nap and felt somewhat better after a couple of hours.
This evening there was a potluck at the clubhouse, and we went over. Before the meal, a gentleman standing by a small table set for one led a brief ceremony of remembrance of POW and MIA members of the military. Retired and active duty military were invited to take the first places in line at the buffet table.
On our walk tonight (after dark and with the temperature still 91), we spotted a large toad. It hopped quickly away when I walked over to look at it. It's been quite some time since I've seen a toad, much less one as big as my fist. Yesterday we saw a skunk browsing in the grassy field along side of the road. It looked cute, but we gave it a wide berth. When we passed the first time, it beat a retreat into the woods, but when we came back past, it just continued about its business. It probably decided that we posed no threat. Unfortunately we didn't have the camera along.
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We emerged from Venture this morning to set out on our walk, and a gentleman hailed us. Ken said that he had been walking back and forth for a while, probably waiting for us to come out. It turned out that he and his wife are Excel owners. They had driven down from near Lawton, Oklahoma, so that the wife could get her free two days in training to learn to use her brand new quilting machine at Linda's Electric Quilters across the street. I guess the husband was at loose ends and happy for an excuse to talk to someone.
We headed over to Denton to stop at Camping World to pick up some tire valve extenders to replace the ones that the mechanic had decided we didn't need. This was the first time we had approached the store from the east, and of course we managed to get confused, especially since Google Maps was mistaken about the location and directions. We finally pulled into a parking lot and looked up the Camping World website for directions to the store.
Of course we had to spend some time looking through the store. After we made our purchases, we went back to Venture to eat a quick lunch of pb&j sandwiches and bananas (sounds like the school lunches my mom used to pack for me). Then we decided to stop at the RV consignment lot next door to check out some high end fifth wheels. We saw some features we liked in several, but overall we still prefer our Excel. Most of the ones we looked at had inadequate CCC (cargo carrying capacity) for fulltime use.
We pulled into our new campsite in Decatur in the mid-afternoon. First, as usual, we cleaned the bugs from the endcap. It's much easier to do standing on the truck box when the trailer is still hitched up. Then I climbed up on the roof and trimmed back some overhanging branches. None were very large, but they were making scraping noises on the roof--the kind that keep you awake at night worrying about your rubber roof and such.
By the time we were set up, it was nearly time to fix dinner. We were really wiped out, probably at least partly because of the 95 degree plus weather with high humidity. After resting a while, we went over to the pool and took a quick dip while the chicken was in the oven.
On our walk tonight we spotted this interesting rig. The signs on the car say it's a tent camper trailer for a motorcycle or small car. It's very cleverly built.
Today was a travel day, but we started out by finishing cleaning the roof with Tide. Then we biked around the park for the last time, enjoying our last views of the lake and the sounds of the birds before setting out for McKinney, TX. It's just a layover point, but we took advantage of the opportunity to stop in at Lowe's and make a return.
We also went into Target and bought yet another instant read digital thermometer. I seem to be death on those things. I've melted several by leaving them in the food in the oven, so when I was in Bethesda visiting Terri and saw her thermometer with a probe on a wire that can be left in the oven, I bought one. It worked great! Unfortunately, I knocked it off the side of my microwave, where it was hanging magnetically, and it didn't survive the fall. Now I have number two, and I hope it lasts a bit longer.
We are spending the night in a Walmart parking lot, something we've done twice before in our three and a half years on the road. This one is far enough from both I-75 and Hwy 380 to be relatively quiet.
We have been at Brushy Creek Campground for nine days now. It's uplifting to look out our windows and see all the green, tall pine trees, squirrels, birds, and the lake. We have a great place to walk and to breathe. But enough is enough. We tend to sit still too much in a peaceful place like this.
Tonight we are under a tornado watch, but the weather so far has belied that forecast. We're hoping to be spared. The images on TV are harrowing--cities and lives turned upside down, people killed or injured, scenes of utter devastation.
We will be moving on tomorrow. Today we did some of our chores: checking and topping off the tire pressures; spraying silicone on our slideout rams, jacks, and hitch; and cleaning part of our rubber roof with Tide.
It wasn't all work today, though. We did a 40 minute bike ride around the campground this morning and half an hour walking tonight. We played Upwords (Ken beat me by three points at the very end).
