On the Road Again!

It's spring and Tom & Sally have hit the road again!

It has been a while since our last posting. We have finished our winter volunteer stint at Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge. We spent a lot of time helping with updating the filing and other necessary administrative items. We also enjoyed outside work related activities. The birds have been magnificent. We have seen ducks and geese and other waterfowl, and Tom has seen a Whooping Crane that flew in with some sandhill cranes. They are very rare, only about 600 known to be in existence. The known birds are numbered and have a radio transmitter attached. This one was something like 948 and a person from the University of Minnesota came down in a van to track the migration.

We started our journey this summer with a visit to the to the house doctor. We needed some minor repairs on the RV and truck. Both items went off without a hitch, so we actually made our first stop at a campground scheduled for the second day. We are members of a club called Escapees. They have a park near Fairhope Alabama. We stayed there two nights. We walked along the beach and enjoyed the company of those who live the nomadic life. Even made it to the Flora-Bama!

The Beach at Gulf Shores - strong wind warning in effect

We then moved over to New Orleans (or Westwego on the south bank to be exact.) Friday Stephen and the Murphy’s threw a crawfish boil for 40. It was quite a treat and we thank all those who put so much effort into the party. We were able to sit around a visit on Saturday and Sunday. Easter services were grand and the brunch at Patois was fantastic.

The crawfish are ready!

Birthday party in the backyard

We moved on the Abbeville Louisiana to Betty’s RV Park on Monday to rest and relax a little bit. This park is a great hang out (see last year’s blog) with a chance to enjoy the company of other RV’ers. Betty has a “Happy Hour” where folks bring snacks and drinks and just talk about the activities everyone enjoyed during the day. We got to see a few people we saw last year, in all another good time.

After two days of hard driving in a tremendous wind (gusts up to 50 miles per hour) we have arrived at Corpus Christi Texas. On the way we made a stop at Aransas NWR where we spent the morning driving the auto tour route and looking at the birds. And Sally finally got to see her whooper in the wild from the observation tower.

Aransas Refuge

We are stopped now in Corpus Christi for sight seeing and to see our grand niece Evie. Brian and Donice (Sally’s nephew and niece) live here in this area of the Gulf of Mexico. We are staying in a very nice campground that Brian found for us, with a pool and hot tub, horse shoes and in general all the amenities snowbirders look for in a winter home.

Beach near Corpus Christi

This summer we'll be traveling west again - just not quite as far north. We're spending May & June camp-hosting at a couple of Washington State Parks. Then in August we'll be at Malheuer National Wildlife Refuge in the hig desert of eastern Oregon. We're spending six weeks getting to Washington - Tom has a complete itinerary but we expect to deviate a little. Here's the plan from here forward:

• Ride across Texas
• Visit Carlsbad Caverns
• Head for Tucson to spend a week with our friends Glenn & Karin who went to Alaska with us
• Grand Canyon & Hoover Dam
• Four Corners (Utah, Arizona, California, New Mexico)
• Moab, UT
• Then either across Nevada and California to the coast and up I-5 to Tacoma or north to a camp host training session in eastern Washington before heading to our first assignment

The gas prices have not frightened us off completely, and the wind and the miles have not deterred us. So look for postings in the near future. Good luck to everyone out there.

PS: Don't you love the pictures? - Sally has a new camera and is having a great time with it.

• North to Washington