Driving Around the Refuge

 We took a drive around part of the refuge today to see what we could find.

Our first find was this 10-12 ft alligator near the road.

I'm sure that the locals aren't nearly as impressed with these as us Iowans are.

Next we spotted a large group of small alligators 2-3 ft.

We watched them for quite awhile, there were as many as 12 in the group at one time.

Most of them headed off into the water, bet they were still watching us.

We stopped at the local library yesterday and they gave us a library card, so now we have some books to read. I am reading some about the local history of the area. Very interesting!

San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge

We spent 4 nights at an RV park on the beach in Waveland, MS. One day was spent hitting some stores and the rest of the time we just relaxed. Of course we had to go to Tony’s for a plate of Knock Knock oysters.

The weather was beautiful, so we took a couple of walks on the beach.

A couple of mornings we were able to watch this pair of eagles in a tree near the motorhome.

On Sunday we drove over to Lake Charles, LA and overnighted in a Walmart parking lot. Today we drove on to our winter destination, San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge. So far, it looks like a great place. This guy crossed our path when we were walking.

Meridian, MS

This morning we left Carrollton and are headed toward our winter volunteer job in Texas. It’s always hard to leave family and friends and head on down the road, but we will be back again. We had a great time while we were there and were able to do a few fixit projects for Mom while we were there. One good thing about leaving Georgia —no more campaign commercials! The election isn’t over there until the Senate runoff.

Mom’s deck after some new paint and stain.

Tonight we are staying at the Bonita Lake RV park in Meridian, MS. We are planning to be in Waveland, MS tomorrow night.

Carrollton, GA

Note: I wrote this post back around October 17 and just found it here on my phone.

Yesterday we stopped for the night in Gadsden, AL. We have stayed there in the Niccalula Falls Rv park many times before when visiting Janice’s sister there. Her sister and brother in law are visiting their daughter and grandkids in Texas right now, so we didn’t get to see them this time. We enjoyed a nice catfish supper at the Top of the River restaurant. 

Today we drove over to the Jellystone RV Park near Bremen, GA where we will be for the next month visiting Janice’s relatives near here.

Janice was finally able to give her mom the quilt that she made for her.

Clarksville, TN

We had planned to stop in Paducah, KY for the night, but it was still early, so we drove on and we are in the Clarksville RV Park in Clarksville, TN for the night. Nice little park and easy to get into. 

Bowling Green, MO

We stopped in Mount Pleasant, IA to visit a high school friend of Janice’s late this morning. She is a good friend that we always try to stop and see when we are in this area. We had a great visit and lunch together at Arby’s. We stopped at the Cozy C RV park in Bowling Green for the night. We debated about going on to Cape Girardeau, but didn’t want to get delayed in St Louis traffic and having to drive in the dark.

Janice and our friend Nancy

Time Flies

Wow, our time in Sioux City has flown by again. So many things to do there. Repairs on the Jeep. Installation of the new leveling jack in the motor home (twice, because the first one was defective). Conversion of the stove vent fan to have an outside duct. Repair of one of the slide covers. Many other small repairs on the motor home. Painting the playhouse that I built when our oldest daughters were young. Repair of the front door on the house. We also enjoyed some of the grandkids’ soccer and football games. Today was the day to begin the journey south. We left Sioux City this morning and stopped in Des Moines for a brief visit with our kids’ families there and have our son in law check out the ac in the motor home and the Jeep. Hitting the road again late in the afternoon we have stopped for the night at the Walmart in Oskaloosa, IA.

Bismarck, ND

Trying to catch up, it looks like I haven’t posted for awhile. We left Saylorville Lake and headed to Bismarck, ND with one of our granddaughters from Bismarck with us. We overnighted on the last day of July at the Alexandria RV park and shooting range and on to Bismarck the next day. The month of August went way to fast as we enjoyed being with our families there. I spent some time there helping build a deck and started an apartment remodel project. One of Janice’s sisters stopped by on her way home from the Sturgis motorcycle rally and stayed for a few days. We enjoyed spending some time with her again. One of our daughters from DesMoines and her family came up for a visit for the last few days that we were there and we were glad to spend some time with them . We left Tuesday morning and headed down to Custer State Park in South Dakota to visit a friend there that we met in Quartzite last winter. She spent Wednesday with us as our tour guide for the park. We really enjoyed our day with her and I will have to add some pictures to this post later. Today we left the Custer Mointain RV Park and headed toward Sioux City. We have stopped for the night at the Walmart in Mitchell, SD. 

Leaving Saylorville Lake

Two month here have flown by. Work at the lake has been fairly normal considering the Covid situation. Most of the volunteers were not allowed in until the beginning of May. This did not affect us because we had planned to go to Sioux City until the beginning of June. When we arrived here, some of the rangers were still working from home and some of the maintenance workers were gone for various reasons. All of the workers did a great job getting the campgrounds open and doing the needed maintenance. With everyone not being together every day, communications have been a little problem sometimes but things have been surprisingly normal for the most part for the volunteers. I really enjoy the variety of work here and hate to leave. Fence building, tree trimming, mowing, bush hogging, planting food plots, putting up signs, and assembling picnic tables, something different every day and they make us feel appreciated.

