It's been a busy time - traveling from Texas all the way to Minnesota with stops in north Texas, SW Arkansas, southern Illinois, northern Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. We're presently (April 20-25) in Minnesota. The following photos are only a part of the current trip, and there will be more to follow in the near future. After April 27 we will be at the Hixton KOA for the summer.

Human-sized kaleidascope at the City Museum in Saint Louis.

World's largest pencil - 72' long, 22,500 pounds. Also at City Museum.

City Museum can make one tired. Pat and Malwina taking a little nap after climbing.

Pat and son Steve in caves of City Museum.

Dave in one of the tunnels of City Museum.

Pat crawling through hollow log in tunnel system. (And we thought this place was for kids).

Easter egg project at Steve's house in Mascoutah IL.

Decorating eggs is hard work.

At a Cardinal game in Saint Louis. Typical fan.

Da Wave! Here comes da Wave.

Cardinals Fredbird with some fans.

Albert Pujols hitting Grand Slam.

Ice Cream vendor at Cardinal's game.

Spring at the Saint Louis Arch.

Ready for a Blues game in Saint Louis. Maciek, Pat, Daniel & Steve.

The Road Less-Traveled

Whenever we are traveling fairly long distances we will frequently take state highways instead of the larger and faster Interstate highways. Of course, the state highway has to be in fairly good shape and not needlessly add a lot of miles to our trip. There are a lot of interesting (and good) state roads that parallel the interstates, and provide a lot more scenery and attractions. The pace is usually a little slower, although not a lot, and it's easier to stop to see something if you want to. Recently, we passed through Chester, Illinois while following the "River Roads" through Arkansas and Illinois. Chester is on the Mississippi in southwest Illinois. It is the home of "Popeye, the Sailor Man." The town has capitalized on the Popeye theme and it is a successful means of attracting tourists to this barely wide spot on IL Hwy 3. The creator of Popeye, Elzie Segar, was born in Chester in 1894. He later became a cartoonist and used actual residents of Chester as the basis for some of his cartoon characters. If you want to learn more, you can contact the Popeye website at www.popeyethesailor.com.

Spinach Can Collectibles, and the Popeye Museum in Chester, Illinois.

Mural on building that was the Chester Opera House and Segar's Thimble Theater. Building now houses the Popeye Museum and Spinach Can Collectibles.

I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Olive Oyl in the Popeye Museum.

The owner/manager of the museum loves dachshunds (has 5 of them).

Statue of Wimpy, one of four Popeye characters honored by statues in Chester.

More of our adventures in Illinois will be coming soon. Keep checking back often.

Dave & Pat

Spring (Hah!) in Illinois

We're back in the Family Camp at Scott Air Force Base near Mascoutah, Illinois. The base is about 25 miles east of Saint Louis MO, and there is a light rail system between here and STL, which we may take advantage of one day next week. The trip from Texas to Mascoutah is about 1400 miles, which we made with only two overnight stops. We probably would have taken a longer time on the road if the weather had been a little nicer. Yesterday I had to scrape ice off the windshield. Today is Saturday, and it is raining. The thermometer on our picnic table says 48 deg. The prediction for Sunday and Monday is possible snow with temps in the 30's. I think we left Texas too early.
The afternoon weather on Friday was pretty decent. The sun was shining, there was a very light breeze, and it was warm in the sun. Still cool in the shade, however. I managed to get a coating of rubber roof dressing on the RV's roof, and caulked some spots that indicated slight leakage while driving through rain.
We'll be at Scott AFB until the 13th, at which time we will venture even further north to Rockford. It really is kind of neat to see the advance of spring moving northward. I do think that we moved a little too fast and got a little ahead of the advance. Oh well, it was a great winter in Texas.

Mustang Island Catch-Up & Moving On

We're in the process of cleaning up and packing up our home so we can "hit the road" early next week. Already, many of our neighbors have left the Island and started their journies northward. It's amazing how much stuff can accumulate in five months of stationary life, and how disorganized everything can become as everyday life goes on. It's important that everything be stowed and packed, padded, properly as , so we have heard, the ride on the road inside a 5th wheel RV is roughly the same as a 5.0 earthquake. For the next week or so our postings may be somewhat limited, so here is a final catch-up from Mustang Island of some things we've had prepared to post but just haven't had an opportunity to fit them in. Next week, from here we head north. It will take two days to get out of Texas, then we'll spend two days in Memphis, and from there it's on to Saint Louis and directly to son Steve at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. We'll be with Steve for one week.

At the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco, Texas.

We found the Texas Ranger Museum to be very interesting.

"Old Town" festival in Port Aransas (Mustang Island). Note one of Many souvenir shops in background. This is, after all, a tourist town.

Part of the Old Town parade. Pat is on right with viewers on curb.

Shopping for new swimsuit in one of those many souvenir and swimsuit shops.

Shelling on Harbor Island, just across the ship canal from Mustang Island. Fellow shellers are Mark and Sandy from Indiana. They are our across the street neighbors at Tropic Island RV.

Some of the shells we gathered on Harbor Island.

Rochester may have its Corn watertower, but Luling, Texas has what may be the world's largest Watermelon watertower. I wonder if kids here say, "I see the watermelon first!"

Tropic Island RV Park owners, our hosts, Erlinda and Ken Gillespie. Ken caught the fish and Erlinda fried them for the annual Tropic Island Fish Fry.

Morning dews are pretty spectacular here.

That's all for today. Email gets to us anywhere/anytime at dwink@supersat2.net. Our cell phones work all the time as well. 509-936-2557 or 509-671-3007. You may not know where we are, but we're never hard to find.

