Sunsets and Skies

As I previously threatened to do, I am going to post some favorite pictures to this blog in hope they will have a more permanent home than where they resided previously on line.  I will simply post the photos for each category with the briefest descriptions of the scene. Enjoy them if you want; ignore them if you must.

Anaconda Montana Sunset

Bowling Green Ohio

Dragoon Mountains Arizona

Horseshoe Lakes Clinton Indiana

Keaton Beach Florida

Glacier National Park Montana

Anaconda Montana

Lakewood New Mexico 

Custer South Dakota

Carrabelle Florida

Soledad Canyon California

Titusville Florida

Casa Grande Arizona

Casa Grande Arizona

Cottonwood Arizona

Tarentum,Pennsylvania Above and Below

Salmon Prairie Montana

Lake Conroe Additions and Columbus TX 2014

I have a couple of new pictures to add to those already posted to the Lake Conroe page and as we are preparing to leave Columbus TX for our new digs in Port O'Connor TX on the Gulf Coast I have a few images from our week in Columbus too.

There were lots of Bluebirds and this one posed for the camera.

Try as I may, I cannot get Blogger to display this vertically so you will either have to turn your screen or bend over to view the Red-bellied Woodpecker.

This was our Anniversary Dinner consisting of whole lobster, grilled peppers and onions, wild and long grain rice and cheddar bay biscuits prepared by your blogger.

Quite a herd of deer roamed the campground at Thousand Trails Colorado River Preserve and this seemed to be the dominant male.

These two young bucks provided early mornng entertainment for Dixie and me as they practiced their head butting.  When the big guy above decided he had seen enough he charged over and scattered them momentarily. But like all youngsters, as soon as he retreated they were right back at it!

The youngsters in more peaceful times.

Columbus is the County Seat of Colorado County TX and was established in 1837. It is one of the ealiest settlements in the state. The courthouse, to the right above is undergoing restoration. The circular tower in the foreground was once the town water tower which was built in 1833 after the town nearly burned down.  Its walls are nearly four feet thick and are made from 400,000 locally produced bricks. A metal water tank sat atop and the local fire department had its facilities below. Today it is a museum.

The Columbus Oak. Read about it below.

A picture cannot do justice to the immense size of this tree which is thought to be 500 years old.

Columbus Oak Stats.

Cathy's hot tea was leaving a vapor trail above the cup and the sunlight passing through resulted in a little rainbow.  

The Colorado River (not to be confused with the Grand Canyon carving river of the same name) is the 18th longest river in the United States and the longest river with both its source and mouth within Texas.  It is 862 miles long.

The Colorado River originates south of Lubbock and flows generally southeast through the Thousand Trails Preserve and eventually emptying into the Gulf of Mexico at Matagorda Bay near where we are presently parked in Port O'Connor.

A Few Birds and 2 Dogs - Texas 2014

For my first blog entry for the new year I have just a few photos to share. Frankly it has been too cold to get outside too much since we got here to Lake Conroe about an hour's drive north of Houston.  We are staying until January 13 and will have been here for 6 weeks then.  This is a Thousand Trails Resort and it is quite busy with lots of full time residents as well as travelers passing through.

Lake Conroe was completed in 1973 and was built to serve Houston as a source of drinking water.  The lake is 21 miles long with a convoluted shoreline which has given rise to extensive residential development which continues today. New construction offers are from $300,000 to $5 million for waterfront properties!  The Thousand Trails is situated on one of the tributary streams and has lake access for boating, fishing and birdwatching.

I have been looking for a way to make it easier for us to enter and exit the rig. Ever since Cathy had her fall taking Dixie outside I have been looking for a solution. Our stop at the Escapees Park in Livingston TX was fortuitous as another member had just what we needed and he gave me the contact information to get the handrail you see in the pictures below.  It extends automatically as the steps extend and retracts with the steps for travel.  So this week it arrived and we had it installed by a local RV Tech.  

Handrail Extended

Handrail Travel Position

We have been treated to near daily visits from Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers at a tree just outside our table.  I have taken some photos through the window so they are not as sharp as they might be.  This bird, as the name implies, feeds on the sap from trees which is accessed by small holes made from pecking the bark. Birds must constantly maintain the holes and enjoy not only the sap, but any insects which may be trapped in it too.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

It is the only woodpecker to have the long white stripe along the folded wing.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

There seems to be a few resident ducks, mostly Mallards, but I did spot a Northern Shoveler in the boat launch area. I spoke to another geezer who had taken pictures of the Bufflehead but it was not around when I returned with my camera.

Northern Shoveler

And the last of the bird photos for this time is the ubiquitous Black Vulture, Nature's Clean Up Crew!

Black Vulture

This, I think is a young one and a sibling is just out of the frame. Larger birds were perched atop boat shelters.  Interestingly, there was a single Mallard lying on the dock nearly motionless until a woman and her dog walked on the dock and the duck raised his head in alert. This morning when I returned it was gone and the Vultures were circling overhead.

