OPPS, We Both Are Sick

Shirley has not been feeling well for 5 days now. She and her mom probably got it at the hospital in Fort Worth last Thursday. I started getting the sore throat yesterday and today I've got the stuffy head thing. She was not in the hospital but her dad was. She is still not feeling well and has a sore throat yet. I guess this will take a week to run its course.

Nothing new on the job search. We did have to put her car, the Cavalier, in the shop. The battery went dead and it turned out to be a bad 1 year old battery. I really thought it would be the alternator we got last year in Pagosa Springs, CO.

Hope this finds everybody well and enjoying the sights. We, mainly Shirley, has been very busy taking care of her parents. With her dad unable to drive right now, Shirley is the one helping with the errands and other trips that have to be made in the car. She isn't home to much some days.


Thats it from the bedside here. We should be up and running in a week for sure.

Green Valley Park For Retirees, Weatherford, TX

We are still here. In our third month now. We started with a $225 per month and electric has been about $105. Looking at our pics of our space, we are parked with room to spare. This month the rent is up $25 to $250. Still the best deal in town or the metroplex probably. Being under the tall oak will be a benefit when it gets to 100 and over. We are mostly shaded. Our solar panels get most of the sun if we need to use battery power.

We had a thunderstorm come through last week and our power went out. We were not the only ones so we waited for it to come back on. When the neighbors lights came back, ours remained black. Humm. We waited several hours, plenty of time. In fact our shore power light would flicker on but not stay on. I went out and checked the breaker several times and it was ok. Still nothing. Finally I went out and look at the wires and looooo, we had a burnt 30/50 amp pigtail to our power cord melted. That explained the flicker and no power. I flipped the breaker and we were on battery.

Being it was dark, I put off going to get new parts till the next day. Went to W-M and nope, no pigtail. I then went to the rv park on the west side of town at Tin Top road and I20. He has about anything. Got the pigtail and the one with the wires for stripping to patch our shore line. Once that fix was down, flipped the breaker and power. We are connected to the TXU grid as there is no park grid. We are on a 50 plug which means we are getting the full 50 amps. With this new parts, the house a/c works great. The pigtail has been bad since we parked at the casino in AZ this spring. We had a/c problems there and probably other places where we used the 50 amp plug. The rv park on the west side of town does rv repairs on anything. The guy, Richard, works on any part of the rv. We had our a/c units re-juiced with freon there and he did put on a recharge valve for later use. that was in 05 and we are freezing ourselves out if we want. It can get cold in here on those hot days.

There is nothing to report on the job search. I expect we will hear from the state parks around the middle of the month for starting on Sept. 1. The good side of this is the job search can continue while we/she is doing the audit of the parks, vendors selling licenses. The bad side is still the driving to them. But, we have a plan if its workable. We will know more if/when the call to come to the training session comes and after that training. Could be a nice job yet.

In the interim, Shirley is taking care of her mom and dad. Its a good thing she is not working now. I will only say that her dad is having his heart looked at. Things are not as they should be. Her mom does not drive and with her dad unable to right now, Shirley spends lots of her time with errands and trips to the Dr that have to be done.

The update work on their house is still going on. The new tile makes a world of difference. The inside is being painted, new carpet ordered and the new doors installed. The half bath by the garage got all new fixtures and floor. The carpet is to arrive after the painting is finished.

We went house looking. Saw one floor plane we liked but this house had a single room on the second floor. Take that out and the floor plan was nice. large open kitchen with breakfast nook, dining area, large living/den jack and jill bedrooms and hall 1/2 bath and super size master with shower, garden tub etc and large walk in closet. I got the left over of the closet, IE, 2nd choice. But, with no jobs, we do not qualify now. Still, we can look and want. Oh well. If we go and take another look at this house, get some rough measurements, I can draw it up on the computer. I would have to install my AutoCad. Gosh, do I even remember how that works, its been about 4 years now. With the floor plan, we can have the house built any where we choose. And choose our own elevations, appliances, wall plugs, tv outlets, pc network, outside lighting, hum the list goes on. Even include rv hookups.

