Because We Can

What you see here is the application of the old adage: "I'd rather be lucky than good." Translation: It is good that I was in the process of putting the tire covers on the coach. The lucky part was not the what, it was the where. Just to the back of this wheel and about two feet out from it was a fire ant mound that I was totally unaware of. I can't imagine what would have happened had I laid down and stretched out the way I am, but behind the tire instead of in front of it. I was very lucky and I know it. PS, the fire ant mound has been treated with ant dead. We had another training day today, and while we learned a great deal, only time will tell if we retained what we were told, and also if we were told all we need to know. When the trainer is being trained by the trainer trainer as the trainer trains the trainees, it isn't too difficult to believe more than a few things get lost in the process. Still, it's the great thing about having volunteered...

6:45 came earlier than we thought it would, likely because we were still tired from yesterday's drive from Marshall to Livingston, then the four hours of training we had. It was really more a mental tiredness, probably due to trying to remember all the information we had received. Of course as soon as we started walking the few steps to the Care Center, adrenaline took over and we were fully ready to go again. As far as the morning mist and dews and damps, we were told it was unusual. Time will tell. We were breakfast help this morning, but it turned out to be fairly easy as the breakfast most mornings is cereal, toast and an assortment of beverages. As we learned, things are not put out in just any order, it has to be the same way every time. That is due to the limited eyesight of a number of the people who eat breakfast. If you are blind and eat bran flakes every morning, they better be in the same location every day. They key here is that the people who utilize the Car...

A fairly short drive today, but it resulted in a fairly a major change in lifestyle. For the next month we are going to volunteering at the Escapee Care Center in Livingston, something we have wanted to do for some time. As time goes on we will be describing more about what it is and what we will be doing, mostly because we have already had our first "trailing" experience tonight at dinner. Think trailing around with someone who has done this for five different volunteer stints. We know nothing, they know everything. Yet after four hours of this we actually think we have a reasonably good understanding about most of the things we will have to do on our own in a few days. It's not a case of fast learners, rather it's a case of excellent teachers. Much more to follow on this experience, but for now I think we both are looking for some rest as we have to start at 6:45 tomorrow morning. Hey, we used to get paid to go to work that early, so now that we are retired we d...

Given another set of circumstances, this could be Linda, but thank goodness it is not. I can only wonder what conversations took place between husband and wife before they left home for the start of this trip. While she loaded the car with more plants than we thought it could hold, he was busy unhooking the sewer, water and electric. It looked to be a case of, if she wants to bring them, she can take of them. It reminded me that no matter how bad it is, (which it really isn't) some other husband has it far, far worse. I always chuckle as we approach a state line because of the comments coming from the navigator's seat. It is a running count down of the miles as we get closer and closer, then on occasion she still misses the sign. Not today, and being the good person she thinks I can be at times, I slowed down as we approached it. It felt good to be back home in Texas, even if the thermometer was registering 101 at the time. Looking at the right way, it was still cool...

Some things need explanation and this is one of them. Our first stop, and it was in the cool of the early this morning with the temperatures forecast to be 105 and more today, was the Arkansas Museum. We ended up spending three hours in it, which is probably 2 and a half hours more than most people do, but it drew us in and wrapped us up. What can I say but we love history, even if it is history we have never been exposed to before. I will skip all the things we liked about the museum except for one thing. Not that I liked it as much as Linda, actually I liked the Native American Gallery as much as Linda I just couldn't get the hang of this exhibit. Native Americans were predominate in Arkansas in the early 1800's, after all it was their land, and this gallery focused upon the atrocities the European American's inflicted upon them. Broken treaties, outright genocide and the precursor to the way the freed blacks were treated as sub humans under slavery and the later Jim...

We were planning to be on the road by 10 o'clock this morning since it was about a three hour drive down to the Little Rock area. That got put back a little when, as I was doing all my normal outside activities, I disconnected the electric only to discover Linda had not yet stowed the MotoSat dish. Not good, especially since the both the temperature and the humidity were somewhere in the 90's. Eventually I moved out of the sun, and eventually Linda got the MotoSat stowed. Meaning eventually we got on the road, and wonder of wonder given the circumstances, no harsh words were exchanged, not that I didn't have a few in mind as I stood out there sweating and sweltering. I really couldn't blame Linda as she was busy doing things and I should have checked before unplugging the cord. Still, this was looking like it might be a good day even if it was a less than perfect start. Our destination was a park on the river in North Little Rock directly across from the Clinton...

We see many things in our travels that we notice but think little about. I speak not only just of ourselves, but of all fulltimers who travel the roads of our country. Leaving the RV park and heading to Fort Smith we passed not just this sign, but a total of three signs that made it increasing clear that anything but single vehicles needed to turn around and not proceeded on this road. Last evening when I was walking around downtown Van Buren I noticed a memorial in a vacant area along Main Street. It listed nine people who had lost their lives on the evening of June 21, 1985 when a semi truck driven by a young husband and wife team lost its brakes on long steep hill we had just come down and slammed into a station wagon with a brother and sister and their families in it. When everything was over, three buildings had been destroyed in the ensuing fire and all nine occupants of the two vehicles were dead. An article on what happened is here . We can never take life for granted, and...

