Sunshine and Blue Skies (Corpus Christie, TX)

And it feels sooo good!  It has warmed up to jacket weather.  The sun is out.  Beautiful blue skies with fluffy white clouds.  The smell of saltwater and the sounds of many birds calling to each other.  Who could ask for more?  Sigh!  This is wonderful!

Padre Island

During the bad weather, we did a little exploring of the coastal area.  We drove from Padre Island to Mustang Island to Aransas Pass to Rockport and of course, around Corpus Christie.  I did  not take many photos. We are moving to Rockport on Wednesday.  We plan to stay for a month so I will probably fill up my next post with more harbor scenes and bird photos

Rockport

I have been sleeping in because...well, why not?...the motorhome's cold and the mornings have been dark and dreary.  But, not this time.  For once, the sun was peeking through the curtains and there was no sound of rain or wind..hmmm...time to check it out.  It is a good thing we got up early because Dan would not have seen this gorgeous sunrise.  As soon as he showed it to me, I was dressed and out the door!

Sunrise over Mustang Island

There are large groups of jackrabbits hanging around both campgrounds.  They stay close to the rigs for shelter, so it is not unusual to look out our window to see 4 to 5 rabbits sitting nearby.

The Naval Base campground is split in two.  Both areas are located near the bay.  

campground viewed from jetty

We have a nice view of the bay from our windows.  From the boat launch/dock area, we can see the bridge to Padre Island and Mustang Island.  

We have been making up for two months of lost outdoor time in the last five days. The cats are outside at least once a day.  They start begging to go out around 10 am.  In the afternoons, they pretend they have not been outside and start begging again.  What a bunch of smarty-cats!

We have been going for walks twice a day.  There are several docks and jettys to explore along with walking between the two campgrounds.  We spend quite a bit of time looking for birds as well as enjoying the views.  I kept missing some great photos ops so I had to start carrying my camera on our walks.

Here are a few of the coastal birds we have been seeing on our walks.  I never tire of watching the Great Blue Herons and the Great White Egrets.

Great Blue Heron

This little guy was not nervous around me while I took his photos.  He was too busy hunting.

Plenty of Brown Pelicans flying around this area.  We have seen White Pelicans, but they have not been in a good area for me to get photos of them.

In-sync Pelicans ~ 1-and-2-and-3.....

During one of our first walks, Dan spotted these guys near the marsh area.  We were able to get a little closer before they started looking nervous.

This one was close to the road so I was able to get a good close-up of him.  This is our first sighting of this kind of Heron.

Black-crowned Night Heron

Okay, one more photo before I go....

Lesser Yellowlegs fishing for dinner

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

We have been living near Medina Lake for the last week.  We are about 40 miles west of San Antonio.  Of course with traffic and just a couple of days before Christmas, it took us over two hours travel time to drive into San Antonio.  Big mistake on our part to go on 23 December, but we did get a lot of shopping done.

From the Medina Lake campground, we can no longer see the lake.  It is so low that it just looks like a valley, but the campground is nice with tree covered sites and it is very quiet.  We are also surrounded by hungry deer looking for a handout.  Our neighbor decided to feed a couple of deer on his site.  Deer came running out of the woods from all directions. Within minutes, he had at least 20 or more  female does and fawns with one stag.  The next morning, he still had quite a collection of deer waiting for him to come out and feed them.

The deer do not like our cats.  Every time we take them outside for a walk, a doe will alert on them with stamping hooves and making their horsed bugling sound.  They sound like someone who lost their voice while trying to yell.  The cats seem to ignore the 'mad' deer and do their own thing.  If the doe gets too close, we chase them off with a shout and a wave of our arms so they do not try and kick a cat.

We visited the German settled town of  Fredericksburg last week to see their Christmas decorations and Trade Days nearby.  We did not stay late for the lights.  We stopped in a bakery for a snack and were entertained with carolers who stopped in.

Christmas Pyramid in the park.  Fredericksburg, TX

This is the Nimitz Museum with Admiral Charles Nimitz statue standing out front.

 The museum used to be a hotel with a ship's bow when you see it from across the street.

After walking up and down the main street enjoying the sights as well as the old well-maintained buildings, we drove to Trade Days a few miles away.

Decked out for the holidays!

You can find all sorts of items at the Trade Days.  Food, artwork, and lots of junk.  You can probably refurnish a whole house with all the old items for sale.  It's a good thing we are living in a motorhome with no room to spare for new items, because Sandy saw all sorts of items that she would have loved to bring home including an upcycled yard art sculpture that looked a lot like Shrek's Donkey! 

