The End of an Era

And it ended with a sniff, sniff and a tear in my eye. My little car is gone forever. I did get a little sympathy. But just a little. My little green Ford Escort Wagon is gone. 15 years and it was still going strong. Well it was still going anyway. And I have to be careful about the ‘my’ in this case. Actually Kat wouldn’t have me unless she had a car and we can only tow one legally. So it was give up RV’ing or give Kat the car and I chose the obvious. But the memories remain. Is that a sign of old age or just the natural way of looking back on what use to be? Probably some of both.
I bought that little car in ‘96’ after a trip to Las Vegas by air and a stay at some hotel where they loaned us a wheelchair to help get my late wife around. She was a victim of MS. Anyway the wheelchair fit perfectly in the back and we were looking at RV’ing and needing a tow car (affectionately a dinghy or toad) and the Escort Wagon seemed to fit. So we went to Vancouver Ford and got our ‘toad’, had it all fixed up for towing a year later, and in ‘98’ we hit the road. It went away with 155,652 miles on it. I figure that almost half of that is tow miles. It had seen 4 motorhomes, and been towed by 3 of them. I had one Class C motorhome that didn’t tow. At the time there wasn’t much travel except to the golf course and back hauling my clubs which it did very nicely. Anyway, that’s a lot of trips back and forth across the country. And it served well. It’s been to all the lower 48 states and probably half of the Provinces, allowed me to take Janene more places in her wheelchair than most people get to ever and it was a good Dalmatian carrier . My dog Binx was with us during our first years of travel and always rode around in the back seat on his Dalmatian blanket. Now there are some pleasant memories. Binx was the most loyal dog ever and saw me through some trying times as a caregiver. And then there was Kat. How lucky can one guy get? We’ve been towing now for 5 years. All over and around and up and down and enjoying the RV lifestyle to its fullest. It was time for something new. 15 years is a long time for one car.

All cleaned up and ready to go.  And does this really look 15 years old ????  I don’t think so !!!!!

We got pretty much what we asked and sold it to a couple from South Dakota who will use it down here in the ‘valley’ some and do a little towing. Actually I accepted their offer plus two pork loins and in consideration of it being their 57th wedding anniversary. OK so I’m an old softy. I liked them and I wanted my car to be appreciated for what is was. Not be abused and left to rust and rot in the harsh southern Texas sun. Robert worked for Morrell meat and always brings lots of meat down when they come for the winter. That’s the pork loin story. And it really was their 57th wedding anniversary.
So it ended with the sniffles but I’m pretty much over it. After all, we do have a really nice new Ford Escape with all the ‘bells and whistles’ and matching motorhome color. I guess it’s a new era !!!!!!!!

The ‘Vapors’

It’s that time of year. All of the varying groups begin to have there potlucks and dinners before the great migration north commences. We already had the 3^rd street party and there are postings on the Bulletin boards for state and various group ‘get togethers’. The woodcarvers are no exception. We just had our dinner on Thursday at Cheddars. Good food, nice people, reasonable prices, but not a place to have a function where you might want to communicate with someone without leaning over and shouting in their ear. They didn’t have a banquet room so we just got a group of booths together. And we had to wait an hour for that. We had a good time but still it was not a place conducive to our needs. I had made up a few ‘Special Achievement’ awards for some of our more ‘deserving’ woodcarvers but they will have to wait. However, here are a couple of samples.


And this is Nancy and Steve.
I think they were under the influence of ‘the vapors’ or something. This was taken after Steve, who had noticed the group behind had yet to be served, and thinking they needed fortification, and attempting to share, dumped a plate of onion rings over his head onto another reveler sitting in the booth behind him. I think Nancy and Steve don’t drink so it had to be ‘the vapors’. And this is the group behind them who consumed the aforementioned onion rings before they hit the floor. They obviously had been drinking. From the seating arrangement you can probably deduce the onion ring ‘dumpee. ‘All in fun!’ And you wouldn’t want to meet nicer people than our woodcarvers in general and Nancy and Steve in particular. That’s why we keep coming back! But as I told Steve, “it will be a while before you live this down, and ‘paybacks’ are tough”!
I think I mentioned Kat had taken up sewing. Here is one of her tool pouches. They are becoming quite an item with our woodcarver group. And she keeps making more. I have been told however, that if I had in mind filling up a couple of pouches with new and needed tools, I can put that notion out of my mind. I don’t need any tools and there isn’t any space anyway. Crocheting, beading, and sewing are more important. Don’t know what I was thinking??
So now! Do I put that last in or not? I do know that getting forgiveness is usually much easier than getting permission. Soooo……
I’m going for it!

