Escapee Park and Care Center

Here are some pics of the Escapee campground and the Care Center. First picture is looking from Care Center up towards the Activity Center in the Escapee park.Second picture is example of a "house" which many of the permanent RV'ers have in the park. Third picture is the Activity Center and pool. There are many events held here. There is also a club house just a little ways away (just a short walk) that houses a video lending library, reading library, social hall for potlucks and dinners and a TV room, where a couple of people can gather to watch TV. The last picture is a close up picture of the pool where Linda and I like to go to cool off.

Cajun Capers….

Thursday was our day off. The day began with me working till 10:30 on the rig, touching up areas where the paint had been chipped on the undercarriage of the RV. Since the heat index was up to steam by 10:30, it was then time to go for a swim and cool off after working on the rig. We walked up to the pool and swam for a while then came back to the Center for lunch. Lunch was King Ranch Chicken. Ever heard of it ? I hadn’t but everyone seemed to like it.
After lunch we decided to explore the area so after checking the map we decided that the Louisiana border couldn’t be too far away so we decided to drive from Livingston to DeRidder, LA…up to Leesville and then back to Livingston. At first we thought we’d take the motorcycle but then decided we probably should take the dogs since they only get out for any lengthy period of time on our one day off each week. At 12:45 we were on the road. We took route 190 east. Let me tell you there is not a whole lot to see on that route from Texas to Louisiana except pine trees, shacks, a few long horn cattle and a whole lot more pine trees. The pine trees around here are not like the ones back east. Tall, small in diameter and they have big, fluffy type needles. I want to say they are Loblolly pine trees but not sure if that is correct or not. They must grow rapidly as we saw many areas with new trees growing as well as a lot of mature timber. You see a lot of trucks on the road hauling the fallen timber and they look like stacked toothpicks because they are so small in diameter. Not sure what all they are used for but we did go by a plywood factory, paper mill and there is a landscape timber place near the Care Center. Guess that might be our answer.
An interesting thing about those Louisiana folk….they are about as ingenious as the mid-westerners with their reuse of household items. These folks must have a problem with critters getting in to their garbage cans when they set them out at the road for pick-up. Many houses had little roadside enclosures, for garbage cans, but one house had an old crib they were using….kids are grown so they figured what the heck….the right size and height to hold those garbage cans and no raccoons will get into their trash. Clever, eh?
They’re not quite as clever when it comes to naming streams. I wonder whose job it is to go around and name bodies of water…even small little streams. We went across Big Cow creek, Little Cow creek (back home we call them calves, not little cows but what do I know), Cat Creek…..the “creek namer” was on an animal kick during that stretch of roadway….Clear Creek, Sandy Creek, etc.
The trip wasn’t a total bust. We did come across a dollar store where we needed to pick up a few things. I found a turkey baster so I could replenish my bat trees….no, not bat trees…batteries…..Good Lord, now I’m starting to sound like a Texan ! To remind me that I truly was in Louisiana….As I rounded the corner into the toy aisle a woman was rummaging through a bin of stuffed animals when she exclaimed, “They ain’t got no dogs”….oh my…if my daughter was here she’d either have had a coronary or would have spent the next 15 minutes explaining to the woman what she REALLY should have said. Yep, we can say that we traveled to Louisiana and saw the best that they had to offer. I figure by the time we amortize the $45 we spent in gas, to make the trip, over the nine items we got at the DOLLAR store…..that made for a pretty expensive turkey baster!

