Birdie Update and River Tour

 

                               

                               Newest picture of the Barn Swallow Babies

Sunday was another busy day at the VC, lots of questions, directions and sales. It was a good day, however, it wasn’t for some of the guests,   Heard on the Park Radio:  There was a bicycle accident and someone broke a leg and was airlifted out of the park,  A little kid, (I think a girl) fell off a picnic table, hit her head, but is okay and another little boy burned his finger in a fire, family took him into urgent care.  All in all, the Rangers were kept busy all day.     You just have to always be careful.  Anything can happen to ruin a fun day.

I now have at tripod for the kingpin.  Last week when I bought it and tried to put it up. the legs weren’t long enough, so Vestal came over before he left to help.  We had to use thick wooden blocks.  I do believe that helps with the shaking when I use my W/D.  He also put all the plumbing connections on the water hose.  A big Thank you to Vestal.

The rest of the evening I finished the novel that I’ve been reading and started on the next one in the series.  I also tried to catch up on reading blogs.

This morning, I called Gate Guard Services regarding the paperwork that was sent.  I will need to go to Corpus Christi on Wednesday to take the test and be fingerprinted and then see what I can get as far as a gate. It may be a while before a 12 hour gate is available, but at least I will have the preliminaries done.

Angel and I took a drive into Leakey to the hardware store for something for my project.  I still have a bit to figure out before it is finished.  Since there weren’t too many people in the park, I thought that it would be a good day to do a short hike along the river and take some pictures.

   

                                             down by the boat dock

                             

                                     Looking South from the dock,        

    I think they call this the Pool, because of the way the rocks are and it is shallow.

        

                                   Still looking South down the Frio River.

                  

                     There are caves in “them thar hills”.  This is just a little one.

                        

                          An empty Cypress Tree,  I can stand inside of it.

   

Everyone asks how the water is, so I thought I would find out. I thought that it would be a lot colder, but it was quite refreshing.  Angel wasn’t too thrilled. though.  I guess that she’s not a waterdog.  This is looking North from the rock beach.   On the weekends this is overflowing with kids.

                           

                                            These kids had it all to themselves.

I drove North to another part of the river near to some of the campsites with shelters where they have access to the river, but not near the day use area in the pictures above.

    

That’s it for the river tour.   We headed home for some dinner, and to watch the deer come down to the river.

   

Angel is learning to not bark at the deer.  She sits in the window and lets me know there is something is out there, but when I say shhhhhh, she just watches them.  She’s such a good girl.

This was going to be a short post, but I guess NOT.

Good night all.

Thanks for visiting

Susan and Angel

Rally and Back to Work

                             

Friday I was up and out of here early.  I wanted to be at Buckhorn RV Resort near Kerrville in time for coffee hour.  I left Angel at home where her “Aunt Ruby” would check on her.  I got there a little after 7:30 am.  The quickest way was to go North on US 83 to TX 41 East to I !0 then continuing East to the Resort.  I took just over an hour.

                                                       

I was able to chat with Howard for a few minutes.also with Linda who I paid for the one day at the Rally and a Rally Tee Shirt. 

                                  

In the Big Red Barn, there were three seminars in the morning, where I learned quite a lot,  Then in the afternoon there was another seminar about Alaska 101, also interesting, although I don’t think that it is a trip that I will be taking anytime soon.

Later in the afternoon, Howard and Linda gave a demonstration with their inflatable kayak and pontoon boats.  I was impressed.  It only took 5 minutes for Linda to inflate the kayak with a foot pump.  I do see one of them in my future.

                                  

The bag in the foreground is the kayak and the two by Linda (in the orange shirt) are the pontoon boat, which also has a canopy and trolling motor.

              

             kayak laid out on grass       Linda getting her excersize      ready to go

                                                      That took all of five minutes.

      

                                        Yep, That’s me out there with Howard,

                 

            Here’s the pontoon boat with out the canopy, but it does have the motor.

