Aaaargh!!!!! Internet on the road ...

Sporadic, low bandwidth, often nonexistent and NO internet cafes, all conspire to make life as we now know it frustrating to say the least. There are often no Starbucks, MacD's or DQs in most of the areas that we are finding ourselves in of late. So what is done? Curse, yell, pull out one's hair? Simply do without and become increasingly frustrated as the days go by.

That said, we do at times find restaurants that offer free wifi but usually it is when we don't have our computers with us, only our cells and that is limiting in and of itself. Some people are able to ;I've completely off their cell phones, our grands for example, but I find it hard to type on the small keyboards and often times the mobile aspect of what you are trying to do is less than stellar. hmmmm I wonder if I kept a small bluetooth keyboard in the car that I could attach to the cell. Will have to try this today - we have cell service, well 2-3 bars of 3G, in town.

Our tripping across and around America since our last blogging has led us to:
~in and around Texas, as I had a couple of doctor appointments and we had dentist appointments. Finally we were all finished and released and could go farther afield. Didn't take us but a day to revamp the holdings in the RV and set out. Our first stop for other than a night is ....
~Red Cedar, Oklahoma. From here we were able to car trip up the Talimena Scenic Drive, have lunch at the Lodge (yes it is once again open but the campground still has water issues) and down the other side in a circular route. Here we did a couple of geocaches leaving some for future visits. (is that a good excuse for not pursuing them all?) [photos] Danny was also able to get in some mountain biking off-road. Then it was on to ...

~Tulsa, Oklahoma where we had a wonderful visit with DS#2 and his lovely wife. Tulsa is a great city, full of opulent buildings, for the most part, done in the art deco style. There are also lots of green spaces and tourist attractions. One of the amazing museums is about the very affluent Afro-American community that existed during the boom years.
Our trip towards our next stop took us through a couple of interesting areas where we stopped  for an overnight visit and a touristing experience:
    - Roman Nose State Park, northwest of Oklahoma City which allowed us the opportunity to go about in the car [photo]
    - Kingfisher, Oklahoma where we visited a very well appointed Chisholm Trail museum.[photo] It is here that one of my firmly held beliefs was dispelled - the fact that Chisholm (photo) wasn't a rancher driving cattle, but rather a trader who was well thought of by the Indians and traversed the route trading that was to become the Chisholm Trail that the cattle drives followed. He was also the man responsible for helping the government to enter into treaties with the Indians, that they later broke. Oddly enough there was a geocache right in the living display of the museum in memory of the Ma Dalton (they have her old cabin) who had numerous sons of which 4 turned bad.
    - Red Rock Canyon, Oklahoma [photo] where we did a series of geocaches.

~ Caprock Canyon State Park, Texas was our next 4 day stopover. Here the buffalo roamed freely, even through the campsite [photos]. Danny was able to ride a Rails to Trails here that was overshadowed by a threatening thunder storm. There was a tunnel on this route that he was particularly keen on riding. Hiking in and out of the canyons gave for a beautiful scenic day, again overshadowed by the threat of the usual afternoon thunder storms. The wind blew furiously at times while at other times it was but a gentle breeze. This is a state park worth visiting again: the drives through the canyons are wondrous with steep grades at more than a couple of spots [photo]; the wildlife is abundant and not really afraid of people as there are so many visitors to the park; bird are also abundant; we know that there was probably rock art in the area but we certainly weren't adventurous to venture far into the canyons with the threat of thunderstorms and resulting flash floods; and let but not least, we were able to do a few geocaches.

~Albuquerque, New Mexico was our next stopover. Here Danny was hoping to get in some really good mountain biking but the trees had a better idea. The pollen was horrendous, the worst that I have ever known it to be. We both were laid flat with the resulting effects. In spite of taking antihistamines (the non-drowsy kind and thus less potent) we still suffered horribly. Still we got out for some much needed shopping and I was able to do a small amount of sewing. Sewing is hard when your eyes are swollen, watering, and itchy all at the same time.
As we left ABQ and headed towards our next stopover, we happened upon a great little museum a ways off of I-25.[photo] Commemorating the exploits of the Camino Real from Mexico City to Santa Fe, New Mexico, the modern, recently built museum was a history lesson throughout. Much of the information I was already well aware of having traversed parts of it, stopping at all the waypoint informational signs, and yes, even in Texas. Mentioned was the information about a lady who had completed the whole historical "Royal Road" by whatever means it took to go on it, all the while photographing the points, people, and anything of interest. A great coffee table book and from it I can see a possible hiking/bicycling trail/ATVing/4WDing trail in the future. To be so lucky as to have it drivable. Imagine driving something that took a whole year to traverse in that time period.