Trade Days

We know it has been a while since our last posting, so here's a quick catch up of what we have been doing since November.  Our first stop was in Oklahoma to visit with our daughter and our granddaughters.  We took the girls shopping for early Christmas gifts of clothing and shoes, and out to lunch while Misty was at work.  We had a wonderful time getting to know our granddaughters again.  As you can see, they are a close and happy family.  We are very proud of all of them considering the many hard times they have had over the years.

After our wonderful visit with the Ladies, we headed south into Texas.  

leaning tree - Bridgeport, TX

We stayed a couple of weeks in Bridgeport before we moved on down the road to Whitney.  

Site in Bridgeport, TX

Whitney is not too far from Waco and Hillsboro.  

Campground site in Whitney

We could not have asked for a better location to spend a few weeks.  Weather was great for November/December.  We celebrated a quiet Thanksgiving by ourselves this year.

Blue skies, Fall colors

The cats have been happy with all our latest locations.  Trees to climb, lots of bushes to explore, not a lot of noisy neighbors (with diesel trucks) to scare them and best of all - lots of room to wander around.  Even Max has been enjoying the outdoors and going outside more to explore with the others.

Max on the prowl

We had lunch at the Cafe Homestead located on Heritage Homestead's 510 acres near Waco for Sandy's birthday.  The cafe offers a fresh organic limited menu.  The best part was the quiet atmosphere.  No loud talking customers or music to talk over.  After lunch, we walked around the grounds visiting the different craft buildings. 

Heritage Homestead is a religious community living a simplistic lifestyle using basic hand tools to work and live off the land.  No machinery is used.  The farmland is plowed by horses.  Sheep are hand sheared.  Wool is hand carded.  Everything is handmade...metal work, woodwork......weaving, spinning, sewing, quilts, pottery, soap, and so much more. They do have electricity, phones, and computers, and some motorized vehicles.

You can see some of their fine craft products on this link.  They even have classes for anyone interested in learning the traditional ways. They also hold a fair twice a year to show visitors how they till the earth and make their crafts. 

They also save old barns by restoring them to their original beauty.  We talked to one woman about how the building we were standing in had been built in the 1800s in New Jersey and had been relocated to the Homestead by the community.  

Below is a restored barn appropriately called The Barn filled with all kinds of wonderful handmade items.  You can see some of their fine crafts here.   You can see a little bit of the inside of the barn if you go to Gift Barn and click on more photos.

That should have everyone caught up with us for now.  So, we will leave you with one more photo of Hillsboro's Courthouse.

If we don't post before the end of the year.....have a Happy New Year!

On The Road Again (Bartlesville, OK)

We left the Amazon Fulfillment Center positions on Friday night and are on the road once again.  We lasted six weeks at Amazon, and would  have finished the entire season if they had left us in our previous job stowing products on shelves.  We could also have made it if we were given the job of picking out products for orders, even though it is not unusual to walk over 10 miles a night.  Without consulting us, we were  transferred to packing orders on a moving line.  The pay was decent for this area, but the job task was not something we were willing to do through end of season. 

We found our new job to be too repetitive, extremely noisy from machinery, conveyor belts, music blaring, and feeling compelled to do repetitive time sensitive work continuously hour after hour.

 Dan made no friends with management when he asked in writing for decibel readings of the blaring music over machinery, and asked if they were exceeding OSHA standards.  The decibel reading was never provided, but the music volume was reduced to tolerable levels (no ear ringing 4 hours after leaving work).   Sandy was becoming dehydrated while Dan's previous rotator cuff  and carpal tunnel injuries were becoming more aggravated from the repetitive movements.  Sleeping during the day was difficult before the new job task, but it became almost impossible after switching to our new job.

 Our stress levels were peaking and we decided it just wasn't worth the money.  We gave our new job a chance and decided it just wasn't for us. We asked managers and HR if we could move back or to another area with no result. Well, it is time to move on.

We left Amazon on Friday night, said our good-byes to a few good friends, and moved to USACE Copan Lake Park for a few days.  

New location

 While we wait for one last mail order to arrive at our last location, we are getting back to our old schedule of sleeping nights and eating at normal times.  We will move to Tinker AFB, Oklahoma City Oklahoma  for a couple of weeks while waiting for a medical appointment for Dan In northern Oklahoma.  We will drive back north 150 miles each way in the tow car to complete the previously scheduled medical appointment, then begin moving south on 10 November.

