Moving West (Part 2)

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Next stop - visiting our friends Glenn and Karin in Tucson. We always enjoy our visits with them. Tom was a little sick (cold), so the activities were limited the first couple of days. Just visiting with our friends and with Cooper, the dog, who thinks we are part of his pack.

Tom felt better on Sunday, so we all went to the Biosphere 2. In the early 1990's, a grand experiment was started. Years of preparation and expense financed by private citizens, created the worlds largest greenhouse.

 In the greenhouse, five sections were dedicated to different environments. Desert, ocean coral reef, rainforest, savanna grassland, and mangrove wetland in a closed, air locked building. The crew of ten had to tend to their own food (and cook for each other.) They cared for each of the systems, including the maintenance on the air flow. The facility was built in the desert north of Tucson, which meant that heating and cooling were essential and expensive. The plants placed in the building were designed to help the air flow system.

These ten people lived in a tight quarters for 2 years. Each had to work about 10 hours a day 7 days a week. The outside contact was by email and phone. No one entered and no one left. The experiment was endangered after a year and a half. The concrete had not been cured enough or sealed. The curing process drew oxygen out of the air, so the controllers had to pump in oxygen to finish the 2-year experiment.

An experiment is a process to prove or disprove a theory. The enclosed environment did not end with all the desired success, but they learned about how the world works. Another human experiment was planned for six months and was a success at proving the enclosed environment can work.

When we arrived on Friday, Karin was cooking and we knew were in for a treat. They cooked Chicago deep dish pizza and a beef stew that would knock your socks off. (It did Tom's, he was pretty useless after each meal.) Our offering was smoked salmon (from Dawson Creek, BC) made into a cream cheese dip. 

This year the desert was really green - unusual and very beautiful. It was early in the season and already beautiful - I imagine it is gorgeous by now! Our friends mentioned a Picacho state park where we should be able to see the first Arizona poppies of the season - and it was right off the highway on our way north.

The yellow patches in the first picture are the Arizona poppies. They're lovely up close as well.

This year we bypassed Phoenix and headed towards Gila Bend to meet up with another couple we met in Maine in 2006. We dry camped at the Elks Club. Fun times!

The next day, we passed through a Quartzite Arizona, which is packed with RVers in January and February. Many of them "boondock" (camp without water or electricity connections). It was much emptier when we passed through. Some day we'll be back in the high season just to see what it's like.

After lunch in one of the BLM camping areas, we headed north across the desert. In many places we were in sight of the Colorado River - this RV resort may be "out in the boondocks", but it sure isn't "boondocking".

In the afternoon, we stopped at Lake Havasu City AZ to see the London Bridge. A wealthy real estate developer bought the crumbling bridge from the City of London in the 1970's.

They marked each stone as the disassembled it and reassembled it as a bridge to an island in Lake Havasu.

Next day was St Patrick's Day. We both wore green, but didn't find an Irish pub and no beer ( and no racing at Las Vegas). We did have corned beef and cabbage at a casino in Mesquite NV which was pretty good.

The next stop is quite interesting, but we will make you wait a few days before that post. See you in future and thanks for reading!

Moving West (Part 1)

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What a wonderful time for us. The start of a new adventure is always exciting. We leave Eufaula with a touch of sadness in our hearts for our friends there, but we know when we go somewhere, we will be heading out to the next venture.

The first stop for our trip to Oregon is in a small town called Red Bay Alabama. It is the home of the Tiffin Motorhomes, the manufacturer of our house on wheels. We had a few nagging leaks and other small necessities to look after. It is nice that we can take our house to the repair shop instead of waiting for different services to come to us. We had plumbing, roofing, structure and air conditioning service all at one shop, but not at the Tiffin shop after all. Tiffin was booked up, so they set us up with a shop run by a former employee of Tiffin right across the street. The service was excellent and we were on the road in two days (instead of the week we would have had to spend at Tiffin.)

The lineup waiting for yearly service or repairs in Red Bay.

Next stop, Westwego Louisiana. It is the site of Bayou Signette, our home near New Orleans. We got a lot of Grady time, spending the day on Friday with him. Baby sitting on Saturday night.

Papa Tom reading to the Gman - he loves books!

We spent Sunday with him and the family and the other grandparents and their family. First we went to Storyland at New Orleans City Park - he really like the B-I-G slide (with Dady) and the little statues.

Look at that smile! And at Daddy's concentration on getting stopped safely!

The Murphys were celebrating Kerry's birthday and we were invited for Sunday dinner - and we're most grateful! Family time is great. Once again, we thank the New Orleans connection for a great visit.

