New Year - New Place

In a few days we will say ‘til we meet again’ to new friends and head out to our new volunteer gig at Goliad State Park  It has been a fun filled, 8 weeks here at Wilderness Lakes RV Resort. For us, it has been the perfect balance of ruggedness with timbered trails and wildlife and the perks of a resort style park with it’s clubhouse, pool and organized social events.  I recall our volunteer village neighbor, Bob Flannagan,  saying ‘For every Hello, there is a Goodbye”. What I add to that is there is also the hope of a return 'Hello' down the road.

My mind works in visual analogies.  I relate the people we meet along the way in this life to a Shrub Rose I had at our old acreage. Every passing year it grew a little larger and produced more flowers. Out time is like the bush and our new friends are the flowers. It was beautiful to see it grow just as it is beautiful to see the network of friends grow each season that we put behind us.

 

 

Over the past weeks, we had the opportunity to visit the Harrington’s who are two hours south of us working at Laguna Atascosa NWR till spring. We left with plans for them to visit us at Goliad when they head back north. We played tourist in Corpus Christie and spent a great evening taking in the Christmas spirit along the San Antonio River Walk. The rest of our time has been filled with new friends at the RV Park, Bocce Ball, card games and potlucks.  I met Connie, who introduced me to a new form of exercise called Eccentircs that I am learning and will continue to work on through videos and online self-teaching programs. Champ has been having a good time playing horseshoes and we both have really enjoyed the walking trails around the park.

[caption id="attachment_460" align="alignleft" width="300"] Fran[/caption]

Fran is the local bird and butterfly guru who volunteered many years at various wildlife refuges and traveled in her RV. She resides here at Wilderness Lakes now. I had the privilege of going birding with her one morning where we logged 35 species, several that were firsts for me, still in my birding formative years. She also taught me a great deal about identifying butterflies.

 

[caption id="attachment_459" align="alignright" width="300"] Champ and I with the Berrys and the Waltons[/caption]

We made new friends here, many whom we will stay in contact with and hope will come visit us at our new destination. Some live in areas of the country we want to visit and will give us a familiar face when we make it there one day. Some spend their summers just three or so hours from Saylorville so seeing them in the summer is very likely. It is going to be hard to leave, but it is also exciting to think of the future and opportunities to reconnect with them.

Through the people we met here we have learned about Texas Independence Day in March and the big town festival that happens in Goliad. We also learned about Cuero and the Chisolm Trail museum where we will make it a point to visit on one of our days off.

I saw a note in my publishing calendar that reminded me to revisit a topic from this time last year called “5 things We’ll Miss”. After a year we still miss the whirlpool tub very much. We have adapted to using single ply toilet paper, not having a garbage disposal and the cats have adapted nicely to being tethered when outside. Buster has even learned to walk on a leash so is able to roam a bit with us in tow to keep him out of trouble. I have learned to seek out Wi-Fi Hotspots for things that don’t require secure connections and have adapted. What we miss the most is reliable water pressure, an item that didn’t make the list last year. It changes from place to place and is by far the toughest condition to put up with if we are somewhere with mediocre pressure. We can reduce high pressure, but there is no fancy adapter to increase crappy pressure. That would be a nice invention for RV’ers.

We’ll revel in the New Years Eve festivities here at the RV Park with our new friends and pull the jacks up to leave the middle of next week. We are feeling the familiar mix of excitement for a new place and sadness of parting with new friends.

Find out more about Goliad State Park at:  https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/goliad



Until next time…

Reflections

The universe relies on balance to exist. Our bodies require balance to stay upright. Doctors say eat a balanced diet. The book stores are full of self-help books about how to balance home and work. The laws of physics rely on a balance of a negative for every positive. Ying-Yang, light-dark, heat-cold, wet-dry. All things require balance. Good things happen along side the bad things,  year in and year out.



This is the time of year when most of us look back on the year that is coming to and end and are glad it is over. We post memes on our social media accounts with antidotal quotes about how the previous year can go specific places or kiss certain parts of our anatomy. It occurred to me, it is rare to see someone post on Facebook this time of year what a wonderful year they had and hope the coming year is just as good. Just to be sure I went through my account looking for a post over the past years that stated something to that effect. I found nothing of the sort. Quite the opposite. Why do people reflect so negatively on the year that is winding to and end and look to the new year with hope for better times only to end that year once again weary and glad that it is over?  Are our lives really that bad?

I offer this as an answer. Good things are generally well laid plans that work out. Joy is easy to feel, we kind of soar on it, like a bird riding high on the thermal currents. It is effortless to experience the euphoric joy of a child being born, or a wedding or a bucket list vacation. Pain takes us by surprise, as if a trap door opens under you while you stand in line at the grocery store. It requires a great deal of energy and demands all our attention to experience. It consumes us completely. Therefore, it is quite memorable. I spent some time recalling very painful memories in my life and realized that it is hard to remember that the day, weekend or even month leading up to that terrible event was relatively good and uneventful. The good memories are shrouded by the bad. Painful memories are the ultimate photo bomber of our memory bank.