We watched a NOVA episode titled Power Surge about ways to reduce carbon emissions. The approach recommended was called the Wedge Theory: piecing together an array of currently available technologies and resources to prevent further rise in carbon emissions while still providing the power required by developed societies. It actually made the achievement of this objective sound doable.
We watched an episode of South Riding from PBS Masterpiece Classics. It's not Upstairs Downstairs, but we are looking forward to the second episode.
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The lovely day invited us outdoors. Of course we did a bike ride this morning (still a struggle on the uphills). This afternoon we sat outside and read, our chairs facing the lake. We decided to walk down and explore the lakeshore. We were surprised to find the gravel along the water strewn with shells. They may be evidence of Asian clams, an invasive species.
After lunch today we headed to Marshall, the nearest larger city, to do our laundry and some shopping. We did our laundry at this laundromat on Elysian Fields Ave. Everyone here was friendly and helpful, but it was crowded and many machines were out of order. Unfortunately, all the other laundromat phone numbers we tried were out of service.
It was easy to tell that the weekend was coming to an end today. Most of the trailers and boats and kids that had come out to the lake on Friday packed up and left today. The Boy Scouts folded their tents and departed, leaving Tent Area 2 with only one lone tent again.
We biked around this morning and walked around this evening, checking out these departures. We see lots of squirrels and birds, especially scrub jays and mockingbirds. Of course there are always grackles. Ken thinks they are noisiest in the mornings, when they seem to be telling the world that they are the masters of their territories.
Yesterday we found that one of our water filter cartridges was leaking, so we got out the wrenches and tried to tighten it. We apparently stopped one leak, but will probably need a new gasket to stop the other. Fortunately, the leak is slow, and we put a pail under the cartridge, so it will be fine until we get to a Lowe's, which we had already planned to do on Thursday.
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At dusk last night we saw an interesting truck and trailer arriving, brightly colored and clearly both vintage. Today on our ride around the campground, we stopped to ask permission to take photos, and the couple greeted us warmly and gave us a tour of the trailer, which they had found sitting in a field and sadly deteriorated. They are justifiably proud of the great job they've done restoring it. They live nearby, in Marshall, TX, and said they come to Brushy Creek as often as they can.
We escaped the promised afternoon thunderstorms, but they rolled in tonight with a vengeance. The electricity keeps flickering off and back on, which means the TIVO resets. The DirecTV feed disappeared during the NewsHour, but came back on half an hour later. We are camped in a large pine forest, and we’re beginning to think that there must be Texas sized pine cones pelting down on us. These storms aren't scattering away from us as fast as we'd like.
Fortunately it was quite pleasant earlier in the day. On our morning walk we managed to capture images of a couple of butterflies. Some others fluttered by without having their pictures taken.
We had a little visitor this morning. She leaped onto our roof from the pine tree outside the window, and then proceeded to examine the rig curiously. She climbed down the ladder and peered in at me (I was working at my laptop). She probably couldn't see me since the windows are tinted. She stayed around a good ten minutes, delighting us and posing for Ken.
On our morning walk we checked out the campground. All of it is situated around the lake, with three RV loops and two tent areas. We are partly trying to figure out which sites we might prefer on a future visit.
Yesterday on our evening walk around the campground, we noticed a couple of sites in the first come area that had orange cones and "rented" signs on them. This struck us as unusual, since the general rule for walkup or first come sites is that you have to put equipment on it and occupy the site for the first 24 hours. This morning we stopped to chat with the volunteers at the gate and asked about it. They said that here if you come in person and put a cone or something on the site and start paying for it immediately, you can in effect reserve the site for your later arrival.
We spent part of the day going through our mail and paying bills, not our favorite task, but it has to be done. This evening we watched another part of Ken Burns' Civil War documentary. We've seen the whole series before, but find it just as compelling the second time around.
You can see from this campsite photo why the lake we are camped beside is called Lake O' the Pines. We are surrounded by tall sturdy pine trees.
We had a reasonably short trip today, along a route we’ve traveled before, so not too stressful. We’re camped in the same site we had the first time we stayed at Brushy Creek (site #110). It’s shaded and spacious. We enjoyed our walk around the campground, checking out the neighbors. It’s not crowded on a Monday in May.
