Hidden Cove Park

Linda and I had the opportunity to take a tour of the petroglyphs at Hidden Cove Park the other day. Mike, our tour guide, contacted me  almost a year ago and told me about this wonderful find, within the city limits of Holbrook and asked if I would put some information in the guest guides on our next trip to Holbrook. He had sent me some pictures so we were anxious to see the petroglyphs for ourselves.

 

We went first thing in the morning while it was still cool and the petroglyphs would be in the shade. We followed Mike up the rugged path, climbing over rocks and making sure we had solid ground under us as we made our way up to the ledge. The area where we were headed didn't look that far up but once we climbed up there, it was up pretty high.

  We got to one point, where we were looking straight up at a bunch of petroglyphs and out flew a bird from a nest over our heads. We were perched on the side of a ledge but luckily we had good footing cause it really startled us. The mother bird flew a short distance away and voiced her displeasure at us being so close to her babies.

The city has obtained a grant, contingent on them having a couple of studies done before the end of the year. They have put together a three phase plan that will set up hiking trails throughout the area, preserve the Zuck ranch remains (there are the remnants of a windmill and foundation there) and a bunch of other things that I don't remember the details on. There is a pond there that draws hundreds of species of birds to the area. Mike was headed to that area to do some work, after our tour, but we didn't go up there to check it out.

We felt so privileged to see the petroglyphs up close because once all of the plans are put into place, you will only see them using binoculars from the bottom. If you get to the Holbrook area, call city hall, and schedule a tour. Mike will probably be the one to take you and he was instrumental in finding these great artifacts 20 years ago. He takes you on a 90 minute tour that's free of charge. You should be in good physical shape and able to climb a steep, rocky area but the experience is priceless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cliff, the glyph, who's been immortalized on a t-shirt since being discovered at Hidden Cove Park. He's looking up at the sky...wonder what he saw that was worthy of a picture on the wall.

The city has built two picnic pavilions near the parking area so visitors can enjoy a picnic lunch while visiting the park but the swallows have taken over. They seem to think those pavilions are the perfect place to build their mud nests. The underside is just covered with them. Mike said they put chicken wire on the underside to try and deter the swallows but it hasn't worked and a couple of the birds got under the wire and couldn't figure out how to get out and died. They have found a home there, just like the ones at Capistrano.

Hidden Cove Park is a really cool place...a real gem..within the city limits of Holbrook, AZ. The city golf course is also in that general area. You can play 9 holes of golf for $5...what a deal. On your next trip across I-40 be sure to stop and say hi to Cliff, the glyph.

Look at the top of the left picture where you see the deer. The picture on the right shows the archer shooting the deer. This was a large carving...really neat.

At some point a giant rock, from above, had fallen which has shaded an area where there are many petroglyphs. This has helped to preserve the patina on the rock. We crawled under and around the giant slabs of stone to get where we needed to go. Mike said that they have documented over 300 drawings here and an archeologist believes this area is older than the petrified forest, just down the road. The people that lived here and created these drawings came before the ones found at the petrified forest.

 

 

 

LiveJournal Tags: Hidden Cove Park,petroglyphs,rock drawings,Holbrook,Arizona,tourist attractions. petrified forest

Now in Arizona

We arrived in Holbrook, AZ yesterday afternoon so it's a slow morning waking up. We left Oklahoma City on Thursday (elevation 1,230) and arrived here Saturday (elevation 5,080). I'm glad we have a down day today so my body can adapt. I jumped up too quick this morning to come downstairs and my head was spinning. Taking it slow today.

Last Thursday was the 20th anniversary of Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work. The college, where I worked for 18 years participated in this and it was such a special time for me and my employees. When it first started, only daughters could go to work with a parent to job shadow and see what their parent did as a job. Within a year or two, they included sons in it, as it should be. My kids took turns coming to work with me and they would follow me through my day, sitting in on meetings with employees or staff meetings or whatever mom had to do that day. It was such a neat experience to share my workday with my kids. They get to learn about how you make a living and they learn important lessons about interacting with other people in a workplace setting. I know my kids have fond memories of all the years they did this and I hope it helped shape them into good employees for others. They're both great supervisors, having witnessed this first hand. Their employees love them ! My employees loved bringing their children into work with them so they could learn about what mom or dad did at the college. Kids need real world experiences to know about the types of opportunities that are out there.