2017 was a difficult year for many people close to us. It was marked with staggering losses for many of our loved ones; seven funerals in all this past year. Others close to us are facing serious health issues of their own or their loved ones.  To test the principal of balance I went back through the year in my mind one night during a bout with insomnia and searched for the good memories. Buried under the bad stuff I recalled there was also a baby born in our family and two couples we know got news that they were going to welcome their first grandchild early next year. Two of our kids earned job promotions. Two friends got clean bills of health after facing cancer the previous year.  As I consciously pushed back the heavy stage curtain of bad memories and searched in the wings, a photo reel of happy memories like returning to Iowa last spring, time with kids and grandkids, friends buying new campers, travel, (ours as well as others) our first full year as RV Volunteers and all of the special people we are meeting along the way, began to push the painful memories to the side.

Whatever your year was like, my wish for everyone is take a few minutes and work hard to remember everything good about 2017 and let it be the star of the year. Don’t let the painful memories  consume all you feel this time of year. Change, sometimes very painful, is inevitable.  Bad memories will be present at the end of every year. Let them exist in the balance, but work hard not to let them tip the scale.

Happy Old Year- Happy New Year!

Until next time…

"Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable"  ~Mary Oliver

Hiatus

[caption id="attachment_443" align="alignnone" width="300"] Annie getting sun drunk in the windshield[/caption]

I don't have any deep phylosophical thoughts this time other than to say that every now and then I'll be doing something mundane like putting away laundry or sitting outside working a crossword and this fleeting thought reminds me that this is our life. We will not return home to the grind of going to work or mowing the yard for a very long time if ever. I never know quite what to think when it happens and dismiss the feeling as quickly as it rises.

November and December are  our hiatus months for this winter season. We discovered a gem of an RV Park in Mathis Texas called Wilderness Lakes. if you ever make it to this part of Texas with your RV we highly recommend it.  http://wildernesslakesrv.com/ It is a beautiful park surrounded by timbered trails and small lakes that serve as wildlife preserve for waterfowl and mammals. The campground buzzes with activities morning, afternoon and evening. There are exercise classes for every fitness level, regular gatherings for various card games. craft groups, horseshoes,  Bocce Ball and a beautiful heated salt water pool. The park denizens are mostly snowbirds like us and display the Texas friendliness that made us fall in love with Texas last winter. We are making fast friends with many of our park companions and having a blast.  After 14 months full timing it we have learned a great deal talking to veteran full timers. It is fun to visit with people we have met here who are in their first year.  Our jumping off point is recent enough we can appreciate the emotions they are feeling as well as share tips we have learned along the way. I still marvel at those who have made the leap but never owned an RV till they hit the road. We were veteran campers and had taken several long trips in ours. I can't imagine doing this and not knowing anything about owning an RV. Those are the real adventurers!

A mere 150 miles south of our 2016 destination has made a marked  difference in climate. An average of 10 degrees warmer and noticeably more humidity. The best part for me is no Cedar pollen.

[caption id="attachment_423" align="alignright" width="300"] Whitecap Beach NPI[/caption]

During my first 51 years in northern climates I often dreamed of sitting on the beach at Christmas time.  The dream has come true and I must say it is all I imagined it could be. The water was still about 80 degrees the air was near 90 and the ocean breeze was warm and salty. Heaven for this water baby.

It is still hard to reconcile walking around looking at Christmas lights and hearing the sound of crickets and frogs. Two things that my northerners mind has trouble associating.

We still fall into temporary valleys of depression, like when we face timed two of the grandkids’ birthday parties. It about killed us but we are thankful for the technology that allows us to see and talk to them and sing along while they received their cake and blew out the candles. A look at the Iowa forecast is the first step toward climbing out the mire of holiday depression.

[caption id="attachment_442" align="alignleft" width="300"] Christmas lights and crickets[/caption]

Occupying an end spot at the park, gives us that much more excuse to ‘Griswold’ the campsite with outdoor Christmas decorations. The motorhome has also made it possible to have a bigger tree this year.  People drive around in their golf carts, also bedecked withlights and decorations.  Christmas Cheer is alive and well.

We drove up to Goliad, where we will camphost for 90 days beginning in January, and found it to be a beautiful park with friendly Rangers. We are excited to head there after the holidays and already have plans for new friends to come visit us there during our stint.

[caption id="attachment_426" align="alignright" width="300"] Shorebird lesson with John[/caption]

My birding training continued last weekend. We went to Laguna Atascosa to visit John and Cathy and were treated to a trip to the South Padre Island Bird Center. Over a mile of boardwalks out over Laguna Madre gave us up close encounters with many shore birds and ducks. I've  never had much appreciation for ducks till now. They are really quite beautiful and came in remarkable variety.

[caption id="attachment_435" align="alignnone" width="300"] Mottled Ducks[/caption]

I saw alligators in their natural habitat for the first time. (When the kids were little we went on a swamp tour in Louisiana and saw them but its hard to count since they were lured to the boat with raw chicken and marshmallows, much like gulls following a tour ferry.)  A guided three hour tram tour through the refuge treated us to more birds, 4 different eco- systems and an overview of this remarkable coastal refuge of over 100,000 acres that is successfully helping 8 species of animals including Ocelots, sea turtles and several bird species. One of my highlights was a Nilgai running in the field and eventually running across the road in front of the tram.

Our last four weeks of ‘vacation’ will fly by. We are in good company with other folks missing their kids and grandkids but not missing the snow and cold. Our joints thank us everyday that we bask in the warm sunshine of south Texas. Amazon boxes fill the clubhouse lobby mail center each day. You can almost smell the credit cards melting as snowbirds shop online and fuel the retail economy sending packages home. Potlucks abound and new friendships grow.

Being away from all the kids for the holidays is the small amount of bitter in the very sweet life of the full time RV’er.

Until next time...

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