Tonight we played some Boggle and relaxed.
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It was cool overnight but warmed up to the lower 70s. When we took our morning walk, the sky was a cloudless blue dome. We walked out the entrance road and along County Road 4134 to where it joins Hwy 64. That made just about the right distance. We saw some scissor tail flickers flying about.
We headed over to Dick and Carol's this afternoon, taking our laundry along and fixings for salad for dinner. Carol had fix your own pizzas, using prepared whole wheat crusts, making dinner pretty easy and delicious. Carol drove me to Super One to stock up on some groceries before our stay in the relative isolation of Brushy Creek. I remembered that Super One has some nice frozen wild caught salmon. The fridge will be completely full.
Robert and Debbie and the kids stopped by on their way home from church. They couldn't stay too long because Robert is working tonight. Sam is walking everywhere, very busy and inquisitive. Christine asked Carol to put on a CD titled Hooked on Classics 3: Journey Through the Classics, which started out with the piece that opens 2001 A Space Oddysey. She danced around to it. Sam got excited, and Carol joined in the dancing. I capered about a bit too. We all had fun.
Carol found a Hot Wheels puzzle at the garage sales yesterday and has been assembling it on her puzzle table. She figured that Andy's boys would enjoy it. When Christine and Robbie saw it, both of them were also attracted to it. Hot Wheels have entranced kids for many decades. When Ed was a toddler and had surgery, the nurses gave him a Hot Wheels track to keep him entertained. They first came out in 1968, the year he was born.
This morning I got up bright and early to go garage sale-ing with Carol. We found more than we expected, since there were a couple of neighborhood sales. I managed to spend a whole dollar and got a book, two notepads, and some mailing labels for my buck. Carol found lots of good stuff.
Ken came over and we hung out until after lunch, when Dick and Carol and Ken and I went for a walk to Tyler Junior College, which is only blocks from their house. We walked around the athletic field and managed to get in an hour's walk. Jeff called while we were walking to wish his Dad a happy birthday. He will be leaving for Qatar on Tuesday and not returning until October. Tiffinie will be keeping the home front, including Pink, while he is out of the country.
This evening we met Dick and Carol at the Holiday Inn on Broadway to attend the Tyler Chorale Spring Gala, with special guests, the Tyler Big Band. The dinner and musical entertainment were birthday gifts from Dick and Carol to both of us--Thanks! We really enjoyed the entertainment. The band musicians were extremely talented, including the female vocalist, Veronica Casals. The songs were all from the big band era, so lots of nostalgia.
Today we left Lewisville Lake Park and headed to Tyler to visit Carol and family. When we got to Spring Creek RV Park, no one was there to help us. Fortunately we had been here before and just went and set up on our old site. When we later got through to the owner, it turned out that he had had surgery and had just come home from the hospital.
We went over to visit Dick and Carol. I came prepared to spend the night so I can go garage saleing with Carol in the morning.
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Spent the night last night with Julie and the kids. Got up early to go get Ed at the airport, but then he called to say that he was taking a bump and would be arriving later in the day sometime.
We went to Costco with Julie and actually got out for less than $100. Then we ate a quick lunch before going to pick up the truck at Classic Chevrolet. To add to the comedy of errors, when we got there, it turned out that the valve stems for the inside duallys were inaccessible. We waited quite a while for the mechanic to re-mount the tires. Ken didn't think to check when he got in the truck. When we got back to the lake, it turned out that now both valve stems were in the same hand hole. He drove the truck to Discount Tire and waited his turn. They remounted the tires for free. Meanwhile, I was at home packing up for our trip tomorrow. We got everything ready to go and then drove back over to Ed and Julie's.
Today the sky opened up and created a lake around our site. The thunder and lightening were impressive. We decided that it might be a good idea to stay at Ed and Julie's. After 12 days, our tanks were full, but we don't have our truck, so we can't dump. We've been walking over to the nearby restroom, but that's way less fun in the mud!
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This morning we got up very early and drove over to pick Ed up. We are driving his Lexus while he goes out of town and our truck is at the Chevy dealer for repairs. Ed was flying out of DFW early this morning, and it's a good thing we got there early to take him. An accident had further jammed an already congested route to the airport. Ken got a nice shot of the sunrise on the way.