~Deming, New Mexico was our next stop. This time to visit with good friends. The wind is horrendous so leaves little to no windows for cycling. Both are now in their late 70's, early80's and have slowed down just a very little. B still rides but often times he has to be pushed and prodded by P. to get out and do it. LOL Sounds like me and DH. We did spend the evening playing dominoes - Chickenfoot and within the early learning curve for Moon.

~Rodeo, NM was next up and here we sat at the base of the Chiricahua Mountains and National Monument. [photo] A short drive and we were in Arizona. The park is actually in Arizona whenever we went to the lodge to eat or to listen to the music of the hour, we crossed over into another time zone - 1 hour earlier - which we always forgot and consequently we were always an hour early for everything. LOL
A trip to Douglas, AZ on the border with Mexico [photo] was a day trip. Along the way we saw the monument for Geronimo's surrender. Didn't stop because we wanted to go to Agua Prieto, Mexico for lunch. It was too bad as there were geocaches all along the road and it turns out that the grands great grandfather was the person that Geronimo surrendered to and they would have loved to have a photo of the monument and sign. Oh well, next time.
From Rusty's RV Park in Rode we went to ...

~Reserve, NM where we are currently parked for the next 4 days. Reserve is little community that has  number of restaurants and a couple of hotels. They are a stop for refueling and refreshing for the hikers on the Continental Divide Trail. Our first trip into town and what do we see? A hiker thing to hitch a ride back out to the trailhead. Apparently it is 28 miles from town and traffic is mainly work trucks which aren't allowed to pick people up. So yes, we drove him out to the trailhead. Lo and behold, there are 6 hikers trying to hitch into town. The wait is long, for traffic is scarce: So yes, 3 are brought back to town and then the second 3 are brought in.
Hikers on these long distance trails all use trail names. On the AT (Appellation Trail) Danny's started out as Idigo, his Ngöbe name from Panama but quickly became Easygoing. This is how he introduced himself. We took Numbers out to the trailhead and brought back Paperweight, Sass, and NightWatch, who is from Gr Britain and S Africa. Then we brought back Half Mile (who is a name unto himself), A Float, and The Beast. Was fun talking with them all and hearing their stories. To follow any or all go to: [link them]
hikingislove.wordpress.com
longwayupthecdt.wordpress.com
loncooper.com

Listening to all their stories makes us yearn a little for doing our own hike. But first we have to get back into shape after me being off my feet for 6 months. NightWatch, as well as the other two in the car, were quite interested in the John Muir Way in Scotland [link] and he told us about the West Highland Way [link] as well. Oh boy, two that we can do in Scotland alone and through beautiful countryside - I would think a great late summer or early fall would be the ideal time.
We have one more hike to do after today's - this one actually is up and over the "mountain " and down into a valley in order to explore a trove of petroglyphs and not to forget, the two geocaches - one at the top of the "mountain" and one near the petroglyphs. Today's hike, the Apache Creek Interpretive Trail, was switchbacking up a "mountain", walking along a basalt cliff where many wonderful petroglyphs were found, and lastly a switchback trail down the "mountain".

We are headed towards Flagstaff in a round about way, with an arrival date of May 18. Why so specific you ask. It is so out of character for us. We are headed to the Overland Expo [link this]being held just outside of Flagstaff in Mormon Lake Lodge. Here we are hoping to find the answers to all our questions about a new vehicle (ours is getting to the point of no return) and how to outfit it for some longish trips to Mexico and possibly even farther afield.

A word about geocaching. For me this is a great way to get out and get more than the usual exercise. It is fun for the seek and find as well as the getting there. What isn't fun is when you don't have cell service to fuel you gps and the gps isn't as close to ground zero as it should be. We met a lady in one of the parks who has found over 12,000 geocaches and here I was thrilled when I hit over 225 finds. Will have to get busier than I am currently and find some more. If interested, go to geocaching.com [link] for further information.

