Leon Creek Greenway, San Antonio, TX -- Sun., Jan. 27

The Leon Creek Greenway Trail System currently has 15 miles of paved or natural surface trails. On today's Volksmarch Bob and I covered 3.1 miles, then turned around and retraced our steps for the other 3.1 miles.

Unlike other Volksmarches we've done in rural parks, this one is a suburban "greenway." Greenway parks are stretches of natural areas which provide trails through the city for local wildlife. (And people too, but no houses are on the greenway itself--although houses and apartments back up to the greenway.)

We started our walk at 12:09 p.m. to clouds and 65 degrees. About two-thirds of the way through the walk, the sun came out and the temperature soared to 76 degrees. It got hot on the trail and we were sweating...not a lot of shade. I can't imagine doing this walk during the daylight hours in 100-degree heat of summer. One nice plus was a cool-ish breeze blowing around us.

This is a very popular trail. We encountered walkers, joggers, but mostly bike riders, and one skateboarder. I'm sure it would have been a lot more crowded if we had been there earlier or later in the day. 

Let's take a look at what we saw:

A nice, wide, paved trail.

Some art on a trail wall.

Leon "Creek" is pretty much a dry wash.

Suburbia--see the apartments just off the trail?

Winter in Texas.

School bus line up.

Great trail directions.

All the stats about the trail.

Big clouds building up.

Love the nice lines on the bridge.

Doesn't Bob look like Lt. Provenza from "The Closer"?

Water appeared magically in this section of the creek.

Love how this bridge looks like it goes on forever.

Alert roadrunner. He ran off just after I snapped the photo.

It took us one hour and 48 minutes for today's 6.2 mile (10K) walk. As usual, after we walk we were ready to eat. We planned to see "Red Dawn" at Cinemark 16 and Wendy's is right next to it. I had the baked potato with a small chili all mixed together. Bob had a baked potato with butter and sour cream and a side salad. We made it to the movie just before they dimmed the lights. We were surprised how many people were in the theater considering "Red Dawn" has been out for a while already.

The movie was excellent. I really got into it. It was funny, exciting, sad, intense. I had never seen the original "Red Dawn," but Bob had. He told me, "If you like this one, you'll love the original. It had much more character development." So we will rent the original "Red Dawn" from Netflix.

After the movie, Bob drove me around the medical center complex of San Antonio--VA, University Hospital, several facilities in the Methodist Hospital system, Christus Medical Center and Baptist Hospital. That's a lot of medical facilities. I told Bob I hope I don't ever have to see the inside of one of those again.

On our trip back to the 5er we criss-crossed some streets in the King Williams Historic District. Here are some of the homes we saw.

Nice, eh?

Bob has been telling me for about a month that I need to read the historic marker in front of the Lighthouse for the Blind Activity Center. (That's directly across the street from The Lighthouse for the Blind that we toured last Thursday.) I didn't have time to run across the street and read it then, so we stopped today. It is a very lengthy, in-depth historic marker telling all about El Camino Real (King's Road) and the early history of Texas--the road is intrinsic to the history of Texas. It is also called The Old San Antonio Road.

In the picture below, note the progress (?) from deer to Native Americans to horses to missions to factories and then, ta-da, RVs! I think that's pretty cool they used an RV.

OK. That was a full day. We got back to the 5er at 5:30 p.m, watched "60 Minutes," and Bob watched the exhibition Pro Bowl game played in Hawaii.

Bob says, "And the Blazers are down by five at the half, if you need to get all the news in."

Ha ha, Bob, I guess I got all the news in.

Here's our little darlings:

Sunnie and Bowie.

Travel Bug out.

Nerve Wracking Alarms! -- Fri., June 22

Cotulla, Texas:

Our wells are in the flowback stage. Huge flames are shooting out of the pipe. When our site's night safety man came on duty, he told us he would watch out for us if anything happened. 

At about 1:00 a.m....alarms, more alarms. Tonight, the H2S alarm and red light keep going off on the pad by our 5er. I made Bob get dressed in street clothes in case we have to leave. It's so dark out there I can't see which way the wind socks are going. No light towers are turned on near us on the pad. A light tower way far back in one corner away from us is on and our light tower is on, but our light tower faces the gate, not the pad. I'm scared. Don't know if I'll get much sleep tonight! It's 2:15 a.m. and the alarm has been going off intermittently for over an hour.

Tonight, Bowie was disturbed by the alarms and took a ringside seat to see the action..notice flames in background.

Weird posture for a cat.

"Stop with the pictures already. And could you do something about the alarms?"

Other than that, the day was normal. Bob made a trip to the post office. We are trying to track down a package that was sent to our last RV park in early May. Bob was able to get a tracking number on the package from our mail forwarding service which may help us find it. Today is laundry day. I will check the post office again when I'm in town.

