Monday November 12, 2012-Inks Lake State Park

Another update from the state park. Work is going well, with boat rentals and mowing being two of our main jobs. The work is not that hard, but the mowing is dusty and very dirty. Because of the drought, there is lots of dust, so when I come in from mowing it takes a LOT of dusting me off before I can come inside. The time change has messed up our boat rental schedule. Marty, the other park host that does rentals, comes in on Saturday from 11 AM until 3 PM so now since the store closes at 5, the last rental is at 3, so since there isn't that much need of someone being there to receive the boats that are out, we were told that we weren't needed on Saturday afternoon. Bummer! Oh well, we have firewood to get put out on Saturday, so that is what we worked on.

While working on the fire wood, we had a visitor come by. Remember AD and Dee from Stephen F. Austin State Park? AD and his new friend Donna dropped by for a visit. Dee, his wife, passed away some time ago, and he has stopped working as a host in the state parks and met Donna, whose husband passed a couple of weeks after Dee did, and they are traveling together now. They have done some gate guarding in south Texas and gone to Nebraska for the sugar beet harvest but have returned to Texas to decide what they want to do next. It was good to see our old friend and to see him happy again. We are planning to see them again when we go to the valley if we can schedule it.

Sunday we had a big potluck dinner for the hosts in the empty site next to us. Well, the site isn't really empty; it has a FEMA trailer on it for visitors that don't have a trailer, usually some big wheel from Austin who wants to come down for a stay. Patty, the lady host that is also staying near our site, had planned this get-together, and bought the chickens to roast. She and John, another of the hosts, began cooking about 11 this morning. I went over and sat outside with them while the cooking was going on and we had a nice visit.

The group came over about 3, and we sat around talking and visiting and having something to drink. The chickens were ready to eat about 4, and we all had another fine meal. Potluck dinners are THE BEST! After dinner, the group broke up and went home, but we had a very nice time with them. I hope that we can do this again soon.

I've got to say-again- that I don't like this new time. I wish we could stay on either daylight savings or standard time. I did some research a long time ago about the laws concerning the time change but can't find it right now. Without boring you with a lot of data that I'm sure you remember, Daylight Savings Time (DST) actually began during the 1st World War but wasn't adopted formally in the United States until 1966. It is observed in all states except Arizona (except the Navajo territory, which does observe DST), and Hawaii and the offshore territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Why can't we have a local election of whether to observe it? Hmmmm. Something else to work on.

So long.