Sunday January 10 thru Thursday January 14, 2010-Stephen F. Austin SP

Sorry I haven't been keeping the blog up, but I will try to do better.

On Sunday, we just hung out here at home, watching the football playoffs. It was still way cold and below freezing in the morning, but it was warm and cozy inside. We are eating better and have been doing well eating only two meals a day.

Monday is our first official day off. I had gotten an email about our friends Bob and Christina and Jerry and Joanne coming in today so we looked for them. We went into Sealy and washed our clothes and when we got back, Jerry and Joanne had arrived and were set up. Bob and Christina arrived later in the afternoon. We went over and looked at the improvements they made to their trailer while in the Rio Grand Valley. They got new carpet, new wooden blinds, and had their couch reupolstered and some new trim that matches everything. Their nice trailer is even more beautiful now.We all went to eat at Tony's restaurant in Sealy. It was another great meal and everyone was full when we left.

Tuesday, Stella and I drove down to Texas City where we picked up some papers that Stella needed to work on for her clients. We went by the house and picked up our mail and looked around again for anything that we needed. We still haven't heard from the man that is going to buy the house to get a closing date. Hopefully he'll call soon and give us the big date. We can't wait!

I have forgotten to put my fuel down here. Diesel prices are slowly going back up, but I found a little station in Texas City that has some good prices. On January 5th, I filled up both tanks, taking 122.4 gallons to go 1520.8 miles for a 12.4 average. Keep in mind that much of these miles were towing the trailer, so I guess that's not that bad. Today, while in Texas City again, I filled up from our running errands and our trip to Texas City. We took 17.1 gallons to go 308 miles for an 18.0 average. Much better!

Wednesday I went back to "work", checking the restrooms, both the RV area and the tent area. Neither one needed much work, but I did pick up some trash and leaves that had been tracked in. Since I don't have a golf cart yet, I walk around the RV loop and then walk over to the tent area to check that restroom. the walk is about a mile and a half, so I get my exercise and my work done at the same time.

Thursday it began to rain in earnest. I didn't take my walk, but we needed to go into town to get propane because one of the tanks had run out last night. I don't know how they program these tanks to always run out in the middle of the night. Every single time ours has run out, it is between 1AM and 4 AM, usually raining when I have to go out to change the tank over. I could set the tank to automatically switch, but then when one went out I wouldn't know it and when the heater stopped working, we would be completely out of propane. Can you imagine the chewing-out I would get? I have enough knuckle bumps on me from disagreeing with Stella, so I don't need any more.

Larry came by and asked us to come to a safety meeting in the dining hall. This is a mandate from the state of Texas for employees and includes us as volunteer workers. It was a good chance to get together with the other park hosts and go over a few things. I was told that I will get a golf cart tomorrow. We'll see how that works out.

When we got through with the safety meeting, we drove over to Brookshire to refill the propane tank. It's about 8 miles down the freeway but the propane is a little cheaper there. We have to watch our pennies now, living on a fixed income. After finishing up this chore, we were both hungry so we stopped in at Orlando's Pizza. They have an all day pizza buffet and let me tell you, it is some of the best pizza I've ever eaten. I was apprehensive that there wouldn't be much selection at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, but there was a surprising number of people eating and a great selection. They even asked if there was a special pizza that we would like, but we found everything that we liked.

It's still cold, though not nearly as cold as last week. It started to rain again today and is supposed to rain most of the weekend. I had forgotten about this being a holiday weekend, with Monday being the Martin Luther King holiday. It is kind of ironic because this used to be one of the weekends that I planned rallies in, but now that I'm retired, I had forgotten about it. I guess some holidays don't mean that much any more.

So long.