Wichita Falls

We’re on the move weekly, covering sections of Region 2 in Texas. Our region covers from the Oklahoma border down to Alvarado, west to Abilene and east to the Arkansas border. We had been staying at The Vineyards Campground, located in the town of Grapevine. The park used to be owned by the Army Corp of Engineers but is now owned by the city of Grapevine. It’s a very nice park with lots of space between sites and most all of the sites face the water. The water level is currently down 10’ but it is still very pretty around the lake.Then we moved to Grand Prairie, which is only about 30 minutes from Grapevine. We stayed at Traders Village for a week. Traders Village is a giant flea market with a bazillion vendors offering all sorts of things. We’d never been there so we were anxious to see what it’s like. We walked from the campground to the flea market, next door, about 9:00 a.m. and the vendors were just getting set up. We didn’t get to see much cause nothing was set up yet. Our only purchase was a bag of freshly made kettle corn that a woman was making in a big copper kettle. We ate some of that and walked back to the campground. to break camp and leave for our next park. We’re currently in Wichita Falls, in the northern part of Texas. It was really hot today and it’s supposed to be 98 degrees tomorrow and 100 degrees on Monday. Texas is in a heap of hurt in regards to the drought. The other night on the news it said that many areas were now in “exceptional” drought status, which is the worst category. We heard that of the three reservoirs that serve Wichita Falls, they only have 24% of the water they should have in those reservoirs. Wow, that is scary stuff. Texas and California are both in really dire straits with their water situation. I hope that municipalities in these two states mandate water conservation measures on new home construction. The worst is yet to come for drought conditions and whether you believe in climate change or not, the reduction in water in some areas is a reality that these people have to live with.
It’s hard to believe that in about a week we’ll be up in Breckenridge, CO working and that our time doing TACO sales will be over. The time sure has flown by and we’ve met so many great campground owners and managers. Being in the campground business is really hard work….as one owner told me, “It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do”. You have to be available at all hours of the day and night to take care of your customers. When the wi-fi goes down at 2 in the morning, who ya gonna call ? It’s been awesome to hear from these owners about their businesses and help them with the marketing for their business.
Our car is acting up again. The engine has been making a ticking sound for about a week so we took it to the Nissan dealership, which was on the way after leaving our last park on Friday. Next door was the Ford dealership and Linda took the motorhome there to get the oil changed and tire pressures checked. Her appt went well….mine not so much. At first they told me that the replacement engine that Linda had put in back in November was bad. They said the lifters were clattering and that was the sound we were hearing but they would further assess it and let me know the extent of the problem. I was not a happy camper. I needed an oil change so they went ahead and did that; then said that the ticking stopped. So their conclusion was that the gasket or seal in the oil pan is leaking and the loss of a little oil was causing the lifters to be noisy. Long story short….we sat there for 7.5 hours with no decision on whether the warranty on the engine would pay for a new seal so we said…Forget it…we’ll keep an eye on the oil…and we hit the road. Two hours later we arrived here in Wichita Falls. We know that we need to get a newer vehicle but since anything new would need all the stuff installed to be able to tow it (braking and towing brackets), I don’t want this type of decision to be made in haste so we’re going to try to keep an eye on it till we get home this fall and then maybe we’ll be ready to get something different. Keep your fingers crossed that she holds up over the next few months. I’ve got faith in her that she can do it !
Hoping that everyone is enjoying springtime. Not sure that it has arrived yet back home in Pennsylvania. Seems every time I talk to my mom, it’s really chilly and rainy there. Linda and I did have some sad new in the last ten days. Jay and Kelly lost the baby that she was carrying. It was hard to see babies and cribs at the flea market last Saturday, when I had just heard that my new grandbaby had died but I trust that God had bigger plans for that little Peanut. I know that things happen for a reason, and sometimes for no reason at all, but as they say, the things that don’t kill us….make us stronger. Our hearts go out to Kelly and Jay….may their love grow stronger as they come through this together.

