February 2017 (continued)

Late February 2017

In a previous entry I talked about the new concrete bridge that the county installed down the hill below our place and when I wrote that entry I could not find a photo of the old wooden bridge but now I have found a photo.

       Here is the old wooden bridge:           

                               Here is the new concrete bridge:

What a difference, huh?

The week following our Valentine Cruise we met up with our friends from Michigan (Michigan's Upper Peninsula) who were camping at Cagle Recreation Area on Lake Conroe.  It was so wonderful to see them again!  They are traveling and camping in their nice travel trailer.....you can see our little gray car and our tent in the background at the next campsite.   

 Jeff "Greenstone" and Joyce "Thimbleberry" are hikers I met when I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail.  I cherish the gift of their friendship and look forward to each year when they travel to the South and we can get together. 

 Lake Conroe is a beautiful lake and Cagle Recreation Area is situated right on the lake. 

                    We enjoyed this awesome sunset the first night!

                            We enjoyed having a campfire each night.

 We enjoyed our short hikes on the trails around the lakes edge. 

It was really awesome to see my brother, Don, who rode his bicycle from his home near Huntsville out to the campground to visit us.  Right after this visit, Don rode a bicycle over a thousand miles in Vietnam, from Hanoi to Saigon.  What an experience it was for him.  He served as a medic in the Army during the Vietnam War.

Also we were fortunate that my youngest grandson Dylan came out to the campground to visit both days we were there.  Yay!  Always good to see my family.

My A.T. Trail family is also special to me and I am so thankful that we are able to connect with them each year when they are traveling in the South.  

                                               Friends Forever!

                                             Love you guys!

February 2017

February 2017

Our Trail Captain, Bill Sears, notified us that a hiker had reported to him that a tree fell across the trail in our adopted section of the Ouachita Trail.  So we headed to Oklahoma and camped out between the Big Cedar Trailhead and Big Cedar Creek.  Tom built us a nice campfire after we set up our tent and we enjoyed relaxing and enjoying the peacefulness of the mountainous woods.

 The next morning after breaking camp we headed up the trail and found the obstruction that the hiker had reported to Bill.

 It didn't take long using our hand saw and loppers to eliminate the problem.

 W continued on and lopped/pruned where needed on the rest of our 2.5 mile section of adopted trail on the Ouachita Trail.

We always enjoy our outings on the Ouachita Trail and the gorgeous views along the way.

For our Valentine's Day this year we went on a 7-day cruise out of Galveston on Carnival Freedom.  We decided to change it up a little this year and drive down to Galveston the evening before the ship sails.  We've never done this before.  On all our previous cruises we have left home on the day of the cruise, usually around 5:00 a.m. and did the five+ hour drive to Galveston, checking in at the terminal, and are usually on the ship in time for lunch.

Well anyway we drove down the evening before and spent the night at a Galveston hotel.  The next morning after breakfast we decided to go and walk on and ride the free ferry that crosses from Galveston across the bay to Port Bolivar and back thus killing a little time before boarding our ship. 

 It is a foggy and overcast morning.  After riding the Ferry over and back we proceed to the Cruise Terminal.  But there is no ship at the Terminal! Apparently the Galveston Port is temporarily closed due to the fog?  What?  With all the modern technology on all these huge Cruise Ships they can still navigate even in heavy fog.  But the Pilots at the Port of Galveston apparently do not?  We were told to come back in a few hours.  (Apparently Carnival had alerted all passengers who have Smart Phones about this situation.  We did not have a Smart Phone.)

So we drove around Galveston.  They were doing a major beach reclamation, dredging sand from the ship channel to the beach.  That plume of sand looked pretty dark but I guess when it is spread out and dry it will lighten up a little. 

Later we went back over to the Ferry Terminal to park and wait since we knew from there we could see when the Cruise Ships came thru the channel headed to Port.  Finally the sun burned off the fog and the Pilots at the Port allowed the Ships to enter and dock.  There comes our ship!  The Carnival Freedom!  Yay!

It was probably close to 6:00 p.m. by the time we made it onto the ship and later into our cabin.  Yay!

 By evening the fog had rolled back in and unbelievably the Pilots have closed the Port of Galveston again?  Oh well, we don't care, we are on the Ship, we have had a delicious dinner, enjoyed the lively Welcome Aboard Show, our luggage has arrived, we love our cozy stateroom cabin, what more do we need, we are on VACATION!

Around 2:00 a.m. we awoke and realized we were leaving the dock.....finally.......we were cruising out into the Gulf of Mexico....heading out on yet another wonderful vacation adventure.

As always the following morning Tom and began our day up on the Sports Deck 11 enjoying our morning walk on the Jogging/Walking Track and watching an incredible sunrise.

 As the Full Moon went down on one side of the ship........

........the sun was rising on the other side of the Ship.

 And the stiff breeze blowing made our walk a real workout at times!

              The sunsets are just as incredible as the sunrises!

               I loved the ship's sense of humor with this sign in one of the stairwells.

 Valentine's Day fell in the middle of this Cruise.  Tom made it really special for me when this Beach Towel........

 ...and these decadent treats were delivered to me in our cabin.

             I also surprised Tom with a Fruit & Cheese basket.

Even though our first Port of Call was supposed to be Falmouth, Jamaica, since we were late leaving Galveston, our first port of Call was changed to Costa Maya, Mexico. 

 I know some of the Cruise passengers were not happy with this but we did not mind, we were on VACATION.

 I am not much of shopper at home or abroad but I just love how colorful all these Mexican Markets are.

 Beautiful clear water, awesome blue sky with puffy white clouds.  Bye, Bye Costa Maya.........

Our next Port of Call was Grand Cayman Island.....

 ......a lot of ships were there the day we were there.

Even though there were some serious clouds this morning it was still another "day in paradise".  What's not to like about cruising.

                  
                  It rained a little on the Towel Animal Parade.

Our third Port of Call was Cozumel.  We rented electric bikes and toured around the island at our own pace.

AND..........Tom, who is so smart and reads so much and retains what he reads and has a great memory recall.......WON a Trivia Contest while we were on the ship..........AND was awarded his very own "Genuine Plastic Coated Golden Ship on a Stick"! 

                      Way to go Tom!  Good job!  You rock!

AND I am so glad you are my husband and I love you so much and I am so glad you like to go an adventures!

 

February 2017......more to come......

January 2017

January 2017......

Well 2017 started off with a bang!  As severe thunderstorms moved thru our area, bringing high winds with them we lost one of our big cedar trees and half of another one.  BooHoo!  We are losing our nice shade on our patio but we feel so fortunate......it could have been much worse.

 As the tree fell across our patio it shattered our glass topped picnic table (we have since replaced it with a metal one)......

 .....you can see how this big cedar tree just split in two....

 ......we realize it is probably only a matter of time until the remainder of this lovely cedar tree will fall.
Praying it doesn't fall on our little house!  This is the half left standing.

 

Tom stayed busy for a couple of weeks chain sawing the trees that fell and cleaning up all the resulting debris out of our yard and off the patio.  Great job, Tom!

 

Right after Thanksgiving 2016 the county closed the road in front of our house so that they could replace the old wooden bridge that crosses the creek just below our place.

A construction company out of Texarkana has the bid to do this job.  Once they got started it only took them a couple of days to tear out the old wooden bridge.  The major work was building the new concrete structure.

Once they tore out the old wooden bridge, they immediately installed this low sling bridge to enable movement of equipment and supplies from one side of the creek to the other.

 The construction took more than three months but now the road is open and we have this nice new bridge!

 

In February we went on a Valentine Cruise!

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