NACOOGDOCHES, TX

we now find ourselves in nagadoches, tx and wondering what we might want to see or do while in town till tomorrow (fri)..so off we went to the visitors info place..we found out that there is alot to see here...so we visited the visitors center museum and was given lots of info on where to go to see stuff....we walked around town for a bit then headed back to the rig...there are a few things that need to be fixed.. we also found out that we are a bit early for the azalea garden festivities...saw some in bloom along with some red buds trees.. nagadaches has the oldest buildings in texas some we just saw where they had been and some still in place..reminded me of bardstown, ky...no distilleries thou ahahha... the sun is out but it is still on the cool side not as windy..which is good.. coming here from waco we traveled thru some differnt terrain..and if we didn't know where we were a person would never believe that they were still in texas..more ponds-creeks-rivers-lakes than in the hill country..lots of trees and green grass..more cows and horses in the fields instead of goats and sheep...more open plowed fields so they must be for crops...just different... tomorrow we head toward lousianna and end up in beaux bridge where we will meet up with bro (larry)/mem for the weekend...mem is already planning our schedule..sat going to go find some fleas in a market (then itch for awhile)..there is also a rabbit cook-off going on at the campground so we will probally see what that is all about... life is good on the road

WACO

yesterday (sun) we left mason around 9am or so and decided to head to waco, tx..which we did traveling on roads we hadn't been on some very interesting country and this part of texas is not where we would like to live...flat desert looking country...but interesting none the less... arrived here in waco about 2pm or so and we are now at an army corps of engineers park..nice and away form the hustle onf bussle of the city... we decided that today was gong to be a museum day so we started out going to the dr. pepper museum then on th sam's for lunch and you all know what lar bought me..yep a hot dog... then on to the texas ranger museum..both very interesting..the trxas rangers are an elite group of law enforcers...they can go any where to do their job even across state lines and out of the country like mexico..(wonder why)... now dr pepper is another story...lots of memmoriable stuff and the history of the making of it...of course we had to have some after we spent a couple of hrs there... so today was a relaxing kinda of day and the wind has been blowing like crazy..gusts up to 40 mph and it is suppose to last a few days...this trip to texas we have had winds most every day...no snow thou like they are enjoying in kansas... all's well

ENDING

yesterday was our last work day here in mason and last night we had a fresh made tortilla dinner (made by one of the caravanners)...we all brought something to put on them...lots of laughs and good food..and company this has been a good 2 weeks..we worked most of the time in a warehouse which was good as the weather has been cooool and windy...we got all of the walls cut and marked ---rafters also put together and ready to go up---lots of odd jobs that needed to et tdone before the construstion of the house..so these next three week olught to be a breeze for those coming in for it...some have already arrived and are set to go but not till tues as it is a tues ---say..this week we did mon -fri... tomorrow we are going to head towards waco...lar needs some blood work done and refills on some scripts funny how old age hadd one thinking of refilling scripts...not in our younger years did we think of such things. oh well just something we have to do.. wi-fi has been very spotty here in the park but this afternoon for some readon it has been good,,,not this morning thou....

PRESIDENTS DAY

presidents finds us back at the warehouse doing more prep work...build rafters--making plates--putting things together to be used next week...etc.. today one of the couples took the day off so lar was the only guy working with the ladies..so he decided that it was a womens buyild and he needed to look the part as you can see... tomorrow for lunch the bank in town is footing the bill for lunch..we shall go off to a restaurant and the bank will pay the bill...now go figure where else would the local bank pay for your lunch...of course it isn't the most ritzy place in town but a hamburger joint that does make the best burgers in town....what is amazing is that we just go and put it on the banks bill.... a real most interesting place to be

