Monday August 10, 2009, Green Caye RV park, Dickinson

Both Stella and I slept late this morning. It was after 8 o'clock when I finally struggled out of bed!. I hadn't had my first cup of coffee when Jeremy called Stella because he had locked the keys in the Blazer and needed her to bring him another key. We got dressed and met him at the little convenience store near the house and gave him the key. It's a good thing that Stella had forgotten to give him the second key, but now we can't bail him out when he does this again.

Since we were out before 9, I decided to go get my blood work done at the lab near Dr. Merritt's office. When we got there, we only waited a few minutes before they called me back to stick my arm. I have always had deep veins in my arms and it was no surprise when the lab technician couldn't find one she could stick. She ended up using the back of my hand, which was much more painful for me, but at least I got the sample taken. Now I will make an appointment with the doctor to be yelled at.

We stopped off at the house and picked up the rest of the papers that Stella had pulled out so she can get them shredded. When you think of how much money we pay for checks and simply the cost of paper, she has probably shredded several thousand dollars in the past couple of weeks. This should keep her busy for a few days.

So long.

Sunday August 9, 2009-Green Caye RV Park, Dickinson

Today I got up and started cleaning up the trailer. Stella has been doing so much work of shredding papers and I felt that the least I could do was to help in cleaning up after her. She dropped many small pieces of the shredded paper, but I guess she didn't see them. She is old you know and her eyesight is getting bad.

Our friends Tommy and Susan came up for a visit this morning, arriving right about 11 o'clock. Tommy is very punctual; when he tells you he will be there at a certain time, he is there. We didn't stay here too long but went to get something to eat at a local seafood restaurant. It was good and we returned to the trailer. Tommy wanted to make a short video of Stella and I for his blog http://www.phaetonplace.net/Phaeton_Place/Welcome.html
Tommy is a professional photographer and has a beautiful picture of the Priest Gulch RV Park where we are going soon. We will meet them there about the middle of September. You will see more about that when we arrive on Sept. 1st.

Tommy, being the professional that he is, used a special filter on his video camera to make me look not so fat and not so old. I appreciate his efforts to improve me.

We sat around watching the rain clouds go around our park, but other areas around us got some rain. We need the rain very badly. I'm sure it will rain cats and dogs after we leave and my grass will be waist high again. Maybe the grass fairy will visit my house and cut it for me. In reality, I'm going to find someone to cut the grass while I'm gone. Tommy and Susan left about 2:30 after a nice visit.

Sunday was a day of rest for both Stella and the shredder because she didn't destroy a single check or document today. I'll get her up early tomorrow to start the new week out.

So long.

Saturday August 8, 2009-Green Caye RV Park, Dickinson

Today was another stay in the trailer and watch Stella work days. She shredded papers all day long, but did find some photos that brought back a lot of memories. Pictures of the family, lots of pictures of Tyler and three pictures of Ralphie, my puppy. We took him to Pets Mart several years ago and got him all groomed up and they took pictures of him. He hated the props that they had around him but he stuck in there and let them take his picture. He was the son I never had. We lost him January 24th 2007.

I surfed the net and watched television all day until Stella almost wore out the new shredder. I had to drop what I was doing, get dressed and take her to the Office Depot store to get some lubrication strips for the shredder. I told her that I could just squirt some WD-40 on it, but she said no. Women shouldn't have a say in mechanical things, but being the good husband I am, I put my computer aside and took her to the store. I came back and struggled to get back inside, exhausted from the physical exertion of driving her about 15 miles to the store. Whew, it makes me tired just remembering it.

I came in and took a well-earned nap.

So long.

Friday August 7, 2009-Green Caye RV Park, Dickinson

Another slow day down here. We went to the house and got some more boxes of bank records to shred. Remember, Stella was in the banking business since money was invented and believes in keeping every scrap of records that is ever printed. If it had our name on it, we kept it. What is interesting now is that we have found old records of vacations we took before we had a trailer and RV parks we went to that neither of us could remember. We found cancelled checks from a motel in Manitou Springs Colorado where we stayed in 1990. We didn't pay much more for the motel then than we pay today for an RV site. Of course that was 19 years ago when gasoline was about $1.00 a gallon. We also found a receipt from the Running Branch Marina and RV park. Neither of us remembered this place, but we had proof we had gone there. I looked it up and then instantly remembered that it was at Lake Limestone, near Jewett in Central Texas. My sister and her husband were trying to buy this RV park, but after spending a lot of money on the preliminaries, the deal fell through. .sounds familiar. The same thing happened to Jeremy on our house.....

