Day 75

The good weather is back. I don't need any more of yesterday's 40 degrees and raining. We didn't get a phone call from the loan guy or the realtor. I didn't expect one from the realtor, but I did expect one from the loan guy. After all, he's trying to sell us something.

The paper this morning had an article about some Obama program to give people rebates for buying new appliances. I bought the paper thinking that if the house sale went through we'd be able to take advantage of it. The screwy program is only for appliances purchased between 4/16/10 and 4/25/10. That's it, for 10 days only. That means that we won't be able to take advantage of it.

I left a message for our insurance guy. I thought it was funny when they didn't answer the phone. Then I realized that they must be swamped after yesterday's snow storm in Portland. The idiots up there have no idea of how to drive in the snow. They called a little later. It looks like we'll have to find an agent in Texas for anything we own that is in Texas.

With the temperature up again we took the dog over the the dog area. She did over 60 retrieves. Now she's sacked out on the couch.

We also got the camera that we ordered. It looks very cool. Right now the battery is being charged. Then we'll have to get a memory card for it and try it out.

Day 74

We spent most of the day with the realtor and the loan guy. We put an offer on a house in San Marcos. We weren't super aggressive with the price, so I hope they will accept it.

The talk with the loan officer was amusing. The whole process is geared to matching the loan amount with your income. Only we're retired - we don't have any income. So next they wanted to see fixed income streams. We don't have any. We're living on the money the government stole from us 10 years ago. Nice of them to give it back now, but I wish they'd paid us some interest. We're supposed to get a call tomorrow on what kind of documentation the lenders will want.

We stopped by a computer store to kill some time. One of the things that I miss about Oregon is Fry's. This store isn't anywhere near as nice as Fry's, but they have a decent selection and some good prices. We also made a short stop at a high end audio store. It's got nice stuff, but I'll probably end up buying in Oregon. Doing so represents an immediate 9% reduction in the cost.

Day 73

We hung around the trailer all morning waiting for the loan guy and the realtor to call. We were supposed to meet with both of them today. We got the calls about noon. Both of them wanted to meet tomorrow.

That sort of shot the motivation to do anything today. Instead we decided to buy ourselves Christmas presents. We got quite a bit of money for Christmas in the form of Amazon gift cards. We were planning to buy a netbook for use in the car. However, after we did some looking we found that for about $50 more we can get a small (11") notebook. We decided to go that route. In the interests of instant gratification we sprang for two day shipping.

Wife realized that we have built up a lot of reward points on a couple of credit cards. That happens when you use them to make virtually every purchase. She ordered an iPod Nano with the points from one card. She's ordering a pocket camera with the other.

All in all I would call that a very good Christmas.

It only got up to the high 40's today so the dog had to settle for a walk around the RV park. Even at that temperarture it was nice to sit in the sun at the dog exercise pen. It's interesting how it can seem warmer around here than it does in Oregon even though the air temperature is the same. It must be the lower humidity.

Day 72

We started out with a nice relaxing morning reading the Sunday newspaper. By noon Lucy was making it clear that she'd like to do something more stimulating. Ellen wanted to look at net books so we piled into the truck and went to Best Buy. One of the problems is that the newest generation of net books comes with Windows 7 instead of XP. That sucks because Windows 7 burns batteries and won't play DVDs. She decided to spend some more time researching on the internet before making a decision.

Lucy got what she wanted. We went back over to the park and had another picnic. She got to walk around the park and then did 35 retrieves. The wind was blowing, so the retrieves were longer than the ones she did yesterday.

She won't be as lucky tomorrow. We have to spend the day working on buying the house.

Day 71

We got up early (7:30) this morning to help with the bi-monthly pancake feed. All the pancakes, coffee, and orange juice you want for $1.50. Sausage patties are 50 cents a piece. I took money and Ellen helped cook. We only had 20 people show up, about half of normal. That's probably because everyone forgot since it was the day after Christmas.

What do you do the day after Christmas? Go shopping of course. We went to several stores to pick up a few items that we've needed for awhile. When you live 20 miles (literally) from a store you tend to build up a list of things to buy until there's enough to justify a trip. We picked up some pet food and a 4 foot chain lead. We'll use the lead instead of the longer one that we have been using to tie Lucy when we're gone. Hopefully this will reduce the damage she inflicts.

We also bought a new comforter for the bed. The old one was a little small and one of the local department stores was having a 50% off after Christmas sale.

After the shopping we took the dog to the park. She's feeling chipper again and was driving us crazy. We took her around the park and let her hunt in one corner where there is a lot of cover. Then we had her do 50 retrieves. At the end we had a tired doggy.

We got our Christmas presents from my brother and sister in law today. Julia lived up to her nickname (Martha) by sending us a wonderful selection of home made goodies - fudge, cookies, caramel corn, and chocolate pretzels. They also gave us a couple of t-shirts from their recent trip to Disneyland. Ellen's has a great picture of Obama, big ears and all, on it. I wish he was a real cartoon rather than just acting like one.

Day 70

Christmas in San Antonio was a lot colder than it was last year. It was 15 - 20 degrees colder. We slept in and then spent the morning reading the newspaper. There was actually something on sale that we could use. We'll probably go out bargain hunting tomorrow.

Ellen fixed a couple of items for the Christmas potluck. She'd bought some pasta yesterday for one dish. When she was boiling it, she noticed a whole lot of bugs swimming around in the water. Needless to say she threw that out and started over again. The potluck itself was great. About 20 people who were all a long way from home. There were some good cooks in attendance - the food was excellent.

The realtor sent us an email saying that the people that are selling the house we are interested in are getting a divorce. They aren't interested in "doing anything" until after 1/15 when the divorce is final. I'm not sure what that means. During the "call home for the holidays" phone call today my brother thought that this might be a good thing as it will make them more anxious to sell. I guess we'll work it out on Monday.

The dog is feeling better, but we had to get up twice last night to let her out. She decided to be bad again while we were at the dinner. She tore apart an insulated carrier that we use to hold lunch when we picnic. Another thing we'll have to shop for.

Day 69

It was in the 40's and very windy today. Apparently a big thunderstorm went through San Antonio (20 miles to the south). That's our signal to stay home.

Another reason to stay home is that the dog was sick. Yesterday she broke into a bag of dog treats while we were at the bank and ate her fill. We already have noticed that some kinds of dog treats give her the runs. This was a new kind of treat, but it had the same effect on her. We spent a lot of time making trips outside so that she could do her thing.

I spent the inside time looking at you tube videos from Iraq and Afghanistan. There were a lot of neat clips from gun cameras showing the efficacy of the US aerial weapons systems. I was disappointed to see how much money it takes to kill those jerks. In one case they used a $75,000 missile to kill two ragheads. That doesn't seem cost effective to me.

Watching some of the videos made by the ground troops really brings home how stressful and dangerous it is to be on the ground in combat. I've got an alternative. The US is in negotiations with Russia to further reduce the number of nuclear weapons in our arsenal. Why don't we pull back to minimum safe distance and use those extra nuclear weapons to permanently solve our problems in both countries? With a few more we could take care of Iran, Syria, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Israel at the same time.

We did get a call from a loan officer referred to us by the realtor. He told us to go on line and apply for a loan. So we did. Of course the form was tailored to people with jobs so it didn't fit us well. I'm sure we'll have to talk to him at length in person before we would get a loan. The best thing in our favor is a truism that my dad always repeated: "banks love to lend money to people who don't need it".

Day 68

I got a haircut this morning. It's the first time in over 30 years that anyone other than my hair stylist in Tigard has cut my hair. It's a little shorter than I would have liked, but no big deal. The difference between a bad haircut and a good one is two weeks. They made a big production out of it including a hot towel for my face and a neck/shoulder massage.

After I got my hair under control we went to a bank to apply for a loan. I even put on a polo shirt (instead of a t-shirt) for the occasion. I've probably worn a collared shirt less than 10 times this entire year.

The bank we chose was a small local bank. I figured we get much more personalized service and they would be familiar with the area. I was right. The loan officer was very helpful. She said there won't be any problem with the loan even though we're retired (unemployed). It helps that we have gold plated credit ratings and are only borrowing about 30% of the house price. The money is going to cost a little more than I thought. It seems that you need to borrow at least $100,000 to get the best rates. We may do that.

I was impressed with the number of papers we had to sign. There were at least a dozen. There were disclosures, permissions, and notifications. And this is just to apply. There will be more to get the loan and even more when we close the house.