Today was cloudy and cooler with possible thunderstorms in the forecast. (We didn't get any rain or thunderstorms for that matter.)

Wildlife sightings were impressive today. Two gray cottontails were hopping around. The roadrunners have decided underneath our 5er is the big bird "bug buffet." All day, the roadrunner(s) went under our stairs, grabbed bugs then headed into the brush. Very entertaining. The mockingbirds are out again, as well as the pyrrhuloxia. Every once in a while, we see big fat lizards running around outside our 5er. They like the bugs too.

More roadrunner pics:

Roadrunner with bug in bill.

Typical roadrunner stance. Note bug in bill.

  The mockingbird wanted a photo too.

Hopefully no more alarms go off and we can get some sleep!

Travel Bug out.

Freedom and the Open Road -- Mon., June 18

Cotulla, Texas:

"To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else." 
~Bernadette Devlin

This is so true. Both of us lost our jobs in Hawaii in June 2011. In order to go on the road and travel we gave up (sold) our "sticks and bricks" house and almost all our possessions.

Did we have fear? You bet!! Could we find work on the road to support ourselves? How would we pay for everything?

Fast forward one year...We've been "on the road" in our 5th wheel trailer for eight months and have worked six months. We've been from Hawaii (where we lived, owned a house and worked) to Oregon (our home state for over 30 years), bought our 5th wheel and trailer in Oregon, drove to Fallon, Nevada and worked for Amazon.com in Fernley for two months during the holiday season.

Bob got a job as a commercial roofing service manager in Sparks, Nevada for three months. We took off in April to travel to Texas with stops in Las Vegas and Phoenix to see family and friends.

We spent two days hiking in Big Bend National Park and a few days exploring the Texas Hill Country before landing in Kerrville, Texas to attend the RV-Dreams Rally.

For the past six weeks we have been working as security gate guards at an oil field in south Texas. In July, we will take two weeks to drive to Yellowstone N.P., spend two weeks camping and hiking; go to the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore in Sept. We will then head over to the North Dakota/Minnesota border where Bob will work the sugar beet harvest for three weeks.

From there, we will drive back to Oregon, park our rig, and board our cats to take a month-long trip to Australia. It was not possible to do all these things when we were tied to high-stress, low-vacation-time jobs, our house and all our belongings.

So while we lost our house and most of our possessions, we gained freedom to go where we want, when we want. Make no mistake about it, though, we also need to work!

Gate guarding update:

We received our Security pocket ID cards and name badges today. Thank you, LOMA Gate Guard Services!

Our gate has slowed to a crawl so Bob asked our supervisor today if we'll be moved. The supervisor said as long as the oil company wants us here, we will be on this job site. So, it looks like we'll be here for a while and it's going to be slow. Gives me more time to write and do photography.

After the cats' bag trashing incident last night, we moved all the plastic bags into a nice cloth bag. No more shredding the paper bags. Bowie came to terms with the new arrangement right away.

"Oh, look, Mom and Dad gave us a new, cushy bed!"

Time for my nap. Just a little yawn.

And now for my siesta. Wake me in a few hours, will you?

Roadrunner reappeared in front of our dining room window, bug in mouth. Isn't  he gorgeous?

Did a little dance, fluffed his tail and wings.

Then did what roadrunners do best...ran away.

"If you write to impress it will always be bad, but if you write to express it will be good." ~Thornton Wilder, writer (1897-1975)

Travel Bug out.

P.S. Wildlife Sightings Today -- Fri., June 1

Fuller Ranch, Cotulla, Texas:

Wildlife I saw today: On my drive to town, I saw the Sable antelope herd on the ranch across the road. Coming home, I saw a hen turkey in a field about a mile from our site.

This evening, the roadrunner was back, again being chased by the mockingbirds. Mr. Roadrunner had something in his mouth. Out came the binoculars. A great big katydid was hanging out of the roadrunner's mouth. Pretty cool. Once again I wished for a more powerful camera. I could have had a wonderful, nature-moment shot. Sigh...one of these days.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa (as Jimmy Buffett sings). I have a major correction. What we thought were blackbuck antelope are NOT. What we see at Rancho de la Tierra Roja across the road are:

Springbok Antelope

kaybruce.wordpress.com

The springbok is a medium-sized brown and white gazelle that stands about 70 to 90 cm high. Springbok males weigh between 33 and 50 kg and the females between 25 and 40 kg. Wikipedia

Scientific name: Antidorcas marsupialis

Travel Bug out.

Oh, except for a kitty pic (please stop reading if you don't want to see a kitty pic):

Bowie in "my" chair. (Ha! Don't fool yourself, Susan.)

This is what happens when I get up from the computer to check someone in at the gate...one of the two cats usurps my chair. (Bowie in this instance, but it's just as likely to be Sunnie. Notice Sunnie's head sticking out from under the chair. Under the chair is the second most prized takeover area when I'm in the vicinity. When I jump up from my chair to go outside I have to check first for a cat tail, paw, head or body under my feet. Sheesh, what we do for our animals!)

