Schulenburg, Texas January 2015

 It has been a windy, rainy and sunny month in Texas, but a least we don't have to shovel rain.  We spent one of the sunny days in San Antonio with our friends Penny and Bill. We started at the Sunken Gardens. It is an old limestone quarry that has been converted to a very nice area. They have a tea house and several ponds.

 Penny says they also have a water fall but they must of forgot to pay the water bill because it wasn't running when we were there. That is Holly, Penny and Bill to the right on one of the bridges on the walk way. Below is a nice picture of Holly and me at the gardens.

 We then went down to the Mexican market and looked in all the different shops and bought some fresh made churros. They had a bunch of dancers there and we think it was like a dance recital. They were all different ages and we watched them for awhile. It was very colorful and fun watching them.

 We lost track of Penny for awhile but eventually we found her partying with her new friend. If we go there again I think Bill will need to get one of those kid leashes to keep her close.

 We then went to the River Walk. After a nice dinner of Texas BBQ we walked along the river and then went on a river tour. They still had the Christmas lights up and the river was beautiful.

 They have carriage tours downtown and at night they are all lit up. This was just one of many and they are all different.

 Holly and I took a drive up to Smithville which is about an hour north of us. We walked around town and went into a few of the shops and bought a few trinkets. One thing they are known for is the very large gingerbread man. The police officer was very understanding when I said that I wasn't going to eat the whole thing but just wanted a taste (by the way it isn't made of ginger bread, it's wood I found out).

 As normal in our travels we found another railroad museum. It wasn't very big but they did have some things I hadn't seen before and I did pick up a couple of things.

 Holly and I celebrated our 46th anniversary on January 24 and our co-workers got together to give us a little surprise party. We had cake and coffee and they all signed a card for us. It was very nice of them to think of us.

 As a sort of anniversary trip, we packed up the motor home and headed to Corpus Christi which is about three hours south to visit our friends Lew and Deb. We had a nice visit and went to dinner a couple of times. We went out and drove down the beach for miles until we found a nice spot to let the kids out to run. They really love the beach.

 We also went to the Texas State Aquarium. We spent about three hours there looking at all the different marine life  and other displays. The weather was perfect; warm and sunny during the day and cool Gulf breezes at night. It was a nice mini vacation. We were able to visit friends and explore new things.

That's all for now. We will be here for three more months then heading home to get some repairs done to the motor home and see our grandson Cameron graduate and then off again on a new adventure. Like my little friend here, I think it's time to fly till next month. See you then.

Schulenburg, Texas December 2014

 Hi from Texas! We've been here for about a month now and have started making new friends and exploring. There are three other couples working with us and all have been very nice. We have been doing a lot with Bill and Penny who are from Arkansas (I know, but we don't hold that against them). Schulenburg is a small town of about 2800 people and the area was settled by Czech  and German immigrants. When they built their churches they modeled them after churches in their homelands.  Due to this, the area has become famous for their "painted churches".

 We've been to all in the area and have found most to be very ornate and beautiful inside. Most were built in the mid to late 1800's. As you can see they have been well taken care of and many are currently undergoing restoration projects. They are known as painted churches because of the interiors.

  Many of them have ornate designs and painted scenes on the ceilings and walls as you can see in these pictures. They also have beautiful stained glass windows throughout the building.

 There are about seven or eight churches in the area and we spent two different days driving to them. Most are open to the public so you are able to go inside and marvel at the beauty of them. I think there were only two that were not open during the week. As I said, some are very ornate and a couple were pretty "plain Jane" but that is just due to the religious beliefs of that church.

 We really enjoyed visiting these churches. It's hard to imagine how much time went into the art work on the walls and ceilings. I say art work because it is truly art. The people who built these and did the interiors were truly artist. I know I mentioned the stained glass windows and I will again as I love the looks of them with the sun coming through. Have you ever noticed that even when the sun isn't shining or at night they still have that glow to them.

 We found a very nice Mexican restaurant about 15 miles south in the town of Hallettsville. We went to dinner with Bill and Penny there and then stopped at the court house and took some pictures. They really went all out with the lights on this one.

 This is Bill and Penny (that's right the one's from Arkansas). This is a gazebo that was on the corner of the court house. I can imagine that  a few weddings and proposals have taken place there. It was a very beautiful spot. Yep, that's Holly and I in the lower picture. I told you it was a beautiful spot.

The four of us took a ride to Austin and went to a "craft fair". I'll tell you some of this stuff was priced way out of the craft line. I will say though that this is the first craft fair I have ever been to that had live music and beer. I guess that was to take some of the sting out of the pricing. We were able to get a free holiday picture courtesy of the beer company.