Houston Aquarium

Today, Aug 26th, we went with some of the participants to the Houston Aquarium. Took us 1 hour, 23 minutes to get there and I didn't think the traffic was bad. Nice place..don't know as I'd go again..it pales in comparison to the aquarium in Baltimore...but we had a good lunch and returned home. Here are some pics...Linda was just dying to swim with the sharks so she jumped in this suit and went for a swim. For me, after petting the stingrays on their backs, I figured I wanted to see them from below so I went down under and smooched one of them on the belly. Very soft....
The best thing at the aquarium was the white tiger. They started with four tiny cubs and now they are getting ready to celebrate their third birthday...oh so pretty ! I liked this exhibit the best of everything there. The aquarium is right in downtown Houston so it gave us a chance to see the city. It was nice...Metro runs right down the center of the street and right to the front door of Univ of Houston - downtown campus. How convenient for the students. Well, tomorrow is our day off this week so we're trying to figure out where we might go and what we'll do. We have our volunteer meeting in the morning but then are done for the day.

Volunteer row

Here are pics of our site at the Care Center and the area where the participants put their rigs.

So different…

I’ve been thinking lately about how so very different this “job” is from any other that I’ve ever had. Yes, I’ve worked in the service industry for 30 years but here the volunteers are so critical to helping these people in their daily lives. I’m sure that Linda can relate to the similarities it has with her days of working in the nursing home but for me it is very different. It will be 20 years ago next month that my father passed away and although I and my siblings were “around” during the final months when mom’s caregiver tasks were enormous, we still had our own lives that we returned to. Here you can become such an important part of these people’s day to day lives in all sorts of ways. Discussions with the participants can run the gamut from talking about the professions from which they retired, their children, their spouses (living or deceased), money and health concerns. We take them to the doctor’s offices or hospital for appointments or tests and return to pick them up after procedures or if they have to stay in the hospital, we might be the one to pick them up when they are discharged.
Yesterday, I told one of the participants sitting with me at lunch, that I had just spoken to my mom and she told me that last week she produced 100 jars of jelly, 6 apple pies that she froze and various other things. I told him that she is 82 and never stops. He said, “That’s great…that is what should happen. When you stop, you get lazy and just sit and don’t get up again.” He is preparing to leave with his rig and will travel from October till January. You could hear the excitement in his voice as he spoke of the places he’d go to and what he’d do.
You also see, from interacting so closely with the residents here, whether they are in a contented place in their lives or like for some, they seem bitter that their spouses are gone and they are left alone. Many here have had to contend with losing their sight or hearing, which must be a horrible thing to come to terms with. Losing one of our senses is such a drain on the rest of us and our human psyche that sometimes it becomes too big of an adjustment this late in life. There is a huge impact to quality of life and their emotional well being. For several of the participants here, their spouses are in nearby nursing homes suffering from Alzheimer’s. They go weekly to visit them (depending on the distance some may go more often) and we drive them there. As one participant, who has a spouse with Alzheimer’s, commented…”It has an impact on both people…your life is on hold as you watch the other one deteriorate.”
We are coming to a close on our first month here at the Care Center….this first month has been one filled with wonderful experiences and people. We’re hoping our last month will be as richly blessed.

Texas Trivia

There have numerous things that have intriqued me while we've been traveling or since we've arrived in Texas and I thought I'd share them with you. Some are odd simply because they are not what I'm accustomed to....

Work Zones - While back home in PA the speed limit for traveling through a work zone is normally anywhere from 30-45 m.p.h. here the lowest we've ever seen is 60 m.p.h. This is based on speed limits from 70-75....you are barely slowing down but this is acceptable for going through a construction zone. Hope those workers have their hard hats on !

Fire Ants - Oh boy can these little things bite ! While setting up the Rv at the park in Texas, I got what I think was a fire ant between two of my fingers and man, did it hurt. It stung for an hour afterwards too. They are not to be reckoned with !

Armadillos - I'm dying to see one but as of yet I haven't ( not even a squished one on the highway).

Washaterias - What do you think these are ? I originally thought a car wash but no....they are what we call "laundromats"

Hunting - Yes, it's universal....wherever men shall exist there shall be hunting. It must be coming up on hunting season here as we see Deer corn, deer stands and ever other hunting paraphenalia in stores or at roadside stands. We even saw bags of deer corn today in the dog food aisle at Wal-Mart (maybe someone should tell them that deer aren't pets).

