Mar28
Posted on Mar 28 by Ruth Davis
We’re enjoying our time here at the lakeside campground in central Texas. It’s a nice park in the Pineywoods, about 30 miles southeast of Austin. We’re meeting interesting people and enjoying the local museums, art centers and restaurants. We even went to the movies, and there was also a bowling alley, a bar and grill, and an arcade with the world’s largest Pac-Man game in the theater complex. The weather has been mostly perfect with some very muggy days thrown in, and we like the work. We clean seven bathrooms with showers, and we’re responsible for the outside areas around the ten waterfront cabins. This includes emptying the fire pits, scraping the grills, and picking up litter. A paid maintenance crew cleans inside the cabins and collects all of the trash. They also do our jobs on our days off. A lot of campers have been leaving hot fires in the fire rings, so we sometimes have to haul buckets of water to the pits to drown and stir the hot ashes, then come back the next...
Mar14
Posted on Mar 14 by Ruth Davis
We enjoyed a leisure pace of traveling from the Gulf Coast up to Austin for our new camp hosting gig. We took the ferry from Bolivar Peninsula back to Galveston and stayed at the Galveston Island State Park on the west end of the island. I had camped there two years ago on my solo Heart Sparks Road Tour, and wanted to share the place with Marika. The park has two camping areas, one on the beach side that is popular, but very windy. The other area looks out over the mudflats and the West Bay, and it is stunning. Cody and walked along the sandy mudflats every morning, and Marika explored the birding trails. And every evening we took our beach walk along the Gulf. One day we drove into Galveston for lunch and a tour of the Texas Seaport Museum and the fully restored sailing ship, Elissa, from the 1800’s. After four relaxing nights on the bay, we headed up to Houston for some big city sightseeing. We haven’t been in the throes of serious traffic since...
Feb28
Posted on Feb 28 by Ruth Davis
I’ve been settling into the slow, relaxing Island Time, flowing with the energy of my body and the ever-changing weather. After the first two weeks of rain and cold and wind, these last few days have been cloudy and warm and very humid, with fog every morning and evening. And I am loving it. My skin is moist without daily lotion, and I don’t even mind that my hair falls into bangs. Marika and I have explored more of the back streets on the Peninsula, and walked the jetties near the fishing boats and ship yards. We had a picnic lunch at the state park on the west end of Galveston Island, and ate our very first pound of boiled crawfish. I haven’t been watching as much TV, or even sitting at the computer as often as usual. Instead, Cody and I are loving our every day romps on the beach, playing many rounds of ball in our grassy front yard space, and following the smells of the other dogs in the grassy areas around the RV park. ...
Feb14
Posted on Feb 14 by Ruth Davis
We’re on Bolivar (rhymes with Oliver) Peninsula, a free, five-mile ferry ride east of Galveston. We’re here for the month, staying at a private RV park two short blocks from the beach, with full hookups, fast wifi, and free laundry. Our good friend, Judy, came to visit this past week, so we’ve been exploring the islands, the restaurants, and searching for birds. In previous years, this part of the Gulf Coast has been sunny and 70’s in February, but, like everywhere else in the country, that is not the case this year. It’s been in the 40’s and 50’s, rainy, foggy, and overcast almost every day since we’ve been here. There was one day where the sun came out between clouds, and we drove out to High Island, at the east end of the Peninsula. High Island sits on a salt mound nearly 40’ above sea level and it’s the the last land mass for thousands of migrating birds in the spring and fall. Since this is still winter, there were only a few varieties, but Marika and Judy...
Jan31
Posted on Jan 31 by Ruth Davis
It’s been a great stretch of stories between the monastery in Willcox and the Texas Coast. We started the trip with an RV fill up at the gas station and someone had left $23.00 on the pump for us! We drove a good day from Willcox, into New Mexico, to Las Cruces. We enjoyed delicious middle eastern food near the university, restocked at Walmart, and checked out the largest red chili and the Recycled Roadrunner art. We visited the old settlement of Mesilla, with the oldest documented brick building in New Mexico. And, even though we were both tired and could have easily stayed home, we drove out to White Sands National Monument, about 30 miles out of town, for a guided sunset hike. White Sands is like nowhere else I’ve been, and I’ve seen sand dunes. It is so white, it is like snow. But it feels like sand. And you can see it for miles and miles. I imagine it is blinding and very hot in the summer. After two full days and nights, we...
Jan17
Posted on Jan 17 by Ruth Davis
We pulled out of Phoenix on Friday and enjoyed the wide open desert drive south to Patagonia Lake State Park. Finally, we were back on the road. The campground was full, but quiet, and there were birds and trails, and we even went on an avian boating tour. And at the east end of the campground there was a bench overlooking the lake, with a half dozen seed and hummingbird feeders hanging from trees, and suet cakes and loose seed spread on a tray. Marika was in heaven. We stayed for three nights, sleeping late, reading, and relaxing. On Monday, the morning of our traveling day, instead of rushing to get on the road, Marika went birding at a nearby riparian area, and Cody and I took a walk to the birding bench. I talked with a camper about re-learning the joys of reading, and how she’ll be retiring in three years, and she wrote down the name of my book to download on her Kindle. Instead of our usual nine o’clock departure, we didn’t pull out...