Grady has to help Kerry open her gifts.

We decided to detour our planned route to go to Livingston Texas. It is the headquarters of Escapees, an organization of RV travelers. They host many services, including a care center for members with some type of illness or need for care while recovering from an operation.. We did not get to tour the care center because we arrived late, but we did walk around the grounds and talk to several of the members. They are a great group. Should you chose this lifestyle, they are one of the “must join” groups.

We did have an issue in Livingston. Not with the Escapees, but with the motorhome. Our stabilizing jack motor quit working. We were headed to the Dallas area, so we scheduled a stop at RV shop. Luckily it was a connection problem and we did not have to wait on a part. You know, sometimes you just get lucky.

Our plans were taking us to DFW to visit friends. We had a very pleasant evening with Bill and Carol (and a great meal.) The visiting was so good, we forgot to take pictures! We had planned on seeing other friends, but we were unsure about the jack situation, so we did not make contact. Next time.

Rest areas in TX are not just for humans...they even installed a hydrant for the "K-9" contingent.

From Dallas, we drove 2 days to Deming, NM. This is the third time we stayed there. Sally visited the local used book store (bought several books) and the Rockhound Gathering at the fairgrounds. A nice break.

Next stop - Tucson. We have lots of pictures and things to talk about there, so we will sign off here and leave you with that teaser. We hope all of you are doing well and thanks for indulging us with your time.

Eufaula and the moving preparation

First of all, we realize our posting might appear to be bragging. It is really a way for us to remember where we were and what we were doing at a specific time. We are getting more and more forgetful and crossing time periods for events. We encourage everyone to do this, write your experiences. Some day you will appreciate the memories. We enjoy looking at pictures from three years ago and remembering the friends, scenery and activities.

February has been a transition month for us the past two years. This year we have moved from Gautier MS to Eufaula NWR. Eufaula has been our winter home for three of the last four years. We enjoy the people we work with at Eufaula. Thanks to all of the staff and Don and Mary for making our time there a lot of fun.

Visiting family and friend was also high on our list in the month. We have been fortunate to see folks in Florida, Atlanta and Anniston. We had a great visit with Sally's father, brother and niece and great niece.

 

We took two trips to Atlanta. Early in the month, Tom watched the Superbowl with a friend while Sally visited her Tai Chi friends aand teacher.

Tom collected a few prizes - how about that super coozy?!

Then two weeks later, we were back in town to attend a mortgage burning party where we ran into friends unseen for many years.

 

Now we are in Anniston, preparing for our trip out west and north for the summer. We will travel with stops planned in New Orleans, Dallas, Tucson and Salt Lake City. Then we'll spend April and May volunteering at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

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Our current plans are to tour throughout the month of June. We will be volunteering at Voyageur National Park at the Ash River Visitor Center near International Falls MN in July, August and September. There is a lot of work getting ready for a trip such as this. The weather will run the full gamut of seasons. The activities will involve snow and swimming. We look forward to the next 8 months. We hope, like us, you all have a lot to look forward to in the coming months.

Happy Year 2010

It does not matter if you call this year two-thousand-ten or twenty-ten, it just matters that you make a good year of it. We plan to make it a little like last year, but a little different.

We have heard that whatever you do on New Years Day you will be doing a lot of during the year. We might be in trouble. We drove to a friends house and celebrated the big eve, then drove back to the motor home. Oh well, we live on the road anyway. NYE was brought in with lots of music and then Dick Clark. Being in the Central Time Zone, the crystal ball dropped at 11 pm. Being the old fogies we are we were in bed by 11:30. (Did I mention we had a long drive on New Years Day, we wanted to be home bfore the big games started, so it was a early rising for us.) Not even any pictures!

The year has started well. We have seen a few more friends, seen more of the family and spent many days meeting people at the refuge from all walks of life. And speaking of walks, we had the opportunity to help with the firefighters pack test.

To be a certified wildfire firefighter, you must walk three miles with a forty-five pound pack in forty-five minutes or less. Having hiked on trails carrying our food, clothes and shelter, we can relate with the experience, that is, except for the timing issue. Our job was very easy. We stood at a point close to the middle of the walk (three laps on a one mile loop) with water. We also had to watch for runners, as you must walk the the entire trip. We took pictures and handed out water and generally cheered the groups on. There were people from a lot of different organizations, state, federal and local, participating. Seeing how some of these folks, who are in pretty good shape, handled it, we are glad we do not have to meet the pack requirements.

