Near the End of the Year

We are enjoying our time here. The weather has been great so far. Most of my work has been from the tractor seat, mowing roadsides, using the big tractor mounted blower to clean off the roads around areas that are going to be burned, and using the backhoe and grapple to tear apart some tree piles created by a bulldozer on a land clearing project. 

We have gotten reacquainted with some friends here from church and had a visit with them at the celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The decorated sidewalk outside the parish center.

The inside of the parish center where we enjoyed a Mexican meal.

The local library had a raffle where you got a ticket for each book that you checked out. They called me the week before Christmas and said that I had won! The prize was a nice gift basket.

They had a nice Christmas parade here in Melrose but is seems strange to enjoy a Christmas parade when it is 75 degrees outside.

We had a quiet Christmas here and enjoyed facetiming with the kids and grandkids and sharing the day with them. Everyone here at the station has the week off this week, so we are catching up on few projects here and will probably travel to some nearby towns for some sightseeing.

Ordway-Swisher Biological Research Station

We have arrived at our winter volunteer site! We were met at the gate by our supervisor here and are looking forward to working with her. We are in the same site as the other times that we were here and are ready to start work tomorrow. Nice weather and smooth travels today. We met the other volunteer couple that are already working here. 

Tifton, GA

Our month in Carrollton went by quickly. As usual we enjoyed spending time with Janice’s mom, sisters, brother in law, and a niece and nephew. We spent a lot of time playing games at the table this year. Janice and one of her sisters got to spend some time exploring the capabilities of her embroidery machine and I completed a few fixit projects. I was able to volunteer for a few days at the county soup kitchen and visit with a few old friends there. Our granddaughter who works in North Carolina drive over to visit for a couple of days and her mom and another granddaughter surprised her by traveling down from Iowa to see her.

Today we left Carrollton and stopped for the night at a Walmart in Tifton, GA. Nice weather for driving today. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant in Waverly Hall for a delicious lunch. Tomorrow we should reach our winter destination in Florida.

Chattanooga and Carrollton

 We arrived at Chattanooga on Wednesday which was a day sooner than we had planned. We parked for the night at a Walmart on the edge of town and had a quiet night. The fog was so thick Thursday morning that we could only see part of the front of the store from the motorhome. We waited for it to clear up before heading over to Bulldog Jeep Hardtop company to spend the next night in order to be there for our installation appointment early Friday morning. They were really nice to work with and did a great job on the installation of our new hard top on the Jeep. Our old soft top had broken zippers on all of the panels and was pretty useless to us. So far, we are loving the new top with it's doors that open on the sides and rear. Much quieter ride too.

After the installation, we continued on to our rvpark at Carrollton. We are in a park that we had checked out last year. They added new sites and we are in one of them. The park is very hilly and most of the sites are uneven. I spent part of yesterday picking up some lumber and making some ramps and blocks to help us level up. Now that that is done we are pretty happy with the park.

Paducah, KY

Bowling Green, MO to Paducah, KY today. Staying at Fern Lake RV Park. We’ve been eating leftovers out of the refrigerator for two days, so we walked across the street to a Waffle place for Supper. Nice weather all day today.

Headed South Again

Yesterday after Mass we had lunch and said goodbye to our Sioux City family and drove to Des Moines. We parked for the night in our daughter’s driveway, and drove the Jeep across town to say goodbye to our other daughter. Today we have stopped for the night at the Cozy C Rv park near Bowling Green , MO.

Headed Back to Sioux City

We had to say goodbye to our families in Bismarck after a good month with them. It is always fun and relaxing to be there with them but we must travel on.

We have stopped for the night at a Walmart in Aberdeen, SD and should be back to Sioux City tomorrow. Wind was out of the northwest today which was nice.