Yesterday was a very active day. I started out by unloading my Shopsmith from the trailer and slicing and dicing a couple sheets of plywood. Shhh don’t tell, I am creating Judy’s anniversary gift for out 42nd anniversary which is today. I am rebuilding her kitchen cabinets to expand the drawer storage area. We noticed that the drawers were only utilizing about half of the depth of the cabinets and there was nothing behind them. I have new super long glides coming by UPS and soon the new drawers will be nearly twice as long.

After packing everything back in the trailer we lead a bicycle ride and picked up a Geocache about seven miles from the camp. John and Re Re rode Purple, our Co-Motion tandem and the new Gary rode his Bike Friday, “Tourist.” The Geocache was at the site of the first Protestant College in Texas. This was a Texas historical plaque posted beside a very rural road. This is the neat thing about this sport, it takes you to wonderful sites that you probably never would find otherwise.

We got back in time for a quick shower and headed for the Fayette County Music Opry with all of our accumulated friends from Lutherhill. We sure weren’t disappointed. For a town with a posted population of 4,478 they sure made a respectable presence in the community center. I estimated between a thousand and twelve hundred people in attendance. The featured act was a country singer, Darrell McCall. Darrell has worked with many of country music’s greats as a harmony singer. He actively tours and helps keep the old country genera of music alive. The feature act was backed by the local band, talent drawn from the several communities around La Grange, and they did a first class job. This “Opry” is a monthly event and has been going for six years.

What this has taught us is don’t judge a community by its size; judge it by the energy of its people to make things happen.

Judy and I once again send you wishes of good health and lots of love from deep in the heart of Texas. I expect we will start moseying through New Mexico in March.

Rocky King, Darrell McCall and Justin Trevino - La Grange Opry

Judy Helps Gary Saw the Plywood for New Drawers; (Photo John Jenkins)

Cache Box from Ruterville Texas Cache Site; (Photo John Jenkins)

About noon there were probably 16 shooters set up in the ready area and the range officer started lining up the shooting order. The guns were neatly racked up and the skeet machines were all dialed in to throw their clay targets exactly 60 feet in a crossing pattern from opposite corners of the range semicircle. The first man up stepped up and at his call two targets arched across the infield and he deftly dispatched both. He shot perhaps a dozen straight targets before he missed one. I am thinking, yeah this is probably not that easy, but he sure makes it look easy. That prediction proved to be correct. There were all levels of skill in the group. One fellow used up his 25 shells as he advanced around the six stations and had only broken two or three targets. These guys ranged from young (relative term, anyone younger than I am, is “young”) to some real geezers. Now no one was using a walker, but I wouldn’t have been surprised. I did join the spectator group standing around admiring the fancy guns for a while.

Now I don’t expect to get involved in the sport, but as we travel it is interesting how often we get an opportunity to see something entirely new. Like Bluegrass in Arizona, the tractor pulls in Nova Scotia, the horse and oxen pulls in Main and the bicycle race in San Jose. I think it is good, as we experience this journey called life, to be open to new ideas, new experiences and new people.

Today the sun returned and we were able to get out our tandem bicycle and have a nice ride. We were able to locate a Geocache about five miles away on the shore of Laguna Salada. No that is not a fancy name for a three bean salad. It is a body of water, a lagoon, and it is salty. We also caught a glimpse of a roseate spoonbill flying overhead. I didn’t get a photo, but Judy did take a photo of an unusual wildflower with both yellow and pink flowers in the same cluster.

Once again we say adios from near Kingsville Texas right on the Gulf Coast.

Gary and Judy

Wildflower found near a Geocache Site in Kleberg County Texas

I started out with my wool tights under my regular Dockers pants. A tee shirt, sweatshirt, fleece vest and then a water resistant coat. I grabbed gloves and my old USCG wool watch cap. About a mile down the beach a light mist settled in. By the time we reached the designated cache spot the mist had become a drizzle and the wind picked up to a little over five miles per hour. We found the cache easily but we couldn’t get the pen to write in the drizzle to sign the log sheet. Oh well we will claim it anyway. There is a mark on the page that looks something like an X. That counts doesn’t it? We both tied our hoods tight around our eyes and faced into the teeth of the wind and walked back to camp as fast as we could. It was very much like driving out to Seaside Oregon and walking the beach during one of the winter storms. It is just one of those things we Oregonians do.

At this time we have drippy clothing hung all over the coach and the heater running full blast.

We wish to welcome some new readers to our blog with this issue. One of my former John Rogers High School class mates, Charlene Scott and her husband Bill. You do have to pity them; they struggled through all of our past blogs before asking to get on my mailing list.

With that I guess I will thank you all for continuing to join us in our travels. When you see that we are in your neighborhood, send us an e-mail and perhaps we can drop by and visit you. We are headed for Brownsville tomorrow just for that purpose, to visit some new old friends, Deb and Glenn.