And for now we head out again day on Friday heading up and over the mountains of Arizona towards our destination, Flagstaff. Our plans beyond are somewhat fluid after our upcoming trip the first week of June to DisneyWorld with the two youngest grands. That will be a lot of fun. Then we have a trip to Calgary, Canada for a July 2 wedding. Our niece is getting married and it is a great chance to see all the family again. Then, do we turn right and go East or do we turn left and go West? We probably won't even make the final decision until we are actually there. It would be nice to spend a bit of time in Banff National Park and we both are looking forward to an eventual trip to the Maritimes. Will it be this year? Tune in for a final decision ...

Car Tripping to San Antonio

A minor glitch in the system and we find ourselves minus our home for a few days. It is visiting its "other home" and I don't mean its home away from home, the storage unit. No, I mean the repair shop where routine maintenance occurs. Because of this and a desire to not be watching over the shoulders of the mechanic, we left to visit some areas that we have wanted to see for some time now.

San Antonio - the site of the bravely but disastrously fought Battle of the Alamo in 1836, an equally interesting Mission Trail of Catholic Spanish missions, and the famous River Walk on the San Antonio River, right through the heart of town. Oh don't misunderstand me here, it is not all educational/historical monuments and sites, there are also the money-making tourist venues: A theme park, Fiesta Texas; a water park and one close to town; an Imax theater; buggy rides; boat rides; walking/running/bicycle tours; and don't forget, geo-caches! And we did a fair amount of almost everything.

The skies remained totally overcast and fog enshrouded the area until way late in the afternoon. As a result, photos were hard to get. But hey, not a problem, surf the net and find what you want as long as you identify where it came from, right? (i.e. public domain) Well, we shall see!

The Torch of Friendship, downtown SA, a gift from Mexico

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_San_Antonio

 http://www.katiehaugland.com/the-torch-of-friendship/

The best way to see a new town IMHO: 

 http://www.sanantoniotours.net/offer/14381/Hop-On-Hop-Off-Double-Decker-Bus-Tour-in-San-Antonio#.VSKT2VriN-Q

 Nothing like a good cold morning and an equally cold wind while riding the open top of the double decker bus, to start the day off right.

The RiverWalk, a venue for all hours of the day or night, where a venue that makes San Antonio what it is today could have been lost forever if it hadn't been for a very civic-minded group of ladies:

 http://www.isironline.org/2012-san-antonio/#prettyPhoto

 http://www.utsa.edu/ee/APSI/Accomodations_DT.html

Of course, we rode the boats and walked part of the walk. You can also walk/bicycle the whole thing or even kayak/canoe the outer reaches of it, neither of which we were inspired to do this go around.

The Museum of Art, on the RiverWalk as well as the double decker bus tour, a fantastic overview of world civilization. Found in a revamped Lone Star brewery complex, it offers permanent and traveling exhibitions:

 http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60956-d108442-Reviews-San_Antonio_Museum_of_Art-San_Antonio_Texas.html

The Alamo:

 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/520953/San-Antonio

The Mission Trail, a series of 5  (used to be 6 in their heyday) missions along the San Antonio River:

 http://loscompadres.org  Concepcion which has been restored and is now a full blown service church.

And who could possibly ignore the Worlds largest cowboy boots (?):

 https://twitter.com/purosanantonio

 Entrance to Sea World San Antonio:

 http://seaworldparks.com/en/seaworld-sanantonio/

where one has to go through in order to go to Aquatica, 

 http://top-touristattractions.blogspot.com/2013/10/aquatica-san-antonio.html

I do so love to go to water parks, but alas, not in early spring where the temps are more conducive to ice skating than water fun.

And I could go on and on and on ....... but the time came all too quickly for our departure for Austin ... >

Sunshine, a novelty these days

We broke our run of dull, dreary, rainy days - how many, I haven't kept count but it definitely started before Christmas, for all of one day. Average daily temps about 45' F, más o menos. But today, yes! we had sunshine all day; temps still in the mid 40's but by golly, sunshine. A couple of days when it rained all day we actually had temps in 60's and 70's. All that did was increase the humidity vastly and because of this, one still felt a little chilled. Still there were times during all of this that we saw an hour or two more of sunshine.

