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Goliad Mission- The Centerpiece of the park[/caption]This gig is different in many ways. We have so far lived on sites segregated from the public. Here, we are located at the host site in the main campground so are in regular contact with the campers and serve as a resource to them. We are also basically alone here due to the lack of volunteers this year. We do have the familiar location of a tree line in front of the RV and the river runs some 200 yards away. We are greeted each morning with the sound of the Cardinals, Vireos, Sparrows, and Hawks calling out to each other. An audio bonus is the hourly sound of the mission bell ringing. There are two missions located on either side of the campground, so we get it in stereo. It really adds ambiance to the history we are immersed in.
Works is part routine, part adventure. We work 4 six-hour days here. Two nights a week we have night duty, which consists of driving around right before we lock the gate at 10PM and leaving a slip on the windshield of the late arrivals instructing them how to finish checking in when the office reopens the next day and leaving the gate code incase they need to leave during the night. Mornings start with clean up rounds that take about an hour and a half. So far it is routine and uneventful, hopefully that trend will continue.
The late morning and early afternoons consist of various projects they need assistance with. Currently, we are helping build out new office space for the park superintendent and a new conference room in a building that was formerly used for storage. That can be interrupted at anytime based on the immediate needs of other park infrastructure. Last week a broken water main demanded attention and called us away from the sheetrock dust.
Hurricane Harvey was hard on the park last fall. The maintenance building lost its roof and is currently being moved to another building, so finding things is a bit challenging. The major factor here was sustained winds that sheered trees off. The campgrounds and major public areas are mostly opened now. The river trails are still littered with downed trees and await our attention after the office space is completed. One unexpected advantage of being short on volunteers is that we have a truck assigned to us. We can keep it at our site and have been able to stock and organize it to suit us.Days off are not short of finding fun things to do. The birding is very good here. There are both timbered and meadowed areas as well as river corridor making the variety of raptors and woodland creatures exceptional. I am told that a Bobcat sighting on night duty is not unusual, I have my fingers crossed and camera bag in the truck always. There is a dynamic, thriving main square district in town 2 miles away. We can walk the trial to town or drive depending on our mood. Goliad has the same Texas friendliness and unpretentiousness that made us love Texas so much last winter. Several miles of trails and park roads are paved making for good biking for me as well.
History is the main event here. I learned about this park while watching the information film at the Alamo last year. Truth be told the real history is here in Goliad. The Alamo gets all the limelight but Texas, as we know it today was born here. The park has several historic buildings that can be toured as well as an active excavation site. Within 10 miles are other historic forts, missions and areas depicting the hard-fought battles for control of the land here pre-dating the Civil War. There is nothing this old in the Midwest, so it is that much more fascinating to me.
Today, as I write, the weather has become very unpleasant. The temperatures are in the 20’s and the nasty word wind-chill is affecting us as Texas falls under a blanket of artic air and endures an ice storm. The office is closed and only rangers frantically monitoring water service to the empty campsites are on duty. In this part of the world water pipes are only a foot or so in the ground so it doesn’t take much cold to wreak havoc on plumbing. The good news is it will be back in the 70’s by the weekend. The bad news; we don’t have any real winter clothes and no winter coats anymore, so we can’t dress very well for this kind of weather. We are spending today hunkered down in the RV watching movies, burning lots of LP, and enjoying the fireplace. As yucky as the weather has been for Texas, this year, it is nothing compared to what our Iowa families are enduring so we smile and wait for the sun to return.
In two weeks our friends John and Cathy will spend a few days here as they make their way to their next gig. We have plans to stop and visit new friends on two stops on the way home in April. In the meantime, we will work to help bring Goliad back to normal, assist the campers who come here and try to absorb as much of the area as we can. In 10 weeks we will be back at Saylorville for another summer season in our old stomping grounds.
Until next time...