A drizzly goodbye and lots of love from Texas, Gary and Judy

When you think about it we are actually better prepared for power outages than the average. We like to have power, but we can easily survive for over a week without any outside services. We actually have four different ways to make electricity. The main engine, the gen-set, solar and the shore power if it is available. We have three ways to heat our house. Propane furnace, the gen-set or shore power running the space heater and we could run the engine and automotive heater in a pinch. We can cook on the propane stove, in the microwave and the charcoal Bar-b-que. Our one deficiency is that the insulating factor for this box is the pits. When it gets down to freezing the furnace runs every five minutes.

Yesterday was a blast, however. We did a twenty two mile bicycle ride and searched out three Geocaches. One Geocache site took us to a sea wall and promenade that we would never have found without encouragement from the search. One of the side benefits of Geocaching.

We started out from our camp on North Padre Island. Path, our trusty Green Dragon tandem recumbent bicycle was in fine spirits and rolled along nice and gentle in the light breezes coming off the Gulf of Mexico. The temperatures were a comfortable 70 degrees, and the humidity was a touch high. We rode across the bridge onto Mustang Island just to the North of Padre Island. Five miles out onto Mustang Island we visited the Texas State Park called Mustang Island. It was not much different from the county park we are staying in, but it is a good alternative location and they take reservations. For our camping friends their rates are $22 a night, $14 plus $8 for two people or you have to buy a Texas State Parks pass. Balli Park, where we are staying is $18 and you get seven days for the price of six. These are pretty good rates in this area where resorts get up to $35 a night. There is no pool or cable and no club house with poker at night either.

Now our home based friends might think these rates are a bit high, but take your property tax bill and add on your electric, (not counting heat) and your water bills and divide by 365. It’s not a bad trade for awaking to a different sunrise every few days.

Meanwhile back at the coach Judy is working on a quilt for the church and I am doing a little leather work and writing a blog of course.

We send along our love to all our friends and relatives back home and across the nation.

Gary and Judy

Judy Watches the Surf at Balli Beach on the Gulf Coast of Texas

Now what do I do? I now have a nice friendly saddle horse with saddle, bridle and halter rope. He is sweaty and covered with cheat grass seeds. I am craning my neck looking for the missing rider and nothing stirs. I lead him back the hundred yards to the campground loop road and call to Judy to find the camp host. The camp host arrives and after some difficulty gets hold of the Ranger, Jim Black on her cell phone. Before Jim can arrive I spot a lone rider with an extra horse in tow coming through the sage brush. I assumed this was the wrangler and he was trying to round up the Cayuses for the afternoon hunt. I lead the black horse back into the sage brush to meet them.

Well the story is a little more complicated than that, and not nearly as romantic. Keith and his wife are locals and were riding in the park. The horse I was holding had run toward them and then took a big detour around them and run on past. They shortly came upon a young lady equestrian who was dazed and had sore ribs and tailbone from getting thrown. Kieth’s wife was walking back with her and Keith was chasing the runaway horse.

I then walked the black horse over to the young lady’s trailer in the equestrian area of the park with Keith. Ranger Jim arrived about that time and he and Keith followed the trail out and rescued the young lady.

Soon Judy and I were back to our intended adventure. We picked up three geocaches, spotted a red tail hawk and a covey of quail. It was shirt sleeve weather hiking this afternoon, but it was a chilly 27 degrees when we got up. Burr…

Well pard. If you need any wrangling done, don’t call Gary, O.K? A horse just won’t fit in my trailer.

Bye now, Gary and Judy

Riderless Horse at Lake Washoe NV

Judy checks the View from Gazebo at Lake Washoe NV

Our work hours are very flexible. Any day that provides a little sunshine and a promise of a couple hours without rain we go off bicycle riding. We have worked out five, ten, fifteen and twenty mile loops. Some routes are very hilly, and some are nice and flat. It all depends on how sunny it will be and how long between showers. This weather radar is really super for predicting rain squalls. The weather is typical spring weather and many days have some rain. We have been able to ride half of the days since we arrived here and right now we have ridden 500 miles so far in 2006.

So what does all of this have with “Hide and Seek?” Nothing…. The “Hide and Seek” is part of a new hobby we have taken up. This hobby gets you out into the fresh air. It makes you use your head to solve puzzles. Often times it involves hiking. It is a great family activity. It is a treasure hunt with a high tech twist. It is called Geocaching.

This is a new sport, it has only been around since the year 2000 when the government removed the select availability, signal degradation, from the GPS signal. Now there are about a quarter of a million active caches placed in over a hundred countries. The locations are published in places like Geocaching.com. The caches are placed and maintained by people like you and me for everyone to seek and find. One of the reasons to place a cache is to direct people to a scenic spot that they might have never visited otherwise. Today we sought out a treasure in a small county park about two miles from here. The park is called Ohlone, and tells about an ancient culture that made their home along the Uvas River at this spot. Below are a couple pictures of this site.