BBQ - When you're in Texas, you're in BBQ country. Right alongside the tree stands that you'll find at the roadside stands, you'll find home-made BBQ pits made out of barrels and drums or any canister that will hold hot coals. Maybe they have spits to turn the deer on and that is why they sell them together. Up and down the restaurant strip, you'll find an assortment of BBQ shacks. They are about as plentiful as catfish places...I must say that the handbreaded catfish is mighty tasty though...Yum !! And the handbreaded shrimp is different than the commercially prepared and frozen shrimp that you get in restaurants up home....has a great breading on it and the shrimp are very flavorful. Had a great shrimp and catfish platter at Jerry's in Onalaska last Monday. Had my heart set on the seafood platter until the waitress told me there was a set or two of frog's legs on it...my appetite took two giant leaps backward...(no pun intended). Yes, I used to shoot frogs in the creek as a child but that was a long time ago and I know longer have a craving for them on my dinner plate so the catfish and shrimp platter won out....it was great.

Texas toothpicks - To keep things rolling on the topic of food, do you know what Texas toothpicks are ? Strips of jalepeno peppers and onions breaded and deep fried. They are mighty tasty.

Well, that is all for today on your lesson on Texas trivia....stay tuned, I'm sure there will be more before we leave here...

A Day off...

Monday was our first day off since arriving at the Care Center. We went to Lufkin to do some shopping, which is an hour away and then we came back to Livingston and went to Lake Livinston State Park. It's only about 10-12 miles from the Care Center. We didn't stay long as it was at the end of the day and we were pretty tired by this point. Here are some pics of the lake.

Pioneer Women

How to Catch A Hummingbird

Saturday morning, the 15th of September, turned out to be an interesting morning. We are on call all weekend, being responsible for the residents checking in each morning to make sure they are all OK. Last evening, while on call, the hospital called to say that one of our residents who has been there for almost two weeks, had passed away. We had not had the opportunity to meet this gentleman since he went into the hospital the evening after we started work at the Care Center.
Linda let me sleep in a little longer and she went to the center to open up this morning, one of the duties you do if you’re on call. I went over about 8:30 to get some breakfast and help her with the check-in. Upon entering the front hallway, I noticed the doors midway to the front, were closed and the lights were out. Odd, Linda knew that we needed to open these and turn the lights on. As I came further up the hallway, I also noticed that the lights in the dining room were out. Perhaps they were having a memorial service already for the resident….would seem too early in the day and most don’t come to breakfast. When I entered the dining room, I saw what the center of their attention was. Flying around the dining room was a hummingbird. Linda said she wasn’t sure how it got in but nothing they had tried had been successful at getting it to leave.
For the next hour we tried everything from holding up full size sheet trays to try and shoo it to an open doorway to “herding it” by groups of people waving their arms. It flitted along, just below the ceiling tiles, and never seemed interested in going towards the outside daylight in the doorways. I came to our rig and got a fitted sheet and two of us put it over broom handles and held it close to the ceiling to make a net of sorts to try and give us more coverage for “escorting” this little, but oh too fast bird out of the room. With the obstruction of residents sitting around in a 40’ x 52’ room, watching grown people chase after this hummingbird, it must have been quite an attraction. At one point, Judy (another volunteer), gathered everything red she could find and sat perfectly still holding these “red” objects. She had a flower in one hand, a hummingbird feeder in her other hand, an open jar of maraschino cherries on a table next to her, an open “red” umbrella at her feet and a red pillow also on the table. She looked like the sitting Statute of Liberty, adorned in red. “Give me your tired and flitting birds….” But that hummingbird would have nothing to do with any of it. After all the humans in the room were worn out by chasing from one end of the room to the other after this scared little bird, we stopped. And guess what….that little hummingbird went to one of the ceiling vents and came to rest. He sat there…..and probably due to pure exhaustion, he stayed there long enough for us to take a dust mop and trap him in it. I was afraid that we had killed him but when we took him outside and shook that dust mop, out he flew.
I wonder….did our resident’s spirit, who passed away the evening before, return on the back of that hummingbird for one last goodbye…To fly around amongst his friends before going home….