SUNDAY

sunday our day off finds us going out to breakfast with the "gang" to a counrty place in no where..a town called doss and i must say what a breakfast and it was very inexpensive and good.....one of the gals is from fredricksburg and knew about the place ..her husband stays at home and she comes to work for habitat...good to have people in the group who know the back roads and the local places around to go get good food... then lar and i took off for fredricksburg to do laundry and of course wal-mart and shop at HEB..... laundry all done and while i stayed with the laundry lar went to wal-mart cause what we needed he could get as it was oil...then off to HEB i must say it is like wegman's but i like it much better...it just is a fun place to shop and has about everything you could need ot want ...the prices aren't too bad..some things cheaper than back home..the veggies i think are much fresher and also the seafood...not sure if it cause wse are closer to where the products come from ...just a friendly store and everyoone we've been in is about the same.... then back to the rig for odd jobs and get ready for tomorrow...the group voted to work mon-fri this coming week so only one day off for us this week... where we are camoped is the municiple park here in mason and right behind us is a golf course...and once in awhile a golf ball will hit the rigs... and a rodeo grounds in front of us that they seem to be getting ready for something...not sure if a rodeo will be going on next weekend or not... all's well here in texas

WORKING

friday finds us back in the warehouse for another day of prep work...lar had some more truss to cut with the "girls" and i helped make the plumbing box thingy... i must say it was a day of eating if you wanted to..first we were brought some hot cinnamon rolls of course fresh out of the oven...then it was lunch at the catholic church...good food..then some old frineds who did not get in on this build del and margaret decided to leave minnesota and come for a visit..and when they arrived yep they had treats for us...NO i did not have any..but we are going to join them for dinner tonight out.. then dave and karen also from minnesota who live in mason for the winter came back from minnest=otga where they had been with their son who was just diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer..he had NO symptons..so they went back to be with him till it was decided what the dr's were ging to do..shrink the tumor with chemo then operate to remove.. back to work late this mon=rning we needed to paint the plumbing box and i was told the paint brushes were over there tand as you can see this is what i found for paint brushes...i have never seen anythinglike them before..right angle and inchangeable heads...most interesting brushes and i did like using it..very easy so now lar has a new thing to look for ahhaha...he always finds something he thinks he ought to have ...so this might be it...

HABITAT SITE

the other afternoon lar and i went out to a ranch to look for some mesquite wood for my brother.. we went with curtis's ranch where we had gotten some before..he has goats and long horned cows on his ranch...when the goats see his truck coming they know they are going to be fef so they just come running like a stampede..then they circle the truck and carry on..just a fun thing to be in the middle of... we got a piece of wood now to get it back home.. at work we have been working in the warehouse dong atlot of the prep work for the next phase of the build..cutting the walls and marking them as to where they go..building the truss --cutting out the notches in all the pieces that need it...yesterday we went out to the site and laid the foundations pieces down then drilled the holes for them to fit onto the foundation....also planted 4 steel poles where the car port is going to be ... so all in all it was a very productive day

FINALLY WI-FI

arrived here in mason on sunday afternoon to t=find out that the wifi was NOT working and hadn't been for about 3 weeks and someone was going to coe on wed to fix it...so as most of you know there has been much from us..so yeaterday yep they did arrive to fix it so now we are back in business and sending some messages out.. we were the first to arrive other than the team leader and the rest were to arrive on monday as we are working a tues -sat week this week then next week it will be mon-fr so only one day off...i think we can handle that...our job here is to lay out the walls msrk where the stub=ds and rafters go...which is almost done and then we will need to go put the finishing touches on the foundations and make it ready for thefollowing group of car-a-vanners to come in and up things together...we only know the team leaders before we arrived but talking to the otheres we all know someone else wo we have workied with in the past.. funny went we have gone out to lunch and diinner someone has come up to us and said i remember you from when you were here beforee...nice being in a small town and we look familiar to somoe of the towns people..yesterday lar and i went over to the site of a new historical museuum that they are getting reasdy to open in march and helped put up some shelves in it..and got kinda a private tour of the place..told we could some back to look at more of it..time will be the problem of getting back there as it is not opened up everyday we will try to make connections to do so... HAPPY =VALENTINES DAY TO ALL WHO ARE READING THIS...