We went to the grocery store this afternoon. It's amazing how often we have to go to the store for the essential items, and of course, I didn't usually go to the store before we started living in the trailer, so was not aware of this and the prices of groceries. Wow!!

We came back home and hung out here for the rest of the night. It's different in this park. The people here don't hang out in the morning and evening like they do in a resort-style park. Since this is a working park, they pretty much just get up and go to work and come home and stay inside. We still enjoy watching the golfers across the fence from us. I am surprised at how many are our in the heat of the day playing golf. I guess if you are a serious player, a little hot weather doesn't make any difference.I'm just glad its not me that's out there playing in the sun and heat.

So long.

Thursday August 6, 2009-Green Caye RV Park Dickinson

Today we woke later than usual, about 7:30. We ate our breakfast and drank our coffee and began cleaning up the trailer because we were having visitors. Bill and Ornell were coming to visit and to pick up a part for our tripod for the Dish antenna. I had ordered the parts and a mast for the tripod that I had gotten from Ricky. He had apparently discarded the mast when he got rid of the dish antenna they used in the trailer, so I called the company and ordered a new one.

This house was a MESS! The shredding had left many little strips of paper on the floor but I ran the vacuum and picked them up. We got the place all cleaned up and then Bill and Ornell got here and we sat outside under the awning (in a nice breeze) and had a nice visit. Bill has changed his medication and was feeling kind of funky, and was ready to get to the doctor and get his medications.

I am so thankful that I haven't developed any other medical problems other than diabetes. I get checked quarterly by my doctor and so far, my kidneys, liver and heart are fine. These are very common problems for diabetics but so far, I've been lucky.

We stayed in today and Stella worked some more on the papers to be shredded. We have given away probably 100 paperback books in the past couple of days. these are books that we bought and read and put into the book cases at the house. I tried to sell some to the Half Price Bookstore but didn't get anything for them, so I decided to just give them to the various parks that we visit. Most of the parks have libraries that their guests can use to get new books to read. I took one big box to the Via Bayou park where we stayed in May and are planning to stay in again in November and an even bigger box to the library here. selling books in a garage sale is such a hassle that I'd rather give the books to libraries for fellow RV'ers for their use and pleasure.

I contacted the Disabled American Veterans organization about picking up the furniture at the house. I had sent them an email over a week ago and had not heard from them, so I sent another email. We'll see what they tell me about picking up the furniture.

Stella made a corn chowder soup and baked a loaf of bread for our supper. The soup was very good but the bread didn't rise and was very heavy but I ate it anyway. the bread had a good flavor but was heavy.

It was a pretty good day although we didn't get anything done at the house.

So long.

Saturday August 1-Wednesday July 5, 2009-Green Caye, Dickinson

Not too much exciting stuff going on here. Stella worked all weekend on her client's work and I just piddled around here at the trailer. I spent a lot of time on the computer, reading some of the upcoming laws that are under consideration and some state laws that will be enacted, such as the police can now forcibly remove people from their homes in the case of a mandatory evacuation. Now, to me, what is going to be interesting is some person that just can't stand to leave some of their belongings behind, or in rural areas, have animals that need care, refuses to leave. When that mean old cop comes to the door telling they MUST leave there is going to be a problem. Some old rancher is not going to leave his cattle herd behind and so now what to do? Are they going to fine someone for staying in their own home and not bothering anyone? It is already understood that anyone that chooses to stay will not be rescued if they change their mind during the storm but now with the new law the government can assess the value of the service to come out and assist them. Too much government in my opinion. There are many other laws that are slated to go into effect on Sept. 1. I'm just glad I don't have to go out and enforce some of them.

Why didn't the state legislators pass some useful laws, like secession from the United States? I think this might be something whose time has come. Even if it was brought up for discussion, maybe someone in Washington would start to pay attention. We are the only state to come into the Union as a republic, and we can secede with a positive vote of the people. If we were successful, other states might just follow.

Off my soapbox and back to the blog. Monday we went to the house and made some progress with getting things out. I worked outside on the yard and Stella worked inside. Since getting the grass cut initially, it is not that hard to keep up. It's just that the heat is so bad it makes it miserable to work outside without many water breaks. Better to be safe than sorry I say.