Safe and Sound

On Wednesday, the 12th, all the residents were nervous about whether the tropical depression would come this way. As accustomed to hurricanes as many of these residents are, some lost everything in Katrina and came here after that occurred so rightfully they get nervous with an impending storm. Emergency shelter is limited to bringing folks to the Care Center facility and having everyone huddle in the center corridor between two doors at opposing ends of the hallway. Not a great place to be in a real bad storm but is the best they can do. Luckily, the storm went towards Louisianna and didn't come to north Texas. We are located 64 miles north of Houston, near Lake Livingston (in the town of Livingston).
As I mentioned in the my last entry, the residents here are awesome. Some are grumpy in that contankerous grandparent way that people can get but most are very sweet. I had a chance to chat with another gentleman the other evening. He worked for 35 years for NASA as an engineer and is most proud of the lunar experiments that happened during the Apollo space mission. He was in charge of telemettry and instrumentation. A fascinating guy !!
I will take some pictures today of the Care Center and facilities and upload them so you all can see where we are and what the facilities are like.

Amazing People..

The best part of being here are the residents who live here. People from all walks of life who are here because they are in their senior years and need a helping hand. One of the ladies that I have wanted to meet (because I saw her write up in the Care newsletter before we left home) asked me yesterday to read to her from a paper someone had written. She is legally blind but is able to write in really big print and is creating bios on the residents for the upcoming newletters. We talked at length about her life. She grew up in the south in poverty. One of many children in the family she didn't ever think she would go to college although she wanted to go. She worked at a job and set aside .40 a week and put it into an account so that she could save for college. When she had $50 set aside (an amount of money unheard of for any of her family members to ever accumulate)she let it slip to her mother that she had the money and her mother told her she would never go to college. She withdrew the money and spent it on clothes.It wasn't until she had been out of school 14 years (she went to school in a one room school house with her two brothers and two cousins) that she got the opportunity to go to college. She married a man who also desired an education and was given a chance to get his degree...he then helped her get hers. She went on to get two masters degrees and her doctorate. She is an amazing woman who has three books which have been published and three more awaiting publication. Her book, "Growing up Aint Easy" is the one that I think I want to buy to read about her life growing up in the south and how she overcame poverty to get her education. Years ago she was also an avid hiker and backpacker and hiked the length of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The gentleman who wrote the paper that I read to this woman (for her to write down and edit for the newsletter) is also highly educated. He has a PHD in geology and has been around the world twice lecturing and studying rocks. I have not had the opportunity to meet him yet but hope to do so. All of the residents have a story to tell and they love to talk about what they have done in their lives...they just want someone to listen.They have all lived such full lives and seen many things, while traveling in their RV's. What an adventure !Sunday is Grandparents Day...have you told a senior person, whom you admire, how much they mean to you ?
Today is Linda's (Baldassari) birthday but I promised her I wouldn't tell anyone here as they would sing to her and she'd kill me. It is also my daughter's birthday...two of my most favorite women share the same birthday...

