friends are family

We're here on Galveston Island, listening to the surf, getting together with friends, waiting for the big day.   Actually, on THE day we will be in Orange, TX, visiting Charlie's good friends Sharon and Arnold.

The dogs love it here, they love it anywhere ..... especially if they've been here before. At this campsite we have a good sized patch of grassy lawn next to our patio, and they have been really good just hanging out with us outside.  Also helps that we don't have any close neighbors around us.

We are parked within sight of the beach, and there is a large area of wetlands and dunes just to our east. Last nite I was sitting here at the computer and heard a bunch of coyotes howling nearby .... it didn't even wake the dogs up !
Then this morning I looked out and there were runners and joggers going along the seawall just behind us .... a half marathon I found out.  There are a lot of people (tourists) here; I am surprised.

This year seems less hectic .... we shopped early ..... so it is the first time in years that the pace has been this relaxed coming up on Christmas.  That makes it really easy to focus on the real meaning of this season.  Happy Birthday, Jesus !

Later, Marilyn

mini vacation

We are settled in here at Advanced RV Resort, Houston, TX ...... a really nice place, and a lot of people who remember us from last season; so we have some instant friends. They have coffee in the clubhouse every morning and have a pretty large group of "regulars" who sit and visit for an hour, then go on about their daily activities.
I have been spending some time in the 'puzzle room' at the clubhouse .... lots of room to spread out, and 5 or 6 jigsaw puzzles in progress to choose from.

But the real news is that Bugsy and Toby and I have the whole motorhome to ourselves for 3 days.  wow ..... when you live in such a small space with so many other bodies ... that's a real treat. A real mini vacation.  Vera and Charlie and BooBoo have gone to Beaumont to visit friends.  I told them if the motorhome isn't here when they get back; just call for directions.  I really did think about running up to the lake, but it's easier to drive this thing when you have a navigator and a tail gunner.

Well, I'm going to get busy and start doing nothing .... first up is a watercolor session !
Later, Marilyn 

calendars

We have been busily being "home" for almost two weeks now ..... so many friends to see, so many Mexican food restaurants to eat at !!    Boy did I ever miss the Mexican food up north .... and boy have I been making up for it here (except I haven't been to my favorite, El Gallo, yet).

We have a calendar project underway, selecting photos to represent our travels ..... and it has been great to re-live so many of our experiences. 

We've also been making Christmas candy ... the kind you melt the chocolate and pour into the little molds .... with nuts, peppermint, or whatever, in some of them.  The really nice thing is we can use the big fully equipped kitchen in the clubhouse here at the campground.  Kinda puts more joy into cooking when you have more elbow space.

More later, Marilyn

Hill Country

The Texas Hill Country has some really nice fall color .... maybe not as dramatic as New England .... but really nice.  We are in Kerrville visiting friends .... who gave us several hours of country driving tours (Medina, Bandera, Center Point).
Here is a view from their porch:

And more ..... I really love the limestone bluffs along the rivers:

Back to Houston tomorrow.
Later, Marilyn

Houston !!!!

Back here at Advanced RV in Pearland ..... nice to be back in familiar territory !
We'll be here one month (except for this weekend we are going up to Kerrville to visit friends).

Our last nite out we stopped in the parking lot of the casino at Delta Downs in Louisianna. I parked it next to 3 or 4 other motorhomes facing the fence. Next morning we awoke to the sound of hoofbeats .... just like in the movies. We looked out and not more than 30 yards away was the racetrack with at least 30 racehorses out for their morning exercise. It was quite a treat.

The dogs are excited to be back to familiar territory ..... they practically dragged us to the dog park.
And we have encountered several friends here in the campground that we got to know last year.

Later, Marilyn

Roosevelt State Park, Mississippi

We're still here ..... but we moved from the horsebarn.  We decided to kidnap Charlotte to 'get her out of Dodge' for a while, so we moved up to the nearby state park.

 

thru our windshield

 

Charlie and Charlotte

2pm Saturday .... heading for Houston !

in the barnyard

We are still here in Pearl, Mississippi, parked in the horse barnyard, tucked in between the horse trailer and the stables barn.

 

 

This is the BEST camping spot (MY opinion) that we've ever had. Our front windshield overlooks multiple training corrals .... where they work with the horses just about from sunup till after dark. 
Charlie and I have even been helping with the barn chores, feeding and watering, and putting down straw for their bedding (fortunately we haven't been asked to 'muck' yet).