To get out and walk - what a pleasure. Danny and I were able to get to all manner of geo-caches which, in turn, had us walking all over the park. We are currently parked in Double Lake Recreation Area, close to Coldspring, Texas. Beautiful park, centrally located to all manner of hiking and activities. From here we even got to go to one of Brooke's basketball tournaments. We will have to spend more time in State Parks when in Texas as there are rumors and talks of closing many of them down because of supposed budgetary shortfalls. We will try and do our part to keep them open.

Friends came in to visit and we had a blast geo-caching and visiting with them. Of course, it continued to rain throughout the whole time of their visit. The last evening however, it cleared and we able to have a bonfire and make s'mores. It always sad to see friends leave or for you to leave friends behind. But they go with the knowledge that we will see them again soon, as they, like all friends, are constants.


Glitter Graphics
The year is breaking in nicely. Plans are now underfoot for Danny's dream hike - the Appalachian Trail. He has been talking about this since I met him and now it will finally come to fruition. The optimum time for a beginning in Georgia is mid to late March but he has decided to flip-flop hike it. He will start in Pennsylvania and head north. This will allow him to start in a flatter section with warmer weather and prevent our being in this same area during the extreme heat of the summer.  Once we get to Maine we will drive back to where we started and head south to Georgia. He will mainly be slack hiking or essentially day hiking most of the trail. When he slack hikes I will be carrying all his gear except his daypack (sagging) and we will spend these nights together. There are sections that are too long to do in one day and for these he will carry a backpack and campout along the trail or stay in a trail shelter. He has decided to "ultralight" hike which involves parring the weight down to the bare minimum in areas such as the tent, backpack, etc. For now he is getting his legs in shape by hiking each and every trail that he can find wherever we are.  It will be lengthy endeavor - can take upwards of 5+ months to walk the 2000+ miles from Georgia to Maine. It will be an experience, you can bet. Santa anticipated this hike and gifted each of us with a trail guide. It is amazing just how much preparation there is for a trip like this.  For now we are reading everything that we can find on this subject to better improve the quality of the experience. [photo] More to come on this later.

Danny will give this hike from his perspective as well during the hike. His will be so much different from mine, and definitely much more interesting ...

For the immediate future, we are anticipating a quick visit from Bennison. It will be good to see her again and Danny has all sorts of things planned. Mainly we will park the RV in a State Park close to Beaumont, TX near the coast and day trip it from there. The main idea however, is a good visit. Then we are taking a quick trip to Mexico to visit a friend and her husband who are about to open a boutique hotel in San Cristóbal, Chiapas. We leave Feb 8th and return the 18th, giving us enough time to get ourselves packed up and to Pennsylvania before the 1st of March. I will give a report, no doubt glowing, after our experiencing their hospitality and the area. As we will arrive hopefully in time for a few Carnaval celebrations, we plan on visiting surrounding Mayan villages as well.
To 2013 [clinking of glasses], may the memories unfold and the times become immortal ...

Happy New Year

Christmas in the Zeilinger household was a great one. The tree was beautiful and everyone had a wonderful time.

The family photo - always a tradition, and a nice one at that.

There was laughter as Bunni and Brooke each received 1 boot:
The dogs got into the act too:
Then with another family tradition, we all got to play in the paper, ribbon and bows:

We always have a wonderful time when we visit. It was good to see all of the grandchildren together again. With Zach now away at college, we don't see him as much. Danny and I had fun as we decided to make this a "silly" Christmas as well as a fun loving one. Santa would have been thrilled with us if he had seen us Christmas morning in our get-ups.

As luck would have it, we ended up with a wonderful gift of a white Christmas Day: not ice, only snow!

My but how they have grown. I feel downright short now. Yes these are our three grandkids, L->R
Blake, Brooke, me and Zach.

 can you believe how they have grown?

All too soon the festivities are gone and remain only in memories, but what memories they are...

