Ready to go but......

     Well, we are all packed up and ready to go but Mother Nature is throwing a monkey wrench into things. With Spring comes storms in America's Heartland and this Spring is no exception. All along our intended route is severe weather (high winds, heavy rain, possibility of hail and tornadoes). So, we have always said that the advantage of being so mobile is the ability to come and go as you please. In this case we have decided to stay put for a couple of days and wait it out. The down side is finding new campsites on short notice. Used to be easy but over the last few years, spontaneous travel changes don't always result in finding accompanying campsites. We're now in the process of making those changes and will try it again next week.

Time to Pack Up and Hit the Road

     Well, it's that time of year in southeast Texas where the Snowbird migration is in full swing. The weather folks are predicting 90 degrees by Friday! So far it has been an early Spring. The grass has been being cut since April, the flowers have been out and blooming, and the various "seasons" of Texas bugs has come and gone (ladybugs, wasps, forest webworms, and love bugs). Usually the Magnolia trees are just beginning to bloom when we are packing up but this year they have been shooting out their fragrant blooms for weeks. (photo above) Every morning I have wandered out and found a bloom to inhale. The fragrance is light but very pleasant.

     With the addition of the golf cart, we were looking at covering it for the brutal Texas summer. The more we thought about it, the more we felt we needed something more substantial to protect our investment. With that in mind, we decided to upgrade our storage shed. We made a deal with our neighbor and we traded our shed to him in exchange for one of his deck boxes. This then freed up space for a larger more substantial shed. We shopped around and found a nice lofted barn style that could accommodate the golf cart yet still allow plenty of room to store the things we needed to. This building was custom made by Cook buildings and delivered (and set up) on our site. It arrived on the back of a flatbed trailer and was lowered to the ground. The delivery driver unloaded a "mule" which was a fancy mini-fork lift. He used the mule to then drag and align the shed in it's new location.

Off loading from the trailer 

Using the "Mule" to move into position

Big double doors for golf cart access

In place and set up

A perfect fit with room to spare!

     Prior to this, we had to empty the old shed and move it to our neighbors property. I really didn't want to disassemble it then re-assemble it again. I felt that it was sturdy enough that we could easily get it to its new home by setting up some PVC pipe and rolling it to its new home. I asked our property manager if I could borrow a few moments of time from his crew to make the move. Well, they showed up and just carried it to the new location!! I didn't think that it was that sturdy but it all worked out fine.

Moving the old shed

      Our next home improvement took me a bit out of my comfort zone. We have had moisture condensation along the inner peak of our Casita roof for some time. It just gets too hot and humid around here and the ventilation is poor along the roof. We have seen what is called a ridge vent in homes and buildings in this area and it seemed to be a good solution for our problem. It looked like an easy fix that could be done by a "do it yourself-er". After studying a few You Tube videos, we found a couple of four foot vents and some shingles to match the roof.

   

      The process involved climbing up on the roof and cutting the appropriate sized slot into the ridgeline (thus providing the attic air a place to exhaust). Then the vents were nailed down and the shingles secured to the top. Now the air could vent and the moisture had some place to go other than down the interior roof of the Casita! The ridge vent itself is neat, fits well along the roof line and is barely noticeable.

The finished product.

     We are now ready to pack up and head northwards. Keeping in mind the floods of last year, we have taken as many precautions as we can to reduce any damage should the floods decide to recur. 

Early 2017

     Just a quick "catch up" on things we've been doing since returning from the Cruise. Spring came early to Texas and with the warmer weather we worked to spruce up the outside of the property. With the improvements going on at The Preserve of Texas, we find ourselves meandering around a lot more. In light of that, we decided to invest in a small golf cart to use in and around the property. We found this nice used vehicle that seats four, or the back seat folds down and there is a little space to haul things. It is raised a bit which allows us to "navigate off road" (as our GPS is fond of saying) without getting stuck. The grandkids came down over spring break and they had a great time riding around on it on trips to the playground, fishing dock, and beach area.

     At the end of February, we made a trip to Phoenix, AZ to attend the wedding of our niece. While there, my brother-in-law Bob and I attended a spring season baseball game between the Chicago Cubs and the California Angels. We had great seats and it was the first time I have ever attended a pro baseball event. My thanks to Bob for setting this up!

Not a bad view from my seat!!

     Also while we were there we attended the Good Sam rally which was held at the Phoenix International Raceway. We checked out the vendors and all of the new trinkets and gizmos that any serious RVer can't live without. The Richard Petty racing experience was doing NASCAR driving opportunities on the track and we were able to get a peek. (I have driven previously at the Kansas Speedway).

At PIR 

     One of the things that Barb has been busy with during the winter months is making gifts with her Scan-N-Cut machine. This machine can cut paper or vinyl to make things such as cards, scrapbooking highlights, T-shirt decorations, etc. We found a store in Conroe, TX (not far from us) that sells the vinyl sheets and Barb made many of our Christmas gifts, T-shirts for the guys on the Cruise, and decorated insulated mugs for a whole bunch of folks. She made a nice wall hanging tile for our niece as a wedding gift.

Tile for the new Bride and Groom

Rtic cup for our Daughter, Amanda

T-shirts for the Guys on the Cruise

     We have been planning our summer and decided to head back to the upper midwest. Since last summer's trip was interrupted by the floods in Texas, we wanted to go back and see things we missed or didn't have time for. In the process, we stumbled on to a neat workamping position in Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin. Baileys Harbor is on the eastern side of the Door County peninsula just minutes from Lake Michigan. We were given an offer we couldn't refuse so we accepted and will head there at the end of May and stay through mid-September. The park is called Beantown Campground and offers Tent, pop-up, and RV sites along with camping cabins. Here is a link to their website: Beantown Campground

Bean Town Campground

     So now we have returned the grandkids to Kansas following spring break and will return to Texas to get ready for our next trip: spending the month of May in Kentucky visiting with our son and doing some remodeling of his Chiropractic offices.