If any of you like to visit National Parks, like we do, then you need to check out Chimani Apps.Last year, to celebrate National Parks Week, they gave away their suite of park apps and they have five new parks available this year for free. I downloaded a bunch of them and they have so many neat features to them. Lots of detail on hiking trails, scenic places, schedule of ranger led events, etc. They will come in handy for our trip to Zion, Bryce and Canyonland in June. Check them out at your app store on your smart phone.

On our trip west we took a little detour, to go north to Santa Fe, so we could see our friends Wendy and Cindy. They drove down, with Wendy's mom and dad to have dinner with us. It was great to catch up and have a fun evening together. They gave us a great tip, on a place to stay in Santa Fe, that they found from the Day's End directory. This is a publication that Escapees puts out with free or cheap places to stay. We stayed on the rodeo grounds and had full hookups for $20. Easy to get in and out and there were quite a few different sites. We got to watch the horses and steers in the corrals next to us during our stay and it is certainly a place to consider if going to the area. You need to call ahead so they can give you the gate code...the phone # is 505-316-5141, option #9. The address is 3237 Rodeo Drive, Santa Fe, NM. Payment needs to be in the form of cash.

Left Santa Fe Saturday morning and drove the rest of the way to Holbrook and arrived around 1:30. The whole trip took us through 3 time zones, which is another thing that tricks our systems. Since Arizona doesn't recognize Daylight Savings, we are on Pacific time (3 hours behind the east coast). Our drive started out great but upon entering Arizona, we encountered really wicked wind gusts that would hit us like a flyswatter, smacking us sideways. I swear the one time we were up on two wheels when it slammed us sideways into the other lane. That got my heart pounding and we backed off on our speed cause you never knew when one of these gusts would slam us. Linda B was driving and it scared the crap out of her too. But we got here, safe and sound. We're settled in and will stay at this park for a week and move to the other park next week. Seems so weird (but nice) that we're now in 80 degree temps (although the nights are in the 40's). I'll take it over the 40 degree daytime temps we had in Oklahoma. We skipped spring and went right into summer.

Final Days of Fun

We got to have a final visit with our friends Dave and Susie Smeal this past weekend. They came to our rig and hung out with us for a few hours, chatting and talking about the countdown to the time when they will become full time RVers, like us. It's always great to see them during our time in Oklahoma.

We also got to see some of our RV Women pals from the area. We last saw them during the RVW National Conference in Gillette, WY last summer. We went out to dinner at an area restaurant and had a good time catching up.

On Saturday we went to an 89ers parade in Lexington, OK. I guess many communities have these. They are celebrations that mark the great land rush in Oklahoma where people staked their claim to land for a homestead. Folks, like the ones in this wagon, in search of making a new life for themselves and their families. There were a lot of entries like this in the parade. I guess that there are actual clubs where these folks go out "camping" together in the wilderness. Talk about boondocking.....this is one of the earliest forms of that. There were bucket seats, that had come from a car, in some of these so the driving arrangement was a little more comfy than back in the homesteading days. You gotta improvise !

We also got to take a tour of the Braum's manufacturing facility in Tuttle, OK. They have a 500,000 square foot processing plant, warehouse and bakery facility on 10,000 acres. I don't remember how many cows they have at this facility but they did say that there are 50 calves born DAILY at the facility and we could see the thousands of calf hutches lined up near the facility. All of the cows are in an indoor area, with each cow having a cubicle of space to hang out in until the trolley takes them to the milking parlor (I would think the exercise would do them good to walk to the parlor but what do I know). There is another farm located on the border between Texas and Oklahoma that has a dairy herd and 24,000 acres that is used to grow alfalfa for the herds. In the video we watched, this other farm lets their cows graze most of the time, as opposed to the Tuttle farm where they seem to spend most of the time indoors. There are over 300 Braum's stores, in five states. William and Mary Braum still live on the farm. William is 85 and still involved in the daily operations of the farm, although Drew Braum, the son,is the main overseer of the business now.

I must say that I wasn't very impressed with our tour guide. She had just returned from vacation and was either really distracted, by the work waiting for her on her desk, or she's just a lousy tour guide. We had several elderly people in the tour and it wasn't until we had climbed the first flight of steps that she said to the elderly couple, "Oh, we do have an elevator" but made no effort to show them where it was so they could utilize it. At the end of the tour, when we returned to the office and sat eating an ice cream bar, she said " This is the time when I usually sit and chat with you but since I've been on vacation for the last six days, I've got a huge pile of papers on my desk. When you're ready for your cookie, come to the door and see me but don't eat your cookie inside the building." Apparently her work was more important than delivering good customer service. She was also very abrupt and annoyed if anyone got ahead of her on the tour route. In my mind, she's not the person that should be the face of Braum's. While their operation is huge and impressive in some regards, I'm not a fan of cows being kept indoors and not allowed to do what ruminant animals are intended to do...graze for grass OUTDOORS. The video showed all the fancy grains they are fed and the specialty mixes of roasted soybeans, etc. but when someone asked the tour guide what they do with the "mistakes" on the production line in the bakery, she said they grind it up and mix it in the cow feed. Hmmm, that sounds like a natural part of a cows diet....ice cream cones, cookies, bread and muffins.

Braum's only builds stores within 300 miles of the production facility so that items can be delivered fresh to the stores every other day. They'll never become a national brand for that fact (so she said). They employ 9000 employees for the whole chain...the production facility has 500 employees. If you're interested in taking the free tour, call several days in advance. They give 3 tours a day but it can take them several days to get back to you to schedule it. I don't have as big a warm and fuzzy feeling about the banana splits we've consumed over the last 10 days as I did before learning more about Braum's. It will be a great deterrent when I get the urge for more ice cream. Yea Braum's !

Lake Murray State Park

Yesterday Linda and I took a drive down to Ardmore, OK to check out Lake Murray State Park, which is Oklahoma's largest and oldest state park. What a pretty lake ! Ardmore hasn't been fortunate enough to have gotten any of the recent rain that we've experienced in Oklahoma City/Norman area. Ardmore is two hours south of where we are....going back towards Texas.

Over the winter they rebuilt the nature center that is located at Tucker Tower. What a beautiful facility it is.

To get to Tucker Tower, you go out the back door of the nature center and up the hillside. Tucker Tower has a 360 degree view of the area.

 

 

 

The path to Tucker Tower goes by this cute little house, perched on the side of the hill. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see our kitty escort that was walking along the stone wall to see us on our way. What a peaceful setting for a house !

At the tower, there is a lot of information about the building of Lake Murray in the 30's by the CCC.

There were lots of men working on the project and as you look at the stonework, the massive fireplace and the lake itself, you get a sense of how massive the CCC programs were and what important services they provided. The displays show the classroom settings where the workers learned how to read and write, the kitchens and the barracks where they lived. The CCC is responsible for a lot of the wonderful facilities that families still enjoy throughout our country. There are three stories to the tower and then 25 steps up a spiral staircase to get to the walkway that encircled the whole tower, with gorgeous views in all directions.

On the backside of the nature center is a lovely deck, overlooking the lake. If it had been a warmer day, we would have liked to sat there for a while with a good book but the wind was very cold yesterday. 

Not only is the building beautiful but it's really "green" too, which I love. They use a closed geothermal loop, under the lake, for heating the center. They have solar light tubes in the restrooms to provide natural light. They harvest all of their rainwater for use in the building and they have solar collectors on the roof. How cool is that ! I loved reading all the signage in the building explaining all the different green elements they had incorporated into the building. Good stuff !

We left Lake Murray and made the drive back to OKC after stopping at the Oklahoma landmark, Braum's to get a banana split to give us strength for the two hour drive. Oh, it was so good ! A fun day, beautiful drive and a neat facility worth exploring if you ever get to Ardmore, OK.

Stay Positive and Love One Another...

The images on TV this afternoon reminded me of those from 9/11 when we saw the plumes of debris racing down the street after the tower collapsed. It gave me the same sinking feeling in my stomach. I saw the first images, inside a client's restaurant, just minutes after getting a text from my daughter that she was locked in her office after hearing two loud bangs and not knowing what was going on. She had texted me earlier this morning with a picture of the marathon runners going down Boyleston outside her office window and it looked like a beautiful day for a marathon in Boston.

My thought was that there was a gunman loose on her campus, in Boston, since there has been many shootings on campuses in the past few years.  We hadn't had the radio on but immediately turned it on, scanning furiously through the stations to get word of what was happening. We couldn't find out anything.

  Then I walked into the restaurant and the TV there was covering it. I had to pull myself away from it to get my head back into the frame of mind to work with this advertiser on the renewal of her ad. It was pretty tough to pull my thoughts together. Cell phone service was cut in Boston so my daughter wasn't able to text anymore from her phone but she was able to get a message to me from another phone that she was ok and was on her way home.

When something like this happens, it's really hard to wrap our heads around it. I truly believe that Americans are loving and caring people who look out for another and come together when things like this happen. Our life on the road, since 2007 confirms this. We've always felt safe and have seen many times where people rise to the occasion to help one another. In 2000, I took a trip, by myself, from Pennsylvania to the heartland of America, on my trike. I couldn't even begin to tell you how many women came up to me, when I would stop at rest areas to stretch, and asked if I was truly traveling alone and wasn't I afraid. I wasn't and told them so. So many people do not step out of their comfort zone to try anything new or go somewhere they haven't been to because of fear of the unknown. If it was known to you....it wouldn't be as big a gift to you. Do not be afraid of one another, of new things, of new experiences, of life ! Live it fully and in the moment. Be vigilant of your surroundings....be confident and act wisely but don't let the fear of the unknown or "what might be"  keep you stuck. There is so much good in this world and so much love to share with others. Keep the faith that tomorrow will be a better day and that we'll get through this together. Our hearts go out to those who have lost their lives or were injured. Hold them in your thoughts and prayers but don't let today's events keep you from stepping out, reaching out and being the person that you were meant to be. Go out and share yourself with the world.....

Clydesdales

Linda found a neat thing for us to go check out today in nearby Yukon, OK. Other than seeing some beautiful horses, the other neat part of it was that these magnificent creatures are owned by Bob Funk, who owns Express Employment. When we first went on the road, the second winter out we worked at Amazon's fulfillment center in Coffeyville, Kansas. The company that recruited all of the workampers for Amazon was an Express Employment franchise. Here is a great video I found that explains how Bob came to get into the Clydesdale business and what they are used for. It's 10 minutes long but very informative and you can see the horses in action.

Linda, in front of the barn with the Clydesdale metal sculpture....it's made out of horseshoes. It was really neat !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the Clydesdales' ride....a tractor trailer for the horses and their carriage. They travel all over the US in this....gone 200 days out of the year to do events. All of the money raised from their events goes to the Children's Miracle Network.

The barn is located on a huge piece of property in Yukon, OK. From the numbers of families that were there today, it must be a popular destination for kids. They like to open the little doors, on each horses' stall, to pet the gentle giant inside.

If you go to their website http://www.expressclydesdales.com/ 

there is some neat info on the whole operation.

Check it out....

Blogger Labels: Clydesdales,

Sunday

The sun popped out for just a few minutes this morning and has made itself scarce ever since. Supposed to be cloudy today with storms (and chance of severe ones) moving in over the next day or so with highest chance of storms Tuesday night into Wednesday.

Yesterday we went to Sprouts, a new grocery store that opened in Norman, to get some groceries. They are having some great grand opening specials like eggs for .99/dozen and avocados are 3 for $1. They have a full line up of Applegate products which we love like Grass Fed pure Beef Hotdogs with no nitrites or nitrates and no fillers. They taste great and they also have all of their sliced meats like ham, turkey and roast beef that are not cured and have no chemicals, etc. Same with their bacon....all great products and we've never seen so many Applegate products in one store (not even at Trader Joe's). They have ample supplies of fresh veggies in attractive displays and Sprouts are located in eight states. Check and see if there's one near you. We also made a trip to Sam's Club to get some office supplies since we'll be headed to areas where there won't be any Sam's Clubs to get ink for our printer or laminating sheets. Linda and I made bets on what our receipt total would be. Oh brother, neither one of us  was even close. $358 later we were out of there with a frig full of food and all the office supplies we need for a couple months.

Spring is coming to Oklahoma and the RVers are waking up to the fact that it's time to go camping. The park had lots of campers and tents this weekend. Everyone is starting to pack up to go home this morning. It will quiet down by this afternoon and we'll be able to sit outside and watch the boaters on the lake. Even late last night I could see lights from boats (and hear their loud motors roaring) as they were still out on the lake enjoying the warm evening. It stayed in the 60's all night and is supposed to reach the mid 70's today. Yesterday was gorgeous in the 70's with a cool breeze and lots of sunshine. Going to be mostly cloudy today so the temps might struggle a bit to get into the 70's. The rising temps will fuel the chance of severe springtime storms.

On Thursday we move to Twin Fountains RV Resort in Oklahoma City. Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and recharging for the start of a new work week.

Bees, Beets and Alpacas

Linda and I arrived in Norman, OK on Wednesday afternoon and got settled in at our site. Our friends, Bobbie and Jim decided to stop and spend an evening with us before moving down the road to New Mexico. They set up in the site next to us and we had a good time catching up with them. Our friends Dave and Susie Smeal, who live here in Norman, came out to the campground after Susie got off work and we all had supper together. It was really windy and cold outside so we all got together inside Bobbie and Jim's 5th wheel to hang out. At 8:30 we broke up the party cause it had been a long day and Thursday was a work day for us. The next morning Bobbie and Jim got on the road, after Linda made them breakfast, and we headed off to work.

Linda and I have 10 more parks to do and then we are taking a 6 month leave of absence from AGS. I have applied for an internship at the White Violet Center for Eco Justice in Indiana and I got it ! I'm really excited about it because it combines all sorts of things that I am interested to learn more about. For those who don't know me, I grew up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania and as a youngster I had a produce stand where I sold fresh veggies and fruit that came from our garden. Before going on the road, I was the food service director at Pennsylvania College of Technology for 18 years and there I worked with a local farmer co-op to bring grass fed beef and milk products to the dining halls, as well as created a composting program with the grounds dept and worked with a local bio-diesel company to collect the waste oil from our fryers to turn it into fuel. I have strong ties to our food systems and am very concerned with where it is headed and the ingredients that are going into our food. That is why I'm so thrilled to find a place that cares about this as much as I do so we can learn from each other. They are excited to "pick my brain" on the initiatives that I had at the college.

Here is a little info, from Wikipedia about what the White Violet Center does:

White Violet Center for Eco-Justice is a non-profit eco-justice education center focusing on organic agriculture, spiritual ecology and social advocacy. Founded in 1996 by Sister of Providence Ann Sullivan, the center is a ministry of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana. The center grew out of the Roman Catholic women religious congregation's commitment to eco-spirituality and sustainability.^[1]

The center maintains a herd of alpacas, 343 acres (1.39 km²) of state-certified organic farmland, bees, a berry patch, a farmers' market, classified forest and orchards.^[2] White Violet Center hosts field trips, workshops and film series to educate both children and adults. The center has hosted a variety of speakers including cosmologist Brian Swimme, beekeeper Günther Hauk, author Judy Cannato and essayist Scott Russel Sanders.

White Violet Center is considered an "engaged project" by the Yale University Forum on Religion and Ecology.^[3] It is also featured in Sarah McFarland Taylor's 2007 book Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology.^[4]

 

They run a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program, which means that people can buy into the program and then each week,  during the growing season, they get an assortment of vegetables for their personal use. Here is an example of what folks got on their May16th pick-up last year. They run a summer and fall program. I will be an intern in the garden area but will get time with the bees, alpacas and other areas too. I want to learn it all ! Anything they can show me, I'm happy to learn about.

I will live in a dorm type of setting, have a private bedroom and shared bath and laundry areas. Although this is an organization run by Roman Catholic nuns, they seem really cool and I haven't had the sense that there are heavy overtones of religion. It's all about spiritual ecology, which is where my heart is at....love and care for the Earth. Two of the hardest things will be that Linda will take the rig, car and Boomer and go back east to see family and stay there during this time. The other thing will be dealing with that dreaded "S" word during winter and cold temps. I haven't been in really cold weather since we left to go on the road in 2007 so I'm pretty sure my blood is pretty thin and I will need to bundle up way more than most people till I get used to it. When we finish up our jobs in Wyoming on August 10, we will make our way to Indiana, where Linda will drop me off. She will hang out in a campground for a night or two till I see if I've forgotten to pack anything that I really need for six months. That's the sweet thing about living in an RV...anywhere you go, you have everything you need with you cause it's everything you own !

So in the coming months you'll see me talk about making plans for this new adventure, woven (no pun intended) into talk about where we are and what we're currently doing. Hope it won't get too confusing. Just think about all the cool things I can blog about when I get to the farm ! Speaking of the farm, last Sunday Linda and I went to an alpaca farm that was in Medina, TX to visit the owners there and learn more about alpacas. It was really neat. They had 43 alpacas and in another week they were due to be sheared. Their fiber is soooo dense...Leigh and Chuck showed us how thick it is on a couple of them. Once they are sheared they look so skinny cause the fiber fills them out so much. Each alpaca can produce 4-8# of fiber each year. The fiber from different areas on their body is used for different things. Leigh has made all sorts of things from the fiber and has it for sale in her shop. It's so soft but really warm for as light is it is. It was funny to watch the alpacas interact with each other and with the farm dog, Luke, who guards them from predators. Luke comes and goes through all of their pastures but a couple of the alpacas get a little attitude with him when he comes onto their turf. They like to chase after him and make him go back out his little escape hatch in the corner of the fence. When the alpacas get a little sassy with each other, they'll spit at each other. Not something you want to get in the middle of cause if comes from deep in their stomach and is pretty nasty smelling stuff. We had a great time talking and learning about alpacas. During my internship this fall, I'll get to card and spin the alpaca fiber they have from their 40 alpacas. A new skill to master ! Hopefully I'll be better at that than I am with crocheting. My mom and grandmother tried to teach me how to crochet but I couldn't get the hang of it. Maybe it was because I had creeks to explore and my bike to ride and no patience for sitting inside with yarn on my lap. Who knows...maybe it's not too late for me to learn. We're excited for the new adventure ahead !

Lake? Medina

Up until Thursday we were staying in Bandera at Skyline Ranch RV Park. We had a great site out by the pasture so we could watch the  steer and donkeys. Who needs an alarm clock when the donkeys and roosters go off at the crack of dawn each day ? Being here makes a connection, for me, with my roots of growing up on a dairy farm. Boomer loves watching the deer when they come out each evening and stroll through the campground. The little ones would crawl under the fence and the big ones jump over the fence....it was cute to watch.

On Sunday, the 17th, we drove down to Hondo, to the Skp park, to visit our friends Wendy and Cindy. Since it was St. Patty's day, they had fixed an awesome Irish meal of corned beef and cabbage with some Irish side dishes. We brought a non-Irish dessert of apple pie, apple ice cream and apple strudel coffee. We had picked up all of these at the Apple Store, in Medina just before we drove down to see them. The apple pie was hot out of the oven just before we got there....it was so yummy ! They use 5# of apples in every pie they make. A high dome crust, filled to the top with apples. I didn't realize it, until I spent time talking with the owner of the Apple Store but he is the largest propagator of maple trees in the state of Texas. He raises the "Lost Maple" trees, which are a sugar maple and grow 3' per year. He has a variety of trees for sale outside the store. We had a great time with the girls. On Wednesday, they came to Bandera to do some sight seeing and joined us at the 11th Street Cowboy Bar for Steak night. Everyone brings their own meat and you cook it yourself over large grills they have gotten ready. There are all sorts of seasonings available and for $6 you get salad, a huge baked potato, roll and all the fixins to go with your entree. It had been quite a while since I've had a baked potato and theirs was particularly yummy (I don't think the blue cheese dressing I put on top of it in lieu of sour cream hurt either). Linda's cousin and his family joined us and we had a great time with our friends and family.

Ok, so that catches me up to now. It's Saturday and we are in Lakehills next to Lake Medina, which doesn't look much like a lake anymore. The water is down 70 feet and it looks like a big crater in the ground. I wish I could find a picture to post of this same shot from three years ago when we first came to this area....it was bad then. It's really sad now. This picture is taken at the top of the hill before you descend down to the ranch where our campground is, along the shores of the lake. The drought has affected so many of the homes and businesses in the area. People's wells are going dry...businesses are closing up. But people keep chugging along, hoping for some enduring rain to fill the lake and several people told me that it can happen in 36 hours. Someone told me that 10" of rain would go a long way to filling it and it's happened a number of times in the past 10 years. If a category 2 hurricane were to come ashore near Corpus Christi and then slow over the Bandera area and just dump the rain, it would do the trick. Hoping for rain for this area (no loss of life) but the one time where a little hurricane might be welcomed in this area. 

I mentioned that the campground is part of a working ranch. Yep, we drive through the pasture to get in and out of here. More calves this year than we've ever seen. So cute to watch them as we drive through the pasture. Lots of deer here too for Boomer to watch. Each night at dusk they come around and he sits up on the couch and watches them out the window. We are finishing up here and heading out on Tuesday for our next jobs in Oklahoma. Hoping that all the cold and snowy weather is drawing to a close in the central part of the country. Every time I talk to my mom in Pennsylvania, she is getting cold temps and more snow. She's getting really sick of it and is ready for spring. I can't say as I blame her although the oak pollen here is killing me right now. Springtime in Texas !

Annual Company Meeting/Bandera

We spent last week at our company's annual meeting. A very busy time with sessions during the day and dinner/event in the evening. On Sunday, everyone that made the $100,000 club went to brunch at the local country club. Newbies to the club get their $100,000 club jacket and for those of us who already have one, we cheer for them. We had a great breakfast, with a made-to-order omelet station. After breakfast, we gathered outside for a group photo. On Monday night we had the awards dinner. Linda and I met the criteria for one of the new bonus programs so we got a certificate and bonus check for that. We also got a cute award for our making the $100,000 club. We sold $146,682 for 2012....so close to making the $150,000 club. Over $40,000 was given out Monday night, in bonus money, to our reps. It was so much fun to see some of the new teams meet their goals and get big checks for their efforts. Our rep teams are so supportive of each other. To me, our annual meeting feels like a family reunion and the only time we get to see some of the other teams.Sometimes it can be pretty lonely out here, all year long, working on our accounts. When we all get together, the energy level is really high and we soak it all up for as long as we can before heading back out to do our work. The week goes by much too quickly. Thankfully we had planned on staying one day beyond the scheduled events to catch up with some of our friends. It still feels like we needed another day or two....there is so much information that comes out of our sessions that it takes a couple days to unwind and get ready to go back to work.

But back to work are we.....here in Bandera. It took us five hours to get from Montgomery to Bandera on Friday. We got set up at the campground and then went out to meet with our two parks to get paperwork signed. Tomorrow we are off and running to work these two parks.

Had some thunderstorms roll through last night but not much rain. This area is very, very dry. The river is really low and brown grass all over. It would take a pretty lengthy period of rain to get water levels back to where they should be. It's really sad to see.