Early Snow! / Cruising!

We woke up this morning to a light dusting of snow!

 

 

This is very early for snow here where we live in Texas!  We have already had several days of colder than normal temperatures.

 

In preparation of the upcoming hard freeze, Tom stripped all the pumpkin, pepper, and tomato plants in the garden.  Oh boy, what a harvest!  If we could have had a week or two more of warm weather all these tomatoes would have had time to ripen/turn red!

 

 

We made a big tub of green tomato salsa, and will probably make another batch before we are through.  We shared a lot of tomatoes and peppers with our coworkers.  We are so grateful for the bountiful harvest this year from Tom's gardening skills.

 

 

CRUISING TO MEXICO

 

Sunday Oct. 19 - Embarkation Day

After attending our Sunday morning Bible Study Class, we hit the road, heading south and so excited to be going on another Cruise!  Have I mentioned "we love cruising"!  {By the way, on our way from our house to the church we noticed we were getting a flat tire on the rear passenger side!  We happen to have a partial can of Fix-a Flat still in the trunk so Tom squirted that into the tire and drove the few blocks to J's Store to get more air into the tire.}  We then went on to church, very grateful for all our many blessings in life!

When we came out of church, SURPRISE!  The tire is holding up alright!  Yippee!  Away we go!

Our first stop along the way is in Palestine, almost Noon, the donut shop is out of coffee, so on to a convenience store for me a cup of coffee, then we continued on to Willis.  No one is home at my son's place except my daughter-in-law Sissy.  Great to see her!  My son Darrell is working in Baton Rouge, La. at the moment, and we really missed getting to see him!  We took Sissy out to lunch at their favorite Mexican Restaurant in Willis.

Unbelievable growth in the area surrounding Willis!  Darrell and Sissy recently listed their property (where they have lived for almost 20 years) with a Commercial Real Estate Development.  The highway department recently expanded I-45 (which fronts their property) to six lanes, concrete pavement, lots more traffic, service roads are now one way!  They are ready to move!

Following our lunch with Sissy, we navigated our way south thru Houston traffic, so thankful we don't have to do that everyday.  We thank God each day that we are fortunate to live in the "country" and work in the "country".

We made our way to Tom's brother Mark's place in Dickinson, where we planned to spend the night.  We enjoyed the great hospitality at Mark and Janie's home!  Mark was out at sea (ship engineer) however Janie welcomed us into their beautiful home for the night, fed us homemade broccoli/cheese soup and chocolate pie for dessert!  What a treat!  It was so nice to get thru Houston on Sunday, less traffic that way, and just wake up on Monday morning at Mark and Janie's home in Dickinson, which is only a short 20-minute drive to the Cruise Terminal in Galveston.  Thank you, Janie for taking us into your home for the night!

I have a question.  Have you ever been to a Bucky's? 

No?  Well I haven't either until today!  Oh my goodness!  It is like a Wal*Mart Super Center inside a convenience store!  It is huge!  I don't even remember how many gas pumps there were , but there had to have been twice as many (I lost count after 40!) ice containers/boxes lined up on the sidewalks surrounding the building!  Even on the hottest of Summer days, I don't think the Texas City Bucky's will ever run out of bagged ice!

Then we went inside!  There was an enormous deli counter plus aisle after aisle of food, gifts, and anything you can imagine that you might conceivably need while traveling to the beach, or anywhere else for that matter.  Can you tell that I was astounded by the enormity of the Texas City Bucky's?  We filled up our little red car with their cheap gas, I picked up a cup of coffee, Tom picked up a tiny tube of super glue (the sole on one of his walking shoes is flapping this morning), then we fled this mega-store.

It was a glorious sunrise this morning, and we are so thankful for the privilege of going on this 5-day Cruise together!

We were so excited to get there that we actually arrived in Galveston just as our ship, Carnival Triumph, was just pulling into the Terminal.  We knew it would take a little while to offload the current passengers, so we had a little time to kill.  We drove along the seawall.....

 

 

...stopped at Wal*Mart's McDonalds and had a sausage biscuit, drove along the Strand and thru downtown.  I always enjoy coming to Galveston, the place of my birth.

