Memorial Day Adventures

The state park has eight trails called out on its trail map. Over the last three weeks, we've hiked all but one of them at least once, and most of them several times. Today we hiked the final trail on the list, Whispering Pines.

Here's the waterfall the CCC built.

The trail crosses a small stream and traverses a couple of ravines. We've had most of the trails to ourselves, but today we encountered a couple and their young son who said they had managed to get "lost." They had started out on one trail and ended up on another. They seemed to be having fun.

We went over to Dick and Carol's for a holiday dinner. Robert and Debbie and the kids arrived just as we were pulling up. It's been a while since we've had a chance to visit with Robert, and Debbie says life has been very hectic with the school year ending. Robby actually had a school field day today, even though it's a holiday. He attends a charter school which probably needs to make up for some bad weather days.

We had a delicious dinner. Carol had prepared salmon, lasagna, broccoli with cheese sauce (to entice the kids....), and spinach salad. We slaved over a hot stove. Oh, wait. Actually we picked up a veggie tray at Brookshire's as our contribution. Debbie is on a Paleo diet, and salmon and raw veggies are definitely on her list.Carol had made granola bars and special chocolate chip cookies sweetened with dates and bananas, plus she had a bowl of fruit. It was all good.

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Brotherly love 8-)

Robert helping to clean up after dinner

After the Friths left, we were finishing our laundry when the weather took a sharp turn for the worse. Smith County was one of those under a flash flood warning and a tornado warning. Severe thunderstorms with hail and high winds were in the area.

A severe thunderstorm deluged Tyler, leading to rivers of water raging down Eagle St. Our truck was parked at the curb in front of the house, and it soon managed to trap several bags of trash and a couple of trash cans and even a microwave that had washed down the street! Once the storm abated, we packed up and went grocery shopping on the way home. It was a bit after eight o'clock when we were driving north toward our RV park. The western sky was a vivid orange red. All the rain created an unusual red sky.

We made it home safely, and our home was still here (not blown away or hit by lightning). We did hear later on the news that some of the neighboring communities had been hit quite hard. Again, we were lucky to dodge the worst of the storms. Read more!

East Texas Memorial Day Weekend

The campgrounds at the state park are full this weekend. A sign at the entrance declares "No vacancies without a reservation." We came upon this truck when we were walking through the Big Pine camping loop. Maybe it epitomizes the East Texas zeitgeist?

We've had a cute fledgling hopping around outside around our picnic table. Mom and dad have been keeping tabs on their errant offspring. We guess it fell out of its nest a bit prematurely during a recent storm. This afternoon it finally managed to get up in our tree--not by flying, but by fluttering its wings and climbing the bark. We hope it will be okay. It's certainly got spirit. At one point it hopped up our steps and seemed to be trying to get in the door where I was standing.

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More Rain

It rained steadily all morning again, so this afternoon we expected to find water on the old road in the state park. That's where we've been walking when the trails have been too muddy to manage. We did find running streams cutting through the roadway again. We also found something we didn't expect:



A large tree had fallen across the road. It definitely wasn't there yesterday. Fortunately we were able to walk under the fallen tree after deciding that it was probably stable for now. Read more!

Happy Birthday, Ken!

Today was Ken's 70th birthday! We went to the state park as usual to hike. Today we chose the D Loop, described as "challenging." It winds and switchbacks up and downhill through some interesting terrain.

D-Loop Trail Access Map

In the parking area we saw this U-Haul truck, chock full of signs and equipment for the endurance races scheduled for Saturday. It's very convenient for us that the workers are out busily clearing and marking the trails, which made it very easy to follow our route for today. The truck features graphics about the "Reptile Ritual"--in which thousands of red-sided garter snakes come together in giant mating balls. Live and learn.

Near the end of our hike, we came upon these two very nice benches commemorating some avid hikers.

The weather was very nice for our hike, but later in the afternoon a thunderstorm rolled in--and out--keeping East Texas green!

Ken's daughter, Rebecca, called from California to wish him a happy birthday. His son, Jeff, called from a bit farther away. He and Sabrina are in Maui, celebrating a belated honeymoon. Read more!

Evening Light

We went to the state park today to hike the B Loop, which is just over 3 miles. Most of it was easily passable, but a few sections are still pretty wet.