The dog was beginning to smell doggy, so we ran her and then gave her a Christmas bath. She got a t-bone for a treat. She ate the whole thing.

We need to get together with the realtor to write the offer. I'll probably send her an e-mail after bingo tonight.

Day 67

We went out with the realtor today to take a second look at the three finalists in our house search. The first house scored high for its great lot and fairly reasonable price. It lost points for a kitchen that needs tile and counter work and a family room that is marginal (that's being kind). The guest rooms are all upstairs.

The second house was the smallest, but very well laid out. It also has a separate 700 Sq Ft guest quarters above the garage and comes with a few nice pieces of furniture. It loses points because it needs painting outside, has only 2 acres of land, and is noisy due to its proximity to a busy ranch road. Finally, it's significantly overpriced.

The third house is closest (by 5 miles) to town and has a partially fenced yard. It's also got a nice master suite and a three car garage with office and workshop. It loses points because the house is positioned close to the neighbor and the floors are a disaster. The family room is a little funky also. It is priced $75,000 to $100,000 less than the other two houses.

We're going to make an offer on the third house. I've got an appointment tomorrow to see about a loan.

Day 66

It's finally getting back into the 60's on a regular basis. I took the opportunity to clean the truck. After three months on the road it was pretty dirty inside and out. I decided to be extra thorough so it took several hours. Washed all the glass inside and out, shampooed the carpet, wiped off all of the interior surfaces.

Because the RV park doesn't allow the washing of vehicles (few do), we went to a self service car wash to clean the outside. I operated the sprayer while Ellen kept plugging money into the timer. It took about $4.50 to do the truck. The outside was coated in this sticky soil that splashed on the sides while we were driving around on dirt roads in the rain looking for houses. The sprayer was a pretty powerful power washer. I had to put the tip 2 inches from the frame to clean off parts of it.

Then it was back home to hand wax the truck. That's an operation in itself due to the size of the vehicle. It's now clean, waxed, and ready for the trip to Las Vegas next month.

The whole operation took most of the day. When I was finished I decided that I'd had my daily requirement of useful activity. Tomorrow we go out with the realtor to decide which house we are going to make an offer on.

Day 65

We drove up to Fredericksburg today. It's about a 140 mile round trip. The first thing we did when we got there was attend a gun show at the fairgrounds. It was a nice little gun show with a pretty good selection. Prices were OK on some tables and a little high in some others. I didn't see anything that I had to have. One table had a 20 ga Benelli on it. Unfortunately the guy that had the table didn't seem to be around. Ellen saw a really nice match model Colt Woodsman. It was made in 1953, the same year I was born. It had a price of $1,800 on it. It may be worth that much, but I'm not willing to spend almost 2 grand on a .22 pistol.

After the show we went to another part of the fair grounds and threw the bumper for the dog. She did a whole lot of retrieves, I didn't count how many. We threw for quite awhile. At one time we had two separate groups of people watching us. People appreciate good dogs in Texas.

We then went to a venue about 8 miles to the east of Fredericksburg. It was sort of a semi-permanent flea market thing. There were about half a dozen long barn like structures. Each held about a dozen vendors selling antiques, handmade items, furniture, gifts, clothing, etc. Interspersed with these barns were fair type booths selling food and other trinkets. We bought some nice steak knives and a pizza cutter for the trailer. Some of the antique furniture was quite nice and affordable. If we had a house I'd own an antique writing desk fight now. The place was dog friendly. We took Lucy with us. She got the usual ration of petting and we answered "what kind of dog is that" several times.

We stopped for a late lunch at a Dairy Queen and then started back. The route takes us over to I10, down I10 to Boerne, and then over to Bulverde. They were having another open market thing at Boerne. We stopped and went through that one with the dog also. More petting and the same question. We scored our first Christmas present for next year. I won't describe it because the recipient might read this blog.

The dog was still quite feisty so we stopped at the fairgrounds in Boerne on our way out of town. She did another 25 or more retrieves before she ran down. It was worth it though. We have a pretty tired doggy tonight.

Day 64

Joy oh Joy. Two nice days in a row. We decided to hang around the RV park today to help set up for the Christmas party. It was good that we did. We were the only people that showed up to help. We set up tables and chairs, put out table clothes, and did some other setup stuff. Then we helped set up the dishes, primarily desserts.

After the setup we took the dog to the nature area at the back of the park. This is one of the usual places we take her to run her. She's been cooped up so much that any running is great from her point of view. We had her do a much of retrieves. That seemed to take the edge off.

The food at the dinner was really good this year. The park supplied turkey and ham. The residents supplied everything else. There was a wide variety of dishes. Two types of stuffing, three types of fruit salads, corn, beans, mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, and potato salad to name a few. Of course there were pies, cakes, cookies, candies and brownies for dessert. There was even an edible gingerbread house and something called "death by chocolate".

As usual, there was way too much food. We had 5 pies leftover after every had eaten their fill. We stayed to do the cleanup. At least there were more people, 6 or 8, to help. There was an advantage to that. We ended up taking home some potato salad and a pumpkin pie.

Apparently there's another invitation only potluck on Christmas day. We got invited, so this year we'll have two big Christmas dinners.

Day 63

It's sunny and warm (60 degrees) again. We got a large box of mail today. We took it and the dog to the park. The dog got to run around the park and do retrieves until she was too tired to run after the bumper. We got to eat a picnic lunch and go through the last four weeks worth of mail.

Most of the junk mail is filtered out by the person who forwards it. We still had about 10 magazines, several catalogs, and 50 or so letters/bills/credit card offers/etc. to go through. Sitting under the trees in the sunshine made the task a little more pleasant.

Fredericksburg has two interesting events going on this weekend. One is a gun show and the other is a large (350 vendors) antique and crafts show. The Christmas party is tomorrow. They need people to help set up. We'll stay in town and help with that. Fredericksburg can wait until Sunday.

Day 62

We went out with the realtor today. There was a little mix up in communication. Ellen thought that we weren't going because we couldn't get permission to look at one of the houses. That turned out not to be true. So the realtor ended up waiting for us for half an hour before she called us up and asked "where are you?".

We saw 3 properties. One was a relatively old house on 7 acres. It was set up as a horse operation with a large barn. The house was small, but the garage had a large carpeted, heated, and air conditioned work room. The weird thing about the place is that none of the buildings had ever been painted. The neighbors next door raise emus. We decided to pass mainly because we don't need a horse property.

The next house was one that we really wanted to see. It was an older house on 10 acres. The land was great and the house so-so. What made it a non-starter was the road noise from a fairly busy county road that fronts the property.

The last house was a winner. It is a log house on 2 acres with a great separate apartment over the garage. The apartment and some of the house is furnished. The lot was small but the house is well positioned on it. There's an option to purchase the adjacent 2 acre lot. It even had an covered area for parking a trailer. The bad news is that it's so near a busy road that there's a fair amount of road noise. Also it's overpriced - 10 to 15 percent over appraised value.

While we were driving we talked on the phone to a realtor about a fourth property. It turns out to be on a flood plane. Flood insurance is $100/mo. We didn't think it was worth the extra cost.

According to the MLS we've now seen everything of interest in our price range in that area. It's time to make a decision. I think that we'll end up going back there one more time to look at the two front runners. Then we'll probably make an offer. Setting a price will be interesting. One of the properties is priced below appraisal. The other is priced above it. If we could get the second one for appraised price I think we'd have gotten a pretty good deal.

Day 61

The realtor couldn't meet with us today so we spent about half the day looking for houses online. We fond three others that we want to check out. The exercise also showed that we've looked at about everything available in our desired price range in that area.

I called a realtor to ask about one of the houses we saw online. The guy didn't call me back. That's not the way to stay in business in this market. We'll be going out with the realtor tomorrow to see the other houses. Then it's probably decision time.

It's too cold (40's) to do anything. We went out briefly to mail the last of the Christmas presents and to get some lunch. We went to a pizza place near here that I've been meaning to go to since last year. It was OK. Nothing spectacular.

We played bingo again tonight. Ellen won once. I didn't even come close.

Day 60

Another day with the realtor. We drove 150 miles and saw three houses. One was very close to San Marcos. Wife liked the house. I wasn't as thrilled, but the garage/workshop is nice and the 4 acres of land is nice. We may end up making an offer on it.