You Have to Eat a Peck of Dirt Before You Die -- Thurs., May 30

From The Free Dictionary.com:

You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die. 

Prov. No one can escape eating a certain amount of dirt on his or her food. Everyone must endure a number of unpleasant things in his or her lifetime. (Often said to console someone who has eaten some dirt or had to endure something unpleasant.)

OR...You could work as a gate guard in south Texas on a very windy day and eat MORE THAN a peck of dirt. Most unpleasant!

Today for Bob was very busy. Both Pad A and Pad B were hopping.  

Pad B

The temperature was about 102 F. The wind and blowing dust were relentless. The awning was out this morning, but by the time I got up at 11:30 a.m., we had clouds of blowing dust so bad we couldn't see the road 200 feet from us. No cars or trucks were coming at that time, just strong winds and blowing dust. The awning had to go in. Bob got it tucked away. He couldn't wait for his shift to end so he could relax inside. 

Activity in the evening was lighter; nothing like what Bob endured. The wind and dust continued unabated until about 8:00 p.m. Going outside felt like getting sandblasted in an oven. 

My sun hat that I wear outside when it's sunny or windy has a wide brim. With the wind coming straight into my face, the brim of my hat blew over my eyes, making it very hard to read the license plate numbers for the log.

Around 10:00 p.m. great big raindrops started falling, but it only lasted a few minutes...not long enough to wet down the dust. But the wind let up. Yay!

Pad B is a beehive of activity around the clock now. They are doing coiled tubing. Apparently they tapped into some H2S (hydrogen sulfide gas), and now they've got a pipe up in the air burning off the gas. That is one BIG flame.

Tomorrow, I am meeting Kathy, another gate guard who works near Millett, Texas. It will be fun to compare notes. We'll have about 1-1/2 hours to talk before I go back to take over from Bob at 3:00 p.m.

The roadrunner was out again today. The mockingbirds were all riled up and chasing the roadrunner. According to my Audubon bird book, roadrunners will eat the young of ground-nesting birds. Mockingbirds, however, nest in low-lying scrub so I'm not sure that qualifies as "ground-nesting." The mockingbirds apparently thought it did. They were dive-bombing the roadrunner.

That's all the excitement for today. Stay tuned for tomorrow.

We Earned Our Pay Today! -- Sun., May 13

Cotulla, Texas:
Happy Mother's Day to Mom and all my friends and relatives who are mothers!  I hope you enjoyed a nice relaxing day today, maybe with flowers, massage, chocolate, or a meal at a good restaurant.

This was, by far, our busiest day. We have two "pads" at our gate. Today both pads were up and fully functional. On my night shift I may have between 12-20 trucks from 3 pm to 3 am. Today, I had 54 incoming trucks. Bob gets the brunt of the check-ins during the day, I think he filled out seven log sheets today compared to my 2-1/2 pages of log sheets. But I do log out a number of the trucks he logged in during the day, so my count is a bit higher than 54 as I overlap with him...but who's counting?

All kinds of trucks came in today. We had trucks lined up on the road, trucks coming and going right at the gate. Inside, our gate road splits into a "T": Pad A is to the left and Pad B is to the right. Most of the big equipment was headed for Pad A to do cold tubing.

There was a time today when a huge trailer with wide load was trying to get up on the B Pad. Three sand trucks were waiting to come out. The huge "Wide Load" semi with trailer had to back down by our fifth wheel to let the three sand trucks out, then had to back up and do a three-point turn by the gate to get turned around again. By this time another sand truck was ready to leave. The two trucks were tete-a-tete and neither wanted to back up. One of the crew on the pad had the sand truck back off. It was that kind of day.

The weather the past two days has been beautiful...mid 80s, blue sky with white puffy clouds. Nice.

I love sitting outside in the late afternoon while watching the gate. I'm in the shade right next to our generator aka "bird feeder." All afternoon, I have birds (Bewick's wren, mockingbird, a pair of cardinals) coming to catch the insects on the ground by the generator. There are still some birds I haven't identified, probably because my Audubon book is the Western Edition.

Bob is such a wonderful man. For our anniversary yesterday, tucked into the card, was a packet of seeds for "Forget-Me-Nots." He knows I love to garden, but don't want any plants in the 5er for now. I can plant these seeds out in the soil behind our 5er and we can water them with our gray water. Hopefully we won't have any more major rainstorms that dump inches of water at a time. I don't think forget-me-nots are very hardy flowers. The seeds take 4-6 weeks to become flowers, so we should still be here to see a pretty display.

I forgot to mention, on the day I went into town to do laundry, a roadrunner "ran" (more like sauntered) across the road in front of my car. I had to stop to let him cross. He didn't seem to be in a hurry.

That's all folks!