FIRST DAY OF WORK

our first day of work was very productive... it was a very windy day...but NO rain and the area is praying for some...haven't had any since sept..

pictures are of how it looked like we we started this morning just s slab...then the wall started to be put together and 3 of them went up..they mom and dad worked with us all day and the mom went to get the kids out of school wehn the first wall went up and were they excited..they even pounded in a nail oir two and did al little help on the house...to make things even great for the family it was the parents 14th anniversary so it was just that much more special for them..

it has been a differnt build so far and a good group of care-a-vanners to be working with...we are building a green house meaning we are using all the recycled products we can and making it very sustaina ble...the house they built last year electric bill has only been around 30$ a n]month and the electric company wanted th change the meter a s they thought it was faulty hahaha it wasn't...the house also gets solor panel hot water heater which can switch over to electic is the need arrises...the house is air tight enough the a/c is hardly used...so all this is differnt to us and we are learning some new things...maybe we ought to do all this on our house at home..excpet we don't have the sun as much as here in texas...

on wed we are invited out to a ranch for dinner..i asked if they had cowboys and indians...i was told yep..so that ought to be an interesting night...not sure what we will be served but it is at he presidents house for the local habitat...

we are served lunch every day byt the local churches and business ...so i just have to be careful not to eat too much..i would have gone back for secnds today but i told myself NO you don't need it even if it is good...i don't want to have to go buy new clothes ....so far so good and all's well donw here in mason...

LOST PICTURES

i was told that for some reason the pictures i put on the blog a few days ago had iisappeared so i am putting them back again...for sure i don't knw why other than the wrong click of the mouse or something...

the pictures are of lar and mat enjoying the round rock famous donut...and we are on the chisom trail and the rock where round rock got it's name...funny how i silly rock in a river can be the name for something...but where did ithaca come from...also some other names we know...enjoy the evening.,...we are gong to...

we need to rest up

MASON

we have now arrived in mason, tx and will be here for the next 3 weeks...we drove thru town and it reminds us of an old texas town..and expect to see gunslingers come out of some of the buildings very soon...they won't be in the saloon as it is a dry county...

we have met some of the fellow habiters and one couple we built with last year del and margaret so we wspent to afternoon with them goong over last year and comparing notes...several other couples have also come in but we have only met them so far..

we understand that we will be served lunch evey day so i've for sure have got to be good and not make this a 10 pound build or even a 5 pound build....i've just got to say NO and use a small plate etc...but time will tell...

at this byuild the first 3 week group gets the houe ready for the sheet rockers to come in ...then the next 3 week group finishes the house so in 6 weeks time a house is ready to move into...the house we will be building will be for a family of 7...5 kids and of course mom and dad so it will be intersting...

we have very weak wi-fi signal so pictures may be spotty and i hope this goes...

ROUND ROCK

WE ARE STILL IN ROUND ROCK AND HOPE TO GET bf2 BACK THIS AFTERNOON...i guess they are replacing the cruise control what reveer that has to do with the cruise control beats me but that is wahat the engineers said to do to it...and who knows if that will fix the \ problem ...we have been asked by the sdealer if it does not fix that problem can we come back so we may be returning to round rock after the build in mason and visiting in san antonio...we will just change our plan and see things we haven't seen before in another direction...just got to roll with it ...

we have been given a loaner truck so we haven't been house bound but we haven't done one heck of a lots either...good time to crochett which i have done so a couple more shawls done and a few beanies...

PRESIDENTS DAY 2011

we have developed another slight problem with the truck..it is the cruise control and the problem is that when we have it in cruise on the interstate all of a sudden it decided we shouldn't be using it so it just cuts off...not stopping us but then we have to use the gas pedal...sooooo lar decided that after several calls to on star and chevy tech people we could get it fixed here in round rock...so that is where the truck is right now...

while in mason and we would be busy building would have been a good time to take it to a dealer but the closest to mason ins 30 miles away..so it was decided to stay put another day and take it to a dealer here as there was one about 5 miles away..that's wherfe we took the truck this morning..they gave us a ride back to the rig so we arre hanging out in the rig today...

a good day to drabg out the vcacuum-dust rag-mop-broom-so i bet you can guess what i am going to do today...clean..lar thought maybe he'd start a book..most years we read several books while traveling but so far this year neither have read one...i am busy crochetting and lar has been reading magazines that he needs to catch up on...

REFUGE ADVENTURE

todays adventure started by going thru down town rockport and saw a few green blue herons flying then we nothiced many many more and thought this is s rookery so we stopped found a place to park got out and walked to the areawhere we saw the GBH's...we noticed many 75--100 or more birds in the area..many in trees and we sure tried totake pictures of all of them...but i am only putting one on the blog...it was most interesting to see this and we thought this has made our day..

then we went to goose island state park in the look out for whooping cranes...well we saw some..along with rosetta spoonbills-lots of ducks-shore birds-lots of differnt birds...then it was time to move on so off we went to aransas refuge area...

there we took the driving tour around the refuge and got out to walk severla of the trails where we saw more birds..and even more whoopers and some family members and we don't know which sinde of the family they are frm ..you can tell from one of the pictures..hahahaha...

all in all it was a good day we saw many more differnt birds than we ever thought we would..even deer-wild pigs-armadillos--and many more things that were hidden in the weeds..

so we had a good day..even had to shed our winter coats and wore just flannel shirts..the sun was out but the temps were only about 50...