One of the other places was on 12 acres. It's just been totally remodeled. It has a great guest house. The bad parts are that it's a horse farm. That means that the acreage has been cleared and eaten down to nothing. Also, it's on the north end of Wimberly which makes it a lot more inconvenient to get to the gun club. The show stopper though is probably the master bath. It's shared with the main floor.

The third house had an upstairs master, so we wrote it off right away. However, on the way back from it we saw another house that looked very interesting from the outside. We couldn't get in to see it though. We'll probably go back to it later this week.

We'll have to do some homework and see if we can find any more houses that we would like to look at in the area. It would be a pity to drive back up there just to look at one house.

Day 59

The good weather only lasted one day. Today is foggy, but not cold - the mid sixties. It's weird to look outside at conditions that should be cold and miserable. Instead you step outside and wearing a t-shirt is comfortable.

The realtor wasn't available today, so we decided to spend the day driving around. We had some Christmas packages to mail and the wife wanted to get the Christmas letter for the Christmas cards printed out. It's quite elaborate. One side is a collection of pictures from the year with short captions. The other is the typical "this is what happened to use" newsletter.

We ended up stopping at some stores along the way. One was a yuppy toy store. Unfortunately it didn't stock many toys in the age range of our nieces. Most of the toys were for slightly older kids. Lots of "building" toys. There were Lincoln logs, Legos, circuit building kits, train sets, etc. The prices were eye opening. Usually about $30-$50 for a starter kit and about the same for all of the additional kits that you need if you really want to build something interesting.

We also stopped at a clothing store called "Texas Woman". It contained a lot of the kind of wild clothes that you associate with southern women. Lots of fur, animal prints, sequins, etc. Wife didn't see anything she liked.

We ended up at Bass Pro shops. I went there to get a bumper to replace one that Lucy destroyed. Unfortunately they didn't have the type I wanted. We did by a specialized 20 gauge bore brush and some crappie bait.

It was nice to get out of the park and do something other than look at houses. Tomorrow we're back with the realtor.

Day 58

Warm days are here again. It was sunny with a high of 73 today.

We took advantage of the warm weather to go to a park about 10 miles from the RV park. It's a county park that's about a 1/2 mile square. The park has a baseball diamond, a soccer field, and an elaborate children's play area. It has swing sets, slides, even a climbing wall.

Lots of other people were making use of the nice day. They ranged from a single family having a picnic to a group of about 15 cub scouts and another group of about 30 boy scouts. The cub scouts had activities and spent some time picking up garbage in the park. The boy scouts played a series of team games - football, soccer, and dodgeball.

We started by giving the dog a pedicure with a Dremel tool. She needed it badly. We'll have to do it again in about a week. Then we took the dog for an off leash walk around the park's perimeter. She loves this. It gives her a chance to run hunting patterns looking for birds. There aren't any, but she does find mice, squirrels, rabbits, and deer. Today she only found squirrels.

After the circuit we had a picnic lunch and read the Sunday paper. Eventually the dog got antsy so we did another circuit. She was pretty subdued after the second circuit. On the second circuit we came upon some people walking four mop dogs (these are small furry dogs that would make great mops if you stuck a handle up their ass). Lucy was about 50 yds ahead, between us and the other couple. She saw the other dogs and started going towards them. I blew the whistle and she came right back to us. When we got up to the couple the wife mentioned how surprised she was that Lucy came to us. People just don't bother to train their dogs.

When we got back we did some more reading. As we were reading a squirrel showed up in a tree about 20 yds from our table. I let Lucy off lead and she chased it up a tree. She ran around the tree for a while and then came back. This happened twice.

We ended the park adventure with a series of retrieves. I didn't count, but there must have been at least 15 to 20. We left with a very tired doggy.

When we got home we gave the dog a much needed bath. She's now much softer and better smelling.

Tonight we have a very tired doggy. She's been sleeping on the couch since dinner.

Day 57

Another cold day. I'm getting really tired of this. I'm also developing cabin fever. Not as bad as the dog though.

More sitting in the trailer reading and surfing. It's supposed to warm up tomorrow. I hope it does. The dog needs an exercise day, a pedicure, and a bath. These are all outdoor activities best done when the temp is at least in the 60's.

One of my friends in OR wanted me to look into the best FRS/GMRS radios to buy. The wife and I started an internet search to answer the question. We found out a couple of interesting things. First is that the first 14 of the 22 channels in a FRS/GMRS radio are FRS and don't require a license. The remaining channels (15 - 22) are GMRS and do require a license. The FRS channels are transmitted at a considerably lower power than the GMRS channels. Second we found out that the subcodes are implemented by adding a low amplitude signal that is an identifier to a specific subchannel. A receiver only listens to transmissions on that channel if they have the appropriate identifier. A subcode of 0 (no subcode) means that the receiver listens to all transmissions on the channel. Because the subcode is low amplitude, using one effectively reduces the receiver sensitivity.

This information is very useful to us. At tournaments we usually use channel 1, subcode 1. We'll substantially increase the range of the radios we already have simply by using one of the channels above 14 and no subcode.

For the record, the best radio we found was by Midland (GVT1000VP). It's $50/pair at Amazon.

Day 56

Didn't do anything today. It was cold (low 40's) and it rained in the afternoon and evening. A perfect day to sit inside and read the paper, the web, and a book.

Of course the dog didn't agree. She spent a lot of effort trying to convince us that it wasn't so cold that we couldn't go outside and play.

I did accomplish one thing. I'd bought a few second hand CD's of ambient music. I ripped them and put them on the MP3 player we use in the bedroom. It has a timer on it, so we use it to play music as we are going to sleep. This music is so boring that I almost went to sleep while I was listening to the tracks to setup the playlist.

Day 55

Another day with the realtor. We went to see one of the houses that we drove by yesterday. It looks like a fairly nice house. The price is nice too. The only things it needs done to it is replacement of the kitchen countertops, exterior paint, and some tree trimming and gutter cleaning. There was a roof leak over the laundry room (the ceiling is stained). We'd have to find out about that. I'd have to have a place built to park the trailer. I'm having the realtor look into whether or not parking a trailer is allowed.

We went by three other places. Two were right out. One was just too old and small. The other was a nice place on 5 acres with two ponds. Unfortunately the master was downstairs. The third house wasn't available until late in the afternoon. We drove by it and decided that there was no way to get the trailer onto the property so we didn't wait to go through it.

There's two more places that I really wanted to look at. Unfortunately, we couldn't contact the realtor that had the listing.

So we have at least three strong possibilities. None are perfect, they all represent tradeoffs. I think that we're narrowing in on a decision.

Day 54

The realtor couldn't meet with us today. She had to deal with some other issues. She has two houses where the appraisal came in at lower than the selling price. In one case the appraisal came in at $110,000 on a house that was to sell for $120,000. That's quite a discrepancy.

Since we were on our own, we decided to go back over to Wimberly and look at a couple of places that the realtor had suggested yesterday. We also went back and looked at the house with the nice lot and the marginal house. We looked at the lot in detail. It is indeed very nice. The problem is that it would take a fairly major remodeling effort (extend an exterior wall) to make the house the way we would like it.

Two of the new houses that we looked at are possibilities. One is new construction that's almost done on a 1 acre lot. The lot is small, but the house is really nice. You can't really tell though until it's completely finished. We could only drive by the other house. It looks good from the outside, but we'll have to tour it.

Looking at these houses didn't take all day, so we went over to the outlet malls in San Marcos. There are two sets. One is upscale (Gucci, Coach, etc.). The other is more run of the mill (Black and Decker, Kays, Rockport, etc.). They are both huge, at least 50 stores each. We walked all the way around both of them. We scored another Christmas present. I think we're finished except for a watch for little brother. I'll probably order that online tomorrow.

There weren't a lot of people at the malls, but those that were there seemed to be buying stuff. There weren't the large markdowns that we saw last year.

We spent so much time at the malls that we had to stop at a drive in for dinner and hurry home in order to make it in time for Bingo. One has to have priorities. We didn't win anything, but it was still fun.

After Bingo I had to stand outside in the cold for half an hour while I refilled the fresh water tank and drained the gray water tank. I figured it was better to stand out in the cold tonight than have to wake up earlier than normal in the morning to stand out in the cold and do it.

Tomorrow we'll go out with the realtor again.

