Hoppy New Year 2013

Hope this fellow finds you ready for the New Year.  He wants to jump in and test the water, Do You?

We have no redundant boring election to worry about.  I’m sure you got enough of that so I’ll stop.

We lost a few friends this year in New England.  Life on the road is tuff when you are 2,000 miles away and a friend crosses over the Rainbow Bridge.

We get New York TV feeds which supplement my Facebook addiction.

I’m starting up the learning curve on SKYPE.  My name there is <peter.arnold357>.  Maybe I’ll give you a call when I figure out how to.

We are presently in Georgetown, TX, a pleasant bedroom town about 25 miles North of Austin.  Stopping for a month is good in that we can renew various Church and Fraternal relationships.  We have good services and great shopping.  Highway speed limit here is 80mph which reduces travel times, the roads are wonderful.

I’ve been eating too good, Anne-Marie’s policing of her desires in this area is much better than mine.  Good GAL!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We will celebrate New Years here at Berry Springs Campground.  Our site and services are good and the price is fair.  The weather has turned cold {Days=50°, Nights °25+}, we are looking forward to moving on.

Here is our Crazy Schedule:  Leave here on 1/5 and move to Yuma, Az. where I have scheduled installation of my long expected Solar System.  This is designed to supply our BASIC electrical needs while Boondocking.  We did this last year in Quartzite and Mexico and had great fun with great folks.

Mid January will find us in Quartzite for a few weeks, than we move to Southern California in preparation of our caravan to San Felipe, MX with The Mexican Connection. 

On our return to the states, I hope to attend The March Madness in Bakersfield, CA.  I’ve been reading about this meet for about 50 of it’s 55 years.  It is basically a nostalgia Drag Race of huge proportions and fame.

We will than return to Austin area where I have elected to have a surgical intervention on my ailing back.  That will stop us for about 6 weeks.

On to Alaska in June!

Merry Christmas 2012

OK, I’m bad.  I pilfered this picture from a Facebook post.

It’s Christmas morning and despite missing our Girls and their families, we’re feeling pretty good about it.  The is actually our 1st Christmas being homeless.  Last year we returned to Connecticut for Christmas and left in a hurry to escape the cold.

We’ve found a very nice Christian Community at Christ Lutheran Church in Georgetown.  They have made us feel very welcome as we joined them in worship and fellowship.

Last evening {Christmas Eve} we attended the 4:00 pm service which featured what else, The Children's Christmas Pageant!   It was quite grand starting with a preschool choir, a youngster’s choir ending with a wonderful representation of the Christmas Story.  There was a cast of 20, stuck a heart string here.

Sorry if you missed the local production of this.  It was playing at a Venue near you!

 

We awoke this morning to a wild windstorm with rain and hail as a weather front moved through.  Temperatures will drop to the high 20’s this evening.  This weather is moving East and will provide TV interest as I watch the New York CBS feed.  

He followed me home, can we keep him?

No, Santa needs all his reindeer this year, set him free to multiply!

This is Zeus, compare him to the front of my truck in the backround.  Anne-Marie took him for a short walk.  Why short?  Well, she found out that he was taking her for a walk.  If you dance with him, he leads!

We will spend most of the day inside.  Anne-Marie is fixing us a Turkey Dinner and she made a Lemon Sponge Pie yesterday.  This was one my Mom’s specialties, if you like Lemon it is great!

Me?  I’m engrossed with Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans  by T.R. Fehrenbach  It’s kind of deep, I’m enjoying the mental exercise of learning the history of this area.

Doctor on Friday, after that we will be better able to schedule 2013.

Christmas in the Southland 2012

If your reading this, darned Mayans were wrong after all!  I’m not disappointed as we are now be able to watch the Tom Foolery  as regards to ‘The Fiscal Cliff’ and Biden’s Weapon Tap Dance.   I predict that there will be no cure for our fiscal woes and/or major revisions in our gun laws as our legislature bodies are too busy playing the game of politics.  We could sure use Harry Truman again!

Yes, we were happy when we saw who was camped next to us this morning.  hope that he stops by your home, to a few folks.dropping off gifts and I fear some lumps of coal.