CHORPUS CHRISTIE

WE are now in rockport not to far from chorpus christie...there just aren't any campground very near there so we found one about 20 miles away...yesterday it was rainy-cold all day so what did we do but go do laundry then after we took a driving tour around the city we are in and visited the visitors center for info...also bought some fresh shrimp..

today we went to padre island to get a national park stamp and what a bummer that was...they were in the process of sanding the floors and WOULD NOT LET US IN to get a stamp so in a way i was a tad disappointed by not getting a stamp...(but i guess i can get ove it) i know we were here i just won't have it in my book...

it wsas not a day to be on the beach and even the birds were staying put...we did see some sand hill cranes on our way to the island and lots of waterfowl on the water...some we knew what they were...lots of pintails-canvasback-redheads-scaup-coot-rudy-and now sure what elese there was out there...it has been a good visit here...

SPACE CENTER

today we spent at the houstan space center learning more about space travel..another most intersting day was spent...at the movies we saw and the shuttles were taking off i could just picture it for real especially after seeing one in person..we are glad tom had a bucket list of seeing a launch and we went along...just makes a person marvel at what can be done with a little be of thought of what is up there and lts go take a look ..

the space center was not very busy today which made it nice to get into all the exhibits whitout waiting..no school groupd or even bus tours early on...

so we have now been at cape canaveral--seen a launch--been to the space center so what's next..maybe a flight into space...oh i don't think so but it is a good thought anyway..

tomorrow we are heading down to corpus christie..and maybe warmer temps ..but the forecast is for cooler weather....i guess we will just enjoy what ever the weather will be....

SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

what do you do on super bowl sunday nothing that we wouldn't be back to the rig in time for the game...so what do we do go off to a wildlife refuge not to far away fro mwher we are right now...we spent probally 3 1/2 hrs touring around the refuge and watching the wildlife..

it was mostly waterfowl as a matter of fact there were thousands of snow geese that were fun to watch...alos lots of ducks some we are identify and some were too far away to really get a good sighting of them...

lots of different shore birds..

and there were some other wildlife that we weren't sure what they were...we called the the texas longhorn water buffalo ahhaha...(or just plain old cows)...so a good morning/afternoon we had..

now back to the rig in time to cook and eat before kick off...

GO GREEN BAY!!!!! or our numbers...

GALVESTON ISLAND

THIS MORNING WE DECIDED TO MAKE THE TRIP DOWN TO GALVESTON ISLAND---oops so off we went on a round trip around to the island and back again...we had to take a ferry over to the island the way we went but no on the return trip...the scenery reminded us and several different places we have been in the past...

off the ferry and into town where we went to the visitors center for some info..we decided tp park the truck and go to a seafront museum..which we fouund most interesting..alot of it was about shrimping in the area and how much they bring into the economy...we haven't bought any yet but it is on the list of things to buy one of these days..
we also picked u a brochure about some of the carving you see in the pictures..after hurricane ike went thru in 2008 there were alot of really big old trees that came down ..so instead of cutting them all down to the ground someone decided to carve things in them...so we picked up a map of the carvings and tried to see most of them (there are over 20 or more) so we made a good dent in seeing some...they are of dogs-sea life-frogs-one is of the tin man from the wizard of oz and that statue is in front of the directors of the movie..

decided to eat lunch out and we picked an english pub so of course i had fish and chips which was very goo and lar had crab cakes...

so another delightful day on the road...

FRIDAY THE 4TH

first i'll mention the pictures...lar in his new shawl and beanie with this cold weather and drafts in the rig lar thought he might need a shawl and beanie so i mad ehim one..scenes around the campground this morning..

we got up this morning thinking we might leave by 9am but with the forecast and the weather overnight we changed our minds...finally around 11 we left..but

first we had to get all the ice off the slide toppers which was a job..especially with all the rain we've had that turned into ice..it took us 45 min or so to do this job...but once we finally got on the road they were wet and all the bridges.overpasses were sure covered heavy with sand...so we were thankful that the roads had cleared up and only wet...

the schools closed the night before on the forecast and some of the schools around the area we were at have been closed almost all week..wonder when they will make up the time...

we are now in wallsville, tx for a few days thinking of going to galveston,tx and maye the johnson space museum near houston...

good to have wi-fi in the rig...

it sure is a good feeling that we don't have to be somewhere by a certain date at lest right now we have 3 weeks to get to the next build so we aren't worried..just hope we can see and do as much as we would like too..and the weather holds up and warms up a tad...

WE'RE BACK

it has been awhile hat i haven't be able to blog we have been in campgrounds that we have needed to go to the office in order to get message and no convient way to blog...but now we are in a campground where we have wi-fi at our site...

we are now in wallsville, tx...we have been in lafayette,la ..where we camped at a campground that had several ponds that we couhave fished in but the weather sure wasn't fishing weather..to cold but the birds were fishing...visited and got my first national park stamp so that has been a plus cause we weren't expected to get one here...then we went to longfellows place where the name of his estate was named envangeline after his very famous poem..most interesting and we wer glad we stopped there..

the weather hasn't been all that pleasant--yep we've been caught in the "storm"..we got mostly heavy rain but also ice..this morning we wer covered with lots of ice which delayued our departure from the campground...when we finally got on the road it wsa almost 11 which is late for us..roads were wet and bridges sure had been covered with sand..but the travcel was ok...

picture are of crossing the MISSISSIPPI--sunset at the campground-and downtown Breaux Bridge..