Day 53

Spent the day with the realtor. We saw 7 houses. Two of them were no gos. One was too old and needed a lot of updating. The other was a brand new house, but it was small and neither of us liked the outside and lot.

Unfortunately the best house we saw was on the worst lot. The house was a newer custom job with a lot of really nice features. Unfortunately the lot was small, narrow, and the house was poorly sited on it. The nicest lot had a marginal house on it. The house didn't have a lot of nice features and would need some remodeling to the kitchen and master bath. The other five houses sort of fell
in between. One of them had a nice balance of house and lot, but it needs to be painted inside and out. It also had a slightly weird kitchen layout.

We're going out looking with the realtor again tomorrow. There's another three houses that we didn't get to see.

Day 52

We did a few errands and some shopping. Mainly groceries. I bought one of those survival radios. It receives AM/FM, shortwave, and NOAA weather. It's also got a built in flashlight, strobe, siren, and cell phone charger. It will run off AC, batteries, solar, or a hand crank. It's kind of a swiss army radio. I don't expect to use it, but it sure is a nifty piece of work.

It was raining and in the 50's today. I'm getting tired of the rain. It was supposed to warm up to 67 tomorrow, but I'm not optimistic.

The dog is has developed a new weird behavior. The park put up a bunch of Christmas decorations. They include some of those motorized, lighted, deer. She is scared of them. She barks at them (from a safe distance) every time she walks by them. She's also getting really antsy. I'm not sure when we'll be able to run her.

Day 51

The wife and I went over to Gruene to their holiday festival. It was basically the same vendors as when I went in November. It was a successful trip though. I scored another Christmas present. I think I only have one more to go.

Because it was Sunday instead of Saturday it took about an hour longer for the parking lots to fill up. By 1:00 they were full and people were driving around looking for places. That's a second data point that points to better retail sales this year.

We considered going to a couple of other stores but decided against it. Why go on Sunday when it is crowded? We can go tomorrow when everyone is at work.

We did stop by a feed store in New Braunfels that used to carry the cat food that we use. The cats are very picky. This is the only cat food that they will eat. They will literally go days without eating rather than eat another kind of cat food. Unfortunately the store doesn't carry that food any more. We'll have to go to another store tomorrow.

The realtor sent me a email to confirm our trip on Tuesday. She "couldn't find" two of the houses that we wanted to go to. I sent her links off the Texas Remax site.

Day 50

It's warmer, but still cold. That just gave the dog more incentive to jump around to convince me to go somewhere. I obliged her by taking her to the park's dog area. The area shares a fence with the feeding area for some livestock. When we got there there was a donkey and three longhorns eating lunch.

The dog doesn't go after livestock, but she is interested in it. I just let her off lead and she had a great time looking through the fence at the donkey and cattle. The livestock wasn't as thrilled with her and moved off once they had finished lunch.

I decided to update the music on the MP3 player that we use in the truck. It's a 4 GB device. It was only abut 1/4 full. I deleted some albums that I didn't want on it and added at least 20 more. The device is still only about half full. It's impressive how much music even a "small" player can hold. One of the things I loaded was some albums of comedy Christmas songs. They are all takeoffs on Christmas carols. I find them a lot better to listen to than standard Christmas carols. Did you know that the lyrics to Little Town of Bethlehem fit the tune House of the Rising Sun perfectly?

I stopped by WalMart before picking up the wife at the airport. The parking lot was packed. People were leaving with crammed full grocery carts. I think that Christmas sale will be OK (at least for WalMart).

Day 49

It was supposed to snow today, but it didn't. However, the temperature didn't get above 38 degrees.

That didn't stop the dog from wanting to go out bad. It's funny though. As soon as I open the door she stops. It's like she still wants to go, but would prefer that the temperature was a little higher. I've never seen her more antsy. Every time I got up she would get up, start jumping around near the door, and barking. The sun finally came out (it didn't get warmer) so I took her to do retrieves. She did 80. That's a good 2 1/2 miles of running. That's a lot, but it's nothing like what she does at the gun club during the summer. I'd say she does at least 3 miles every day there.

I cleaned up the trailer a little bit today. Put some stuff away and vacuumed everything. One of the cats woke me up last night with his barfing. It's a very distinctive sound. I looked this morning, but couldn't find where he did it. I found it when I was vacuuming. He picked the most inaccessible part of the carpet, way back underneath the dining table. Welcome to cat ownership.

I found an interesting link on youtube. It's a series of rants by a conservative black man. He doesn't cut Obama any slack. Here's one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyeNT8k6l2M

Day 48

It's bad when the high point of the day is watching the Ducks play the Beavers. Apparently the Beavers haven't been to the Rose Bowl since 1918. It would have been nice if they had won. It also would have screwed up the CA teams' bowl bids.

Coincidentally, I got an old "wheat" penny as change the other day. It was dated 1918. Someone had scratched an X over Lincoln's portrait. I guess that over 91 years the coin passed through the hands of at least one person from the South.

It was another cold day, so I didn't feel like taking the dog anywhere. Just sat around reading and surfing.

It is supposed to snow tomorrow, so I went to the store and got some groceries. I didn't really need to, but the dog and I are both feeling very cooped up.

Day 47

Another cold day, but at least no rain. I'm getting cabin fever almost as bad as the dog has it.

Luckily the sun came out for about an hour in the early afternoon. I took advantage of it to take the dog to do retrieves. She did over 40. That works out conservatively to over a mile of running. It's probably more like a mile and a quarter.

She needed it. I gave her two new toys yesterday. She destroyed both today. One was a stuffed animal. She literally removed all of the stuffing. The other was the rope deal with a dog tennis ball attached. A dog tennis ball is harder and has a thicker skin than a regular tennis ball. She ATE the tennis ball. I mean that there wasn't a piece any bigger than 3/4 of an inch. Most pieces were pea size. Of course the results of all this destruction were scattered all over the floor. Quite a job to clean up.

Continuing with the pet maintenance theme I also replaced the cat box litter. This is a messy, smelly, job. I also gave the dog a bath. It's been more than two weeks since her last one and she was smelling rather doggy.

I talked to the realtor for about half an hour today. I outlined what I've been doing and set up a trip to view houses on Tuesday. I then spent a whole lot of time preparing a list of 9 houses to look at. She wanted me to supply the MLS, address, and listing agent. I don't know why I had to look it all up and mail it to her. She could have done it all from the MLS.

I also took the time to figure out the optimal order to visit the houses in. I'll probably be driving, so that will help me alot. Of the nine houses there are three that really look interesting, three that are real "maybes", and three that are long shots. We'll see.

Finally, I finished a book that I started yesterday. It was an SF novel written by Ben Bova in 1964. Ben Bova is an award winning SF author. It was interesting to note that some of the things that he had written about as SF (VTOL jets, large military hovercraft, automated fire control systems) are commonplace now days.

Day 46

If I wanted to live in weather like this I would have stayed in Oregon. It rained hard all day and the temperature didn't get much above 50 degrees. I stayed in the trailer most of the day and read or surfed. The only useful thing that I did was wash the clothes.

It's supposed to get colder through the end of the week. It might actually get down to freezing on Friday. That's a notable occurrence around here. Hopefully it will get back up to the hight 70's next week like they are predicting.

The dog is going crazy. This is the third day that she hasn't really had any exercise. I tried to make her feel better by giving her a couple of new toys. She eviscerated one of them in less than 5 minutes. It doesn't look like she's going to be having too much fun in the next few days.

Day 45

It's cold (mid 40's) and rainy today. That's way too cold when you've been used to significantly warmer weather. It's a big change from yesterday. That's one of the interesting things about San Antonio. Basically the weather in the winter is pleasant until something nasty blows down from the north. Then you remember that there's nothing higher than a freeway overpass between here and the Arctic Circle.

In honor of the weather I officially declared it a "don't do anything day". Actually I did do one thing. I called up our dog trainer and got some instructions on how to teach Lucy to do blind retrieves. It's going to be time consuming, but what else do I have to do? I need to get him started on the preliminaries to breeding her. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the pedigree info that I thought he had.

He said to give the OFA at least a month to look at her X-rays. I'm going to call them at exactly one month.

Day 44

Back to the grindstone. I spent the day driving around the Wimberly/San Marcos area looking at prospective houses. The result wasn't bad. Of the seven houses I drove by, two of them looked worth touring. It would have been three, except the third had high tension lines running over the back yard. Too bad, I liked it the best of all from the outside.