Sally got the bright idea we needed a King Cake. The area is big into the Mardis Gras season. Jan 6 is the celebration of the Epiphany, the day the three wise men arrived to see Jesus. This is the tradional start of King Cake season (only during Mardis Gras season). We waited until the 7th so the whole volunteer/visitor services group would be at the office for our weekly staff meeting.

We took a quick trip to Atlanta to see friends. Our buddy Chuck was in from Costa Rica. Kurt came over the Chuck's house for a visit, Sally and Sandi went shopping and Tom and Don watched playoff games. We also had lunch with Larry and his family - real good Mexican.

Then we visited Sally's sister Suzanne and niece Bethany and great niece Layla who were down from IL. The summit took place at nephew Zach and Sam's house with another great neice Annalyn. Then a quick trip to Anniston to get mail and the trip home. (Remember the thought about traveling on New Years Day, is it already true?)

(Deep breath) Meanwhile, back at the ranch (it is an old radio/TV serial joke for those of you too young to remember), we have had a hopping visitor trade. People from Canada and the northern U.S. come down to the area for winter. We also saw two of our volunteers, Ron and Linda, move on to their next duty station. They are missed. But we had new arrivals. Rocky and Jan and Kerry and Sharon. They are all nice folks. We wish we had more time with them, but we will headed back to Eufaula at the end of the month.

We are close enough to New Orleans that we got to visit with Stephen, Katie and Grady a couple of times before we moved farther away. He's getting big now - and it can be hard to keep up with him.

Our little G-man. He's walking pretty well now, but still learning to navigate on rough terrain. Note his first little boo-boo...







We took advantage of a few last sunny days to explore the other two refuges in the Mississippi coast complex - Bon Secour and Grand Bay. The trip to Bon Secour involves a ferry ride across Mobile Bay to Dauphin Island. That definitely confused our GPS...

Beach at Bon Secour

Bon Secour trail...

Grand Bay NWR / National Estuarine Research Reserve Facility

Ferry ride has Gabby confused...

Speaking of the volunteer work, Tom got to lead a couple of crane tours - one was a spur of the moment deal with a couple of guys from New Zealand.

We got chances to see more of the cranes as well. The biology staff released five more young captive-raised cranes into a pen on the refuge to acclimate them to their new home. Though our help was limited to moving the cranes traveling boxes into the pen, we still got plenty of pictures. The cranes have 'brailes' on their wings that allow them some movement, but not enough to fly. The pen contains a pond for drinking and roosting at night, areas to feed, and a little feed shed for supplemental food.

Releasing the Crane

At home...

This is one of the few times that they let the cranes see and hear humans. Otherwise, they want the to associate only with other cranes. After the release we left quickly. When the staff goes back to feed them, they wear crane costumes. See Sally modeling the costume at left....

Once the cranes have spent some time in the pen, the staff does a study to see if they are ready to be released. We spent two hours in a blind writing down what the five cranes were doing at the start of each minute. We thought it might be boring, but the time passed very quickly. We did get to use our rubber boots - the trail to the blind is pretty wet!

On our last day, w participated in a Mardis Gras parade in Ocean Springs on Jan 30th. Tom got to drive the float (a decorated truck pulling a similarly decorated trailer). We had a couple of large speakers for the music, a crane (not a live one - an intern dressed in costume!), plus several folks dressed very warmly dancing and throwing beads to the crowd. Even though the parade was in the afternoon, it was still very cold. Lineup was on the beachfront (think 10-15 mph winds, grey skies and temps in the low 40's). It was better once the parade got rolling up into town, especially since we were all dancing and throwing.

Then off to Eufaula. So there, now you know how boring our life really is.

Holiday Season Events

Hello from Gautier MS. We are in recovery mode from all the holidays and other events in our lives.

After all our Thanksgiving travels, we rested the next weekend, well, at least we didn't travel too far. We watched the SEC Title game at home. At least Tom did, Sally doesn't watch Alabama on TV, she went to a MS Surge hockey game. She had a good time, Tom had a good time, Alabama won and life is good.

We went to New Orleans for the first celebration of Grady's (grandson) birth.

There was cake and ice cream and food galore. Grady took a while to get the idea, but eventually he ate most of his cake! At least, the part that didn't end up in his hair.

It was also a festival of young children. Several of Steven and Katie's freinds have small children, so there was a lot little folks. Thanks to the Murphy's for putting their house in such danger with all the little ones (and the older folks).

The next weekend was a visit to Gordo Alabama for the Hall family Christmas. It was held at Carol and Perry's. Their daughters did a wonderful job of decorating - very warm and inviting. They have a lot of talent!

