The water is already 2 ft above normal level at this time.

I am a little behind on the Blog this week. As a few of you probably know, we had about 7 inches of rain last week. That put my work project behind a few days.  I’m posting a few pictures of our boat launch area, both before and after, to show how much the lake level rose. We gained over 6-¾ Ft of water. They have the gates open and are letting out over 5600 cubic ft per sec of water out. The water came in at an estimated 24,000 cubic ft per sec, just from one of the rivers flowing into the lake, so you can see why they gained so much.



Remember this One-Way Sign.

Just about covering the 100 ft wide parking lot.

The level went up one more inch than this sign shows.




There is a picnic table and BBQ grill under this canopy.

　

Today, Waco Lake is still 4-½ ft above where we were before the last rains began. Now consider this; The Lake was over 5’ below normal when we moved here almost 2 months ago.



Thanks for tuning into our Blog.  More to come later....................

March 18, 2012

We met some really nice people this week from the Houston area. They were John and Sue Frank and John’s Sister and another lady. They are camping down in the Equestrian Camping area. John and Sue have a custom built horse trailer with a living area in the front half, a dog sleeping area/tack room in the middle and their horses ride in the rear of the trailer. John did all of the custom work himself, complete with a bed, TV and Electric Fire Place up front over the hitch and a mini kitchen and bath room/shower area just behind it where you entered. It was cozy but really nice.

The Equestrian Camping area is within the Coe land but the camp sites, and pavilion as well as some riding trails were built by the area Equestrian Club members. The Equestrian Area is open to horse back riding as a “Day-Use” designation which they pay about $4 a day or they can buy an annual pass. This area is also open to camping to anyone, not just horse owners, year round, but by reservation only, as opposed to the regular Camp Ground being closed during the winter.

There is also a huge (10’ or so diameter) fire ring near the entrance to this area, so last night My Sue and I gathered some firewood to take down to them and built a fire while visiting with the Mayor of Valley Mills, TX along with his two grand children whom had been camping there since last Sunday and they are close to wrapping up their visit here. After John and his family and friend finished their dinner they came over to join us. John brought his guitar along and treated us to a few songs including a few he had written himself. A very talented man for sure! Around 10 pm we all retired to our respective “homes” as they had a very busy day of getting camp set up and trail riding.

Next Saturday, the 24^th, we, along with Dick and Judy will be moving back to the regular camp ground area about a half mile north of where we are located now, so the summer Gate Attendants can move in. The good news is we have an absolutely beautiful view of Waco Lake. The bad news is we will have to break camp once a week so we can dump our septic tanks as there are no sewer hook-ups in the Camp Ground, only Water and Electric. We wouldn’t have had to move until Sunday or Monday but Sue is having her surgery Monday morning, so we wanted to get set up ahead of time.

Thanks for following our blog. till next time.................

Well, Sue's Mother and Sister Kathy showed up on time at Dallas Airport this past Thursday morning. The timing was absolutely perfect, as we waited until Kathy let us know when they were aboard the plane in Minneapolis, before we left home. We had to stop for gas in Waco and then drove on to Dallas. When we first arrived at the Terminal, I inadvertently pulled into the bus and taxi lanes and there was no way to get over the cement island to the lanes we were supposed to be in. About the time I realized what I had done and had pulled over to the curb, one of those security guys, on one of those slick new cycles that they stand on, scooted right over to run us out. So we made another loop around the parking area and this time stayed to the left like we were supposed to do the first time. We were only stopped for a minute or two when Mom and Kathy walked out the door.

On the way to Waco We made a brunch stop on the south end of Fort Worth. We were going to introduce Mom and Kathy to a place called the Cotton Patch but they were not open until 11:00AM so we went across the freeway to I-Hop instead. All was not lost as we did do Supper at another Cotton Patch in Waco that evening.

Sue, Mom and Kathy did some shopping while I worked Friday morning. Sure, they fly all the way to Texas just to hit the "Good Will Store"! Later they came out to our camp ground to just sit in the sun and veg out. We sat around talking and I cooked burgers on the grill for all of us. We wound up the evening by driving through the Park looking for and finding many deer.

Thanks for stopping by and reading our Blog. More to come................

Gate House

Dick and Judy Mott



We have the second site on the right as you drive in.

     What a beautiful day we have this morning. The first thing I saw, when looking out our back window, was 2 deer crossing the blackened field. When they stopped running it was really difficult to see them. I tried to take a photo of them but they were too far away for my cheep camera to zoom in on them.

     Two days ago, while driving in from the camp ground area, I happened across 3 deer just 25 yards away on a down hill slope. Again I attempted to get a picture and by the time I got the batteries in the camera they had stepped into the cedar woods just far enough that I couldn’t see them. I followed the road which actually circles the area of woods that the deer walked into. I was about half way around when I glanced into my rear view mirror and saw the deer were kind of following me. I continued on to the front gate area knowing that it would be impossible to stop, turn around and take a picture. By the time I reached the gate our neighbor, Dick met me and we were standing around discussing the trash the workers from the “Burn” of the previous day had left and suddenly Dick blurted out, Look It There! Deer! I turned to look where he was pointing and sure enough, there were the 3 deer that I had seen only a few minutes ago. They evidently, being the very curios creatures they are, had followed me the half mile or so to the front gate area. How Fun!

     You got to love it in the country…..