I'm kind of sorry that I spent the whole day in the truck. It was a little over 70 degrees today. Cloudy, but really nice for the end of November.

That little adventure took most of the day. The dog went with me. I think she almost died of boredom. I finished up by doing some grocery shopping. The freezer was getting bare.

I ran across something interesting while plying the web in the evening. It's a pretty good explanation of how someone as ill suited as Obama got elected president:


http://www.wftv.com/slideshow/mostpopular/21509794/detail.html

Days 42/43

I'm upset. Yesterday I wrote a long post describing my experiences on Black Friday. Somehow it didn't get posted. I'll recreate it in this entry.

I got up at 4 AM to travel 20 miles to a store named HEB Plus. This store is sort of like a Super Target except it comes from the opposite direction. HEB Plus is a grocery store that added variety merchandise. Super Target is a variety store that added groceries. The quest was for an 8 GB iPod for $99. That's $50 less than the fair trade price that Apple forces their retailers to adhere to. The store had many Black Friday deals including some really low prices on TV's, video games, and big ticket toys.

The store opened at 5 AM. I got there about 4:45. There were at least 1,000 people in line. I'm not exaggerating. The line was set up in a serpentine fashion, like many amusement parks. That made it easy to estimate the length by counting 100 people, observing how much space they took, and then applying it to the rest of the line. In the 20 minutes or so that it took me to get into the store, several hundred more people showed up. A store employee told me that there were 100 people in line at 1 AM. The temperature that night got down to 38 degrees.

I knew as soon as I got to the store that there was no way that I was going to get an iPod. I decided to stay and watch the show. I didn't see any stampede. Then again, I couldn't see the first people in line entering the building. The store is big, probably at least 75,000 square feet. What surprised me was that it didn't seem crowded even though there were probably 1,500 people in the store.

I decided to do a little grocery shopping. The store did a good job at the checkout stations. Even with the Black Friday rush I didn't have to wait long.

I left the store about a little before 6 AM. The question was what to do with the rest of the day. I stopped at Home Depot to buy sandpaper for one of my projects and then went home. I was there by 6:30, an hour and a half before I usually get up. My life has changed from the many years when I got up at 6:15 every morning.

Having accomplished all that I set out to do before I usually get out of bed I faced a choice. I could do something useful, or I could read and watch TV. It was relatively cold outside (low 50's), so I decided to read and watch football games. I actually didn't watch the games. I cared less about the teams that were playing. Instead I surfed the web while the TV was on.

As a consolation prize for not getting the iPod, I ordered a couple of $3.99 DVD's from a website that was having a Black Friday sale. That's a much more civilized way of doing things. Unfortunately I also tried to order a present for one of our friends. That site had sold out of the item that I wanted to buy.



Today (Day 43) started out with a pancake breakfast put on by the park every other week. I try to attend whenever possible. The rest of the day was a routine maintenance day. I cleaned the trailer, watered the plants, and drained the tanks. I also completed one of my projects and did a little more work on the other.

I decided not to leave the park. My experience yesterday caused me to just want to sit around. Besides, it was sunny and warm today. Why spend the day in stores?

Day 41

I celebrated Thanksgiving in the traditional way. I watched football for most of the day. Actually, I read newspaper ads and surfed the web while the games played on the TV. I really didn't have any interest in any of the teams that were playing. I had to run the dog (40 retrieves) after breakfast. She would have driven me crazy if I hadn't.

Ellen called while the Green Bay Detroit game was on. Green Bay was killing Detroit. Of course the nephews are rooting for Detroit. I could hear them making disappointed noises in the background whenever Detroit did something stupid. I called Hooch and Mom to wish them a happy Thanksgiving.

I've just about convinced myself that I'm going to get up tomorrow morning and try to snap up one of those Black Friday bargains. One of the local stores is selling 8GB nanos for $99. That's $50 off list. The catch is that I'll have to get up at 4 AM to get there. I'll probably set the alarm and decide tomorrow when it goes off.

For the record Thanksgiving dinner was frozen spring rolls, brown and serve rolls, and toaster strudel. The best part was the eggnog with Jack Daniels.

Day 40

OK, so I got back to looking for houses. I checked out the houses that the wife had sent me. I eliminated one based on the online description. I'm not ready to deal with a house where every wall in every room has been painted robin's egg blue. One of the other prospects has a pink master bedroom (both walls and carpet). There wasn't a picture of the bathroom, but I wonder. I left it on the list.

I've expanded my list of drive by candidates in the Wimberly area to the point that it justifies another trip up there. I'll probably go on Monday or Tuesday.

I went back to Home Depot and exchanged the wrong part that I bought yesterday. Then I did some work on the two projects I have going - the sewer hose holder and adding gas openers to a couple of compartment doors. I quit before either was finished because I just didn't feel like working on them anymore.

I won one game at bingo. That meant I broke even for the night. The turnout was light, only 10 people like last week. Hopefully it will increase after Thanksgiving.

Day 39

Today was almost too boring to write about. I did the wash. I avoided doing anything else useful by spend hours reading another volume of the "projects for your RV" books.

I saw an idea I liked, so I went over to Home Depot to get materials. I should learn. When I go to a hardware store to get parts that are stored in bins, I usually just reach in to the bin and grab one. I don't look at it to see if it is the right part. Often it turns out I get the wrong thing because someone took out another part and put it back in the wrong bin. This happened today. You think I'd learn.

I started the new project, but I could only finish it up to the point where I needed the other part.

I ended the day watching a grade Z movie, Death Race. I watched it because it had Jason Stratham in it. This wasn't one of his more entertaining movies. What do you expect from a movie based on a video game?

I'm feeling guilty so tomorrow I'll probably go back to looking at houses. The wife sent me a bunch of prospects.

Day 38

I decided to do some debugging today. Last spring I rewired the TV cables in the trailer. I added a secondary amplifier to the outside antenna and used an RF switch to route the cable TV input to the bedroom. I did it in Tucson where we didn't have any broadcast channels available. So there was no way for me to test that part of the new configuration.

When we left last month I discovered that the antenna signal worked in the living room, but not in the bedroom (at least I thought it did - see below). I didn't take time to debug it until today. I ended up taking most of the install apart, switch, amplifier, and cables. Everything worked when hooked up to the living room TV. Finally I unbolted the bedroom TV from the wall and hooked it up in the living room. It still didn't work. This took two hours because the cables and components aren't readily accessible.

Finally it dawned on me. The TV has an "auto program" feature that searches for channels on the antenna input. The stupid thing only recognizes digital channels that have been discovered via this operation. If you simply choose a channel, and the channel is digital, the TV doesn't see it. This is an idiotic design. Once the TV programmed itself everything worked fine. A lot of needless effort.

I did accomplish one thing. I think that I've figured out a way to get the satellite TV signal to the bedroom TV. You won't be able to change the channel, but you would be able to view whatever has been selected. I'll probably check it out tomorrow. After what I'd done, I was sick of fooling with the TV stuff today.

I also finished another of those little improvement projects and got a good start on another. I'll need to got to Home Depot before I can finish it.

I finished the day by taking the dog to do some retrieves and making a trip to the grocery store.

Day 37

Today was another day dedicated to house hunting. I went through the latest list of possibles from the realtor. After eliminating some based on the online information I had a list of 7 candidates that were in the general area. I drove to all 7. I eliminated 6 based on looking at them. As before there are just some things that don't show up in online descriptions like crummy lot, noisy streets, no place for an RV, etc. One house is a "maybe". Nice lot, but at the end of a 3 mile dead end road.

After that it was time to take the dog swimming. She hasn't had much exercise in the last couple of days and she's getting a little too hyper. The river was about 18" higher than I've ever seen it. It also had a much faster current than I've ever seen. It was muddy, not the crystal clear that I am used to. Lucy didn't mind. She did water retrieves for over an hour. She would have gone longer, but I was afraid that she might get too tired to buck the current.

After swimming I took her on a little hike. I ran across an info center that I didn't know existed. There were two bored volunteers there and I talked to them for about half an hour. Then I took Lucy on a nature trail that started at the center. After about a quarter mile of winding through the trees we came to a rather large clearing. She was getting frisky and there was no one around. So I let her off lead and did some land retrieves. After about a dozen (not many for her), she decided that that was enough. We walked back to the truck. As soon as she got in the truck, she laid down and went to sleep.