                                      This one took 7 minutes to inflate.

                                

            It didn’t take long for Howard and Linda to put them back in their bags.

                                      Just roll it up like a sleeping bag.

That was it for the Rally.  If you ever have a chance, I would encourage you to attend one.  I was only able to attend one day and hope that I will be able to attend another one in the future for the complete experience.  There were several other seminars that I would like to attend.  Linda and Howard are great presenters and you won’t find a nicer bunch of people anywhere.  Thank you, Linda and Howard.  I had a great time

This morning, I actually saw a herd of Axis Deer crossing the road on my way to work, but didn’t have my camera out and they were gone so quickly.  I worked the Day Use Gate with Vanessa, not the window, but out in the shed.  It was busy most of the day.  Needless to say we were both exhausted.

When I got back home to let Angel out, Vestal came over to help me set up the tripod under the kingpin and rework the outside water hose with additional connectors.  That was it for today and I’m heading to bed.  Hopefully I will get to sleep in spite of the high winds buffeting the 5veer around.

Thanks for visiting

  Come on Angel, time for bed.

Susan and Angel

A Little of This, A Little of That.

                              

Yesterday, Ruby came over to check on Li’l  Miss Angel, so I thought that you might connect the face to the note written in the last blog.  Ruby is always there to help whenever possible.  Thank you Ruby.

There was a trip into Uvalde to the Ace Hardware for some materials for a project.  I have been trying to figure out a type closure for the opening in the kitchen, as it is too wide for any “baby” gate that is out there,  I have been using a folding table on it’s side.  It works, but it is heavy and isn’t the best looking thing either.  I have come up with an idea that I am working on, but will wait to see if it works before posting a picture. This is where I have Angel stay when I am gone all day, that’s so that she won’t be barking at whatever she sees, as she is usually in a window watching the world go by.

While there I filled up a water bottle my truck at WalMart.  I will be heading to the RV- Dreams Rally just North of Kerrville on Friday.

Later in the evening, Evelyn, my sister stopped by to get her car.  Her neighbor, Chris, picked her up from the hospital in San Antonio.  As far as she knows her test went well.

Today I worked at the VC (Visitors’ Center).  It was a very slow day, just a few people wanting directions and just “looking”. 

                                

I visited with Ranger Frank, who is the “Interpretive Ranger”.   He helped me identify the butterfly that I posted about a while back.  We believe it is an Angle Winged Butterfly.  While we were talking, we heard on the Park Radio that there was another emergency up on one of the trails.  It seems that a women broke her ankle while hiking up to one of the caves.  That’s one of the reasons that I won’t hike any of the more difficult trails when I am alone.

     

since there wasn’t much to do, I of course had to check on the barn swallows.  Here mom and dad are waiting for me to leave.  You can see the babies sticking their heads up waiting for a meal. If you click on the right on, you can just barely see a beak.  I’m not sure how many babies there are.

After work I went to Headquarters to check my mail, no packet from Gate Guard Services yet.

I guess that I will get this posted, as I will be leaving early in the morning for the Rally.

Sunday at the VC, Sunrise, Sunset

       

      This is one of the three Barn Swallows’ nests that are outside of the VC.       

                               Both mom and dad take turns feeding them.

Another day at the VC.  Linda K stopped by for a few minutes and took off, and I was alone the whole day, even closed by myself.  No problems, just met more interesting people.

On my way home I stopped by maintenance, to see if I could get some help with my low water pressure problem.

                                                                   

John, our RV go to guy, came over and helped put my water filter on, but as you can see, there isn’t much room at the pedestal.  that’s why I got the things in the picture farther down in  the blog.

Monday I caught up on laundry, since I now had better water pressure and took a few pictures. 

                           

          This Oriole decided that he needed some of the hummers’ sweet stuff.

Evelyn came over and spent the night so that we could get an early start in the morning.