 

Back to the Cruise Terminal, got checked in immediately, no lines this early, took a seat in the large waiting area.  I glanced at my Sail & Sign card (serves as room key and charge card) which we had just been issued, and was surprised to see the last name "Broussard" along with a different cabin # on my Sail & Sign card!  I say "surprised" because we had just been talking about how incredibly efficient carnival Cruise Lines is, getting 3,000 passengers plus their luggage off the ship, loading 3,000 new passengers plus all their luggage on the ship, in an orderly fashion,  not to mention all the "behind the scene" loading/unloading of food, fuel, and tons of other supplies, all being done in a methodical seamless manner.  AND this whole process takes only about 7 hours!  I am always astonished how smiling and happy all the Cruise Line folks are thru all this "controlled mayhem".

 

Anyway, we immediately alerted the nearest Carnival employee about our "wrong" Sail & Sign cards.  She calmly took our cards and our boarding passes back to the agent who had checked us in, quickly corrected the mistake, brought us our "correct" Sail & Sign cards, apologized smilingly, asked if there was anything else they could do for us.  So courteous and gracious!  That's what keeps customers (like us) coming back!

 

We were on the ship enjoying a great lunch from the Blue Iguana Burrito Bar by Noon.

 

  Our cabin was ready for us by 1:15 p.m. and our luggage was delivered to our cabin by 2:00 p.m.  Such Carnival efficiency!

 

Tom had a little surprise from me.  In celebration of the 17th anniversary of our first date, in which he took me to the Texas State Fair, and also stole my heart, I had ordered our cabin to be decorated "Bon Voyage".

 

Tom loved it!  And I love him!

 

We walked all over the ship getting acquainted with where everything is located.

 The ship's Library is always a nice quiet place to go read a book or play games.

 This jumbo outdoor movie screen played the morning news, football games, movies, etc.

Tom is planning a trip down the giant water slide the following day at sea.

Before we set sail, we saw an unusual occurrence, one Coast Guard boat towing another.

 

The Galveston Shipyard is a busy place.

 

We have "8:15 p.m. Assigned Dinner Seating" for this Cruise.  At dinner this evening we met the other two couples seated at our table: Cookie and Huey Johnson, newlyweds from Houston....

 

...and Sharan and Steven White, who are also from the Houston area.

Super nice folks, fun to be with!  We are all about the same age (I was probably the oldest) so we had enjoyable dinner conversation each night. 

 

We had a wonderful waiter team led by Head Waiter Milan (the one in the middle), from Serbia.

They entertained us nightly with song and dance!

As always, the waiters are so attentive to our needs/requests and as always exceeded our expectations! 

 

We enjoyed the "Welcome Aboard Show" after dinner and by the time that was over I could hardly hold my eyes open!  Nighty-night by 10:00 p.m.!

 

More to come......

 

 

A Tree Fell on our House!

During the night on Sunday night October 12 (actually about 3:00 a.m. Monday morning!) a storm, carrying high winds, moved thru our country neighborhood.  And yes, a large, 40+year old cedar tree split and a large half of it came down on our humble little abode.

 Talk about a rude awakening!  We woke up to loud thunder booming, then we heard a loud crash outside our bedroom window, and almost at the same time we lost electrical power!  It was pouring rain as we fumbled in the dark, found our headlamps which thankfully we keep hanging by our front door, and shining our headlamps out thru the windows we know there is cedar tree laying on our house.  We look down our road and it is totally dark, no security lights on at our neighbors down the road, so we know everyone else is without power also.

I tried to go back to sleep.  Ha!  Ha!  No way could I sleep knowing that there was a tree laying over on our house!


Before 6:00 a.m., Tom and I got in the car to drive up to the Donut Shop (so glad they still have electrical power!) near where we live, so I could get coffee and we both could get breakfast, and we discovered that a major power line is almost down across our side road leaving barely enough room to drive our little car under it!  We met a fire truck headed our way before we made it to the Donut Shop.  I guess someone has already reported that power line hanging low across our road.

So when we leave the Donut Shop, we decide to go back home a different route only to discover a tree AND a power line blocking that road , so we make a quick U-Turn and go back home the way we left, luckily the Power Company has not arrived yet to block our road, however the fire truck that we met earlier did put out some warning safety cones in the road, but we drove around them so we could get back home.  Whew!  Too much excitement!

We get home and soon it is daylight and we see what happened!

 So amazing, and we are so thankful to God for sparing our little house (and us) from any major damage during this storm.   No broken windows, roof doesn't appear to be damaged, so grateful.

Tom contacted a professional tree expert for the removal of this tree off our roof.  However, when he got home from work on Monday he began to lop off some of the smaller cedar limbs from this felled tree while being careful not to dislodge it from the roof in any way.  These tree expert guys were quite busy in our neighborhood for several days as a lot of folks got hit with downed trees and limbs.  Again very thankful that no serious damage was sustained by anyone.  We all feel very fortunate!