Off to Arkansas today on a route that took us through Tulsa. As we approached the city I remarked to Linda that one of the reasons I had been hesitant about coming this way was because many years ago whenever I had to be in Tulsa on business I remembered the freeways were narrow and in bad condition, but that wasn't the case at all today. But no sooner had I uttered those words than this appeared and then we were on one of those narrow nasty freeways I remembered. I will just have to learn to keep my mouth shut as we approach big cites. At last that hole in the middle of our US map can be filled. We plan to stay in Van Buren for two nights and visit Fort Smith tomorrow. The forecast is calling for very, very high temperatures so we may be doing everything in the morning and retire to the coach for the afternoon. There was a time when that wouldn't have been the case, but it seems the older I get, the smarter I get. Besides anything I'd be doing in the afternoon, I...

More museums today, The Phillips Petroleum Company Museum, Bartlesville Area History Museum and The Frank Phillips Home. We both really enjoyed the Phillips Petroleum museum, and not just because the Company was much of our life for many years. So why a barber chair in a petroleum company museum? Frank Phillips, who started the company, started out in life as a barber, so there was a barber shop inside the main company building. It was gone before I ever started with Phillips, so here was my chance to relive the past that I never got to see in the first place. The other museum we enjoyed was the Frank Phillips Home, which was a time capsule of the 1930's, though unfortunately you couldn't take photos while inside the house. It was interesting that Frank didn't have a home office which the homes of these past titans of industry usually seem to have. On the other hand, there were separate bedrooms for he and his wife. Guess the saying, Business before Pleasure, is tru...

Woolaroc was the country home of Frank Phillips, founder of Phillips Petroleum, and in his later years he turned it into an awesome museum that seeks to show what Oklahoma was like before the modern days of the 1930's. There is so much to see and do that we spent all day there and really need to go back some other time to see all that we missed. Speaking of missing, Linda got to throw the tomahawk three times and she was 100% successful, missing all three throws. When it came to the rope swing she was again 100% successful, this time at acting just like a little girl. But since she really is a little girl at heart, it really wasn't that hard for her. I just couldn't get the hang of this knotted rope swing, and was lucky to swing once and get off without falling on my butt. Besides being a museum Woolaroc is also a game preserve, which means I have had to sort through dozens of animal photos in order to find the perfect picture. I have to believe that as we drov...

Dewey is a small town a few miles north of Bartlesville with nothing particularly outstanding to recommend it as a place to spend the day, so that is what we did. Maybe it was the connection between my beloved "Aunt Fern and Unky" and the cowboy movie star Tom Mix who's museum is in town. Or maybe it was the fact that the people we ran into were downright nice. Then again, maybe it was because we discovered most people our age had at one time or another worked for Phillips, or just maybe it was because being there just felt right. What ever it was, we had a great time, and the photo pretty much sums up the way I saw how the town looks at Life. Look close and you will see there are no hoses on the gas pumps. Back in Bartlesville, I drove Linda around the downtown area, but told her we would come back in the early evening and walk around as there wouldn't be any people there then. I was right, after five o'clock it was practically deserted with just the occa...

Not every RV park is a four star resort, and in fact I don't think we have ever stayed at one of those places. This park in Yoder had been perfect for us. A 50 amp full hookup pull through site, gravel pad, open sky, and not too much noise. Just a nice place to spend a few nights while doing our thing. Nothing to do for kids, absolute minimal bathroom facilities. What can I say, it's our kind of place. Still today it was time to pull up stakes and head to Oklahoma and another page out of our past life. We opted to take the US highways, staying off the Interstate and turnpike. That meant we got to see a number of small towns, each with a main street lined with old buildings. We also left the wheat fields behind and traveled through rolling hills carpeted with green grass and dotted with trees. That also meant the roads were narrower, with hills and curves as opposed to the wide flat straight roads of Kansas. Some four hours after we had left Yoder we topped that la...

Great breakfast this morning as Linda cheerfully set about baking some awesome and very healthy muffins. I don't know what all went into them, but I saw her chop nuts and add some dried fruit, plus I saw her looking at a recipe, but knowing her, she used it only as a guide, adding those special secret touches that she does so well. We ate those muffins with a little almond butter smeared on them and were they ever good. Before the above there was this. "You are not going to use a photo of me in the drawer." "But it will show how hard you worked to make the muffins." "No it won't, it will just show how messy the drawer is." Way to go Bob. Great way to start the day. Here she tries to do something nice for me and I mess it up by taking a picture of a drawer. What is it with us men anyway? We men go and pull so many dumb stunts like this it's a wonder any of us ever got the opportunity to become father's. Oh well, at least I must ha...

Today we were off to visit the Museum of World Treasures in Wichita, the main reason being the above. What made it even more special was the fact this is a real Triceratops skull, not a cast, and the docent took down the little barrier and let Linda get very up close and personal with it. She may no longer look exactly like the little girl walking around picking up fossils on the farm, but I have to believe the smile is the same. Linda wasn't the only one who found something to smile about. For years I had a Smiling Buddha on a high shelf that smiled down on me every morning when I first got up. Today for me it wasn't only kneeling down beside these marble carvings to pose for a picture, it was also seeing the deep luster, the softness and the smooth lines of their forms. It brings a certain contentment, and it reminded me of the special glaze I applied to my Buddha when I made it. The museum has an Egyptian section. I found the hieroglyphics interesting. I looked ...