During some days, we take the dogs to Charlottes house and her huge backyard. They really get caught up on their exercise.
As for their curiosity about those 'big dogs'...... Bugsy and Toby finally got to sniff noses with one of the horses; and Toby even licked the horse on his nose.   Boo-Boo is a natural born 'yapper' .... and as such, is not horsey-friendly.

We are having such a good time we will stay until Saturday, and then head straight for Houston.

Later, Marilyn

Asheville, Atlanta, Pearl

Pearl, Mississippi ..... a suburb of Jackson, Mississippi ..... parked in front of a horsebarn at a horse training facility ..... where a friend of Charlie's has her horse (and volunteers here a lot).  They have "about 30" horses here, some in training, some for boarding, some for recovery (rescued).... it's a wonderful place for me.  I was raised on a farm with horses and love the sounds, sights, smells, etc.  When I walked down the aisle between the horse stalls and said "ah-h-h, it smells good in here" --- you should have seen the expression on Vera and Charlie's faces.  It's the same look when Vera says " when you've seen one lake, you've seen them all".
But for me it was great last nite (even though it rained)..... to be here in a country setting with the windows open, listening to the horse sounds, the crows calling, the train in the distance .... just about heaven (for me).
We can look out our front windshield at one of the training corrals, and watch the trainers; and see horses in the pastures beyond. One trainer is working "starting" a young horse, introducing it to the saddle blanket and saddle (lots of patience).
Of course our dogs have never been exposed to horses (that I know of)..... and they just think these things are extra big dogs.
Yesterday afternoon we had a wonderful outing in the park, which included watching some disc golfing. The setting was around the shores of a lake, but among the tall pine trees. Often a fairway would be through a narrow gap in trees..... we really were intrigued by it.
We'll stay another day and nite here.
More later,
Marilyn

Wytheville, Virginia

This morning we left Winchester, took a  (wrong) road west into West Virginia; and were thoroughly enjoying the 'real' West Virginia (steep hills and valleys, with tight winding, narrow road) ...... when we realized we were not intersecting the interstate like we thought we would ......
Then, it took probably 20 miles before we passed thru a little town big enough that we could change course.  With the car attached we are 58 feet long and it takes a w-i-d-e spot in the road for me to turn us around. But we continued on to complete a sort of 'loop' .....
Long story short:  3 hours later, we rejoined the interstate approximately 15 miles further down the road !  But wow!  we saw some really beautiful hills.

Tomorrow we cross the Appalachian mountains to Asheville.
Later, Marilyn

Winchester, Virginia

Back in January, 2011, we were stranded here by an ice storm for three days.  Same campground, but today it has green grass instead of the yellow brown straw it had back then.
Another thing we noticed yesterday is that we have knocked around this part of the country long enough to be criss-crossing our previous paths. Especially the state of New York. We have entered and crossed the state from three of its four sides.  But then, our path on a map is usually quite 'zig-zaggy' ..... we just identify places we want to visit and then connect the dots.
Tomorrow we will aim for making it all the way (diagonally) across the state of Virginia.
We will then cross down into North Carolina and spend some time in Asheville (one of my favorite places).
Later, Marilyn

Scranton, Pennsylvania

Just an overnite stop on our trek south.  After visiting our friends in Massachusetts, we headed west to try to get further inland and avoid gasoline and other shortages (normally we would have gone down the coast thru New Jersey).  So tomorrow we head down thru Virginia and into North Carolina.  Tonite here has snow flurries predicted, but not to accumulate ..... I am a little worried about the new storm coming up that we will have to go thru late tomorrow and Wednesday.  Oh well, worse case scenario is we would have to stop and get winterized ..... but we could still travel.  Thank God for our furnace working smoothly !
Later, Marilyn

shop shop shop ... shop

We're on the move again .... whoope-e-e-e.
Freeport, Maine.   We made it two hours down the road;   found a huge outlet mall ..... and you can guess the rest.   We're still here in the parking lot; gonna spend the nite.
Tomorrow we'll try for a little further.  Next stop is about 3+ hours away, visiting friends Mark and Debbie in Charlton, Massachusetts.
More later, Marilyn

all to ourselves

Well, they closed the campground; but they don't turn the electricity off until next Monday, so we're using our own internal tanks and water pump..... and enjoying the beautiful setting we have all to ourselves.  There are a few trailers left stored here for the winter; and the owner lives just down the road ... so he comes driving thru a couple of times a day to check on the place.
I just went out and took photos of us and our views:

The owner left us three trash cans.... to last a week .... ?