Now that I have that off my chest, let me tell you a long stored story of out trip to a winter wonderland in Mobile Alabama.

About 10 miles south of Mobile is Bellingrath Home and Gardens, the estate Walter and Bessie Bellingrath.  Walter paid $1500 in the early 20’s for a franchise to distribute Coke Cola in Mobile area.  Maybe better than hitting Power Ball!  He built a rather rude Hunting Camp in Theodore, AL where he and his cronies could spit, swear and do manly things.  Enter Bessie, she wanted a Garden and she by golly got one.  It is a 2± mile walk around lakes, over bridges, thru tunnels of vegetation. 

As usual, my photo skill are far short of what is required to show the scope of this wonderful spot.  Most of us have driven thru light shows at this time of year, this was so much more rewarding with children and holiday music for 2 hours.

 

 

 

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The 15 room house was built in 1935 and served as the Bellingrath’s primary resident.  Our tour being in the evening hours, I have pasted photos here taken from the website.  As is usual, not photos of the interior were allowed.  It was very nice, the Vanderbilt's need not be concerned with loosing the battle of Wretched Excess.

 

The home is dwarfed by the immense gardens.  Our home tour time was about 1 hours after we started the garden walk, we had trouble finding the house in the midst of the Garden!

 

 

Well, time to get out and do my Christmas shopping as the world didn’t end last night.  I wasn’t going to take any chances on that one.

Thanks to all of you that sent gifts and regards on my Birthday, I promise not to regift anything as in years past.

Remember the Alamo 2012

Most Worshipful Grand Master Walter W. Rogers is shown with me at the library area of the San Antonio Scottish Rite Cathedral.  This was the staging area just prior to our procession to The Alamo, with our Ladies.  After I greeted him, he was quick to extend his sympathies to all the Brothers of Connecticut in the heart breaking events earlier in the morning that occurred in Newtown and Sandy Hook.

At my Wife’s request M.W. Rogers also posed with a picture with Flat Monte.  Monte Kemmler is the Grand Patron of The Order of the Eastern Star in Pennsylvania. We were given a copy of his traveling photo and asked to bring him on a travels around the country which we have been doing.  He may balk a bit when I give him the fuel bill!

 

We formed a procession of about 175 Masons along with their wives and friends.  On arrival at the Alamo, the Masons formed an honor guard thru which Grand Master Rogers and his Grand Officers were received with great pleasure.  The non Masons were escorted to an adjacent educational area where they were entertained with music and a lecture on the local history.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Masons entered the Alamo, barely fitting as the building is not as large as it appears. Prior to opening a Lodge of Master Masons I had a few minutes to take a few photos,  The main are is deep and narrow, this is one time that it would be nice to have a better camera.  Of course a bigger and better camera would not fit in my pocket so I would leave it in the car!

On the Left I am looking East towards the alter.  On the right The Grand Master and his officers are preparing to be received.

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After we Boys were done with all our secret hand shakes we were united with our wives in the courtyard in front of the Alamo with was ablaze with festive folks, holiday lights, and decorations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was now time to play.  There is no better place than The San Antonio Riverwalk   In 1968 they started the process of converting a blighted river into a wonderful commercial and mixed entertainment area.  We walked about 1/2 mile to one of it’s several access points, down 2 flights of stairs and entered a magic holiday fairyland.  Please click on the link above, my camera could not capture the size of beauty of this area.  It goes on for about 1 1/2 miles.  The fellows shown traveled down from Austin Lodge {About 100 miles}, we look forward to their holiday ‘covered dish’ on Monday.

 

 

You are in a Texas Lodge if you find these lurking in a corner!

There is no ‘X’ in Christmas!

 

Sorry if Mike Gaston’s cartoon shown is a bummer.  We spent our first 65 years in Connecticut and feel for all the people who suffer in their own ways.  We were charter members of South Windsor’s Ambulance corps and are proud of it.  We were never called to anything a horrific as this but we did respond to things the revisit us during the quite hours in the morning.  Because of this we have great empathy for the first responders whose lives will be irreversibly changed by this event. 