When we got home she ate dinner and then went to sleep. She's been that way all evening. That's a lot different than the last two evenings when she's been jumping up to go out anytime I made a move.

Day 36

The dog and I went to the craft fair in Gruene this morning. It's a small town next to New Braunfels. They don't have any industry there except tourists. There are a few tourist oriented shops (antiques, trinkets, t-shirts, etc.). There are also a couple of large (seating over 200) restaurant/bar establishments. They do a big business in the summer catering to the people going down the river in inner tubes. In the winter they hold once a month craft fairs.

At 10 AM there weren't a lot of people there. By noon, the place was packed. There are a couple of large public parking lots (think large grocery store) plus a big field for overflow parking. All of them were full and people were driving around looking for places to park.

I scored a few things. One was a Mother's day present. It's a pendant made from a butterfly's wing. The thing is cool. One side is iridescent blue. The other is non-descript brown. I thought they were from two different insects. However, the vendor showed me a complete butterfly. The tops of the wings are blue and the bottoms brown. So with the wings closed the butterfly blends into the background. With the wings open it puts on a colorful display.

I also got a couple of t-shirts. One has one of my favorite sayings on it: "I'm retired, go around me". I got one for the wife at her request that has a picture of an armadillo with the label "Texas speedbump". Finally, I got an antique bar mirror advertising Lone Star beer. Lone Star is one of my favorite things about Texas.

After that I went up to Cabella's to use a discount coupon that I got in the mail. I couldn't find anything that I wanted. Damn. It's bad when you can't find anything to buy at Cabella's.

This evening was the park's Thanksgiving potluck. As with all such occasions there was more food than people could eat. I was probably the youngest attendee there. There was lots of talk about children, grand children, and how Obama is driving the country to ruin.

Day 35

It started raining hard last night and didn't stop until about 1:00 this afternoon. It was raining hard enough last night to cause the satellite TV to fail (rain attenuates the signal). There's standing water all over the park. The north side of our trailer spot is a large puddle 4 or 5 inches deep.

Needless to say I didn't go out this morning. In fact, I didn't go out much in the afternoon either. Only a short walk through the nature area adjacent to the park to give the dog a little exercise. She needed it, she was driving me crazy.

I looked over a few houses that the realtor sent us. Three or four looked like they were worth a drive by. One of the others provided some comic relief. It was an OK house, but it was priced $50K over the assessed value. I bet someone is underwater on the house, probably because they took out a second. I wrote it off on the basis that it would be too much of a hassle trying to do a deal with someone who is so clueless that they are asking $50K over assessed value in this market.

That's about all that occurred that is of interest today (as long as you use a loose criteria for "of interest"). I spent most of the rest of the day cataloging some music that I ripped from CD's that I bought.

Day 34

Today was a different kind of dog day. I went with 4 of the men from the park to the local animal shelter. It's a large facility with three or so acres of fenced area for exercising the dogs. We each took a dog from the kennels for a walk around the facility. The idea is to give the dog a little exercise and some human contact. After about 15 minutes, you put that dog back and get another.

The shelter is a no kill shelter. It was nice to see that they didn't really have a lot of dogs. There were maybe 20 at most. They also have a separate area for cats. They had three black kittens about 10 weeks old. One was exceptionally friendly when I played with it. Wife and I used to have a black cat. It died about 15 years ago. I've always wanted another one. Unfortunately a call to the wife produced a negative response. I'll wait until she comes back and then take her to the shelter.

The dog walking took up the morning (who says retirement isn't exciting?). I spent the afternoon completing some of the projects that I bought supplies for yesterday. I've got one left to finish and another to start. That's probably a good thing since it started raining hard about 8:00 tonight. The rain knocked out the satellite TV. It's supposed to rain all day tomorrow. I'll need something to do.

Day 33

Today was back to the grindstone. I spent half the day looking for houses online. I found one solid possibility and half a dozen "maybes". I also sent an e-mail to the realtor asking some questions about some properties that we saw last week. This stuff gets old after awhile. It doesn't help any that I'm not sure I want to buy a house. It seems like the cost and recurring expenses of buying a house outweigh the benefits. At the same time there isn't likely to be a better time to buy a house than now.

In the afternoon I took the dog to do some retrieves. She drove me nuts all morning when I was on the computer. She kept pushing her head under my elbow when I was trying to type. I ran her until she was tired, walked her for awhile, and then ran her some more. When we got back, she decided it was time to sleep.

The wife called. Apparently my nephew broke his arm in a wrestling practice. She told him that when he gets to be our age it was going to haunt him. Of course he doesn't believe her.

I did some grocery shopping. Then I stopped at Home Depot and got some supplies for some of those projects I read about yesterday. I started on one. I would have finished it today except the damn drill battery ran down. It's on the charger so I'll finish the project tomorrow.

Today was bingo night. I didn't win anything. In fact, I only came close once. The turnout was very slim. Tomorrow is a dog walking day. Of course I signed up.

Day 32

Did the laundry today. The nearest public laundromat is over 20 miles away (literally). That means that it's important to choose a time to do the laundry that isn't when everyone else in the park wants to do laundry. Monday morning isn't it. For some reason it seems that half the park considers Monday morning the optimal time to do laundry. Apparently Tuesday morning isn't as desirable.

It costs $5 - $6 to do our weekly laundry at the park. I went to an appliance store the other day and happened to pass the washer and dryer department. It seems that a good quality washer/dryer pair costs about $1500. A top line one will run $2000. That's 5 to 6.5 years of doing the wash at a laundromat before you break even. It's actually longer when you count the cost of the water and electricity. When we buy a house I may not bother to get a washer and dryer.

I spent most of the rest of the day making work for myself. When we bought the trailer I purchased a series of books entitled "10 Minute tech". They are collections of small projects that you can do to improve living in a trailer. I went through one of the books and picked out several to do. The next step is to go to Home Depot and buy some supplies.

A box of our mail came today. A lot of financial statements, some magazines, and half a dozen bills. I paid the bills and ignored the financial statements. There was a letter from the IRS. It's always a thrill to get one of those. It turns out that when we settled the last disagreement with them we miscalculated the interest due by $2. They sent us a four page letter telling us that we'll receive a bill later for the $2. Hell, it cost the $2 to send this letter. Besides, they're lending the banks money right now at 0%. Why should we have to pay them any interest?

I've been ignoring the house search for the last couple of days. I'll have to start that up again tomorrow.

Day 31

A month on the road. I'm beginning to settle into the routine.

I set out this morning to get the oil changed in the truck. I bought the oil and filter separately so that I'm sure that they are the right ones. I was going to stop at the local oil change place, but Monday morning seems to be when everyone wants their oil changed. The place was packed.

So I went to New Braunfels, 25 miles away. I was planning on going there anyway to get some trailer supplies. The first place I stopped at there was only going to give me $4 off the full price. I said no thanks and went to another. They were going to give me $10 off (still a rippoff) so I said yes. After they did it, they told me they had to charge an extra $2 because the truck was 4wd. WTF. Their cost, plus the cost of the supplies, is as much as I would pay at the dealer.

As long as I was there I hit the pawn shops looking for CD's and a ratchet wrench. The shops had few tools and fewer CD's. I did pick up one CD - country drinking songs. I also picked up some barbecue at Rudy's - one of the area's best barbecue places.

I finished up the day exercising the dog. The city has a park with two spring fed rivers running through it. The water is warm year round. Lucy loves swimming in the river. She did over 30 water retrieves followed by 20 land retrieves. She wanted to do more, but I thought that that was enough. It seemed so later because when we got home she just sacked out on the couch for the rest of the day.

The truck turned 25,000 miles on the way home. We've owned the truck for 20 months, so that averages out to about 40 miles for every day we've owned it. That's on a vehicle that has spent several of those months unused.

Day 30

The first day sans wifey. So of course I went to the gun show. Gun shows in Texas are a family event. Guys bring their wives and kids. Many of the times the wife/kids are carrying firearms for sale or that have been purchased. That's what I like to see - full participation. There weren't as many buyers there as last year. I don't know if that was because I was there on Sunday morning or if it was because of the economy.

Firearm prices seemed to be down a little bit from last year. Ammunition was available, but very expensive. I'd say at least twice the price it was before Obamanation. I actually found a firearm that I was interested in purchasing. It's a Colt pistol that went out of production 10 or 15 years ago. Unfortunately the seller thought it was worth a lot more than I did. (I looked on the internet later , the price was not out of line - just more than I want to pay). It would have been a pain to buy anyway. The seller would have had to ship the pistol to Oregon.