   
Ye-Gads, Time flies when you’re having fun. We spent 4 months working at what we thought was going to be a KOA camp ground just North of West TX. The day we arrived (Sept 29th) they were replacing the sign at the main entrance to read “Good Sam RV Park”. We should have taken this as a warning because there is no way they would get good reviews from KOA. Every thing looked as if it came from the "Peanuts Cartoon" with junk laying all over.

Well we figured we would give them the benefit of a doubt and go to work. We checked in with the gal at the office, who wasn't too friendly, and basically gave us the third degree.


 The owner never did look us up to welcome us to the park or let us know what he wanted us to do or when to expect to start. We had to search him out, which was no easy task as he was out of the Park every day hunting or on another mission of some sort. 

Joe "Workamper"

I ended up working with a great guy named Joe.

















One of the Cabins

We started out repairing and replacing porch boards on 7 Rental Cabins.











Work Bench we built.

After finishing those projects we began another major undertaking of building a new shop for the owner. The Owner had the basic shell erected by another Contractor and we took over from there.

 






House Burning

While I was back in Minnesota for Christmas break, Sue called me to inform of a fire . The Owners House went up in smoke due to a cat tipping over a Ceramic space heater. Evidently the "tip-over" switch failed and burned a hole in the floor and it spread quickly through out the biggest share of the house.

    







So there went the next "Scheduled Project".  Joe and I were supposed to do some remodeling in the house next after finishing the Shop.



Meanwhile.................
Joe fell in love with a very nice lady he had known for several years up in Dallas. In light of the fire and considering the cost of commuting to and from Dallas every weekend he decided to put a temporary stop to his Workamping adventure and gave his 2 week notice to leave.

And 2 weeks later................
After 4 months of putting up with the Interstate Highway 35 Noise, (Besides My job basically came to an end any way), we moved to Waco Lake.

This put us closer to my new Dr. I had to get a new primary Dr. so I could get my colonoscopy and port flushes taken care of.




Arriving at Reynolds Creek

Our new location is much quieter than Waco/West RV Park is. I think you can actually hear the grass grow out here. We are at a COE park on the south side of Waco Lake called Reynolds Creek. We do miss the shade trees though.













Our neighbors are Dick and Judy Mott, who were at Waco/West RV when we were there. They moved here a month earlier than us.


Current Job Location

Our Job Description is still Maintenance but are doing a different project entirely. I started working with a opinionated gentleman named Ken. We worked together for a total of 2 days (not consecutive) and then he decided there were greener pastures up east of Dallas at another COE Camp. He and the Camp Manager really didn’t see eye to eye either so I figure that was a contributing factor for his leaving.






On February 21st The Corp did a controlled burn of about 180 acres just 50 feet south of our location.
We had to relocate to the actual camp ground itself which is about a half mile north of here. We had an incredible view of Waco Lake at our site up there.






Just getting started!

What a sight to see!














DIck Mott's Fire Photo

Our neighbor, Dick Mott took many pictures of this burn also.
This is but one example of his phenomenal collection. You can see the rest at...............

 http://dickandjudymott.blogspot.com/



More to come..................

Sept 20th. 2011; In The Begining.......

We left Merrifield MN and headed south towards the end of September 2011. This was slightly earlier than we had originally planned. Our destination is West Texas; More specifically the KOA Camp Ground just 2 miles north of West.
We left around noon with a 40 to 50 mph head wind. Our first scheduled stop was at our Son's home in Svea, MN, just 7 miles south of Willmar and it came none too soon, as my arms felt like they were made of rubber.
We did find out that the pickup we were towing, suffered a dead battery on the way down. It turns out we had the plug wired incorrectly and was missing a live voltage feed. A half hour later all was well thanks to Gene's quick work.

By the next morning we were happy to find we had a slightly milder tail wind out of the north. The bad part of that was it got much cooler but we accepted it with a smile.
As we headed into Iowa we found much of our planned route had to be detoured around because of spring floods washing out road beds and bridges. We had remembered seeing this on the news but, we had no idea the damage was that extensive! This made for much slower going than planned. We did make it to a little town in the south west corner of the state but it was dark by the time we got there so we drove into a Walmart parking lot for the night. We didn't get a whole lot of sleep due to all the trucks pulling in and out all night.

We got lucky again when we left the next morning as we had another tail wind plus we got out of the hilly country. As we worked our way further south it started to get pretty warm in the Motor home. I started the generator so we could run the rooftop air conditioners. A short time later the generator quit running and an attempt to get it running again failed. I seems the ignition coil started to shot out, swelled up and quit working. In a way this was a good thing as we figured out how much it cost us to run it twice a day. We were using it to run the refrigerator, once in the morning and again when we stopped in the evening. We figured we used about $28 worth of gas each day with the generator. Well we opted to stay at a camp ground just north of Joplin MO for a mere $18. That way we were able to use the camp ground's electricity to cool the refrigerator which stayed cold for over 10 hrs (as long as we kept it closed). I guess we will rethink the refrigerator use on our next trip and use our 12 volt cooler.


Primary Transportation on Work Sites

The next day, after stopping at Colaw RV Salvage to look for an awning ,we made it to NE Oklahoma and checked into a site at the Snow Dale State Park about 6 miles east of Pryor. After getting set up, we headed out to Pryor for a visit with my Oldest Sister, Lois and her husband Herman. We ended up staying in the Pryor area for about 3 days before continuing south again.