OK, now is time for me to ‘come out of the closet’ on this: I am absolutely against the pro-gun folks.  There, I’ve said it.  Don’t bother arguing this with me, I’m reverting to my heritage and being a Hard Headed Stubborn Yankee on this item.

One of the more profound news items is attributed to Morgan Freeman.  I suggest it strongly.

 

We are presently in Georgetown, Texas which is just north of Austin and Round Rock.  It has been cool in the evening, enough so that the water hose sometimes freezes.  Day time temperatures in the mid 70’s are the norm so we can cope.  We do have snow here, when that happens everything comes to a sudden stop except motor vehicle traffic which will slide to a stop if it doesn’t hit something solid. 

Next month we will revisit Quartzite Arizona.  WE will stay there for several weeks, freeloading on BLM Land.  A moment to thank you all for supporting this activity with your tax dollars.  We will stay with a group od Escapees about 4 miles out of town in the desert.

The Mexican Connection trip will be in February, we are looking forward to the ‘Vacation’ with good friends.

Mobile, Al. Highlights of Florida to Texas repositioning 2012

To ‘reposition’ is to make a drastic move of several hundred or a thousand miles.  Given the cost of fuel and my back issues, it is not something we look forward to.  We try to limit ourselves to 200 miles/day or 300 miles and shut down for the weekend.

We stayed over in a small Passport Park in Mobile, Alabama. 

Our adventure started at Felix’s Fish Camp, a wonderful place to spend a lazy afternoon.  It was there that I was introduced to the wonderful appetizer of fresh cooked hot potato chips, drizzled with blue cheese dressing and sprinkled with blue cheese crumbs.  The empty beer glass holds Merry Mischief, it’s a stout like beer that has the exact taste of Ginger Bread.  Anne-Marie had Crab Soup Bread Bowl and I had a Seniors Fried Shrimp & Fish combo that was just wonderful.  Dessert was Key Line pie and I had another serving of liquid Gingerbread.

Being December 6th, our visit to the Battleship Alabama was very interesting.  My photos as usual do not do it justice, click the hyperlink to get a better idea.

 

 

We have toured about 6 of the various WW II warships.  It was our Fathers generation that were the hero's that prevented WW III from happening.  Reading accounts of this era, I believe the insisting on Total Unconditional Victory was a requirement to assure the the beasts didn’t regenerate themselves as the did in the 30’s.

I offer the photos below as proof that I did contort my old body and tour the Submarine dock next to The Alabama.  To do this I had to enter at the stern and walk thru 7 hatches that were 4 feet tall.   Not an easy task with my brittle old back.  The folks in back of me had plenty of time to enjoy all the gauges and valves!

Florida's Masonic Camp in Wimauma 2012

 

Friendship, Morality and Brotherly Love are the key words in a description of the Masonic fraternity.  I’ve often fantasized a community where these virtues would be a requirement for membership.  Now I’ve found one!  It is located near Tampa on the west coast.

Masonic Membership is a requirement to stay in this small {about 60 sites) campground.  I was told that about 15 years ago it was free and had no frills or hook-ups.  The rate is currently about 50% of a comparable commercial campground.  We had water, electric and Gray water disposal.  There are several community buildings where folks often got together for pot lucks, soup lunches, pancake breakfast, etc.

On arrival, we were warmly greeted and assisted where ever needed.  Most of the sites have little shade which is fine when winter camping in Florida.  There are about 6 families that stay here year round.

 

 

 

 

I mentioned earlier that I am in the process of adding some solar power to our rig which will allow us to be more self contained during our upcoming visit to Arizona desert and Mexico’s Baja.  To do this, I had to go up on the roof to mount a box for connections and draw #6 cable up to it.  As soon as I got up there, I had about 5 Brothers come over offering help.  Sadly, I didn’t need any as they were all primed to solve a nonexistent problem.  Shortly after that, about 6 of the fellows gathered around another rig and changed it’s awning fabric in about 2 hours.  Saved the owner a bunch of money with his cost being a few burgers!

 

You know you are in Florida when Golf carts have reserved parking at McDonalds and are given the right of way in the streets.

 

 

 

 

 

We’ll be back next year to use this bench