After the show I stopped to do a little grocery shopping and then went home. That meant traveling Hwy 281. It's a four lane divided highway with stoplights. This is incredibly stupid. I was stuck in a traffic jam caused by the first northbound stoplight for about half an hour (it was almost a mile long). Apparently there's a whole controversy going on on how to fix this. The simplest approach would be to replace the lights with overpasses. Of course the local government wants to do something different. They want to replace it with 20 (that's right, 20) lanes of asphalt and make it a toll road. Somebody's brother in law must own the local asphalt plant.

Day 29

For once I'm going to post on the same day rather than the next day.

Nothing much happened. I took Ellen to the airport. She'll be in Michigan with her father and sister for three weeks. At least we didn't have to get up early, the plane left at noon.

I was planning on going to the gun show afterward. Unfortunately I brought the dog with us. This seemed like a good idea at the time because the weather in Bulverde was cloudy and cool. However, the weather 25 miles south in San Antonio was sunny and warm. Too warm to leave the dog locked up in the truck while I went to the show. So back home it was.

I stopped at NAPA on the way home and got an oil filter and some oil for the truck. I'll stop by a place on Monday to see if they will install it for me at a reasonable cost. The NAPA store had a store cat that was a dead ringer for our first cat, a tabby. It lays in a box on the counter and collects petting from everyone who makes a purchase. I also stopped at the library and bought some used paperbacks at their book sale. Fifty cents apiece isn't a bad price.

The rest of the day was spent reading, drinking beer, and napping in the sun.

Day 28

Today was a doggy day. We drove about 10 miles to the Guadalupe River State Park. It's a large park with several camping and picnic areas. There are also hiking and biking trails. We were interested in the picnic area that borders the Guadalupe river. The parking lot is about 110 yards from the river and 50 feet above it. The picnic area covers the sloping area down from the parking lot to the river. There's a small beach on the park side of the river. The other side of the river is a sheer rock cliff that's about 60 or 70 feet high. The cliff has benches and shallow caves eroded in it by the river.

Dogs aren't allowed off leash in the park. That's OK because there is a semi-paved path that goes downstream along the river. After 200 or 300 yards the path goes past the park boundary. It ends about 100 yards after that. That's where the dog gets to swim.

The river is about 6 feet deep at this point. There's some current, but not much. It's only about 30 yards across. By the time we got to the end of the path Lucy was beside herself. She hadn't been swimming since we left Oregon. I didn't count the number of retrieves that she did. It had to be over 30 though. By the time we were finished my shoes were covered in mud and I had mud splashed on me up to my waist. She was one excited dog. Ellen got some great shots of Lucy doing retrieves with the video camera. She also took some video of the park.

After the swimming we ate lunch and spent a few hours reading by the river. It's a peaceful, quiet place. There aren't many people there on a Friday. We ended with a short hike. I was disappointed that we didn't see any armadillos. Last year there were lots of them. It could be that the foliage hid them. Last year everything was burnt and brown. This year the rain has turned everything green and leafy.

After the park we felt a little guilty so we went to look at a couple of houses. Neither were as desirable as the ones we have already seen.

When we got home it was time to give the dog a bath. Even with all the swimming she was greasy and smelled a little doggy. The trailer has an outside shower. We put her under it and gave her the works - both shampoo and creme rinse. The result was a soft, good smelling doggy.

Day 27

Another day of looking at houses. First we spent hours looking at houses online that the realtor had sent us. Then we put 175 miles on the truck looking at houses in the Dripping Springs and Wimberly areas. We saw a couple of "maybes" in Dripping Springs. Not much progress after driving over 60 miles. Things looked up when we got to Wimberly. We found a neighborhood that had three houses in it that were ones we'd like to look at. One has the option to buy the adjacent lot, which would make it a 10 acre property.

I'd still like to but that 4,000 sq ft house we saw yesterday. I just can't bring myself to pay that much in property taxes every year.

Tomorrow is going to be a doggy day. We are both tired of looking at houses. We'll take her over to the state park so that she can swim in the Guadalupe river. Then she'll get a bath because she's smelling rather doggy. If we get a chance, we'll look at a couple of houses that are in that direction. I'd also like to get some oil and an oil filter for the truck. It's time to do an oil change.

Day 26

This was the first day we went out with the realtor. We visited 5 properties close to the RV park. All had homes that we liked. However we eliminated three for various reasons. The first was at the top of our price range and had a pool. I looked at the large wooden deck (in need of painting) and decided I'd had enough of deck maintenance in my life. The second was a nice house, but they had been raising horses on it for years. There was a nice barn, two corrals, an exercise ring, and a pasture. Leave that place for someone who can tolerate horses. The third was a house we wouldn't mind living in. Unfortunately, it's 6 miles to the nearest services of any kind and over 10 miles to the nearest grocery store.

Now for the good ones. The first was a house on 10 acres relatively close in. It has a small fish pond, a three pen dog run (with air conditioned dog kennel), a loafing shed (they used to raise alpacas), a bird coop, and excellent perimeter fencing. The house is not so good. Vinyl floors and vinyl counter tops. We figure it would take about $8K to replace the floors with wood. We'd also need to invest $1K or so in an automatic gate. There's also a little road noise even though the house is set back from the road. This house is probably a finalist, but only if they come down in price.

The other house was an amazing bargain. Four years old and 4,000 square feet with a separate partially finished guest house on 4 acres of land for $385K. It was a builder's house and everything in it is first class. We met the owners and talked with them for literally hours. He's 81 and looks to be in his early 60's. He's selling the house because he's about to become the oldest kidney transplant patient in history. The process requires him to go to the San Antonio medical center daily for 1 to 2 years. The drive is about 40 miles each way, fighting traffic both ways. So he's selling the house and moving close to the center. They even want to sell some of the beautiful furniture with the house. I felt like buying it on the spot except for two things. The unfenced lot is long and narrow. For pratical purposes most of the land might as well not exist. The killer though is the property tax. It's over $7K. Damn.

Of course Wednesday is bingo night. We came out good again. Ellen won twice and I won once. Our two session winnings are now up to a whopping $7.

Day 25

Another day looking at possible houses. Several hours online followed by more time traveling to possibilities. One of the popular neighborhood features in Texas is the locked entrance gate. Some of the houses we wanted to see were in such neighborhoods. It's frustrating to drive miles to a house site only to find that we can't enter the neighborhood to view the house.

We did manage to see several on our list. One was a definate "we want to tour this house". The house is at the top of our price range and has a pool. However, the location and the lot are just what we are looking for. We'll just have to find out how much it would cost to fill in the pool.

There were a couple of other houses that made the "maybe" list. The rest were eliminated for one reason or another.

We now have enough "we need to look at" properties to contact the real estate agent that we used last year. Assuming that she is interested, we'll have her set up some tours. In the meantime there are some other properties up towards Austin that we will look at tomorrow.

Day 24

One of the nice things about being retired is that it isn't necessary to go do something if you're not feeling well. I woke up this morning with a headache and a general lousy feeling. So instead of working on getting a house, I did nothing. This beats the old days working when if it were physically possible I'd go to work no matter how I felt. This is definitely a better way.

That means there isn't much to describe about the day. I spent the morning on the couch. That wasn't working all that well so I went into the bedroom and spent most of the afternoon asleep.

Day 23

It rained hard the whole day. It did in Salem, too. The difference was that the temperature here was 74 degrees and the temperature in Salem was 48.

Today was to be a repeat of yesterday except that we would be going farther afield, all the way to Austin. Unfortunately there was a huge traffic jam on a highway near Austin the prevented us from seeing a couple of places that we really wanted to see. The other places we saw ranged from "no way" to "maybe, but I'm not really thrilled".

There was a silver lining. We ended up near Buda. There's a Cabela's there.

Day 22

On the trail of a new domicile. We spent the day driving around the area between here and New Braunfels (about 25 miles to the northeast). We drove to 14 different properties and covered about 150 miles. The idea was to get an idea of where they actually were and their surroundings. We've found that this gives info that you just can't get online. For example, one house that looked good online turned out to have high tension transmission lines running over the property. Somehow the realtor had neglected to take a picture of them when making up the online property description.