Copan Lake

Amazon was an interesting adventure, but just not for us.  New adventures await, and we plan on Texas for the dead of winter. 

Closing Coffeyville's Fulfillment Center (Coffeyville, KS)

Coffeyville Amazon - Closing

Two weeks ago, Amazon officials told the Coffeyville employees and Camper Force seasonal temps in a meeting that they will be closing this fulfillment center in February 2015.  It was a sad night to watch the reactions of these hard working people.  Shocked silence.  Some crying while others tried to give comfort.  For us, it was a surprised shock.  Granted we are not in the main stream of rumors, but there was absolutely no hint that they were thinking of closing this center.

Some of the reasons given:  lack of manpower and low productivity.  Since Amazon started offering 2 day shipment, they want to have their centers closer to their customers.  They did this recently in Nevada.  It does make sense when they explained the time that could be saved when they are shipping items out to a small town with no city nearby with access to large distribution centers and airports.  The time spent to ship to the center for stocking, processing, then packed to be shipped right back to most cities cost valuable time when we are talking about a 2 day shipping promise.  

We can see their point, but still, we feel real bad for the employees and this small community doesn't offer many new job opportunities.  Amazon is offering different packages for leaving or re-locating with Amazon.  We have talked to a few of the employees and so far, many say they plan to stay here.  Some plan to go to college with their Amazon package while others are not sure what they will do.  Hopefully, it will work out for all of them.

For us - the Camper Force, we have our contracted jobs up  to 23 December.  Work will be normal until January when Amazon stops inbound shipments.  Of course, Amazon's motto seems to be everything is subject to change...so we shall see.

In the meantime, we are slowly getting use to our new work environment.  We go home every morning muscles aching and completely exhausted from stocking shelves, walking from one end of the warehouse to the other side (multiple times), pushing heavy carts, and climbing short step-ladders.  Then there's working the nights, sleeping days, and trying to stick to it during our days off.  Not easy for two people who are use to starting their day at 6 or 7 am to getting up at 1 pm in the afternoon.  Trying to stay up until 4 am isn't easy either on our days off.

The cats are actually adapting to our new schedule better than we are.  We think they like having the bed to themselves at night.  We manage to get them outside in the late afternoon on the warmer days, but that will soon come to an end with the cold weather moving in.  They have been asking for more attention since we started working our 10 hour shift.  Even Hitch has been begging to sit in our laps...well, for about 15 minutes before he decides he has had enough petting.

Mr. Turtle came for a visit

This guy showed up a couple of weeks ago near the back fence.  Actually, Dusty discovered him and alerted us with his quirky leaps and twitching.  We left them alone for awhile until they started having a hissing contest - the turtle won with the loudest hiss for such a small guy.

We thought it might be a good idea to move him down near the pond where the vegetation grew high and he could find plenty of food.  He was back the next day.  He probably wasn't happy about having to make that trip all the way back - up a hill and through four rv sites - yep, a long walk for him.  He was back in the same spot as before near the fence.  Dan removed a board he had used to block a hole under the fence to keep the cats on our side.  The next morning he was gone.  We thought that was the end of seeing him, but he surprised us and showed back up again a couple of days later.  So, now we are not sure if he went under the fence or simply disappeared under our rig for a couple of days.  Either way, he hasn't been back for a visit lately.  It is probably too cold for him now.  Too bad, we and the cats were starting to get used to his visits.

Dalton Defendeers Day

Once a year, Coffeyville reenacts the Dalton Gang's last bank robbery during their Dalton Defenders Day.  The Dalton Gang had been terrorizing the Oklahoma area by robbing trains for over a year and a half when they decided to try robbing two of Coffeyville's banks in broad daylight.  

 Thanks to quick thinking towns people and a brave bank clerk, the Dalton Gang's terrorizing days ended.  As some of the gang emerged from one bank, they were greeted by the town's people and a hail of bullets.

Three escaped down an alley from the second bank only to be shot down by a barber and a livery stable owner. 

All were killed except for one.  Emmett survived multiple bullet wounds and was released after 14 years in prison to become a Hollywood screen writer.

We did not make it downtown for the reenactments, but we did visit one of the two banks they tried to rob.  Quite a beauty, isn't it?  We took a quick tour of the inside.  The town has done a great job of keeping the bank's original look.

Well, that is it for us.  This first month has gone by quickly.  We have seen a few seasonal camper force  people quit already.  We hope to make it to the end by getting plenty of rest and eating healthy foods.  Basically, we are here to work and not do a lot of touring around.

Happy Trails!