Busy Time For Us

Once Linda picked me up we started the trip to Texas. I didn't realize it until I did some research but we would be in close proximity to the Crater of Diamonds State Park. This is the only diamond mine in the US that is open to the public where you can go and dig for diamonds...real diamonds. This was something I really wanted to see so off we went...There is a 37 acre field where you can dig, sift, screen, etc to your heart's content. Every so often they plow the field to bring more diamonds to the surface.
This area was home to a massive volcano ages ago that brought the crystal beauties to the surface. You can find clear white, yellow and brown.


The diamonds aren't all that elusive either (although we didn't find any). More than 700 diamonds are found each year and someone had even found one the week before we were there. They have a gorgeous RV park and splash water park there which makes for an awesome family getaway. So if you ever get to Murfreesboro, Arkansas, be sure to go check it out.
Our next stop was Austin, Texas. I needed to do some training with another one of our teams so we joined up with them west of Austin for a few days. Last Friday we left there and went to Montgomery, TX for our annual company meeting. It's like a family reunion as we get to spend time with folks we usually only see once a year. Lots of hugs and laughs from Monday to Thursday. When we arrived, we called a local RV mobile tech because our outside shower was leaking and our inverter was not supplying power to the rig while we were traveling. We couldn't run the water pump, receptacles or anything that usually would run off the inverter. Power was going TO the inverter but wasn't going to the rig. Turns out one of the 12v breakers, under the front steps, was shot. This isn't the type of breaker as in the electrical panel but one that can usually be reset if it trips due to low load when the batteries are low. Junior replaced the outside shower and breaker but it didn't fix the problem. Turns out the solenoid that tells the battery disconnect to turn on and off was not working so the batteries were not charging. We had to stay an extra day till Junior could order the part but on Friday, around 2, we hit the road for Rockdale, TX.
While I was doing my internship at White Violet Center, you may recall that I did my project on aquaponics. One of the farms that is big into aquaponics is located in nearby Cameron, TX and had a farm tour scheduled for yesterday so we signed up. Sand Creek Farm participates in a CSA program but they have four high tunnels and in three of them they do aquaponics. They grow many vegetables outdoors in the ground but they grow a lot of specialized things indoors, where they grow super fast and virtually free from pests. He grows a whole lot of Asian greens that I had never heard of before and he said they grow really well in an aquaponic environment. Onions, that typically take 100 days to grow in the ground...he grows them in 8 weeks. The seeds are started in a vermiculite/coconut coir mixture in little net pots (bottoms have a lot of openings in them to let water in). The pots sit in cut outs in the foam board, that is floating on top of the water in the troughs. You can see the fish tank in the background behind Ben i this picture on the right. He has silver sheets of rigid insulation around the tank and on top of it to keep heat in during this cold snap that Texas is having. The basic concept of aquaponics is that the fish poop, which provides the nutrients that the plants need. The fish poo water is pumped into the troughs where the vegetables grow and the plants extract all the waste products, creating clean water that is returned to the fish tank. Cool, huh ? It's a symbiotic relationship of raising healthy fish and vegetables in a closed loop system. In our country over 60% of our fish come from China, which has sometimes had unscrupulous practices when it comes to food production. Wouldn't it be cool if we could get enough aquaponic farmers in this country so that we could provide our own sources of fish. Ben uses Perch and Tilapia in his tanks but there are many other types that can be used, depending on what temperatures you hold to have in your system. In cold climates, trout would be a good source because they are a cold water fish.
During our tour, we also got to see his cheese room, where he produces Havarti and Gouda cheese. Look at those beautiful wheels of cheese ! The cows that he milks used to be wild, free range type of cows and he would have to round them up and lasso them to bring them in to milk them. They are now accustomed to being milked so it's not a rodeo every time he needs them to come to the barn at milking time. I can't even imagine how wild a time that must have been. He also makes yogurt and had a batch in the oven when we were there. It was a really neat farm and there were 42 people on our tour. It was raining lightly while we were touring and once we got home, it really started to pour and continued through the night.














Linda eating Red Russian Kale that Ben picked out of the garden. She loved it !








As I finish up this post, we are rolling down the highway towards Waco. We should arrive in Keene around 1:30.  Time enough to get set up, get some lunch and settle in for NASCAR. Tomorrow morning we start our training at home office. We're excited to learn new things and work to develop the northern region of Texas. We feel great things are just over the horizon. Nothing's gonna stop us from going full steam ahead !