Lazy Days of Summer

A catch-up post. Not alot going on. I have my contacts for the next 3 months. I can see better with them than with glasses. That means I'm done with trial lenses. They did call with another set that was double ordered. I'll pick these up. We are waiting on the trial set for Shirley to arrive. We will then drive to Burleson to get them. Its a 40 mile trip. She has not found the right combination for her.

Here is our cat at his favorite window. He likes the lazy, lay down way of looking out the window.

She is spending a couple of days a week at her parents helping with the errands. Her dad has trouble walking and her mom does not drive. They are in the process of having work done on the house. So far its been painted outside, patio cover re sealed and roofed, new tile in the kitchen, dining and laundry room. all new doors in the house, one of the baths has been redone with new tub, tile on floor and wall and new potty and paint. Now its getting a new paint job inside, all new carpet and plans for new windows. The place is looking really good.

We are in our 3rd month of this park. We will probably be here another month for sure. To catch you up, DW is job hunting. This means we are not going to continue full time travel. We new this would happen but it came a year earlier than we or maybe I wanted. She got tired of the moving, route planning and close quarters. And our cash has gotten to close to our planned stop. My income is not enough to sustain us. So we have been slowly using our nest egg to make up the difference. What we have left will go to buy a house. The when and where is waiting on the location of the job.

The trip to Austin was to interview with the state parks. They have seven areas and they need to audit the parks and fishing/hunting license sellers to find out if they have been sending in the money. The state is short several million and the park budget is affected heavily. This position will be funded starting Sept. 1 for two years. Its a work from home and drive to your locations and return home. No overnight stays, just mileage and meals. The largest two zones are the west and the gulf. There is no way to drive and return home in the same day and get more than a very few stops. When she told them she was in an rv, they were excited. A home on wheels, perfect. For us, maybe. The money is good, the travel is bad. I'm sure she is on the short list and should near by mid August. The down side is its a two year job. Age is catching up and we/she needs a job to retirement. At the end of the two years, she could be offered a job which would most likely be in Austin. Lovely country, terrible traffic, lack of expressway to get around. She still looks.

Me, playing golf, the runescape computer game. Its getting to hot to be outside after 11 am. The humidity is just too high. The heat index is easily over 100. With all the rain, the ground moisture is just terrible around noon. Makes golfing hot. I shot a 51 on the front nine, with two holes totaling 11. The back nine was another story. It got to hot and the game went down the tubes. If it gets hotter, golf will take a backseat till it cools down.

Thats it from here. As you can see we are not doing much. She spends her time job shopping. We have down the day trips for 150 miles around here. So there is little for us to see. A new location would be nice I guess. I'll go wherever she does and golf there. Once we finally settle, this travel blog will not be updated further as we will not be traveling.

Back at Home Base, Weatherford, TX

The upper falls at Mckinney Falls State Park. This is a three pic panorama. See the links for the individual pics for this shot. We did have a good time there. The weather was nice with afternoon showers and temps in the upper 80's. We got away about 11:30 am and made it home in 5 hours. The house a/c worked all the way back. It didn't work all the way down running off the genset. The a/c works great on shore power and on the way back. We had the two units charged in 05 and they will freeze you out of the rv if you want it to. Our rear thermostat is not working now. The time we were at Ancira this year, the cost for a new one was $150.00. Going to look around for a usable replacement at a realistic price. This is like their $7xx jacks that I can buy for $4xx of the Power Gear website. Simply money hungry.

We got up this morning and arrived at the Ford dealer, a whole mile away, around 8 am. It was noon when we got the rv back. I had the oil changed while there, $48.50. The culpert was the high pressure switch went bad and would not let the system work. Fixed that and its coooold air now. All is good.

Next trip is not in the plans as of now. So you that are traveling, drive save and stop often.

Views of Mckinney Falls State Park

The panaroma view of the lower falls at the park. This and the upper falls are in the panaroma folder on our link page. We took a walk down the path to the falls and took this. The ten, yes ten, pics are in the state park folder. We are next door to the airport an in the city of Austin, TX.