Today was another airline travel day--always tiring and stressful for me. Chris got up early and fixed a nice breakfast of cheese omelets and fried potatoes with strawberries and yogurt. Annie and Chris hugged me and wished me a safe trip. I was sorry to be leaving them, but ready to be home.
After breakfast we packed up and headed north to Depoe Bay to the Whale Watching Center. From the overlook building, whales are often spotted. Some are migrating, and a few others are year-round residents. Volunteers are on hand to provide tips and information on whales. One had been spotted before the center opened at 10:00 a.m. We didn't see any, but enjoyed looking out for them. We did see a couple of black oystercatchers, shore birds with impressively bright orange feet.
Next we headed south to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Chris had luckily gotten Groupon tickets, so we skipped the line and walked right in. The weather was clear, but it had been raining on and off, so we decided to check out the outdoor exhibits first. We walked the Nature Trail and saw a great expanse of wetlands and mudflats. Lots of the plants were conveniently labeled.
We walked into the Sea Bird Aviary. Unlike other aviaries I've visited, this one is limited to shore birds, including tufted puffins, rhinoceros auklets, pigeon guillemots, common murres and black oystercatchers. It's breeding season, so all the birds were exhibiting their breeding plumage. The tufted puffins were especially striking in appearance and fascinating to watch as they dove and flew gracefully beneath the water or shook themselves comically to clean their feathers.
We were lucky enough to be in the aviary at feeding time, so we learned a lot about the birds from the friendly keeper who was tossing out fish and setting out other food. To limit the population, the keepers regularly substitute dummy eggs for the parents to brood. This year they have a request from another institution for two tufted puffins, so they'll allow some eggs to hatch.
After our breakfast of fruit, orange juice, eggs, hash browns, and French toast, we went for a walk on the beach. We walked a couple of blocks towards the ocean and passed through a small memorial park on the way. We could see the Yaquina Head Lighthouse on a point north of us.
Then we drove to the lighthouse, hoping to take a tour. We got there a bit before the 10 a.m. opening, so we decided to explore the area. We walked down to the Cobble Beach at the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area. Walking on the beach was a bit like walking in a playground ball pit--only the balls are made of basalt and sound crunchy underfoot.
A couple of volunteers had a scope set up and pointed at a mother seal and her pup, very cute wriggling about on the rock. We looked around for tidal pools among the larger rocks. We spotted a large dead sea star, some sculpins swimming about, some mostly closed up sea anemones, and lots of mussels.
By now the lighthouse was open, and we were among the first in line to climb up the 93 foot tower. Volunteers in period costume were at the bottom and the top. We learned that one of the reasons this lighthouse isn't taller or on a higher point is that the clouds and fog are often form a low ceiling, so the light needs to be aimed beneath it. Yaquina Head is visible for 20 miles out to sea. It’s a good thing we got in when we did—a long line of small children was waiting to go in soon after we emerged.
After touring the lighthouse, we decided to climb the trail up the nearby Salal Hill, which gets its name from the profusion of salal bushes growing there.
Our morning walk around the neighborhood took us to a nearby historical cemetery, Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery. It's a lovely place with many old graves. Some of the more recent have flower gardens growing over them. Laser photographs of the deceased appear on the headstones of many Russian and Ukranian graves.
The land between the sidewalk and the street, often called the parking strip or planting strip, is part of the public right-of-way and can also be used for gardening. Keep in mind that you will need to closely maintain this space so that your garden does not obstruct the sidewalk or the street.Later, Chris and I took the bus and Max Redline train to the airport to pick up my rental car. When we got there, we were discouraged by the very long line at the Enterprise desk, since I had a reservation with Enterprise. After a few minutes, we noticed that the line was not really moving--and that the Dollar Rent a Car counter had almost no line. I decided to switch to Dollar and looked up the price on my Droid to see if it was comparable.
Chris was on vacation today, and we decided to go thrifting. We started for Hollywood Vintage, where he sometimes buys clothing, but we also stopped at several small consignment stores and a pottery studio. We ended up at Rerun,a community resale shop that had really good reviews online.