Once again a lot of fun and fellowship with family. We are glad we can gather with our relatives.

We left the family gathering and headed down to Ft. Walton to meet with our friends from Dayton Ohio. It was fun to try to play a joke on Mike as we helped his wife set up a surprise visit from his son. The weather sort of messed up the joke, but the son's arrival was still a surprise.

Finally, we celebrated Christmas in New Orleans. The Murphy's host a large family gathering and graciously allowed us to tag along. It was a great day - warm and sunny enough for a pleasant walk. Grady had another big pile of presents. He was fascinated with his little spotted dog - when you put the ball in the dog's mouth it would spin around and bark. And he was very handsome in the cable sweater that Grammer knit for him.

Preparing Christmas brunch at the Murphy's.












After working December 26th, we drove down to Florida to celebrate a late Christmas with Sally's Dad in Florida. This time the, all the fruit was ripe. We carried back a couple of big boxes and shared it with the folks in Gautier, New Orleans and Anniston. There's still a little left, but since the big freeze down there, that's probably it for the year.

As you can tell, we did a lot of family and freind visits in the five week holiday season. Next is New Years. Perhaps we should make a resolution to stay off the highwasy so much. We do not think that will happen. It is so good to see everyone. We hope all had a fun and safe holiday season. Till next time...

The move to Gautier (go-shay) MS

Surprise, surprise, we have moved again back in November. We enjoyed helping out in Eufaula at the NWR, but we have moved to the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is the first designated area specifically for an endangered species, the MS Sandhill Crane. There are about 117 cranes surviving today, up from 30 about 40 years ago. It is a difficult process returning a population of wild animals. They have to be trained to avoid predators, they have to be taught to eat, then put out to socialize in order to breed, then turned loose to fend for themselves. All of this, and more, have to be done without allowing the animal to get used to humans. It is sometimes a comical activity, but more often tragic. The area is close to I-10 and the feeding
grounds are on both sides of the highway. Animals have not learned to adapt to something large going 70 miles per hour.

The housing area is good, considering this area was part of the devestation of Katrina. The Visitor Center where we are most of the time is new and very nice. Come on down and see it (and us). We are alternating with another couple, Linda and Ron. They are long term full-timers, quite fun to be around. We have some interns living in a trailer next to us (once again, the grounds have not be fully developed since the storm.) We are just outside the construction for new employee housing for interns on the refuge. These things just take time. We are really enjoying working with the staff. Doug and Emily really work hard to see to our needs. They show a lot of appreciation for our work also.

There are two visitor centers on the refuge - this one is at Grand Bay. It's also a estuarine research reserve (NERR) operated in conjunction with NOAA and the state of Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. A wonderful building filled with research labs and classrooms for scientists studying the are where freshwater meets the gulf.

The wet pine savanna at MS Sandhill Crane Refuge.

 Pitcher plants on the savanna.

The bayou behind the RV parking area.

We did our annual Thanksgiving travel on (of course) Thanksgiving Day. We drove from Gautier to Tuscaloosa to Eufaula. There was about 9 hours in the truck, thank goodness we like each other. It was great seeing Tom's relatives in Tuscaloosa, this years crowd was small, but intelligent. :<)). Thanks to Margene and Frank for hosting the party. We always enjoy the company there.

Getting ready for the Thanksgiving meal.

The drive to Eufaula was uneventful, just the way we like. Sally enjoyed the annual shopping trip and the Mexican Food and Chritmas party was indeed fun for both of us. We are sure there were three generations (maybe four) represented. The annual trivia game ended without an official winner (but the men had one more pie piece than the ladies).

There have been two trips to New Orleans to see Stephen, Katie and Grady. The last trip was a cooking expedition for us. We brought halibut from Alaska, simmering sauce from Killer Seafood in Florida and fresh Gulf of Mexico (caught in Louisiana)shrimp. We thought it was good feast, we hope everyone else enjoyed it.

Speaking of Killer Seafood, we took a trip to Crystal River to see Sally's family.

Suzie was down from Peoria and her son Zach with wife Samantha and baby Annalyn came down from Atlanta. Karl and Anne and Whit were once again exceptional hosts. We enjoyed a Mast Brothers Gospel concert (Karl is the bass for the group). It was a wonderful time. On our way back to Gautier, we stopped for lunch at Killer Seafood in Mexico Beach Florida.



In general, we have had food, fellowship and fun since our arrival to Gautier. Christmas time is now upon us. We often stop and count our blessings. We are very thankful for the family, friends and the health we enjoy. We wish the best for all in this holiday season and beyond.