This afternoon we managed to replace the self-contained electrical outlet over the sink. It was quite an accomplishment and lots of hard work. We would never have been able to do it if we hadn't found a couple of clues on Google.

We spent some time watching a YouTube video on repairing your RV multiplex system. That gave us some clues about the organization of our wiring. However, we weren't able to isolate the problem with the DS exterior lights, which turn on and off entirely on their own. We will tackle that another day.

After supper this evening we strolled around the park a bit enjoying the lovely evening light. Ken took some photos. We noticed the beginnings of a rainbow in the sky, although it was not raining here.

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Stormy Weather and Healthy Eating

Yesterday was Mother's Day and a generally nice day until the storms began. We've been seeing forecasts of thunderstorms for the last week and even had a few brief storms. Last night was something an order of magnitude more severe and scary.

Our phones startled us with repeated emergency alerts about large hail, damaging winds of 70 mpg, likely tree damage, mobile home damage, and tornado warnings--all in Smith County, which is where Tyler is located. Lightning flashed all around us, and torrential downpours dumped a lot of water in very little time.

The park we are staying at does not have a storm shelter. In fact, it doesn't have any concrete buildings to shelter in, but we felt we needed to get out of our fifth wheel, so we went over to the community building. It's a metal building and so not much protection, but at least it has no trees around to fall on us.

We sat and read and watched the storms on our phones. A tornado touched down in Van, TX, which is only 22 miles west of us, and people were killed and injured. Eventually we dozed off, and around 1:00 a.m. we noticed a lull and decided to go to bed. We didn't need our flashlights to make our way home, because the lightning was still continuous.

We were lucky to have escaped injury in this terrible storm which caused so much destruction. Dick and Carol were returning from a family wedding in Seattle. Their flight into Dallas was much delayed, and they ended up getting a ride with a fellow passenger back to Tyler. Along the way they saw terrifying funnel clouds, but they also arrived home safely.

Today the weather was fine again, though mostly cloudy. We were even able to do our walking in the state park, although we had to dodge some streams of muddy water along the way.

I went with Carol this evening to the EatHealthyTyler vegan meeting. It was at the Natural Grocery, which has a community room in front of the store. The registered dietitian who runs the group has an assistant. Altogether there were about a dozen people attending, including one man.  Carol said that there were usually more.

People sat their dishes on the counter along with the recipes (sometimes with copies). We all ate and then voted on our favorites. A really delicious kale salad won.

There was no formal program this evening, but we had an interesting discussion of the benefits of a vegan diet and especially Dr. Joel Fuhrman's diet advice.

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The "Big Sit!"

We went to the state park this morning to do our regular hiking, but first we stopped by to visit the "Big Sit!" It is part of the Great Texas Birding Classic, The competition requires the team of bird watchers to record all the bird species they see or identify by sound from within a 17' diameter circle. Participants can come and go, and the park invited visitors to stop by.

We were amazed by the number of species they had identified. While we were there they spotted--and identified--birds flying high overhead that I could barely even see!
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More Hiking

Today we returned to Tyler State Park to hike. This time we chose the A Loop. It's 2.53 miles long and is described as "moderate." We found the trail easy going, with only moderate elevation gains.

We wanted to extend out hike a bit, so when we finished the A Loop, we went on to walk the Blackjack Nature Trail, which is only .35 miles long and traverses a grassy savannah. Although listed as a nature trail, it has no interpretive signage except the trailhead sign.

We took our umbrellas along, just in case, but fortunately we were home when the sky opened up for a short but heavy downpour. Read more!

Tyler State Park Trails

This morning on our way to Dick and Carol's we stopped at the state park to hike the Lakeshore Trail again. That takes about 45 minutes, so we stopped again on our way home this evening to get some more walking in. This time we hiked part of the B Loop Trail.  It starts off rather tamely.

As we walked we found roots and rocks in the trail, which made us glad we had our hiking sticks. We were also challenged by the hilly terrain. We'll go back tomorrow and hike the entire three miles of the B Loop while we still can. The weather forecast calls for lots of rain through this weekend starting tomorrow afternoon and evening.

We sorted out the cables connecting the Hurzeler computer to various peripherals, labeled them, and unhooked the CPU. The hard drive is severely compromised. Carol too the computer in to a local repair shop which is trying today to clone the hard drive. We'll find out in the morning if that worked (crossing our fingers). Read more!