New Years was seen in along with literally thousands of others in downtown Dallas's Victory Square. It was an outdoor get-together to watch and wait while drinking beer and champagne, should you so choose, and eating gourmet foods. We rode the light rail to the venue but when it came to returning to the hotel, all the other thousands were also trying to ride. So we decided to walk it. The night was crisp, we were dressed warmly and it was not so far. Besides, it gave us a chance to witness the festivities of downtown Dallas in the West End and do our favorite pastime - people watch. We had our celebratory champagne sitting in a sidewalk (read -> outside) boutique Irish pub, watching people and all their antics. Great fun! Soon the chill became bone-chilling (after about an hour and a half of sitting) and we returned to the hotel. Definitely a once a year late night but a fun one at that.

Aaaah, 2013 - another year, more unique Sherrod experiences to be had. And so we begin ... closing the door on our past, keeping the memories, and anticipating the future.

We are now back in the US – that means I have more time to do the things that I fervently wish I could have been doing, right? But just what are those things? Traveling, touring, planning tours, sewing, needlework, quilting, reading, playing Sudoku, Mahjong … all of the above but in a manner that allows me to do it all. Yeah right! A glutton? Yes, but it sure would give me a lot of pleasure. Of course, in between all of these things, I should do my equal share of driving – except in the RV. Hmmmm, do I need to re-allign my priorities or what …

Anyways, after we got the RV roadworthy, we took it out for a test(a 4 hour drive, up and down and country roads) by going to a close-by RV rally in a place called Rayne, Louisiana – the Frog Capital of the World or so they claim. 

 There is much to see and do in this area, as verified through our very limited touring during our 6 days in the area.

-        The city of Rayne itself and its many murals and statues, all of frogs – an economy that once was based on the harvesting of frogs for export, now replaced by rice. The spraying of the rice fields have all but eliminated the frogs.

 ...murals are all over the city with all different themes but still of frogs.

(even the post office got into the act)

We had a Scavanger Hunt with a list of various murals to find and I, surprisingly, won a price – t-shirt from Rayne and a ball cap!

-       The city of Crowley, a mere 7 miles from Rayne, where we learned all about rice and how it is produced. Got a great Cajun rice cookbook there.

-       The city of Eunice where we learned all about the area at the NPS interpretive center and the local Cajun/Xylico music at it’s own museum. Here  we were also part of the audience of a live radio show that featured Cajun music. Now that is different.  

-       At Avery Island we learned everything and more that you ever wanted to know about Tobasco Sauce. We also discovered that it really wasn’t an island in the true sense, but rather a huge salt dome that appeared as an island from afar. Tobasco flavoured ice cream and coca cola anyone? They also brought out miniature samples of Tabasco as a gift for each person and of course, ended the tour in their uniquely Tobasco gift shop where we actually bought some planting seeds for the special peppers. I understand that the plant is very ornamental as well, especially if it blooms around Christmas. 

  

-       It is a wonderful bike riding area – the roads are wide with shoulders and few potholes and so very little traffic, and ost importantly, lots of close stores, restaurants and towns, even on the country roads.

     -   Visited the site of Longfellow’’s Evangeline, St Martinville. 
     -       Oh yes, our reason for being in the area, we attended a RV rally where people 
         came from all over the USA and Canada for 4 days of fun and making contacts. 
         We sat in on various lectures/seminars and learned how to volunteer in our rig 
         (we had already decided to become a Red Cross Disaster volunteer) as well as
         how to go to work if the need should ever arrive. 

Being back on the road, but not in the Motorhome, we drove from Texas to Yuma, AZ to spend some quality time with friends there. Took 2 ½ days of driving with a stopover to visit a couple of Painted Churches that are found in Fayette County, in the southern tier of Texas. They are beautiful and rival anything that we have seen during our many travels. Because of the wealth or lack thereof in the community, wood is painted to look like marble and sculptured decorations. You had to look closely to see that it was painted, not carved. They were painted by itinerant painters, many of whom were from San Antonio, according to printed material that we read.

The two that we visited were found on the outer limits of Schulenberg and in Praha. The one in Schulenberg was more German while the one in Praha, a mere 7 miles away, was more Czeck in their nomenclature. Design and culture. The stained glass windows in the each church were sponsored by members of the congregation and had their names worked into the window pane itself. The names testify to the diversity and origins of the population.