 

I saw a wild turkey hen down at the bottom of this field just before I took the photo.

 

 

This is our "side yard"
Since there's no one else here, we sometimes let the dogs off leash to run and play .... and roll in the grass and leaves.

We are pretty pleased with our temporary home..... as long as this 50-60 degree weather holds out.

Later, Marilyn

Bangor, Maine

Well, this is starting to feel like home .... sort of.  That's a good thing .... since we have 10 more days to spend here.  Normally we would take off for some side trips and then return for Vera's appt. on the 5th; but since we have 'weather' predicted here (wind gusts 40-60 and lots of rain) we will just 'shelter in place'..... and pray there's no severe cold episodes.

Since I'm a little short on news of exciting adventures ...... I'll add a few additional pictures from down on Mount Desert Island, mostly in Acadia National Park.
These are from the top of Cadillac Mountain, with Bar Harbor below (with a couple of cruise ships in port).
You can see what I've been saying about the islands being solid rock, and shaped by the ancient glaciers.

These next two are Sand Beach in Acadia; and a view of the Penobscot River from an observation tower in Bucksport (which is at the head of a large bay a few miles inland).

These next three are of downtown area of Bangor.  The two houses (historical mansions) are representative of the French influence seen so much.  The last is a bad photo, but I wanted to show what the downtown 'flavor' is.

 

And last, a sample of the variation of color seen within a single tree.

Oh, I do have one more 'exciting' thing to report.  Our campground is about a half mile from the end of a runway at the Bangor airport.  The good news is Bangor International doesn't have a real heavy schedule of large commercial planes.  The bad news is the National Guard has a base there and shares the runway for its really big transports and refuelers (those big tankers that refuel the fighter planes in the air) that seem to run training shifts 24/7.  It literally wakes us up about 1:30 am every morning.  Other than that it is really quiet out here now that there are only two campers left in the park.

Later, Marilyn

Hurricane ?? !!

We will be here in the Bangor area until Nov. 6th .... the day after Vera's followup doctor visit.  We are getting pretty nervous about getting caught here in the first winter storm...... but who would have figured we'd get cornered by a hurricane !   I say "cornered" because we'd probably run inland if there were a way to. But there's not really:  no freeways running east/west ... only one freeway and it runs down south into the hurricane path, or north up to the Canadian border.  The roads heading west are so slow (small state roads running thru a jillion small towns), that we'd still be "running" this time next month. So we are where we are.  At this point it seems the storm will come inland just about where we planned to be about two weeks from now..... plan adjustments are in order.

We are in a very pretty campground, which is closing "at the end of the month".  I think after this weekend we will be the only ones left here.  But the water gets turned off this coming Monday, then the sewer gets shut down, then on the following Monday the electricity gets turned off ...... so they gave us some discounts, and we'll just dry camp and use our generator occasionally.  But we will have the whole place to ourselves.  Good thing the moon is getting fuller, or it could get a little dark around here.
We took the coach out today and filled up with diesel (for the generator), and propane (for the heater ... 30 to 40 degree nights).

Later, Marilyn

13 inches per hour

One of the interesting things we have been watching while we've been here on Mount Desert Island, is the tremendous height of the tides ..... 12 to 13 feet.  Right now in this phase of the moon it is running 13 feet every 12 hours.  Now, I'm not into the details of the tide charts nor do I claim to understand tides very much ...... but to me that translates into 13 inches per hour.  That's really a lot.   On our way into town, we see piers on mudflats, boats lying on the shore, etc,  ..... and on the way back from town that same pier is surrounded by water and the boats are floating.  The two pictures bbelow are taken from the roadside at approximately the same point.  It's just something I'm not used to seeing and it fascinates me.

Another thing that really fascinates me is the "footprint" of glaciers upon this area.  The historical information here says that this area was once covered by ice at least a mile thick ..... talk about a heavy load!  There is very little topsoil (one reason for the forests being shorter), and the granite rock of this area is seen everywhere.  The islands are all shaped (in profile) similarly due to the ice sheet sliding up over one end, and fracturing the opposite end into sharp cliffs as it moved on the downside.