Is this Texas or Pennsylvania ?

Ok..it’s 8:00 p.m. and it’s 43 degrees outside and supposed to be 33 by morning. What’s with that ? We’re in Texas, land of winter warmth and no snow. I don’t like it. Am now debating what to do about the water supply. Disconnect it….leave it and let it drip. Crap ! We shouldn’t have to make these types of decisions in Texas. Been so chilly and windy that we haven’t even had the trike out since we’ve been here. Hoping that once we get to Montgomery, TX that we’ll have a warm spell and can get the bike out. Keeping our fingers crossed.
On the flip side of that, in the land of warmth…Hawaii…look at these cookies Linda and I have been enjoying. Special cookies that a friend of ours sent us from Hawaii. Some of them were dipped in chocolate. Notice I said “were”…they are all gone now. We practiced restraint as best we could but we love shortbread cookies so it was really tough. Each individually wrapped to maintain freshness. Yummy stuff !
Thursday night Linda and I had dinner with her cousin and his family. She hasn’t seen him since they were kids so we had a great time chatting with them and had a wonderful dinner. Rob and Karen’s two kids, Kyle and Marissa were there and Marissa’s boyfriend. We had a really good time and hope to get together again…perhaps in Bandera.
We are going to drive to Whitsett tomorrow to meet up with our friends, Bobbie and Jim. They are working their first gate guard assignment. Each one takes a shift, since it’s a 24/7 assignment. This will be our last chance to see them till later in the summer so looking forward to spending a little time with them.

Much Needed Rain

The good news from the weekend is ….it rained a lot. The bad news….it rained a lot and we couldn’t get the motorcycle out. It’s raining as I write this. I will gladly trade a weekend of riding for all the rain this part of the country can stand. It’s a blessing to the areas that have been stricken by the drought. It always seems to rain the hardest at the point during the night when I just drift off into the deepest part of sleep (REM perhaps). I don’t know cause about the time the french frying starts on the roof, Boomer makes his way into the loft and across my feet. Such may be the case tonight. Again, I will trade a good nights sleep for much needed rain. Let it rain….
I had a wonderful conversation today with one of our advertisers about all sorts of topics from illegal immigrants, drug cartels in Mexico and the local oil and gas drilling in Texas. All topics native to the Texas region and this gentleman I was speaking to. He told of elderly couples who have owned hundreds of farmland that has become barren and worthless and have now become overnight millionaires. They don’t know how to handle this instantaneous wealth. He told about one guy who gets $500,000 a day in well proceeds ! Amazing, huh ? An elderly couple who sold their mineral rights for $3 million dollars and the wife wept when she had to pay the government $900,000 in taxes, while her accountant consoled her and told her “not to worry…there’s still 2 million left”. How do families like these handle this ? Hard working, “pay-cash-for-everything” kind of folks who now spoil their kids and grandkids with “things” and the kids don’t know what tough knocks their elders went through to get there. The drilling and truck traffic is also upsetting his hunting areas. The constant traffic upsets the deer patterns in the areas around Whitsett where he has some land. I learned a lot that only someone that has lived here their whole life would know from seeing things change over the years and paying attention to things. I love chats like this with my customers !

Landed in Schertz with a “crash”…

We started a new job on Monday in Schertz, Texas which is right outside of San Antonio off of I 35. Our week didn’t get off to a very good start when our laptop crashed Monday night. Seems we somehow got a sneeky Trojan virus that made our computer think that the hard drive was going bad. Most of our desktop icons disappeared, although when I tried to put them back from a flash drive, it said they already existed. Linda’s son, Todd came to the rescue by telling me how to get around the major roadblock it was putting up (the infamous black screen). By downloading a Malware Bytes program, it sought out the virus and quarantined it. Todd logged in and fixed the rest of the stuff to get it back to normal. Viola….all of the icons came back and all is good.
Today, Linda and I came home at mid-day to have lunch. While chewing my veggie burger, I bit on something hard and discovered that a piece of my tooth had broken loose. Oh brother…it’s always something. Gonna drive me crazy to feel that sharp opening with my tongue until I get it fixed or pulled.
On our way up here, we drove right through the area where our friends Bobbie, Jim, Linda and Jim were waiting to get assigned to a job. They are going to be gate guards, for the gas wells that are popping up all over Texas. They are in a waiting pattern to go out to their first site. We had a great time getting caught up with them since we haven’t seen them since Labor Day. It’s always good to see them.
Weather has been awesome….in the 70’s today. Had some much needed rain the other night. Gonna be nice tomorrow too…Isn’t this weather crazy ? On the news, they say that record warm weather is taking place all over the country. I like it !!