Praha: 

St Mary’s on High Hill, Schulenberg: 

From the outside it looks like any other lovely country church, but on the inside … 

This area is an area worth exploring, in fact it would be fun on a bike as all the little towns are close by and the roads with little traffic and in good condition. So we will no doubt, put together a small daily bike tour and see all the churches in this genre at a later date.

Throughout all our recent travels, we have returned to the fun of collecting stamps at National Parks, finding and visiting areas that are new to us, and looking for roads that we have not driven to date. Sometimes that can be a difficult job, but find them we did and added more pink to our atlas. This then takes us into all different areas and secondary roads, rather the interstate and major highways. Today we are heading to see if we can do some cemetery slinking in the Hill Country, looking for some of Danny’s ancestors. Alas, we couldn’t find the cemetery and ran out of the allotted time for this activity but we did find fields and fields of blue bonnets, Indian paint and some black eyed suzies 
as well as some we couldn’t identify. How often do you actually find the desert in bloom? Not often but when it is, WOW! 

Returning to Phoenix from Yuma, we flew out to Edmonton to visit the folks for a few days. It was fun visiting with them and other members of my family. Spring had sprung – but the green that I like hadn’t sprung at all. In fact, on Friday we awoke to find the area covered in something that was white. What could this be? Snow????? The only way to find out was to go out into it – Yikes! It’s COLD! And yes, it is snow. Dad says, “won’t last!” Wrong! The snow kept coming down; the next day it was still coming down; the next day it was still snowing and we were scheduled to fly out! It was much prettier driving out to the airport than it was coming in: White versus brown. 

Coming back to Phoenix, and the heat and sunshine, we headed across back towards Texas. In typical Danny and Shirley manner, we are bumping down the road and decided to camp over at a Hot Springs in New Mexico. We had a little food, nothing for a regular breakfast, no sleeping bags just sacs and a fleece blanket for each of us. Heck, that is enough. The hot springs first thing in the morning made up for the desert COLD that we encountered overnight. Did you know that a bath towel works really well as a small blanket?

Pulling out the map, we looked for the “road [least] traveled” that would get us across to Texas via the most picturesque route. But wait a minute, how about heading south and visiting Seminole Canyon State Park? We can be there by 10pm if we get on the road immediately. Phoning the park we find that we can get on the archeological tour in the morning. So off we go!

Setting up the tent in the dark, pestered by flying mosquitos and bugs that looked as big as quarters with bites that left HUGE marks, we set the alarm. The next morning it was a rush to get to the park office where the tour started. Looking out over the canyon, the landscape was desolate, yellow and brown with scrub bushes and cacti. We lucked out as to the tour guide as we were the only ones on the tour along with her evaluating boss. The information we received was phenomenal and it took far longer than the scheduled 1.5 hours as the questions were answered with lecture-type responses. The shelter was filled with interesting petroglyphs with the relayed information spiking the desire to continue with the learning process started before PC. (BPC) 

  

A nice interlude and then a fast trip back to Nacogdoches and the RV. Is it finished??? ... hmmmmm

And so ends the first of many new adventures as we find our way back into life in the US. We continue to ponder the possibilities offered by another PC experience but have postponed making any decisions until the fall.

Back in our home again ...

We have finished our assignment with Peace Corps: 27 months in Panama and 6 months in Colombia. What a ride we have had. Our time was chronicled on our PC'ing blog and now we are home. Our RV is up and running. The cleaning, sorting and restocking is currently under way. It feels wonderful to be back and yet, confusing and just a little stressful. After living in Latin America countries for 3 years, I find myself answering in Spanish, looking for potholes in the sidewalks and wanting to walk everywhere. The car is here and I love the availability but the distances - so much farther than there and the bus systems are, to be blunt, almost non-existent.

Where to now? Well the first item on the agenda is a commitment from the very beginning - Jury Duty. This starts on Monday and already I am dreading having to sit inside all day. Hopefully my patriotic duty won't be required this time around. Then, we are planning on re-aquainting ourselves to areas in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas as well as with family and friends. This will keep us very busy until we leave to go to Europe in May.

So hop aboard and "sail away with me" as we begin another leg in our life's journey.