Even the mountains on the big island have the same shape:

We did a short hike today .... 1 1/4 mile, but it was along a rocky shore trail .... so it was probably more than Vera should have done with her "tired" pacemaker .... but wow, was it invigorating. (Vera gets her pacemaker replaced Wednesday as an outpatient).

That's Vera on the trail.

Here's another picture of the carriage trail from "the carriage":

Tomorrow afternoon we will move the motorhome back up to Bangor, Maine (1 hour North). We will stay there, closer to the hospital, for several days after Vera's surgery. We will need to stay in this area until her followup visit in about 10 days ..... so we may come back down here to Mt. Desert Island for another week.  We love it here !!!!!

Oh, one more thing:  Mount Desert Island was named in 1604 by Champlain when he discovered and mapped it; but it was a long french phrase which meant "mountain void of vegetation". So the word "desert" is meant like the verb "to desert", or to leave deserted, (not the noun like something sweet to eat).  The french name was later shortened.

Later, Marilyn

rolling fog

There is a fjord that almost bisects the island of Mount Desert .... it is called Somes Sound.  It is the only fjord on the eastern coast, and is quite beautiful. It is also the home of some very wealthy people, tucked on the mountainsides along the shores. We drove the shore today in the drizzle, which I think makes the leaves more colorful.  We stopped at the end of the sound and watched as a fog bank came rolling over the mountain and down the slope.  Look at the mountainside in the picture to see the weird "wave" shape.

We stopped at the Jordan Pond Teahouse to have popovers and lemonade .... and shop of course.

One half of the island is crisscrossed with 45 miles of single lane "carriage trails" for use by equestrians, horse drawn carriages, bicycles, hikers .... and crosscountry skiers.  In 1913 John D. Rockefeller, Jr. built the broken stone roads and bridges in an effort to keep the island from being overrun by automobiles.  He then donated 10,000 acres of parkland, including a lot of the most scenic shoreline.  The trail bridges cross over the roads, with rather limited, specific access. The craftsmanship of the bridges is quite good:

Like I said, the fog had 'rolled in'.
Speaking of rolling .... we stopped back by to listen to the rocks roll; and I've decided the closest thing it sounds like is somewhere between these two sounds: a.) a car driving on ice crusted snow on a quite, still morning .... amplified many times, or b.) a truck pulling a log over sharp crushed gravel ... amplified many times.     I love the sound.
Here is a typical road view of the interior of the park roads:

Vera is scheduled to go back to the Bangor hospital on Wednesday to have her pacemaker battery replaced ..... outpatient basis.   Which is too bad, because the view of the Penobscot River from her hospital room was great:

As you can see, I've finally gotten the hang of inserting these photos .... aren't you glad?
Later, Marilyn

rolling rocks

Vera is back with us .... she will go back Wednesday to have the battery replaced in her pacemaker.  We will probably be here in this area almost another week .... I know, we're pushing our luck with the winter weather!
Our campground here in Acadia National Park is about 1/4 mile from the lighthouse on the southernmost point of Mount Desert Island.  Right out here where the Atlantic waves give the land their best.
One of the most interesting phenomenon I've encountered is the sound of rolling rocks. After the surf crashes in, and as the water is receding; it carries the rocks back down the slope ... producing a rolling thunder sound .... I love it.   The rocks where I observed this were about the size of a cantalope .... more or less..  and really bring to reality the concept of erosion that I've known all my life.

 

The last two shots above are almost the same shot without surf, and then a moment later with surf. The rocks acutually move around.
Ok, so much for my geology lesson.
The next one is lobster boats bringing in their traps for the winter.

Everywhere you look you see preparations for winter:

Road color, and my substitute driver, Toby:

 

And one last shot of the beautiful surf:

Later, Marilyn

hiccup

little setback: Vera spent last nite in the ER in Bangor, Maine .... they think it's just an adjustment on the pacemaker that is needed.
The coach and Charlie and the dogs are still down in Acadia Park (about 1 hour south of here).
We laughed and said you can get whiplash going from standing on a rocky coast in the ocean spray ... to a hospital guerney in an hours time.  Oh well, it's all an adventure.

The ER doctor didn't think it is a serious problem, but they wanted the monitor information.
Later, Marilyn

wow-eeeee

This is one beautiful place!  We have extended our stay until Friday here in Acadia National Park ..... It is just too wonderful to leave anything unseen. Pretty chilly, and some days are drizzly rain .... but just a really invigorating environment.

These are all of the Acadia National Park area ..... colors are unbelievable.
Later, Marilyn