Now to happier images...The folks next to us live in Houston and have a rig parked here year around. They came just after Christmas with an Australian Shepherd puppy they had been given by their daughter as a Christmas gift.  Since then, Dixie and Honey Bear have become pretty good buddies and enjoy a romp with one another.  I picked 2 shots of a series from a recent "play date". 

Ya wanna play?

Why I oughtta...

Thanks for looking.  I'll be adding more new pictures as we move around and hopefully find warmer weather, but we are keeping toasty with just two electric heaters and have only had to use the gas furnace rarely.  Since we have to pay a flat rate for the elecricity we might as well use it!

I am also contemplating posting some of my favorite pictures from 10 years on the road.  Since my original Pixagogo albums were lost when the company folded, I thought I'd preserve some of what I deem the best in future, but irregular posts!

Paul B. Johnson State Park - Hattiesburg MS 2013

Paul B. Johnson was a Governor of Mississippi during World War II and the State Park named for him sits on the shores of Geiger Lake.  Once known as Lake Shelby for the nearby US Army Base, the lake was built by German Prisoners of War during the time of Johnson's governorship.  Camp Shelby was one of several POW Camps in Mississippi during the War. There is a very interesting article online describing in detail the POW Camps in the state and the utilization of the prisoners for local labor projects.

The link below may not be live so if you want to read about the POWs you will need to copy the link and paste into your browser's address bar.

http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/index.php?id=233

This is our second stay here and we stayed 6 days, the longest stop of our southern trek this year.  We like it because we can park right at the water's edge as you can see from the first photo.

The park is located about 20 miles south of Hattiesburg on Route US 49. As you enter the park from the highway, you are faced with this low water crossing to proceed to the campground.

But we made it without incident!  Below here is our view from our dining table where we see ducks, the occasional fisherman (or woman) or just the pleasant rippling of the water.

This scene is more or less out our windshield and it reminds me of a Bob Ross painting with all those "happy little trees here and there and there and here" as the late Mr. Ross often said while creating his images on PBS.

and below pulled out a little farther to include some happy little clouds, too.

A chain saw artiste has been busy since we were here last in 2008 adding some friendly bear sculptures around the campground.

Wildlife has been a little scarce this time but we did manage to see some of the local critters as we moved around.  The lake covers 225 acres and is stocked with popular southern species including largemouth bass, crappie, bluegill, shellcracker and channel catfish.  So it attracts lots of boat fishing enthusiasts.

Below is pictured a bunch of turtles sunning on a log. Notice 2 tiny babies at the right end of the log. 

And in this we see the lonely Blue Heron on stakeout for lunch in one of the backwater pools.

Some resident Muscovy Ducks seem to be everywhere you look, but in reality there are probably fewer than a dozen cruising the shallows and occasionally getting a handout from campers. Muscovys are a Central American import which seem to be able to adapt to a variety of climates.

That will do it for this post.  We will be in Beaumont TX for 3 days before heading to the Escapees Rainbow's End Park in Livingston for about 2 weeks.

Summer Fun - 2013

As we pause near Knoxville TN for the weekend I am puzzled with the concept of the farther South we have come, the colder it has gotten! It was 28 degrees this morning with a lot of frost on everything. But the entire southeast is in the throes of a cold spell and temperatures are to return to normals early next week.

I will take this time to update this blog with some photos from our summer in Hershey and whatever else comes to mind. We had to have some work done on the RV this summer and there are still some things unfinished. We need a compressor for the dashboard air conditioner and the tech we had used could not locate the correct item before we left, so we are not unhappy with the cool weather so far. We have needed the heater rather than the AC!

Our travels will be a little different with our new residential style refrigerator we used to replace the RV model capable of operating on either propane or electricity. That style is made primarily by a company called Norcold and the wags have suggested the units are not so cold. We could not keep ice cream, frost buildup was constant and annoying and when the old one quit working it was almost good news.  The household refrigerator only runs on alternating current and at that only the flavor that comes from a real electrical source. The ac output from the power inverter onboard is not compatible with the cooling syatem of the regrigerator. So while we drive we are not making cold, but preserving the cold in the box until we get to a place to plug into shore power again. The insulation in today's refrigerators is excellent and we do not anticipate any problems, since we do not boondock or dry camp any more.

Before and after Kendalyn went to be with her father in Illinois she and her Mom were frequent weekend visitors. As I chronicled Kendalyn mastered riding the bicycle this summer and it was always the first thing she wanted to do when she got here. What an amazing transformation from her fear and trepidation that she would "fall and smash her face" at the earliest times to the unbridled joy of racing around the campground at the end!  Alas the bike was not too durable and developed a problem of slipping the chain off the sprocket.  Repeated attempts to adjust the chain tension resulted in stripping the threads on the rear axle and the bike was deposited at the dumpster. Maybe Santa will have a new one he can spare.

Not too many bird pictures this summer but we did see this blue heron frequenting the shallows of the lake.  We also saw, less often the Green Heron below. It was more wily and flew off if we showed too much interest.

Fall was trying to impress but rather slowly as the usual bright specimens around the lake were unspectacular this year.  This one in near the Family Center was the best we saw.  Neither have we been fortunate with seeing fall color on our jaunt through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia this year.  Only the very distant and highest moutain tops seem to have substantial coloration.

