Building in Texas

 
   After a quick trip through Colorado and Kansas to visit family, we headed south to Cleveland, Texas (a sleepy little country town about 45 miles northeast of Houston). Here we plan to spend the winter and build our new "Winter home" on an RV site at The Preserve of Texas. Way back in February of this year we made an announcement in this blog that we had purchased a site. Now we have come to build.

Our coach parked on the Platinum Model site back in March

     The first item of business is to finalize our development plans. We purchased what is referred to as a Platinum RV Homesite.  With that option you get a Casita, Spa, outdoor kitchen, and fire pit along with a pad and full RV hookups (50A electric, water, and sewer). Now you can take the base options or you can customize if you so desire. The folks at The Preserve have a design engineer on staff who works with you to design your amenities. We decided to make the Casita a little bigger and enhance the outdoor kitchen. After a few meetings and refinements to our designs, we arrived at a finished product. 

     The photo above shows our lot as of October 16, 2013. It extends well back into the treeline and ends up along Davis Bayou as it runs through the property. One of the first decisions we had to make was whether to remove the big Sweet Gum tree that is in the middle foreground of the photo above. It was positioned such that it was going to interfere with the back of our RV pad. We tried a variety of modifications but in the end, couldn't come up with a way to keep the tree. So, unfortunately, we had it removed. It is however, the only big tree that we needed to get rid of. The rest of the lot just needed some brush clearing and pruning. Mario and his crew came in and in the space of only a couple of hours cut down and removed the big tree and cleared a large area of brush from the lot.

Here the lot has been scraped and the Sweet Gum removed

Removing the brush

Nice view of the lot with tree gone and brush removed.
This was on 11-23-2013

     So above you see a progression. The Sweet Gum tree was removed and a company came in to grind down the remaining stump. Meanwhile, a bunch of the brush on the property was cleared out and removed. (Some by me, a lot by Mario and his crew) The front of the lot was scraped and leveled to a degree and prepared for the next step. It was determined that, due to the slope of the lot, that the back part of the pad would have to be built up by 6 feet in order to be level!!! That worked out to at least 100 dump truck loads of fill dirt. The dirt started arriving on December 4th and continues to today.

One of many truckloads being delivered

Our lot as of 12-6-2013

      The dirt comes in and is spread and will be compacted by a bulldozer in the near future. This will provide a solid foundation for the RV pad, Casita, Spa, and fire ring. Compare the lot photos from October to now. It is beginning to take shape!

Just for perspective... that's me on the left. The leveled dirt is about to my waist.

     In the meantime, we moved from the Silver model site to the Gold one. Gold sites have a nice shed built on them. This worked out well for us. The folks at The Preserve were kind enough to give us a key to the shed and we have been using it to store things that we have bought for the Casita/Spa. We have taken advantage of several pre holiday sales and of course, Black Friday. We are able to have them delivered to us here on site and can store them protected from the elements. The folks here have really gone out of their way to help us and make this transition time a little less stressful.

     So now you know what we've been up to for the last couple of months. The best place to see how this progresses is on our Facebook page. It's a lot more timely information usually with illustrations or pictures. Internet is limited to my MiFi card out here or sometimes I take the laptop into the Houston area on shopping forays. There I can get on any of a number of public WiFi spots. Guess what I'm saying is that the blog will continue to be more of a summary of happenings and Facebook will be more daily events.

Summer is over, Fall is on the way!

     Wow! The summer has gone by quickly. We've been busy but haven't really taken the time to make a blog entry. With the availability of Facebook and its timely posts, a blog seems a bit of redundancy. But, with it being the end of our summer in Alaska, I thought that I'd sum up events. Seems like it was just last week when we were covered in four inches of snow in Palmer. While we didn't do as much touring this time as we did three years ago, we still saw lots of fantastic sights and were visited by several members of our friends and family. We "enjoyed" a Winter that didn't want to leave, a Spring that was all too short, a Summer that was far too hot and dry for Alaska, and are now drifting into Fall with its colors and nip in the air. By my reckoning, that's four seasons in the space of 4 months!

Winter

Spring

Summer

Fall

     We saw quite a variety of wildlife on our drives around the Kenai Peninsula. Bears, Bald Eagles, Salmon, Moose, Steller Jays and much more. 

     We had great visits with friends and family and really enjoyed showing them our favorite sights and attractions on the Kenai. We cruised the Kenai Fijords several times and saw many marine animals and birds that call Alaska a summer home. Humpback whales, Orcas, Steller Sea Lions, Harbor seals, and the cute Puffins. The glaciers of the Kenai Fijords never failed to excite. Large chunks of ice the size of a house dropped from the face of the glacier and splashed into the ocean. Every cruise we saw something different and amazing. 

     As before, we really got used to the long 20 hours or so of daylight. We sat on the beach in Seward at midnight to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July. We stayed up late one night to see the "Super Moon" as it rose over the mountains. We caught its reflection in Trail Lake along with the light of Trail Lake Lodge in the distance. Bear in mind that it is after 1:00 AM and you can still see the snow on the far mountainside!

     Towards the end of our stay, we did do something that we had not done before. We took a ride on the Alaska Railroad. We have watched the Seward to Anchorage run go by the Chalets every day this summer. The familiar Blue and Yellow cars stand out and is ridden by thousands of tourist every summer. We took a day trip from Portage to Grandview and back. The views were magnificent and breathtaking. Waterfalls were in their glory, since it has been raining in record amounts the last few weeks. Streams are running fast and deep. And now, in early September, the trees are changing color and Fall is rapidly surrounding us. Seems odd to see highs in the low 50s here when back in the Lower 48, highs are in the 90s and 100s. 