RESTRINGING BLIND

yesterday was an do odd job day ..there were a couple of things that needed done one of them was to restring our dinning room blind..the string broke early on this trip and when we were in foley, al we bought a new kit to redo the blind.....we have waited till we had a rainy day with nothing to do ahahha..so yesteerday while the sun shone we cleaned the rig and it was time to redo the bild as we could not open it to look outside... first off lar had to spend some time on on star talking to xerox about his retirement and we all know how a we think ought to bea short call turned into a long one... by then it was time for lunch so after was the blind job...off came the blind and the restringing started to take place ...it only took about 3 1/2 hrs to do...one of those tedious jobs and alot of thinking on which way does string go etc...we had wanted to take the bikes off the rig and go for a ride but after the blind was done it was way after 5:30 and time for dinner... so a day of odd jobs turned into a long day and jobs..butthe rig got cleaned and the blind got strung one of our team leaders lives here in fredericksburg and came over to say hi...a lovely lady whose husband stays home while she goes on habitat builds... r

TEXAS-EAGLE

This morning finds u packing up and leaving round rock around 11 heading to frederickson, tx for a few days before we report to mason...we have tgravel the road before and a couple of yrs ago we came to a place that there were lots of people out of their cars looking into the trees at something the we found out what they were looking at...it was an eagle nest...so this year we weren't sure if we could find the place to check to see if the eagles were still there...no problem low and behold we find the spot and this time we pull over to go look ourselves...it is a large nest and has at lewsst 2 babies...we watched for a hlaf hr or more watching the eagle feed the toung fly back and forth from somewhere back to the nest...it was fun watching the activity going on...there is a resovior near by so that must be wshere they are getting alot of their food to fee the young... along the fence line were some feathers tied to the barbed wire pointing toward the nest..we think it has something to do with the indians... a m

a most eventful day driving across texas this morning...we are now lady bird municple rv park for 4 days before moving to mason..there are several wild life nature trails herfe in the park so we will more than likely take a hike ot two.. weather sure is not winter weather but more like summer...

HISTORY DAY

yesterday we spent the day in austin visitingthe state capital and then off to the LBJ library... we took a tour of the capital as we find that if we can take a tour we learn more than if we do a self guided tour...ofcourse do i remember all of texas history we learnt no...the capital was not like any other we have been in lots of marble..and yes we even peed at the capital (yes we did use a restroom hahaha)...at the end of the tour the guide said you can go out to the balcony to watch the ratlesnakes is you want but i won't go out as she did not like snakes (oh i don't either)..so out we went thinking that the snakes were in cages.....then we were surprised there were about 5 or 6 snakes on the flor along with some handlers..we were on the second floor and could hear them rattleing...then the handlers pciked one up got it's mouth opened up and took hold of it behind its neck and wrapped it around visitors who wanted him to...NO ME.. lunch at the capital grill which we found to be very reasonable and good.. off to the LBJ library and got reminded of alot of happpenings during our life time... so a good day of history s

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SUPER BOWL B-B-Q

yesterday was super bowl sunday and of course we are here in round rock...matt and lindsey were having a few friends over to help watch the big game...so what do they serve for food in texas ...you guess it b-b-q..so matt was up at 5 to start the cooking (smoking) the main course...he did a brisket--beer can chicken--sausage--ribs--poppers just about anything that could have been b-bqes wasdone...he didn't have any room for a pork roast but it wasn't needed... lar and i went over to their house about noon then for the rest of theafternoon we had to sit there and "smell" the cooking and the smell was sure enough to make your mouth water...finally the friends started to arrive with some side dishes...finally it was time to take the meat off the smoker and slice it up to enjoy...i will say it was delicious some of the best brisket i've ever enjoyed...all was very good matt did a great job... then the game was one of the best and our team won.... so life remains good and we soon start carrying a tool bag... the

ROUND ROCK

yesterday we took an adventure to cabela's south of austin...and we DID NOT burt anything no good deals in the bargain cove no real good deals there...so we just wondered around for little more than an hr.. then it was time to go get an ice cream for the last few visits to round rock we have wanted to go to amy's ice cream and this time we really made it and enjoy some good stuff... today is super bowl sunday and may the ravens win..

KING CAKE

most of you know that lar has a sweet tooth so when we were in a target there was a table full of king cakes so he just had to have one...so when we got home he saluted it with a shot of screech...but we had also talked to his brother on the way and they both decided to have a shot at the same time..so 2 things were taken care of and the same time..