We're here at the Care Center

We arrived to Livingston on Saturday and got a site in the park. On Monday we moved over to the Care part of the facility and got set up on our site. It is so humid and hot here ! It takes your breath away and you get so beat from it very quickly. People here tell us we'll get used to it and our blood will thin the longer we stay. Well either my blood needs to get thin real soon or fall temps need to set in cause it's REALLY uncomfortable. You stay inside all the time because you sweat to death if you go outside.
We've gone through our orientation, TB test and on-call training. Tuesday were our first shifts. Linda B had supper dish duty and I had pot and pan sink detail. It brought back memories for me since that is the very first job I had, 30 years ago, for $1 an hour. Was fun and got to serve dinner to the residents...whom are so very sweet. We love chatting with them and hearing their stories of living on the road. Today I have to take some people to appts so I've tried to get familiar with the Livingston area (in a hurry) so I can find my way around. We will leave a little early since I'm still not sure where I'm going...lol...will be interesting. Then I come back and have to sweep, mop and clean the dining area after dinner. Linda is on cook detail this morning and can't remember her job tonight. They are very short handed right now so we will have 2-3 shifts each day to help out. There are only 3 volunteers right now and usually there are 10-12. Friday night we will be on-call so we have been given a phone to have in our RV in case a resident needs help in the middle of the night...they can call us for help. Alot to learn but we are having fun.
We have had a thunder storm the last two days in late afternoon...gets real black out and then pours for 20 minutes or so and then stops. No break in humidity during that time though...
Well, that is all for now...If anyone has questions for us, post them in the comments and we'll do our best to answer them..

More about Friday

In addition to going to the Oklahoma Memorial, we also went on to see the National Softball Hall of Fame which is also in Oklahoma City. It was a great place, with footage of the Olympic Women's team with great pitching and fielding. I got to see pics of Dr. Dot Richardson, whom I remember watching in the '96 Olympics and the first time that the US took gold. The women's team has captured gold every Olympics since then. There is so much to softball, with various styles such as windmill, fast pitch and slow pitch. There was also a picture of the 2006 Williamsport girls team who captured the national title this year...that was exciting to see the home town girls pictures up on the wall.
We left Oklahoma and started making our way south. We stayed just inside the Texas border Friday night.

An emotionally draining day….

It’s Friday, August 31 and we went to the Oklahoma City Memorial this morning. The memorial is located in center city so it was a little tricky navigating through downtown Oklahoma City to get to it and then parking was a little bothersome to find. We learned that we take up 3 meters worth of space with our rig and we were fortunate to find curbside parking just a short distance from the memorial.
The museum is in a building that stood next door to the Federal building and withstood the blast. You start the tour with the sounds of a normal working day, as you walk down a corridor ….radio station reporting the morning’s news, traffic sounds, etc. and then you go into a room where you listen to the only known recording of the blast. The Water Board, whose offices were located in the Federal building, started a hearing proceeding at 9:00 a.m. You hear the opening statements and then several minutes into it you hear the blast that changed life as Oklahoma City knew it and as our nation knew it. You leave this room to walk through an area that shows the devastation that the blast caused….news reports of the building are playing on overhead TV’s and there are many, many display cases of personal affects that were uncovered from the living and the dead in the building. Video clips of the survivors and rescuers are very powerful and emotional to hear. The human carnage that these folks must have seen and will never forget is etched in their minds. The woman who was a tour leader for a group of young people ahead of us was one of the counselors who worked with the rescuers and she gave a lot of first hand information about what took place and what she saw. The museum is a very moving and powerful reminder of the toll that violence has on our society. Whether it be one big event such as this, with the use of 4000# of explosives, or one senseless act of violence that takes a person’s life, the museum finishes the tour with the thought that WE have the power to change how we act and react to things around us. How will we, as individuals respond to others around us to escalate the violence that occurs in our lives?
Outside, on the site where the Federal building once stood, is the silent memorial for the 168 people who were killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. There are 168 chairs, crafted of bronze and stone; the glass base etched with the victim’s name. The symbolic chairs are in two sizes, the smaller size represents the 19 children who were killed. The chairs are laid out in nine rows, representing the nine floors of the building. The chairs are placed according to the floor on which those killed worked or were visiting. At night the chair bases are illuminated, giving a beacon of hope.
On each end of the reflecting pool, which is directly in front of the chairs, are the gates of time. These gates frame the moment of destruction…9:01 was a moment of innocence before the attack and 9:03 marks the moment that we were changed forever.
There are so many things to see as part of the museum and memorial that I would encourage anyone that has considered going to see it, to do so. It is a very detailed accounting of the most heinous terrorist act to occur on American soil, prior to 9/11.