Happy Birthdays

Today is Rebecca's 39th birthday. Ken called to wish her a happy birthday and reported that she seemed in good spirits and was planning to go hiking with Catt later. She was feeling sad about losing both her grandmother and her mother recently. This is her first birthday without them, and next Sunday will be her first Mother's Day after the loss. My mom passed away on May 5, 2007. It's hard to believe it's been eight years.

Ed came to pick up the boys. We had a pancake brunch before they left. We had fun with Sam and Jesse, but we also know why young people have children. It's hard for us to keep up with them.

We went over to Dick and Carol's and went out to Oliveto Italian Bistro to celebrate Carol's birthday, which was last Wednesday. The service was good, and the food was excellent. Carol had her favorite cedar plank salmon, and Dick had salmon pasta. We shared the rosemary chicken breast with jalapeno risotto and steamed broccoli. Then all of us shared the bread pudding with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and dulce de leche sauce.

Afterward we went to see Ida, one of the featured movies at the Kilgore Film Festival. It won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, 2015. Dick went with us because of course it was subtitled, but it turned out to have very little dialogue anyhow. Most of the thoughts and emotions of the characters were only implied in their expressions.

On the way home we stopped at Best Buy so Carol could buy a portable hard drive to back up their computer, which is threatening hard drive failure. We were able to get Windows Backup started, so we're hoping that with complete without incident so at least they won't lose all their photos and documents. Read more!

Another Zoo Visit

We met Carol with her grandson Robby at the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler this morning. Sam and Robby were instant fast friends. Everyone had fun, especially feeding the parakeets with seed sticks.

We had a picnic lunch at the zoo and then went over to Dick and Carol's so the boys could play together.

This afternoon we went back to the lake so the boys could play at the beach. This time there were crowds of kids in the water. Sam had fun using a noodle an swimming just at the edge of the deeper water and retrieving the ball I threw out to him. Jesse contented himself with playing in the shallows with the water frisbee and the other ball. Both boys played in the sand and blew bubbles and water through the noodle.

Tonight we watched My Neighbor Totoro, one of the DVDs the boys brought along. Chris and Anara called. They were walking through Laurelhurst Park, which made them think of us. I think Chris probably gave Totoro to the boys, since it's written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, one of Chris's favorite directors of Japanese anime. Read more!

Water Play!

Julie dropped Sam and Jesse off this afternoon for some quality time with Grandma Lee and Grandpa Ken. She was taking Cate to Fort Worth for the PSIA competition tomorrow. Cate will be competing in the spelling bee.

We took the boys to Tyler State Park to play at the beach. We walked the Lakeshore Trail this morning and saw some kids having fun in the water, so we figured it was warm enough--at least for kids! We had a ball playing ball in the shallow water which has risen over the beach.

After a bit some boys decided to join the fun. They played "Monkey in the Middle" with Sam. It's a game of keep away that I've usually called "pickle." It takes lots of energy, as the monkey runs back and forth and jumps for the ball.

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Happy Birthday, Carol!

Today is Carol's 75th birthday. We drove in to town to see her and Dick and especially to wish her a very happy birthday. We touched base and agreed to meet up at the Caldwell Zoo on Saturday, each of us with two grandsons in tow.

Dick pointed out that you can see the Park Place Nursing and Rehabilitation Center behind their back fence and said that one of the residents is none other than our friend Faye Nell Monzingo. He goes to visit her about once a week. She has both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes and can hardly stand up with a walker. I would like to go see her while we're in Tyler for the next month.

We stopped at Tyler State Park on the way back home to walk. The office was closed, so we'll have to ask next visit for a trails map. Today we drove back to the Big Pine campground, where we've stayed before in our Excel. We walked around the campground and on the trail across the dam and into the woods. Read more!

On to Tyler: Lion's RV Park

This morning we prepared to hook up and move. Then we went for a final walk around the neighborhood--and to the Sunbeam Bakery Discount Store to take advantage of their Wednesday Senior Day. We got a loaf of Nature's Own whole wheat bread free with our purchase of Nature's Own Whole Wheat bagels for one dollar. Such a deal.

