Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

We have arrived after stopping in Tucson to load up groceries, etc.  It was a very uneventful trip to here, thank goodness!  The highlight was visiting PEFO friends in San Angelo, TX.  We arrived in ORPI early so we have not even seen our new boss, Christina.  We did meet old friends we knew before and we are parked next to someone whom we worked with two years ago.  We are still setting up our new home for 3 months.

This is Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and it is good to be back!

 

San Angelo, TX

We left the Lower Rio Grande Valley, TX at noon on Christmas Eve.  We started packing and kept packing so we were ready to go much earlier than expected.  So we said our goodbyes, left our keys and traveled on.  We traveled to Laredo on the Mexican border of western south Texas and stayed overnight at a Walmart on Christmas Eve.  The store closed at 8PM but security was around the clock through Christmas.  The store was closed when we left Christmas morning.  I gave a lip balm with candy cane to the security guard on Christmas morning.  They were another shift but oh well!!!!!

We stayed in a state park on Christmas night.  It was a nice clean park and very quiet, like we thought it was.  There was a ranger on duty Christmas Day.  He must have drawn the short straw!!  We are now in San Angelo, north of I-10 visiting people we had met in Petrified Forest.  We are staying at an Air Force Campground right next to the base (They are retired Air Force) and will be with them for dinner tonight.  Then it is travel on to New Mexico. 

We were taken to San Angelo Christmas lights.
 

This shadowbox reminds us of why we celebrate.

Merry Christmas, Everyone

Falise Navidad!!!!!!!!!!I am not sure how you spell it and spell check does not recognize Spanish.  You can tell how good I am at Spanish! 

December is here!

All volunteer RV's are sporting their Christmas finery.  Ours has a decorated and lit lampost and colored lights inside.  The door has one candle in the window and a very small wreath and colored lights in the front windshield.  I have borrowed a sewing machine and made covers for the seats (mine needed it desperately) and time has flown.  We have gone to dinner with the other volunteers here, attended a Christmas Concert starring Paul, the bookstore manager, and I am sick with a crude probably produced by the unusual cold weather here.  It has been rainy, damp, windy and in the 35-48 degrees. We bought another electric heater and both are going.  We use our propane only in the AM for one hour to warm us up. (propane is not provided)


This is a common sight along the roadways.  Horses are tied out to eat along the side of the road.  This horse is just feet from a busy roadway.

This is the only finished watercolor I did in 3 months.  It is of Liz, another volunteer releasing a perigrine falcon on South Padre Island.  I gave her this painting for Christmas.

John and I went to Hildalgo, where there was a spectacular display of lights.  We went on the tour of this small town that felt like it was in Mexico.  These children do not speak English but did the most spectacular Christmas concert.  They were just fantistic!  

We went on a dolphin watch on another volunteer's boat seeing lots of wildlife including many, many dolphins.  It was a great morning with fog lifting off the Laguna Madre.  We saw the Brownville Ship Channel and Port Isabel from the water! I went back on the boat a week later with the ladies for the Christmas Bird Count.  That morning it was very windy, slight driving rain and cold.  We went out to lunch afterwards both times.  It was great fun to be on the laguna, even in the fog, wind and rain counting birds.  Now we are thinking of packing to head to Arizona, our next volunteer position.

We were close to shore but saw an amazing number of dophins but no pictures of them

John is looking at something???

Dregging the intercoastal waterway on the laguna

We will be off on December 25th

Our time here is the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas is almost over.  We will be packing it in on the 24th and heading out on Christmas.  We have learned so much in our short 3 months here.  The wildlife refuge tours have been fun and educational.  We have met so many nice people at the visitor center, here at the volunteer village and on the tour.  Now I can actually drive a bus the size of a small school bus and even back and do a three point turn in it!!  I am sorry I could not post pictures or use the blog as I have in the past.  The Internet service here is spotty at best, even with our booster.  It will be better in Organ Pipe Cactus.  We have had issues here with no water, no electricity for one day and then no electricity for another 48 hours.  The Internet is the least of the problems.  I feel sorry for the interns (just out of college girls building their resume, living here with free housing and a stipend).  They have no other alternative means when things happen and communication at this refuge seems to be poor at best.  We at least have other means like the generator and some water on board when things happen.  It is always sad to leave a place you have adjusted to but that is what this is all about, the adventure of what is around the next corner.  And good and bad experiences are learning experiences both.  I am much more easy going than I was although I still sputter about things!  All one had to do is say to oneself "Will I even remember this 5 years from now?"  The answer is usually "no" and it puts it into perspective!

These nice volunteer neighbors Henry and Bev took us out to dinner for my birthday.  We hope to meet them again.  They are living full time in their home on wheels and have had lots of great experiences.  They have volunteered here for over a year!



This poor quality picture is 3 Plain Chachalocas eating an orange on the tree next to our MH.  They are native here. This is the only picture I have of them taken out the window the the RV.  Note their size!

Happy Thanksgiving

The pen I won in the drawing at the Thanksgiving Pot Luck here. I never win anything but I did win this pen which is made out of mesquite right from this refuge!  David is in the picture below is making a pen (his hobby) at his campsite.  Note our MH and car in background.

Pam and Lisa, our daughters, have returned home after visiting in cold weather.  I told them to only pack one pair of jeans for it was hot and humid here.  Well, it was abnormally cold and raw so we did not go dolphin watching, go to the beach, or summer things but went to a show & museums and played games.  They did see strange birds and dead nilgae and wild pigs for it was hunting season and they have a meat locker here for harvested animals!  We enjoyed one another even if the weather was not perfect!  We had a pot luck with everyone here and enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner.