Soooo slowed down...

It's hard to believe we have been in Rockport for almost 4 weeks. We had plans for the day but as the morning slipped away so did our ambitions. We did manage to get out this afternoon for a walk on a pier that we often drive by. So, we aren't fishing and we aren't painting as originally planned. Here are some examples of the shore birds Bob photographed and my journal picture for today.

A Plover. I will try to paint this little guy.

A Sandpiper; a picture of beautiful colours that I have no intention trying to recreate. I just appreciate the quality of the photograph.

I guess we actually accomplished something. It seems hard to get motivated when we enjoy our early mornings with our coffee. So before you know it it's lunch time and then if we are planning to BBQ for dinner, we start getting organized so we can cook and eat before dark.
A discussion of when we will leave here happens everyday. We are getting concerned that we may not be able to get energized enough to travel more than 50 miles a day. If that happens we need to be on the road soon just to make it home before the end of March. It's a bit of a joke with us because it has taken awhile to unwind from the intensity of the previous three months. The stress in Bob's neck and shoulders is improving daily being off the highways and not pulling the RV.
Cleaning out the fridge of leftovers today in preparation for cooking a big ham. Then, like a turkey, we will have a couple more dinners, some yummy sandwiches and if I have the energy, lol, maybe some pea soup. There goes Sunday along with some football and maybe a nightcap of our special Louisiana find, Pennsylvania Dutch egg nog....real dairy with rum, brandy and whiskey. It is only produced for a couple of months over Thanksgiving through Christmas. Unfortunately we only bought two bottles (1.75 litres each)...so we will enjoy it while it lasts. It really does put a new slant on egg nog. And it is really this big!!!

Posted with Blogsy

A quiet day

We are both feeling a little lazy today. We have nothing to prepare for Xmas. We have chosen to have a ham for dinner on Christmas as we just cooked a turkey for US Thanksgiving. A little puttering and a few hours on and off for journaling. Yesterday we went to a free aquarium on the waterfront that was interesting to see all the local fish and sea life for this area. I worked on my "Texas" home page and a "spotted trout".

It was a mixed bag of weather today, overcast, warm and humid again. It tried really hard to rain but mostly evaporated before it landed on us. A warm southerly wind that carries a lot of ocean moisture. I am getting more accustomed to the humidity and quite like the tropical feel. Heavy rain and even a tornado warning passed by just to the north of us moving northeast into the Ohio Valley. We seem to be mostly protected along the Coastal Bend from the worst weather this December has had to offer.
One quiet day and we are ready to head out tomorrow. Bob will take his fishing rod and I will take my paints. It may be our last really warm day for awhile.

Posted with Blogsy

Disappointing day

After 35 years as an HSBC employee, I retired officially in April, 2013. Over the years as we have travelled to Arizona in the fall I have made my arrangements with Human Resources for my benefits coverage for the the following year. With all the paper work required to transition to retirement status last spring I thought I had everything organized. I explained that we would be leaving in August for at least 7 1/2 months and would everything be in order while we were gone. It seems nothing was organized and I missed the deadline to updated my/our health benefit status for 2014.

We are now in "default" status which means I have minimum coverage for health and no dental and Bob has no coverage what so ever, maybe not even MSP for 2014.

I have spent the last two days trying to sort through this dilemma between HSBC and Sunlife, the company that manages my retirement benefits. As of tonight I have not received a response from either company.

I am so disappointed with my life work's company, HSBC, that I have been treated with such little regard. I accept responsibility that I didn't follow up but to be dismissed with so little compassion leaves a very sad and bitter feeling with me.

We will survive and we are thankful we have our Provincial Medical coverage. But I will never be able to say that I have been a proud employee of HSBC. Sad to say, but true.

On a brighter note, nope, don't think there was a brighter note today...we had a less than steller lunch out trying to make something happier happen for the day ....a quiet afternoon back at the RV ...it is humid, warm and breezy with a somewhat tropical feel to the day.

It will be interesting to see what the responses will be from either company. This blog post is primarily for my own benefit. A little venting and also a written record of the situation I find us in.

 

Posted with Blogsy

A Drying Day

The Great Blue Herons

We are now in a period of warm air for the next few days. We went out this morning gunk holing around to give our carpets a little more time to finish the drying process. There are so many docks to explore and today we met a few interesting characters hanging around. This little guy was not afraid of us at all. A step towards him and a step back by him...a little two step happening. These pictures are from Bob's camera with his 42 power zoom.

The waterways here are so shallow between the coast and the outer water of the Gulf that boats are primarily shallow bottomed, a whole different breed than we are used to seeing. Until you get into the boats that fish the deeper outside Gulf waters and they are really big boats. Today as we were busy with our herons we watched a Texas Ranger police car leading in a 35 +\~ foot patrol boat with 3 - 300hp motors come to the dock. They are a regular patrol boat monitoring the inland coast for drug and alien smuggling activities. They can travel at an average speed of 45 knots for about 4 hours on a tank of 330 gallons of fuel, valued at $1000. Very cool looking boat with three Texas Rangers aboard. I asked if they took ride alongs. He said sometimes but we were not invited to come along. Too old for the adventure, maybe, lol. Oh well!

Can't help but put more of these very cute birds on the blog. This guy blocked our exit from the wharf.....it seemed he was almost as interested in us as we were in him.