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. We had a big potluck at the park on Christmas with about 40 people so that was nice even though Holly and I worked that day.

This is a 1000 piece puzzle of Tiger stadium that I received from my son and his family. I think they are trying to drive me crazy. Well let's see if I have it done by the next Blog.

That's all for now. Hope you all have a great new year and I'll see ya'll then.

Quincy, CA. to Schulenberg, Texas November 2014

November was a travel month for us. We left Quincy October 30th and headed for Las Vegas to look at a couple of parks we were thinking about working at. Turns out we decided to quit thinking about them. We then continued on our journey to our new job. We stopped in Williams, Arizona and decided to take the Grand Canyon R.R. to the Grand Canyon.  

We rode coach due to the fact it was the cheapest. You have to remember that I'm Dutch. It was a nice trip up to to the canyon and it took us right up to the south rim which was just a short walk from the station. If you've never been to the Grand Canyon you're missing a wonderful sight. Pictures just don't do it justice...it's one of those places you have to see for yourself.

We had about three to four hours before the train headed back to Williams. We had time to walk along the rim and marvel at the views.With the sun and clouds changing the look of the canyon by the minute it was just beautiful. If you're ever in the area of the Grand Canyon, take the time to visit; it is an experience you will never forget.

These are just four of the 127 pictures I took and as I said, the pictures are nice but you really need to see it in person to really appreciate it.

I was able to get Holly to walk out on the point for this picture. Braver then me but she kept saying "hurry up and take it". This is one of my favorite shots . As usual all good things come to an end, so it was back on the train and back to the campground. The next morning we were on the road to Elephant Butte State Park to visit old friends. This is the first park we spent a whole winter at and wanted to stop and see how things looked.

We took the kids to the beach at EBSP and let them run. They had a blast. Brutus was with us when we volunteered there and he showed Ruby around. We spent three nights there and they both went to the beach a couple of times  and enjoyed being able to run and run. We went out to eat a couple of times with friends and had a great time ourselves.

We arrived at Schulenburg RV Park on November 7. Turns out they were not expecting us for another week so we left the motor home there and drove home for a few days and then drove back to Texas. This is a real nice park; the owners are great. The other work campers are also nice and have been very helpful in getting us acclimated. 

We have a nice site although a little narrow, and there's a DQ right next door. We work two days and have six off so we will have time to explore and see some new sights. We have visited some of the other towns around here and are getting a feeling for the area. That's it, next month we will start exploring and sharing it with "ya'll".  See ya next month.

Quincy Ca. October 2014

 I know I'm late but I've been busy. This is the diner in Truckee that was on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. We had lunch there and it was very good.  Holly had the lobster mac and cheese. Nice little town to visit. It was on the way to Lake Tahoe and has some nice little shops.

 We went to a rodeo with our fellow work campers and had a yahoo great time. Some of those guys are just plain nuts. Those bulls and bucking broncos are wild.They also had calf roping and barrel racing. I don't think I would even try barrel racing, I'd probably fall of the horse and land on one of the barrels.

This is Nancy, Jeff and Holly enjoying the rodeo. Nancy and Jeff were our partners in crime. They worked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We worked on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We all really worked hard but I think we worked a little harder so they would have it a little easier (they are much older than us).

Holly, Eric (Eric is a full time worker there) and I were called on to judge a pumpkin carving contest that one of the RV rallys had. This is the winner. It wasn't an easy job but we were willing to take bribes.

We took one day and drove around Lake Tahoe. This is a shot of the lake from one of the pull outs. There are some really expensive looking homes around there. No, that's not one of them below. We drove by this barn several times and I finally stopped and took this picture, I kind of like it so I thought I would share it.

 Brutus and Ruby finally decided it was easier to get along and have worked out most of their problems. Brutus is still his own dog and Ruby thinks people were put on this planet to scratch her back and belly.

We took a drive up to Donner Pass just before we left. This is Donner Lake which looks a lot like Lake Tahoe. They had snow up in the pass a couple of days before we were there and it was starting to stay around.

Donner Pass is up around 7500 feet and winter was starting to arrive.
Ok here comes the excuse for being so late with this blog. Two days before we were schedule to leave they had a winter storm warning so the owners said we should leave two days early to beat the storm (that never came). 

We do thank Wes and Diane for being concerned for us. So we have been on the road heading to Texas. Once we arrived we found out they didn't expect us for another week so we left the coach jumped in the Jeep and headed home for a few days. That's all I have for now. I'll try and be on time for November. Bye for now.