Debate Fumbles

Summary

Truth took a punch or two at the first of two GOP debates before New Hampshire’s critical presidential primary.

• Romney, talking about taxes, said federal, state and local government consume 37 percent of the economy today compared with only 27 percent when John F. Kennedy was president. In fact, taxes now consume only 27.4 percent of GDP.
• Paul blasted Gingrich for avoiding the draft during Vietnam, and Gingrich said Paul had a “long history” of inaccuracies. The truth is Gingrich was both a student and a father at the time, and probably would have failed the physical anyway, according to his stepfather, an Army man.
• Santorum said the term “middle class” implies class warfare and is one “I don’t think we should be using as Republicans.” The fact is his own campaign used it in an Iowa flyer, and he has used it in the past himself.
• Paul attacked Santorum as a “high-powered lobbyist.” Santorum was never registered as a lobbyist, though he earned more than $200,000 working as a consultant for a lobbying firm and an energy company.

Candidates also recycled some false or doubtful claims we’ve gone over before. Romney repeated his misleading claim that his firm Bain Capital invested in businesses that “have now added over 100,000 jobs.” Huntsman again claimed Utah was “No. 1” in job creation while he was governor, which isn’t true according to the standard statistical measure for employment. And Santorum again put words in President Obama’s mouth by claiming that the president “supported” the results of a disputed election in Iran.
And finally, Gingrich, Santorum and Romney were all a bit confused about which sports teams were playing an important game on another network. Perhaps they had more important matters on their minds.
To see the full article, go to http://factcheck.org
Hitting the road this morning to continue our trek to Port Aransas, Texas. Will be there this afternoon.

Holiday Christmas Party and Grapevine

Saturday night was our boss’ Christmas party at his house. We were able to meet several of the other  couples that sell for AGS or Texas Advertising. It’s great to put faces with the voices/names of people we’ve talked to but hadn’t met yet. Brian and Debra have a great house and it’s decorated beautifully for Christmas. We got to meet Rick, who will be the person taking care of scheduling and other duties for Brian. He’s from Maine and is excited to start his new duties after some training with one of the trainers that we started out with. There were a lot of people there…probably around 35 or so. There was a Chinese gift exchange, where people can steal a present that someone else has already gotten and then that person gets another present. It was fun…Linda got a new back massager that I’m currently sitting on. It’s great !
Today we drove to Grapevine, Texas which is only about 30 minutes away. One of the other RV parks that our  company does is Vineyards RV Resort and we have heard that it’s a gorgeous park and that the town of Grapevine is really cute so off we went to check it all out. The resort is situated around a lake and the layout of the park is awesome. They took advantage of every view for RV site placement and it’s gorgeous. There is a view of the marina and I can only imagine how spectacular the view is on a sunny, warm day when the lake has more water in it (remember there’s a bad drought going on here. Look at where the water level should be in the pictures.) There was a storm coming in so it was really overcast and windy but still a perfect setting to put an RV. Many of the sites had little decks, large fire rings with a grilling grate and nice picnic table. Some even had little pergolas over the deck area.


A short distance from the RV park is the historic downtown area, which is really cute. Lots of great shops and decorations for Christmas too. We had heard that Grapevine is the Christmas capital of Texas with all of the events and decorating and I can see why. We walked up and down the streets, checking out all of the shops and restaurants. We really enjoyed the town and would definitely go back again.
Tomorrow we leave for the Escapees park in Livingston, until after the first of the year. Anxious to get on the road and see some different sights out our picture window. Will post again once we get there and get settled in.