An afternoon back at the park, a visit with our landlords, Shorty and Tom...a gift of chocolates from them to us..(me), lol, and a painted card from us to them. It does feel like the right place for us to be. Good people, a quiet park, a sense of security and lots of exploration ahead of us.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Half Way Point

Today is the day we have been looking for to do a wholesale cleaning on our home away from home. Bob has already washed the outside of both and now it's time to shampoo carpets, chairs and truck interior. Big job but needs to be done. We went out this morning and rented a shampooer from Ace hardware and cleaning supplies needed. We tried at Walmart but this store is so overwhelmed with Christmas shoppers buying and returning we couldn't get close to the equipment.

Being on-the-road gypsies I definitely don't have a hairdresser familiar to me, lol....so my salon of choice and convenience is whatever town's Walmart we happen to be near when needed. Normal shampoo and cut $14.95, Tuesday is $12 dollar day, my lucky day. With my hair being pretty short from before we left home I am just getting a cleanup and bangs trim. The luxury most enjoyed is having someone shampoo my hair. I get a little pampering while Bob does a little grocery shopping.

At home Bob starts on the truck shampooing the carpets and front seats. I am doing a vacuuming of all the inside of the RV in preparation to shampoo our easy chairs and the carpets in the morning. We have been having a discussion regarding the statistics of our truck and RV. We flew to Milford, Michigan in June 2008 to buy our truck. At that time it had a little over 7000 miles on it. Now we have 87000 miles logged. In September, 2008 we bought the RV. Of those 80000 truck miles we have pulled the RV for over 41000 of them and have lived in it for more than 3 years of the last five years.

Bob often refers to the RV as his 'Ford'....translated, means 'fix or repair daily'. But when we consider where we have taken this unit....the rough roads, bumps, twists and turns it is amazing everything is still connected. Sometimes we have to pick up the pieces after a few rough miles. Screws come loose, the propane heater sometimes gets bounced off its place on the side of the counter. We always have to make sure things are in their proper places before opening the slides.

All in all I think we have a very serviceable combination that satisfies our needs, wants and requirements. There are bigger and better Rvs and there are smaller and worse ones. We fit somewhere in the middle and 'most' of time we are happy.

After tomorrow we will be clean inside and out and ready for the second half of this years travel adventure.

We have pretty much decided we will stay here in Rockport til the end of January. When the weather is like today we can't imagine a more beautiful place to be.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Padre Island

Another day away from home. We leave early again down to Aransas Pass and over the little ferries to Port 'A' on our way to CC, lol ....that would be Port Aransas to Corpus Christi.....as the locals say....

Some places use Uhaul, others use this...pretty colourful and I have seen these throughout the south. Finally was able to get a picture of one.

Our goal today is an appointment with Discount Tire to get the tires rotated on the truck. The last time was in Minnesota and the manager there, Jason Diaz, was going to try to find us new beauty rings for the back tires. Turns out they have been in Minnesota for the last couple of months and now he knows where we are they are being shipped down here by Fedex. It is such great service from Discount Tire and their employees and why we will continue to buy all our tires from them.

We drove south of Corpus down to Padre Island. The beaches are absolutely beautiful. It is a state park for about 60 miles along the Gulf of Mexico. There is a campground with water and sani and a couple of places where you can actually camp on the beach. We didn't go further into the 'Park' but will come back another day to explore further. If the weather cooperates it would be a beautiful place to spend time just looking out onto the gulf.

A day can disappear so quickly and as we head back north towards Rockport and home we order a Pizza Hut pizza for a quick and easy dinner after another busy but enjoyable day.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Aransas Wildlife Refuge

It is Sunday morning, sunny but still cool as we head out for a day away from home. The Rockport area has so many interesting places to explore, most based on the waterfront, whether it is Aransas Bay on the outside or Copano Bay on the inside. There is always so much activity along the many marinas, wharves and docks. Everyplace has it's own unique fish and bait shop supplying fresh prawns for the consumer and live or dead bait for the fisherman.

Today we found the "Big Tree" in the far side of Goose Island State Park. It is believed to be over a thousand years old. There are so many of these magnificent old trees. They are called 'Live' oaks because their leaves never turn colour or drop...therefore they 'live' all year long.

We followed a road along the water discovering fishing and hunting camps. Small resorts that have probably been around for decades. Air boats take hunters out into the Bay Area to duck blinds along with their dogs, another place where everyone is in camo including the boats.

It is only 10:30am and they are mostly coming in. It must have been very early and very cold when they first headed out this morning.

We spent a lovely afternoon at the refuge both driving and walking the trails. We were in search or whooping Cranes and alligators, neither of which we saw unfortunately. There may have been 'something' that made a big rustling noise as it scurried away in the swamp bushes beside me. Whatever it was I almost jumped out of my shoes. The ranger at the Welcome Center said the alligators are actually quite timid of humans and do not see us as a food source. Very reassuring ...like Bob telling me that the black bears we might come across in the woods at home are more afraid of me than I am of them...NOT!! There was a nine mile secondary road through the parks grasslands that we planned to drive but discovered it had a length and height restriction. With the kayak still on top of the canopy we would have been scraping the tree branches, so unfortunately we couldn't drive that part.

Here is a sign I really liked....each state has it's own message for littering...Mississippi's was 'I ain't your Mama, pick it up'....this is Texas' with a little extra from the county of Lamar's women's group:)There were so many beautiful scenes throughout the refuge....it is very pristine and even for a Sunday not a lot of people, for which we are always thankful. There is nothing better than exploring beautiful places in peace and quiet. I finish with a few pictures .....

It really is a very beautiful area and we hope the weather continues to warm up so we can do more of the exploring we have planned.

 

Posted with Blogsy