Kim called and asked us to come over to stay with the boys while she and Jeremy went to Ron Carter Chevrolet to look at a car for her. They soon returned because the salesman never showed up. She had called ahead and gotten approved for the loan, so there should not have been a problem, but Todd never showed. They asked for him at the receptionist desk and they paged him but he just never met with them. After about 30 minutes they left and while leaving, he called. He said he had gotten tied up but they were already gone and didn't return. It was nice to spend the time with Tyler and Cameron and eat some pizza with them.

Tuesday was more of the same. Going over to the house and working and getting the receipts and papers together to bring back to shred. I loaded up several boxes of papers to be shredded, but we left them in the truck for now.
We will bring them into the trailer tonight to get them shredded. It's messy but its the easiest way to get rid of old papers with confidential information on it.

Wednesday was just another day of working in the house but we are starting to see less and less papers to destroy. Stella has been working on them a lot and of course, the trailer shows it. It is almost impossible to shred without some of the tiny pieces of paper to fall on the floor. Sine we no longer have a maid to clean up, it is up to us to keep things in line.

We did go back over to Kim's house to keep the boys while Kim and Jeremy went to look at the Avalanche again in Alvin. She had gotten a call from the Internet manager for Ron Carter who promised her that it would be worth her while to come look. This time they stayed longer, but came back in the same cars they took with them. The monthly notes would have been $800 on the new Avalanche and she simply can't afford that. Stella and I had another nice night with the boys and Kim even bought our supper. We went to Ryan's and had a good meal. We went back to their house and watched a little television before Kim got home.

So long.

Friday July 31, 2009-Green Caye, Dickinson

Today was a run errands and get things done day for us. After it took as long as it did to burn papers and receipts, we decided we would buy another shredder. I did some online research to see where we could buy the best shredder for the money and found that it was between Office Depot and Sam's Club. Office Max had some interesting looking units, but there weren't any store closer than Pasadena and we just didn't want to go that far. I also checked Wal Mart but everything that is in their online catalogue was only available online and not in stores. Kind of makes it hard to shop for the best one to buy doesn't it? Luckily for us, there is an Office Depot store in the same shopping center as the Sam's Club. We went to the Sam's store first and found a good looking Royal shredder but we wanted to compare to the others. We bought a few things at Sam's and went to the Office Depot across the parking lot. There was nothing there any better than the first, so we needed to buy groceries anyway, so we went to
Wal Mart. We made our grocery purchases and looked at shredders but decided that the first one was a better buy and went back to Sam's and bought it. Man, this comparison shopping is rough and it took all day! We were tired and hungry and came back home and Stella made us some Sloppy Joe sandwiches. We had not had any of these in years and they were very good.

While she cooked, I laid out a route for a trip next summer with Tyler and Cameron to the IRV2 national rally in Williams Arizona at the Grand Canyon for a week, over to Las Vegas Nevada for a couple of days since the boys can't gamble anyway, and then up through Utah to Island Park Idaho where we will visit the Yellowstone National Park for a couple of weeks. It was fun and pretty easy to use the sources online to map out the route. Since we will be somewhat of a time crunch because the boys will have to start back to school in late August, we will drive further at times than Stella and I would have driven if it was just us. We will drive 300+ miles on two days, but it will be worth it.

I later talked to Kim about the trip and she thought it was a great idea. She had gone to Yellowstone with a couple that had kept her when she was very young and we had stayed in touch with. She said she still remembers that trip and she was about 8 or 9 years old when she went with them.

I later talked to the boys about the trip. It was worth it to hear the excitement in Tyler's voice. He thought that going to that many states and the different locations that we will visit was "cool". Cameron was a little excited about it, but he's not really able to grasp this long of a trip. He didn't think too much about flying home from Idaho but there's really little choice. I could leave Stella in the trailer alone and drive them back, but it would take four days of 400+ miles a day and a stay in a motel plus meals and air flight costs $172 per person. Even if I had to fly with them, it would be cheaper to fly and of course, much faster. Even if I stayed overnight at Kim's house and flew back the next day, I would be back before I could drive through Colorado.

I am certain that there will be much more discussion and changes made to this trip. It's a year off and things will likely change before we leave.

So long.