See ya. Dave & Pat

Dallas/Fort Worth - Really on the road

Even though we still have less than two weeks left of our winter stay in Texas we found a good reason to make a side trip to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Pat's dentist from Spokane has moved to Fort Worth and is in a practice there. Pat missed him on her trip to Spokane last December as he had just left there shortly before Pat arrived. She did have some work done in Spokane, but it was not complete or adequate. Well, when you see her smile now you will know that this recent trip was worth the effort. The trip wasn't all business as we had plenty of time to fit in some other things.

This is the demo cattle drive at the Fort Worth Stockyards. Changing beef handling methods and transportation caused the stockyards to go out of business in the mid-1980's, but the entire complex has been converted into a giant tourist trap - Oh, 'scuse me, I mean ATTRACTION.
We had lunch at Joe T. Garcia's Mexican Restaurant near the stockyards. Joe's is more than just an eatery. It covers almost an entire block and has nice gardens and landscaping to wander through.

Here is Pat and Dr. Puri. Notice her shiny new smile.

At Joe T. Garcia's you get ambiance, good service, good food, and a good price. It's been a landmark for decades. It's a must-see when in Fort Worth.

Sign and entrance to Garcia's.

Entrance to the Fort Worth Stockyards.

We visited Jerry and Joan Martin, new friends we met on Mustang Island this winter. They live in Benbrook, a SW suburb of Fort Worth.

The only thing we really didn't care for was the traffic. Whether in Dallas or Fort Worth there is too much traffic, and a lot of these Texicans are crazy drivers.

Keep checking often. We will be leaving Mustang Island on April 1. As always, you can email us direct at dwink@supersat2.net, or phone us at 509-936-2557, or leave a comment on the blog.

Be well. Dave and Pat

Fulton Oysterfest

With the spring break season upon us, many area communities are having festivals of one kind or another. This weekend we traveled a short distance to Fulton, Texas with some friends from Tropic Island RV Resort, to partake of the Fulton Oysterfest. Notice I said partake of the Oysterfest, and not partake of oysters, although many people were eating the slimy critters. I have no idea why they would do that, but to each his/her own. There is something here for everyone. We expect our own little island, Mustang, to be inundated starting this week. Already, there are no vacancy signs up all over the island, something we haven't seen all winter until now.

Al, Pat, and Tom. We call them the "triplets". They kind of represent the festival mood.

Oysterfest once each year, but promoting Birding ALL the time.

Here is one of the many belly dancers in performance.

Whole truckloads of oysters were prepared and served.

This is what the slimy critters look like when ready to eat.

The oyster booth was but one of the many food offerings at the Fulton Oysterfest. I had a really good polish sausage and Pat ate a pulled pork barbecue sandwich. All of the food booths were busy, including the oyster booth.

The parade was quite long, almost an hour, and included lots of fire trucks (the festival is sponsored by the Fulton Volunteer Fire Department as a fund-raiser) as well as the traditional things you see in all parades, such as the large Shriners in their very small cars, tractor dealers, etc. My favorite parade costume was the ladies in the flamingo outfits. Great idea!

Things are happening, so we'll have more to post soon. That's all for today! See ya.

Dave & Pat

Latest news, etc.

It's been about three weeks since our last blog post, so I thought we should offer sort of a catch-up post. Some of our readers may think of our adventure as kind of an extended vacation. That's not entirely accurate. We are in an area that has a high tourist population, and there's no shortage of touristy things to do. But, the truth is that we, as well as most of our neighbors, are simply "at home" in an RV. Many days we do the same things as you folks with homes without wheels: we do laundry, clean the house, wash and wax the truck, fix things, go shopping, eat out, have company over for dinner or dessert, and participate in outside activities that are common wherever you might be. I'm catching up on all the reading I didn't get to do while working. See the photos below - you will see that life goes on.

Here is Pat (front row, far right) with her yoga class at the Pollock Center in Port Aransas. She also is part of an aerobics class at the same place. The lady next to Pat is Delores Olson from Golden Valley MN. Delores and her husband, John, are our next door neighbors at Tropic Island RV Resort. Some crafting classes are also offered, and Pat takes part in some of them as well.
This is the Texas quilt Pat made this winter. It's almost finished at this point. Still needs a backing and final quilting. It's not the only quilt she has made this winter. Being in a house on wheels has not stopped Pat from doing the things she has always done. And the crochet hook almost never stops, either. We go through a lot of yarn.

While our friends in the northern latitudes may be experiencing drifting snow, we sometimes experience drifting sand. Let me tell you, drifting sand is a lot easier to take than drifting snow. For one thing, it's a lot warmer! We've been able to wear shorts and t-shirts almost all the time this winter. The city from time to time has to plow the sand out of the beach roadway.

Last week we made a day-trip to South Padre Island. It is the southern-most barrier island on the Texas Gulf coast. You can't get there by driving down the islands. There is no bridge between Padre Island and South Padre, so you have to go inland and take the expressway south. After all the extra miles are added in our day trip ended up being over 450 miles. What we did discover is that South Padre Island is way overdeveloped and ends up being not nearly as pleasant, from our point of view, as Mustang Island. SPI has too many high rise buildings, too many people, too much traffic, and too little land area. The beach is mostly not accessible, and when you can get to the beach it is unkempt and not driveable or even comfortably walkable.

This is an approach to the beach on South Padre Island.

Our tomato plant has been giving ripe tomatoes since mid-January and is still producing, although it has slowed down somewhat. The hybiscus just go on and on giving us new blooms almost every day. I don't know how they can be so productive.

Turkey buzzard in flight.

Turkey buzzard at rest. This is a LARGE bird.

Pat picking her way through the driftwood on a barrier beach just north of Mustang Island.

So, how does this compare with your winter?

Dave and Pat