Laura and Kendalyn went to a local corn maze and managed to escape without getting lost.  The first photo shows the maze as a drawing. It is in the shape of a farm tractor if seen from the air.

They also took some "selfies" and some from the wagon ride through the pumpkin patch.  Kendalyn is tall, but not as tall as the corn was this year. Conditions were good all summer and it looks like there was a bumper crop. So much was still standing when we left I think there must have been a major price drop so the farmers are waiting hoping for better returns.

Mother and daughter amidst the corn.

And finally, it would not be the end of summer at the Shicks unless there were family "portraits" taken. So on a blustery fall afterneoon we all posed. New this year was the inclusion of the dogs, Hydro (the big dog) and Dixie our companion.

So we have the Geezers

The Children and Kendie                                        Laura and Kendie....

Randy and Hydro      

The Shick Gang - 2013

Summer Recap and Future Travel Plans

I haven't posted to this blog for quite some time and lest you think I have forgotten about doing it, I have not.  We have had a rather busy summer, although most was taken up with medical crap we both endured.  Cathy had successful cataract surgery on my birthday, June 3, and got new glasses in August. We are not sure why the surgeon took so long to approve having a new prescription made.  Now she sees 20-20.

As many of you know I had 4 laminectomies and lumbar spinal fusion on July 17.  Thanks to all who  sent get well cards and letters; I enjoyed them especially those cards referencing mechanical breakdowns and repairs.  My recovery has been easier than I imagined and I have lately been wondering why I waited so long to have it done! I have not used any narcotic pain medications for at least 3 weeks  and I long ago tossed the cane. I have one more followup with the surgeon on October 14 at which time, according to his assistant at my last visit, he will pronounce me "free to do whatever I want"!

It is a great relief to me that I will be able to keep my flexibility and be able to crawl around underneath the motor home setting up and taking down for travel.  If the surgery had been as extensive as originally proposed (4 to 6 fusions with rods and screws oh my!) I had figured I would be as rigid as a tin soldier. Dr. Knaub was very understanding and accommodating and agreed to fix the worst, most dangerous, of my various problems in order to allow us a few more years of travel.

And so we have begun plotting out our travel for this winter and next spring. We must appear in person in South Dakota before June 2014 to renew our drivers licenses. If we were to be later than our birthdates we would have to take the entire driver test, both written and practical so we are planning to be there in late May.

We will head to Texas on October 21 traveling through Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana before hitting TX.  Tuscaloosa Alabama presents a scheduling problem this time of year as the Alabama football crazies book up every available campground site when the team is at home, so if we get there during a home game we may have to go elsewhere!  We will revisit a State Park we stayed at  and liked near Hattiesburg MS.  Once in Texas we are planning to go along the Gulf Coast below Galveston to Port Lavaca and Corpus Christi.  We may stay there for a few weeks before heading toward San Antonio and points north.  Our Thousand Trails membership will be very useful as there are at least five campgrounds in their system along our proposed route.  

When the weather turns warm enough to begin the northward trek we will head straight for Sioux Falls to take care of the licenses.  We will have an opportunity to check out some areas of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa as we follow Interstates 35 and 29 north.  After taking care of business in South Dakota we will head to International Falls Minnesota and take our time getting there to enjoy some of the lakes and wilds of northern MN.

From there it will be a rather straight shot to Milwaukee and hope to be there by July 4th. My High School Graduating Class is having a 55th reunion over the Labor Day weekend and we are planning to be there for that as well as to see some family in Western Pennsylvania.  Afterward it will be back to the Hershey area for the annual physicals and checkups with our drug suppliers to ensure an adequate supply for the next upcoming seasons.  But that is just too far off to be thinking about now.

As normal, Kendalyn spent the summer with her father in Illinois and came back a week before school started again, 8 pounds heavier and about a foot taller!!! Or so it seemed. She always has been a lanky lass and is now nearly as tall as her Mom.  Keeping her in clothes is a challenge to say the least, but they went shopping on Labor Day and came back with 5 bags of basics and cute outfits that should last the school year.

Her Uncle Randy had gotten her a two-wheeler with training wheels for Christmas and it found its way to our campsite this spring. Before she went to IL, she was pretty shaky even with the training wheels.  The bike waited for her return in August and when she visited she seemed a lot more confident. So much so that she asked to have the training wheels, first raised, then removed.  And she took off and did not look back.  I have a couple of pictures of her success posted with this.  Also posted are pictures of her heading out for the first day of 5th Grade.  She already loves her teachers, especially Mr. Drago, her math and science teacher.  He is somewhat of a musician and has posted several videos on Youtube which, of course, the students love.  She is eager for swimming since she is in the school building with the pool this year and it is a 5th Grade rite.

Above is the first trial  at home at Christmas.  Looks a little tentative.

Above and Below - No training wheels and supreme confidence.

Laura takes a picture on the steps of their home every year on the first day of school.  Above is the First Day - 5th Grade.

Busy Lady in a rush to catch the bus!

Without a look back, she boards the bus.