                            

                SUNRSE                          to                      SUNSET

                        

That’s how long that I was gone.  Tuesday was the day that I had to take my sister, Evelyn to the hospital in San Antonio for a test.  She had to be there by 8:00 am, which meant that we had to leave here by 6:00 am.  That is before the sun came up.  Once I dropped her off I had several places to go.  One was to deposit a check at my banks branch office,(closest one in SA)  and then over to Sprouts Farmers Market where they have bulk food items.  I was able to get many of the ingredients for the trail mix that I make.  I wanted to stock up in case I do get the gate guard position and won’t be able get out to a store for quite a while.  One of my coworkers here at GSP offered to come over to let Angel out for her potty breaks, so I left here a key and and Angel was able to “Aunt Ruby”  Thank you from both angel and me.

                       

                               

        Okay, Mom, If you have to go, I’ll be here when you get back

                        

Note from “Aunt Ruby'”, so Angel was well taken care of while I was gone all day.

                              

Earlier this past week, I made arrangements with Colleen (Traveling with the Longdogs) to meet at IHOP for coffee or? .  I left Sprouts at about 10:00 am, but some how I ended up on side streets in San Antonio and finally found my way to I 35 north where IHOP was located near Schertz Parkway.  I did get there about 15 minutes late.  Generally I am NOT directionally challenged.  I kept going in the right direction, it was just the freeway system with the different loops that is confusing.  She was waiting outside where we greeted each other and then went in to be seated.  We decided to share one of the Colorado Omelets, they are huge and really good.   So from 10:30 until about 2:00 pm we talked and shared stories.  We then went outside and continued to talk and before we knew it, it was 3:00.  She had to be somewhere and I had several places yet to go, so we reluctantly said good bye, promising to get together again. 

                               

From IHOP I headed north on I 35 to the Camping World store just outside of New Braunsfels, where I got a tripod for the kingpin to help stabilize the front end when I am using my W/D. and an aluminum stair for my entrance door.  I have been using a couple of thick wood blocks that Ruby found for me, which work but are not completely stable.  Of course, I just had to get a few more things since  while I was there and it is, after all, over a two hour drive from GSP.  Tomorrow, I will attach the  right angle brass connector to the hose bib and a piece of hose with a spring on it that they recommend when connecting the water filter.  I also have some spare screen washers that I may need when the one I have gets completely plugged up.

                             

 

I also went to Costco to pick the things that I only get there.  Unfortunately the didn’t have the protein bars that I have been getting at the store in Arizona,   bummer!    But believe it or not, I got the things on the rest of my list and nothing else. 

One more place to go, Pet Smart to get Angel’s dog food and cookies, and then I started home.  It was getting close to 6:00 pm and I had to go through downtown San Antonio during rush hour, well the end of rush hour.  It was a lot easier going back,  I just stayed on I 35 South and connected with US 90 West. 

There was still a couple of things that I needed to get, one was dry ice because I got large bags of frozen fruit that need to stay frozen.  I also have a separate freezer that I hadn’t plugged in before I left.  It would help cool it down quickly.  I also got a new butane fire starter, since I ran out of fuel for the one I already have and couldn’t fine the replacement fuel cartridge for it.

Finally, finished!   It is now getting late and I had to drive into the sun.  Since US 90 goes directly West, I thought I would take TX 127 out of Sabinal and not go through Uvalde.  It was shorter and the sun was a bit to the left, not directly in my eyes.  If you remember, in one of my previous blogs I mentioned that  TX 127 had road construction.  By the time I got there, the construction workers had gone.  It was a bit dusty because of the loose gravel, but I got back to GSP by 8:15 pm, unloaded the truck in the last fading light and had most everything put away within an hour. 

It is late, actually already Wednesday.  Fortunately I don’t work, so can sleep in.

Thanks for visiting

This is where I belong, Mom.

Susan and Angel