Arlington

Things are moving along, here in Texas. Our friends, Cindy and Wendy arrived last Friday and will be leaving in the morning. They have been in the site next to us. It’s been so fun to walk out our door and walk to the next site to visit, have dinner or watch a football game. They are on the diet that we were on (Dukan diet) and are within a couple of pounds of their goal (way to go girls !). They look and feel great and say the same thing we said, “We can’t believe how easy it was to lose the weight”. We gave them some of the recipes that we used during the early stages and they gave us the meatloaf recipe they made last night, which was awesome. We are in the stabilization phase where we can eat anything six days a week and one day a week is our protein day, which takes care of any transgressions during the week. We don’t go crazy cause we don’t want to go back to the weight we used to be. We follow the core principles of the diet and it’s so easy to stay on track.
Anyway, they leave tomorrow and we will probably be here until January 1st to finish up the guide. The manager has been nice enough to let us stay longer than normal. We’ll need to move to another site this weekend, just a couple sites down from where we are now. Not a problem…It’s great here, close to the laundry and dog park. Boomer loves it too !

This is Frank. Frank is a pet pig of an RV’er who was a couple of sites the other side of us up until a few days ago. In this picture, Frank is out for some exercise (apparently his owner didn’t tell him that you lose more weight if you don’t EAT while you’re walking). They walked around the pool and back to the coach again. He needs to lose weight because his belly is dragging on the ground (maybe he needs a skateboard to alleviate that problem) or maybe dad needs to quit giving him treats. I’ve seen dogs and cats in RV’s as pets but this was a first. Good thing it was a large coach. There’s not much getting by this big boy when he’s coming down the aisle in the rig.


We saw this “vehicle” the other day. Is it broken ? It sure looks saggy in the middle. Maybe it’s one of those hip hop cars that raises up when you start it but where the heck is the back end of it. Youth…


Last night the girls and us went to see “Prairie Lights” in nearby Grand Prairie. It was similar to the light show that we saw over Thanksgiving with Linda’s daughter and her family. It was a nice display of lights. In one section they had a wire frame with lights over it that strobed so it appeared as if it was a tunnel. We drove through it real slow to experience the different affects. Good thing none of us are prone to seizures…it was pretty intense !
Warm today…around 70 but rainy all day. I think it’s supposed to clear up tomorrow and be nice but temps will be cooling off again to the high 50’s, low 60’s. Thinking about the weekend and what we might go out and explore. Lots of things to see and do. Hoping for good weather to do it in.

Dallas

We’re finishing up our first week, working the Dallas/Arlington KOA project. It’s been colder than I imagined it would be for Texas but I’m told that this is typical weather. Been in the 40’s during the day and 20’s at night. Tomorrow it’s expected to get up to low 50’s and the same for the weekend. I’ll take it !! Tired of freezing to death. I feel like I’m back home in Pennsylvania…Ughhhh !
Since this is a new job for our company, it comes with all of the legwork and research that goes into a new job. We’ve covered about 70 businesses so far…got another full week of selling ahead but looking forward to tomorrow cause our friends Wendy and Cindy are arriving to hang out with us for a week. Yippee !! We’re excited to see them. Didn’t expect our paths to cross since we originally were supposed to go to Florida to work. They are leaving the Escapees park in Livingston tomorrow and driving here and staying till the 15th. Will be great to explore the area with the girls and warmer temps to boot to do it in. Yeah !
Boomer is having a ball here at the park. We are parked directly in front of the dog park and so far he’s met Molly and Amy. Whenever he sees these two ladies come to the park, he goes crazy and Linda takes him over for their play date. He comes back a happy boy. He goes out with us during the day and squeezes in play time at lunch and supper time. Boomer’s got it rough !
Hoping to do some sight seeing this weekend and check out the area. Who knows what mischief we’ll get into. Just hope this head cold/sinus thing that Linda passed on to me goes away cause I don’t have time to feel crappy. It’s no fun trying to keep your nose from running, your face from hurting and your head from feeling like it’s going to explode. It seems that I get this 24-48 hour dose of ?? whenever we gets several days in a row of rain. Kick up the leaf mold ? Throw pollen around ? Don’t know what it is but it can just hit the road and get out of my head. Gotta run….need a tissue.