We ended up having the entire cedar tree cut down....the half that is laying on our house and the other half that is still standing tall!  Plus if you'll look on the right side of the above photo, see that large elm tree trunk in front of our storage building, we had that tree cut down also since it died this year after losing some major limbs in the past few years.  So we are getting used to having a lot more sunlight pouring into our side yard and back yard now that these trees are gone! 

In order to save a lot of money, and since Tom and I are both quite fit, we only paid the tree experts to lift /move that tree off of our house, and lay the other two done on the ground for us.  We could do the rest.  Especially since this will be our third winter to rely solely on our woodstove (no use of our central heating system) to heat our house, this would be a bonanza of firewood in the elm tree! 

Isn't cedar wood pretty!  We are giving these large cedar logs to a man in a nearby town that builds furniture out of cedar.  Tom has made some "art objects" out of some of the large chunks of the cedar trunk and placed them in our flower beds!  Love it!

              I love the great cedar smell in all the wood lying about!

We can see that this large cedar was dying from the center outward.

And this is the base of the elm tree that died in our backyard!  That was a big tree and it created a lot of shade!

                                  A lot of firewood but a lot less shade!

I really appreciate all the many hours of hard work that Tom has put into our yard this year.  He has worked tirelessly every day since this tree fell to get our yard all cleaned up again!  He has amassed enough firewood this year, just picking up/cutting up deadfall along side our roads, that we surly won't have to buy any firewood at all this year.  I do love enjoying a wood fire on cold mornings!

 We did as much as we could to get the yard cleaned up right afterward because we are so excited that we will be leaving one week after the tree fell on our 5-day Cruise!  More about that in my next post!

Building a Shelter!

Recently Tom and I have become involved with the Friends of the Ouachita Trail, as members, Trail Maintainers, and now volunteers on helping to build the new Stateline Shelter. 

The Stateline Shelter is located at the Oklahoma/Arkansas State Line at about MM 47, I think, on the Ouachita National Recreation Trail.

On Wednesday, October 1, Tom and I drove up to Broken Bow, Ok. to spend the night at a hotel so we could get up on Thursday morning refreshed and ready to help build a shelter.  This will be our first time as volunteers on a project like this, so we are excited to be a part of it.

We drove on the Talimena Scenic Drive

                               ... in the fog....

and we parked when we got to the State line....

 then walked down to the shelter site.  It was a foggy morning and this was our first view of the project as we walked down the trail to it:

These FoOT volunteers are a hardy bunch of hard working folks!  The shelter quickly began to take shape!

 They had a generator to power all their power tools...

 ...and there was something for everyone to do...

...a lot of digging and breaking up rocks in the ground to make a trench for the foundation.

I spent most of my time gathering up rocks of all sizes into a bucket and dumping them in a large pile.

Here is how the project progressed throughout the morning....

A whole lot of teamwork is involved with a project of this kind.

 

It sprinkled rain off and on and the sun would peek out occasionally in the afternoon but mostly it stayed foggy until lunch time.

 Everyone packed in their own lunch and found a place to sit for a much appreciated break.

 

Following a lunch break, it was back to work, as the shelter slowly took shape.

                               One log/timber at a time.....

This wire mesh will keep critters from burrowing under the shelter's floor where hikers will be sleeping.  Rocks will be placed on the outside of this wire mesh.

Tom helps to build two sawhorses which will be used when cutting the roof timbers.

This huge cross timber really takes teamwork to lift it up into place!

Little by little, one log and one board at a time....

Here is our pile of rocks that we have been gathering all day!

Tom and I had to leave around 3:00 p.m. for the five-hour drive home since we both have to work on Friday.  The great team of volunteers finished this shelter on Friday and Saturday, and hauled out all their tools and equipment!  What an accomplishment!

We went back on Sunday (before our Shakedown Hike) and took these photos of the finished Stateline Shelter!

 Such a pretty setting for a Shelter!

 Hikers will lay out their sleeping bags on that wood floor to sleep under a roof.  Can you see the wood pegs along the top of the wall?  These are great for hanging backpacks or other gear.

 These are nice shelves for cooking or whatever.

A nice picnic table and a fire pit with a rock wall to sit on by the fire.  What more could a hiker want?

Friends of the Ouachita Trail are building these shelters about every ten miles along the Trail.  The Shelter Project should be complete in 2016.  For information on the Ouachita Trail http://friendsot.org

Tom and I look forward to volunteering on another Shelter Project!