Just-in-time inventory is a concept that industry embraced back in the 90′s or so. Instead of stockpiling hoards of parts they let their suppliers inventory them and had them delivered just before they needed them.
I am trying to perfect this technique myself. I used to collect all kinds of stuff that I expected to come in handy…someday. Occasionally one of these parts would come in handy for a project and of course that reinforced the hording instinct. Read More
How can you take a vacation from a full time vacation of traveling around our great nation? Read More
What comes in six packs, is hauled to events in three big Anheuser Busch 18 wheelers and tips the scales at about 12,000 pounds? Read More
We have gone from the luxury of the Family Motor Home Rally in Indeo, California along with 1,300 coaches; to the Bluegrass Festival in Blythe, California with perhaps 500 families; and now to the desert of Quartzsite, Arizona with about 100 Alpine Motor Homes just like ours. In each location we have met with old friends and made some new friends. Read More
We are headed for a Family Motor Coach Rally in Indeo California this week. As much as I boast that we take the slower senic route, today we made an exception and turned onto I-5 Southbound. We were cruising along watching the press of cars about us. Perhaps a half hour into our drive a pair of Alpine coaches just like ours merged into traffic just ahead of us. For an hour and a half we followed in their wake. They were going exactly the speed I prefer to go so we just tagged along. Read More
We are now officially in California. We are south of all of the rain storms that are sweeping the Pacific Northwest this week, and it is warm this afternoon; a high of 70 degrees at our coach.
Our camping experience was a little strange today. We have always been richly rewarded when we stop by the Corps of Engineer Campgrounds. Not so today with Kyen Campground on Mendocino Lake on US 101, near Ukiah, California. This campground was old, small and crowded with narrow, crooked roads with posts and concrete bollards guarding every corner. We tried in vain to stuff Arcturus into two different stalls, and each time we were blocked by overhanging trees and guard posts.
Sometimes we are just at the right spot and at the right time. We are currently camping at Millerton Lake State Recreation Area near Fresno, CA. This morning the nearby boat ramp was invaded by a couple hundred triathletes and we had front row seats for the Millerton Lake Triathlon. These folks swam 400 yards, bicycled twelve miles and ran three miles. Six of the fastest men did the whole route in under an hour.
As you might have guessed we lead a somewhat nomadic style of life. We are continually looking for new, suitable campgrounds to stay at. The operative terms are new and suitable.
We have kicked back for a couple slow days at Indianola Park at the edge of Matagorda Bay. This is an estuary that forms the mouth of the Colorado River here in Texas. About 15 miles to our south-west is a line of barrier islands and then the Gulf of Mexico. On the map of Texas this bay is about half way between Galveston and Corpus Christi. The bay is about 350 square miles, and this afternoon when the wind came up we had some pretty impressive surf a hundred feet in front of the coach.
We just finished up a week of work-camping with our friends at Lutherhill, a Lutheran Youth Camp in the summer season. Our friends, Arnie and Mem, care for the grounds during the winter season. We did a few handyman tasks to justify our stay, but mostly we hung out with friends and went to the Opry in La Grange. (See our blog for Feb 20, 2007,(Under construction, link to come) for our last visit to the Opry)
The really nifty part of this location is that we dodged the latest freeze cycle a little further north of here. We woke up to 61 degrees this morning. We rushed out to get in a bicycle ride this morning before the predicted noontime rain. The rain squall caught us about five miles away in Indianola, Texas, a couple hours before predicted. Oh well, We won’t complain, Texas is a couple buckets short for the last two years.
Another advantage for this area is the abundance of birds. We have been logging gulls and terns, shore birds and Sandhill Cranes. We have spotted egrets, herons, pelicans, kingfishers and hawks.
Finally the camping here is free. Now you would think that the place would be overrun, but quite the contrary, it is only sparsely populated. We are “dry camping.” That means no electricity, no water, no wi-fi or cable T.V. There are a few fishermen and also a few full time travelers like us here too. We just met a couple from the Netherlands. They shipped their little European compatible camper over on a ship and they are touring our country for a full year. Just a couple weeks ago we met a family from New Zealand who were doing the same thing.
Meeting interesting new people is one of the rewards of our nomadic style of life. In fact as I sit here humming a few bars of Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville,” I find it hard to even remember what it was like “Workin’ nine to five,” with Dolly.
So Long from South TexasÂ…now where did I put that salt shaker?
Gary and Judy
In Texas the Brazos River starts somewhere near Lubbock and flows into the Gulf of Mexico about 50 miles West of Galveston Texas. We visited the Brazos in Brazos Bend State Park about fifty miles south of Houston. Now Houston is the largest city in Texas so we carefully tiptoed around the edges of the city to get there. Brazos Bend is very rural and that was part of the attraction for us. What we found was bird-watching programs, nature walks, miles of trails and the George Observatory.