     We had a great time this summer. We met a lot of nice folks who stayed in the Chalets. We ate a lot of salmon and halibut that had been caught fresh. We worked on the Chalets and made several improvements. I think that we have left the Chalets in better shape than we found them. We are now making ready to head south and continue with our adventures. Our winter destination is Cleveland, TX and turning a small piece of land into our own personal RV plot for the future. Until then, safe travels to all of you, wherever you may roam!

June in Alaska

          Well the Chalets are hopping and so are we. We're not as quick to turn around a chalet as we were three years ago, but we are beginning to get the routine down. We've met many of the same folks that we dealt with the last time, the folks at the Hatchery where we get our water (Tom, the manager there is a KU grad who found his way to Alaska and never left), the postmistress of Moose Pass where we get our mail via General Delivery, the folks at the Trail Lake Lodge down the road where we eat when we don't feel like cooking. We've made the trip into Seward several time to do our grocery shopping and get gas for the car. Three years ago there was a spot along the road where we always saw moose. This year they are much more secretive. We haven't seen any moose and only a few bald eagles. We have, however, seen many more bears than last time. The guy in the picture above was just walking along the side of the road heading to his favorite fishing spot. We drove by slowly but were close enough to touch him (but we didn't!).

     We took a day trip to the little town of Soldotna on the Sterling highway for their annual Kenai River Festival. There were several vendors' booths set up to buy locally made items, lots to eat from hot dogs to funnel cakes, and lots of activities especially for the kids. The picture above shows the boardwalk along the river at the back of the park. This is a beautiful view and a great spot for a picnic lunch.

     Before we knew it it was time for our next family guests to arrive. Our son, Chris, and granddaughter, Aubrey, came up from Kansas to spend time with us. We had to work around chalet turnovers, but on days when we were busy, Chris took the car and explored the myriad of hiking trails in and around the area. Every morning he would get up early and hike the nearby trails to see what he could see. We went to Seward (above) and visited the Alaska Sealife Center and took the Kenai Fjord cruise. They also took a float trip out of Cooper Landing and got some great photos of bear and eagles. 

Just one fishing charters catch of the day!

Mom and young Moose

Young eagle. Not yet Black and White.

Fishing for Salmon

Sea Lions sunning on the rocks

Orca

     Towards the end of their stay, we hiked back to the Russian River Falls. This easy 2.5 mile hike was very pretty and had great views of the mountains and surrounding meadows. The Lupin flowers are all along the highway and populate the meadows with their bright blue flowers. On the trail Chris came across the big brown bear on his way to go fishing I suppose. After checking each other out, the bear went on his way and we continued down the trail.

     The ultimate goal of the hike was to see the salmon jumping up the falls on their annual spawning migration. I have seen this only on TV and didn't get the chance to see it the last time we were up here. We were not disappointed! It is amazing to watch in person. The amount of drive and energy that the salmon have to get upstream. You can see them bunched togethers in small pools of slower water and then, suddenly, one or two will take off up the faster water. They weave and bob trying to find the best route upstream. Sometimes the best route is to go airborne and they launch into the foam. Sometimes they make it, often you can see them tumbling back to where they began. But, they turn around and will try again.

The First Few Days

     Luckily for us, there was nobody in the Chalets. We had time to get parked and get set up along with checking out the Chalets and seeing what was new and what had changed. Because winter is so slow in leaving, Trail Lake across the street is still frozen! Things are still brown and dormant. We got settled in and immediately began helping to finish the exterior of the new Chalet, named Eagles Aerie. We also got ready for our own first guests of the season--our traveling companions Brenda and Geoff are coming up to stay with us for a week. We were afraid that if we were delayed much longer on this trip that they would be welcoming us to Moose Pass!

     As you can see, after they got here, there was still a lot of snow in and around the area. In fact, some of the hikes and sights that we planned on showing them were still snowed in. But there was still enough to do that we think they got a good taste of the Kenai Peninsula area and what it has to offer.

The cute Puffin

We cruised the Kenai Fjords to see all kinds of marine life

Brenda & Geoff in front of Aialik Glacier

One of many Orcas that we saw

Brenda visiting with a newborn sled dog

     So the first couple of weeks we got into our routine and had some time to explore the area with our friends. The weather finally began to warm up and, as you can see in the photo above, the leaves began to pop out on the trees. Spring finally arrived!!

Arrival and Set Up

     We made it to our intended stop in Palmer, AK. Got set up in the campground and then ran some errands. Got haircuts, went grocery shopping, etc. Then, a funny thing happened... it began to snow. It snowed and snowed and snowed. Finally, it tapered off but not after leaving four inches of heavy wet flakes! Well, guess we'll hold out another day before going on to Moose Pass. We passed the following day trying to get the wet heavy snow off of the slideout topper awnings. We couldn't close up because the snow kept the awnings from rolling up!

     It seems that the bulk of the snow fell in Palmer. Once we got out of the campground and out of town the roads were clear with hardly a hint of the recent snowfall. In no time we were driving through Anchorage and getting on the Seward Highway headed towards Moose Pass. 

     As you can see from the photo above, the day was gorgeous! The drive along Turnagain Arm was uneventful and we settled in to roads that we were very familiar with. We turned into the driveway of the Chalets and made our way up the hill to our next summer home.