The rear view of our space and the front view too. Its a little uphill and the rear jacks are way up. As the pic does show, we are twisted a bit to get level, kinda. We find most of the state parks are unlevel and have the connections in the wrong place. Our 30 foot shore line is stretched to its limit. Any further forward with the rv puts us even more up hill. We located our DTV and DW dishes as shown to get our tv and internet.















Some of the pics I took of the area. I thought this one of the upper falls thru the tree was neat. The wild flowers are in bloom and simply gorgeous. Even the butterfly was pretty. Oh, you dont see it, see our links for the full open wing view. And other pics of the area. If you haven't been here, do come. For your internet access you will need to be picky as most of this loop is to green. The other loop is totally out with the canopy above.

We have been blessed with rain, clouds and cooler weather. In fact the a/c is off and the windows are open to catch the cool air. The roof top a/c is noisy so we open up when we can. Even though we are near the airport, its still nice and quite.

We will go back tomorrow about noon and hope we have cool weather that way. With no dash air, its hot up there. i did post a message to the service writer and made a call that we would be there Thursday am.

Greetings From McKinney Falls State Park, Austin, TX

We left Weatherford, TX and drove to Austin for a few days. Our first trip since we got here in May. And our first trip since the rv was back in the Ford shop for the dash air repair, again. And it will be back there again when we get back Thursday morning. Started the rv, no dash cold air.







We arrived here around 3:30 pm and it was a hot drive. Without dash air, the front of the rv was very warm. These are pics of the local critters and we saw more coming in, They had their two "babies" out feeding. These have the pretty tan color.

More pics tomorrow of our spot and the area around us. We are 3 miles from the Austin Bergstrom airport. Shirley said we were 13 miles to the capitol. Lots of trees, quite, and $16.00 a night for water, electric and a dump station. We will be here just two nights.

GPS: 30*10.802'N, 97*43.456W
Directway: 148*, 51*, -24*
DTV: about 10* west of the DW dish with elevation preset. Thats how I do it.
Mileage: 220.9 down US281 to TX71.

Its Going To Be Another HOT One, But Dry

The rains have stopped, the humidity is up, the ground is still wet (not as wet) and the temps reach the low 90's. All that means it gets into the mid 100's heat index with the humidity in the 60+ range. Got to finish the golf by noon, any rv work with the a/c off by 10-10:30. Our poor a/c has a hard time keeping up with the heat in the afternoon to evening. So far the inside temp has been low 80 and the a/c running. Today will be no exception, suppose to be low 90's today.

Our furry visitor has come back again. So far its been two mornings. There are two cats here roaming around but he seems not afraid of them. Our kitty likes to look out th door and see what is happening. Soon he will be thing"moving again!". And "another new place". He is use to it though. We have moved him around from here to ND and UT and back and in between. He has such a poor life.

We wash a load or two to keep up with our laundry. The combo has a very small tub compared to average home units. When it runs, we must turn off the a/c. The combo pulls -13 amps and the hot water electric heater pulls about the same. Since we are a 30 amp rv, thats about our limit. Even Tom Cat gets hot. He normally sleeps under the passenger seat, the only thing in the rv he can get under. When he comes out and spreads out on the floor, he's hot.

We will be going to Austin Monday for an interview with the state. If this materializes, then we will be home in Waco, TX working for the parks and rec dept. I say we, DW will actually be doing the work. I will be fixing breakfast and dinner and be the house butler and janitor. Thats in between golf, hopefully 2 times week if not three. My things are about to change.

My contact lens tryout has stopped since I ruined a left lens with no spare. New pair ordered and is to be here Thursday. Unless there is another option, this is the ones to buy. Th wear time appears to be 2 weeks and the cost is around the $300 dollar range for 4 pair. I want to get clarity on this as this is quite expensive.

Before I forget, here is the numbers for June,

Mileage-
RV: 84
SUV: 690
Cavalier: 633

Spent: $1749.00 (no repairs incl). This is normal items not including extra cost such as repairs. Maintance is included as its a usual budget item.

Our space rent is $225.00 plus electric, $107 for the month. The rent will increase to $250.00 for July on and the electric will probably see $150. Add this together and its still cheaper than Cowtown RV which is also plus electric. Their rates are posted on their web page. We have our Direct TV and Hughes Net internet dish up.