You can also look up our record of finds by going to Geocaching.com and clicking on the “Hide and Seek a Cache” side bar. At the bottom of that page there is a “find” box labeled “Caches found by username” Type in our username, “gdinsmore” and you can read about the six caches that we have found so far.

I am wondering how many of you have heard about this before I wrote about it? If you have, how about replying to this Blog and let me know what you are doing, and how you like it.

Now we will close with love for all and ask you get out and smell the roses, after all, life is a journey, enjoy the trip.

Gary and Judy

Judy is Standing by the Treasure, It is in Plain Sight.

The Uvas River at Ohlone Park was the site of an ancient village.

How we got to this place today was right up the California coast on highway 1 from Morrow Bay to Monterey. I know some of you have driven this stretch of the coast and as my old Grandpa would say, “you have to keep a tarp over the wagon to keep the mule from eating the hay out of the back of the wagon as you go around the switchbacks.” Actually it was a beautiful drive. The weather was a little windy, the surf was up, the sun was warm and the scenery was delightful. We had about twenty miles of slow careful driving to get through the tightest section. I must compare this highway to the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec Canada. This road was a piece of cake in comparison. The road was mostly wider. It was definitely smoother and the grades were milder. Finally it was about 200 miles shorter. The rugged coast was similar in each case, but the Gaspé couldn’t hold a candle to the surf on the Pacific Coast. In one short section of highway the surf was actually splashing across the highway, and yes we were caught by a wave.

I am also thinking of the twists and turns that brought us to this point in our lives. Today we were celebrating a birthday with our first born, our son Glen; in Gilroy California. Now I won’t embarrass him by telling his age, but I am now 63, and I was 23 when he was born. It is hard to imagine balancing that precious little bundle in my two hands when I look at the current six foot six model. Some of the mile stones pop into my memory. Sending him off to kindergarten; Buying that first car with him; a Ford Fairlane, I wanted plenty of sheet metal around him. His wedding to Barb and then he was 24 and also had a new-born baby to support.

We all just finished a weekend of camping at Morrow Bay. We rode bicycles with our grandchildren, walked on the beach and collected seashells. We studied the elephant seals at San Simeon and tried something new, Geo-caching. This is the new sport of seeking out hidden treasures using the GPS. The location of the cache is recorded in geocaching.com, a clearing house of locations that individuals set up all over the world. The latitude and longitude of the cache location are provided, and you use your GPS to lead you to that location. Our grandchildren got quite a kick out of poking around the indicated rock pile alongside the beach and finding a sealed plastic food keeper. Inside were all kinds of treasures and a log book. We signed the log book and added a couple new treasures to the cache.

It all brings me back to the theme of this blog, twists and turns. Yes, life is full of twists and turns, roads that loop back upon themselves. Cycles of life, as one generation tries its wings and another generation tries to offer guidance. Yet we all have to find our own way. My philosophy, as always, is “Life is a journey.” Share the good times; work your way through the hard times; let the Lord take care of the things you can’t control and take the journey one day at a time.

Until next time, we send our love to all. Goodbye from Gary and Judy.

My favorite ride was the California Soaring. I want to hook that baby up to my Flight Simulator Program.

We did find a new and unusual activity to do in Disneyland. I went online to a site called Geocasching.com. I searched on the zip code of Anaheim and found a “Geo-cache” for Disney California Adventure Park. This site had the Latitude and Longitude of five benchmarks inside the Disney Theme Parks. We punched these coordinates into the GPS and located and photographed the five bronze markers. And there were no lines for these attractions!

We all stopped to visit again with Bill and Diane Patterson in Santa Maria. Thank you again, Bill and Diane, for your wonderful hospitality.

After living the buzz of the big city. The hard driving back to Gilroy with Son, Glen, his wife, Barb, and the three grandchildren, Cody -14, Patrick – 11, and Bryce who turned five while we were in Anaheim. And then another long day of driving today we have found a secluded campground that is just exactly to our liking. We are at Black Butte Reservoir just off I-5 between Orland and Corning California. It is 14 miles away from the Interstate, so it is nice and quiet. We are camped on a peninsula in a grove of stately trees. We have some neighbors but they are a hundred feet away. The lake surrounds us on three sides and it is clear blue with gently lapping waves on it. Outside of the park the grasslands are green and lush from the rains this year. We have seen soaring hawks, dashing killdeers, hopping rabbits and listened to songbirds across the meadow that we have not identified yet. It is indeed therapy for a hungry soul. I want to stay here for a week and drink in the lush quietness of this spot.

But, we are feeling the pull of our roots. We will pull out again tomorrow and continue our Northward migration with the other Snow-Birds. Traveling back to our family and friends in Oregon. For you who have been suffering the drought in Western Oregon, and have been begging us to drag the rain back with us….time will tell! Our luck has been holding true, we got drenched last night in Gilroy.

We send our love to all our family and friends.

Gary and Judy

Bryce, patrick and Cody with Pluto

Survey marker in Disney Resorts from Geo-Cache