The other part of being here is being able to visit two of out daughters and their families and spend some time with them. As the grandkids age, we see less of them, but still like to be a part of their lives as much as we can. Our oldest daughter from Bismarck brought our youngest daughter from Sioux City to spend a few days here, so that was nice. Her daughter stayed here with the cousins and will ride back to Bismarck with us.

Tomorrow we leave here to go to Bismarck for a month. We hate to leave here, but are looking forward to going there.

Saylorville Lake

We are settling in at Saylorville Lake again. We parked here Sunday night and one of our daughters and her family stopped by while we were getting set up. We were glad to see them again. We reconnected with several of the volunteers here and met some new ones. Of course the Covid thing has the park operations here in a state of flux. Some people working from home, some out with injuries, along with new procedures everywhere. It may take some time to work out the work schedule, but we are pretty good at adapting and settling into a new routine wherever we go, so I'm sure we will soon be completely comfortable. We have our favorite spot here in volunteer village and the bird feeders are set up and are being put to good use by a variety of birds. It is good to be back here.

Sioux City

We have been so busy here that I haven't done very well at keeping up the blog. Parked in our daughter's driveway in Sioux City. This is where we catch up on our repairs when we can. This time, we had to have an oil pan gasket and an air conditioner clutch replaced on the Jeep. That was taken care of last week, so it is ready to go again. The motor home was making an extra noise when we got to Quartzsite last fall and it looked like it was coming from an exhaust manifold gasket. It gradually got worse as we came up here. We had it looked at last week and they ordered parts. The manifold was also cracked and needed to be replaced. We had the parts installed today, so the motorhome is ready to travel again. The front leveling jack still needs to be replaced, but that will be done later. We have enjoyed out time here with our daughter and the grandkids and the time has passed quickly. Our son and granddaughter from Bismarck, ND are coming for a visit this weekend and the following weekend we will head to Saylorville Lake near Desmoines for our volunteer job there. Lots of small jobs to complete here before then.

El Dorado, KS

We are at a Walmart in El Dorado, KS for the night. We hope to be back in Sioux City tomorrow night. I went into Walmart to pick up a few things. All employees wearing masks. Few customers wearing them. Directional aisles (not being followed). People seem to be very tense and have lost their friendliness. Hope we can get back to normal soon.

Seymour, Texas

We are spending the night in the Northside RV Ranch in Seymour, TX. The campground is essentially closed because they are redoing the electric system, but the owner said we could stay for free with sewer and water if we didn't need electricity. Works for us! We are almost to the Oklahoma border. Drove through quite a bit of oil well country today. Starting to see more trees finally.

A Day of Rest

We woke up this morning to feel the motorhome rocking in the wind. Looking at the weather forecast for today, we would have to fight a 30 mph head wind all day. Tomorrow's forecast looked much better, so we decided to stay here today. I took a short walk across town this morning and we just hung out here in the motorhome this afternoon. We had a good wifi signal from the RV park, so we used it to some updates on the phone, the ipad, and the sewing machine (yes, it has software updates too!). Tomorrow we should be back on the road again!

Van Horn, Texas

Another easy day today. Lost 2 hours due to time zone changes. We are stopped at the Wild West RV Park in Van Horn, Texas. Part of our drive today took us past the border in El Paso. Due to Covid-19, the interstates through the cities aren't busy so no slow downs there. Way more trucks than cars on the road and almost no RVs so far. No problem fueling at truck stops and so far no problem finding open RV parks. Grabbed some take out food at a truck stop for lunch today and otherwise just eating in the Motorhome.

Willcox, AZ

We left Quartzsite this morning about 11:00. Had a trouble free day and stopped for the night at the Sagebrush RV park in Willcox, AZ. Mostly desert scenery all day with a boulder covered area shortly before we stopped for the night.

Harquahala Mountain

Friday's Jeep trek was to the top of Harquahala Mountain. On the way, we enjoyed the desert in bloom again.

On the way to the base of the mountain, we stopped at an abandoned mine. I am not sure what was mined here. It was a large pit mine with some tunnels blasted into one side of it. It was interesting to wander through the tunnels.

 
Flowers at the mine.

More flowers at the mine.

Looking down into the mine, with the tunnels in the base of the far wall.

It was a short drive to the entrance to Harquahala Mountain. More flowers and cactus along the way. This one seemed to be watching us drive by.

We stopped here at the entrance to the mountain road for lunch.

From here it was a 10 mile Jeep trail up the mountain with an elevation gain of about 3300 ft.

At the top of the mountain is an abandoned solar observatory from the 1920s and a communications system for the regional canal system powered by a large solar array. To learn more about the history of the observatory at the top of this mountain, click here. 
This is a survey marker in a rock at the top of he mountain.

The communication system and solar array.

The abandoned observatory building.

More flowers at the top.

Part of the trail looking down from the top.

When we went to leave, we found out that our Jeep battery was dead. We jumped it off of one of the other Jeeps and made it home ok. New battery should be here on Tuesday. On the way back down, this gila monster crossed the road in front of the group.

Can you spot him in this picture?