We had been concerned about all the recent rain storms leaving the ground very soft and muddy, but fortunately yesterday was dry and sunny, so we had no problem pulling out of our site at the VFW. We went to Love's to dump our tanks and then on to Lyons Propane to fill our outer propane tank. Then we were ready to hit the road.

Our trip to the Lion's RV Park north of Tyler was just under 100 miles. We arrived at 3:30 p.m. The park is out in the country, on a Farm to Market road which is pretty well traveled. The manager offered us our choice of five sites, but only one was in a desirable spot and had a view of the southern sky for the DirecTV dish. We have a tree and a picnic table and a partial view of the small private lake.

This will be our home for the next month. Although the park has a Tyler address, it's closer to the small town of Lindale. Tomorrow we'll drive the 17 miles to Dick and Carol's house to wish Carol a happy birthday. Read more!

Last Day

David Briggs, my ex-nephew, came by to see me for the first time in many years. He was in Nacogdoches to visit his twelve-year-old son, Justin. Dave prefers to be called Bender these days, in honor of his profession as a balloon man extraordinaire. He joined us in a walk around the neighborhood, and we caught up on what has been going on in our lives.

When Sam was done with his homework, we played Chicken Cha Cha Cha (colloquially known as "The poopy chicken game." It's a memory game, and I was doing so poorly that Sam helped me out. My short term memory is definitely not what it used to be.

This evening we went to Angelina College for a program titled Celebrate America that included the chamber wind band and the AC Chorale.

One of the highlights of the program was Native American flutist named Ryan Harjo, a Creek Indian from Livingston, Texas, who played Shenandoah.

Back at the house we packed up our things and hugged everyone goodbye. Read more!

Stormy Night

We were awakened in the early morning hours by the klaxon of a severe weather alert on our phones. The warning was about flash flooding, and we're on relatively high ground, so we turned over and tried to go back to sleep, listening to the heavy downpour, wind, and thunder. When we got up in the morning, I found a text from Ed: their house had flooded.

Julie organized the cleanup with help from their landlady, who sent a couple of workers to help out. They hung the area rug from the dining room over the fence to dry. Julie wedged some folding chairs under the rug in the living room, which was wet in only the one corner.

The kids were out of school for the day because of the storm too. St. Patrick's school had no electricity. Read more!

Earth Day at the Zoo

We took the kids to the zoo again today, this time to celebrate Earth Day.

We got a map with lots of stations marked on it with conservation and animal awareness crafts and activities. We got to see lots of the animals again too. The lemurs were making a raucous noise.

Grandpa Ken was kept busy making photos of the events.

This photo was published on the Ellen Trout Zoo Facebook page!

Making bead necklaces from magazine pages

Smiling for the camera!

Painting with pine needle brushes

It's a Nene, Hawaii's official state bird.

"Bears" in the bear maze, looking for food during each season of the year.

Bears crossing a highway have to watch out for cars. Our "bears" have to watch out for flying beach balls. Jesse was a casualty!


Is your hand as big as a bear paw???

This class studied butterflies and are now helping to educate other kids about butterfly life cycles.

Making bird feeders with peanut butter and seeds.

Tired and hungry, we headed home for lunch. Then at 3:00 p.m. Sam had a birthday skating party. His sister and brother joined in, and a good time was had by all.

After dinner we went back over to visit and play a game. Ed and Sam and Jesse and I played Monopoly Jr. Sam won!




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Million Dollar Quartet

Ed and Julie took us to a performance of Million Dollar Quartet at Angelina College, put on by the Angelina Arts Alliance. We had fifth row center seats for a high energy evening. The show was underwritten by the Loving Auto Group and the Brookshire Brothers Charitable Foundation. Ed was able to get four tickets as an employee of Loving Honda. We wished that more had been available so the kids could have come too, but they enjoyed staying with Papa John.



Cate is spending the night at Papa John's to be ready to leave very early tomorrow morning for San Antonio for the fifth grade class field trip.

Earlier today we managed to close up and move the rig to Love's Travel Stop to dump the tanks. We had been concerned because the heavy rainstorm a couple of days ago saturated the ground. It was sunny yesterday and today, which definitely helped, but we still dug some pretty deep ruts in the muddy grass. We were very glad to be back in our site with mission accomplished! Read more!