The Express Version

Kat and I have been suffering from a cold and or flu.  Maybe the Texas Crud.  First I had a sore throat and cough for a couple of days and then Kat had something worse after me.  She was down for 5-6 days after some upchucking and headaches.  Then I thought I was getting that, but I must have had the Express version.  I started getting a real upset stomach and fever and went to bed. About 2-3 hours later I woke up and the fever had broke and I was feeling better.  That was four nights ago when the weather was crummy and it didn’t so much matter because of it.  Now I think we're both pretty much over it and the weather is getting better right on time. Looks like today I will actually spend some time outside carving. Yesterday I did a little clean up from all the cold and what ice we had. I had to rake off all our dead Wandering Jew plant. I kind of remember having some of that back home as an indoor plant; maybe?? Here it grows outside and has little pink flowers all over. Better than what I remember anyway. And I’m told it will grow back.
We've had our new car for what? Two weeks!  And we have about 200 miles on it.  About half of that is bringing it home and going back twice to sign papers and stuff.  But we'll be making up for it I think.  We did get our Oregon plates, that was quick. And our tow package parts are in at Camping World and we’ll get that taken care of next Monday. In the meantime we’ll try to get in a trip over to the coast; South Padre Island or Corpus Christie.  Or maybe old Mexico, we haven't been there yet.  We'll go to Progresso and walk across the border.  No driving into Mexico, especially now.  But Progresso is safe.  Like I've said, I would rather go there than some places in any of our US metro areas. 
Jade is crawling around the laptop wanting out. I guess that is better than a few days ago when she was prowling around wanting out,  not remembering that 10 minutes ago she was knocking on her door knocker to get in because of the cold and wind.  We were being overrun by a cold front. That was the day we got up and it was 66 at 7:00 AM and then it dropped to about fifty and felt a lot colder.  Lots of wind down here.  I remember one old farmer told me many years ago in Mineral Wells, when I was going through flight school, "ain't nothing between here and Canada to stop the wind but a barb wire fence and too often some fool leaves the gate open".  But I guess there is no danger for Jade, the wind ain't going to move her 'fat ass'.  Poor thing just doesn't get enough exercise.  Always on her string!  The only exercise she gets is chasing the laser light occasionally and watching the birds.
And now I have a favor to ask of all our emailing friends. This will be hard for some of you. But what I ask is that you be just a little more judicious in what you send and forward. Kat and I do most of our communication through email because it fits our lifestyle. So that’s all of our families and friends. If all of you, and you know who you are, sent what some of you do, we would be swamped. Some days we are. Maybe you could pretend they all cost 44 cents to mail so they would have to be worth the postage. And what you do send should be cleaned up before you do. We shouldn’t have to scroll down through two pages of addressees to get to the body of the thing. Only our 97 year old Uncle Charlie gets free reign, and he cleans his up. We can tell he’s OK and judge how he feels by the number of his emails we get. All the others eat peanut butter except Grandma and she drives a Buick. Don’t get us wrong we enjoy and want to hear from all of you. But sometimes it does get onerous. And short notes are better than a page of jokes and other things. Oh !! I agree with almost all of my political friends but I read it all and chances are I have already seen it.
Now what didn’t I say. I didn’t say stop sending anything. I said be more judicious. Are we clear????? You should say, Crystal!!!!! But shoot, this doesn’t even apply to my faithful Blog readers. And remember I may send a lot in one posting but it’s only one email. Only one!