Other places were just too far away from civilization. Because we are pretty unfamiliar with the area we don't know this until we drive to a place. A property might have other problems like too much noise, a badly positioned house, or a lot that doesn't appeal to us. We saw a couple that had access problems. One was at the end of a mile long dirt road. Another was a half mile in on a one lane road with no turnouts. The road serviced several properties. Still another had a "driveway" that we would never be able to get a trailer down. None of these things can be determined by looking at the online description.

All of this driving serves another purpose. It allows us to zero in on properties that we actually might be interested enough in to spend a realtor's time to view the property.

The good news is that we found three or four "we want to look at these" properties. We also found some "maybe if nothing else works out" candidates. Not a bad day's work.

Tomorrow we'll do it again. This time we'll go a little closer to Austin. Might stop at Cabela's if we get a chance.

Saw an advertisement today for a property that looked really nice. A newer four bedroom house on 5 acres. It even had a pool (a negative for us). The price was $319K. We could probably get it for less. The catch is that the property taxes were over $9K. Unbelievable.

It's interesting to note that we've been gone from Oregon for three weeks now. It seems like it's been a lot longer than that.

Days 20 & 21

Spent hours the last two days online looking for houses. I thought I retired so I didn't have to spend hours setting in front of a computer. Prices are definitely lower than they were last year. I'd say about 10% in the price range that we are looking in. There's a good selection of properties available, too. That's the good news. The bad news is the property taxes. They are outrageous. Taxes on the $350K home can range up to $9K in some of the areas that we are looking. They are at least $5,500 anywhere that we look. It's frustrating to find what looks like the perfect property at an affordable price and then have to rule it out because the taxes are too high. I guess that's the downside of not having an income tax.

It looks like the property tax issue will prevent us from living where we want to. We'll have to live farther from a gun club than I would like. It could be as much as 50 to 60 miles from the club in Austin and 40 miles from the National Shooting Center. We are making up a list of properties to go drive by Saturday.

We also got the dog X-rayed on Thursday. This is the last step before breeding her. The vet said that he thought that her hips looked OK. Not perfect, but acceptable. Now we have to mail in the images and see what the certification people said. The timing for this was good. Lucy had been suffering from diarrhea for the last couple of days. She had a bout of it while at the vet. The vet said that it looked like something that should be treated. Now she's getting two pills a day. She won't eat them unless they are wrapped in brisket.

We are getting back into life at the trailer park. On Thursday I went to breakfast with a group of men from the park. I knew about half of them from last year. It's something that they do once a month. The conversation revolves around where are you from, where are you going, adventures in towing, and what kinds of things make living on the road easier. Saturday we'll be going to the pancake breakfast that is held every other Saturday at the park.

Day 20

Today we moved to a park in Bulverde, about 20 miles north of San Antonio. We stayed here for about 3 months last year in the space next to the one we are in now. This park is not exactly where we wanted to stay, but it isn't terrible. One of the up sides is that we know several people here. We spent part of the afternoon talking to other snow birds that we met last year. Most of them had arrived in the last few days and are planning to stay for the whole winter. I'm going out to breakfast with some of them tomorrow.

One of the things that I like about this park is the weekly Bingo nights. Tonight was one of those nights. I had my best Bingo night ever. There were 12 games played and I won three of them. My big take for the evening was $3.

Setting up here took a little longer than usual because we are going to be here for at least 5 weeks and maybe longer. I connected the sewer and put out the string lights. These are lights on a timer that add a bit of bling to the RV site at night. We had a bit of trouble with the satellite antenna. The site has a lot of trees and we had to be careful about where the antenna was placed. We tried three different places before we got a workable place.

There was some more searching online for places to live. Hopefully we'll be going out looking at places tomorrow. We also need to look after the dog. She's a little sick right now. We also need to get her hips X-rayed so that she will qualify for breeding.

Day 19

We drove up to Austin today to look at a couple of RV parks and some homes. The whole thing was a 300 mile trip. We learned that we don't want to live east of I35. The land is flat and boring. Much of it is treeless.

We visited two RV parks. One was out in the middle of nowhere and not much more than a parking lot. The other was nice. It was treed and quiet. Unfortunately it's a little expensive and a long way from where we would like to look for homes. We called the park in San Marcos that we stayed at last year. They are booked. Then we called the park in Bulverde that we also stayed in last year. They may have a spot tomorrow.

The homes we looked at were OK but nothing special. None of them were especially close to services. One was at least 10 miles from anything. Another was on 6 acres of land, but they placed the house right on a busy road. Go figure.

We saw something unusual on the way to Austin. It was a funeral procession with at least 100 cars in it. I'm not exaggerating. The procession stretched for almost a mile. I don't know who died, but he must have had a lot of friends. Fortunately we were driving in the opposite direction.

Day 18

Now that the shoot is over I should be able to keep up with an entry every day. Today is the first day that it seems we are really on the road. We no longer have any place we have to be.

The day was devoted to administration. We washed clothes. I drained the gray water tank and added some water to the water tank. We washed the dog (she smelled at 10 feet). I reenrolled for the health care. I hadn't got a notice because Intel had screwed up our address change. Luckily Ellen got a notice or I might have let it lapse.

The dental plan sucks. It costs me $100/mo. They quit paying benefits on me this year because I exceeded their max payment. They paid less than $1,200, so why have the insurance? I didn't re up for it. I'm going to need to work on getting some follow on insurance. COBRA runs out in March.

We also spent some time looking online at real estate. Unfortunately the country near Austin isn't as nice as that near San Antonio. The property taxes up there are enormous. In some cases over $8,000 for a property that lists for $300,000.

While I was working outside today a man, his wife, and son came by to look at Lucy. They also wanted to warn us that the camper who had been next to us had told them that his dog had Parvo. Luckily Lucy has been vaccinated. They had seen Lucy at the shoot. The son (Sean McLelland) is a member of the US Olympic team. He shoots International skeet. That's a difficult game. He's a very nice young man. We talked for quite awhile about his experiences and the travel he'll make next year competing around the world. They were very interested in buying a Pudelpointer.

Finally, we tried to decide on where we are going. We couldn't make a decision based on online info so we are going to stay here another day. We'll drive up to Austin and take a look at a couple of places tomorrow. This is a worthwhile activity because we'll be parked there for a month while Ellen goes back to Michigan. There's also a chance that we will go to Houston next week. We won't know until we talk to a friend on Thursday.

Days 16 & 17

The weather for the last two days of the tournament was much improved over the first two days. Sunny, high 70's, and little or no wind. I shot OK (not well) both days. Saturday evening was an Octoberfest party sponsered by a German shotgun manufacturer. They had bratwurst, sauerkraut, potato salad, and roast pork. They also had a lot of German beer to wash it down with. That was the second night of free food.

Sunday afternoon was a little depressing. We said goodbye to all of our friends who had made the trip to shoot the nationals. We won't be seeing any of them for 6 or 7 months. We were sure glad that they came. It's a lot nicer to shoot with people you know.

Some words about the dog. She was a hit. People were coming up to us all shoot and telling us how good she looked. On Sunday were were walking down vendor's row and it seemed everyone was giving her a dog treat. I've lost track of how many times we've answered the question "What kind of dog is that?". There were a lot of people who were suffering from dog withdrawal. Of course she was lapping up all the attention she was getting. By Friday she was pretty tired. She crawled up on my lap while we were sitting at the pavilion and went to sleep. People were coming by to look at the 57 lb lap dog.

Days 14 & 15

The last two days have been busy. Up early in the morning and back late in the evening. I haven't had the energy to write the blog.

It's good to have a group of friends to shoot with. On Thursday we shot the yellow course. Unfortunately the weather gods weren't with us. There was a stiff wind blowing most of the targets away from the stand. The red course on Friday was similar, only this time it was the overcast. We shot at 8:00 with a heavy overcast. 8:00 around here is just after dawn. It was dark. The overcast didn't burn off until the last two stations. I wish we'd shot red on Thursday. It was set up so that the wind would have blown all of the targets towards the stand.

The above isn't an excuse, just an observation. I'm continuing my string of bad performances at the nationals. There wasn't any wind problem earlier on Thursday in the K-cup and I shot poorly there also.

I ordered a pair of shooting glasses. They were to be here on Friday. Unfortunately, the lab screwed up the prescription. The optician will mail them to OR next week. I'll be lucky to see them before Thanksgiving. They won't do me much good then.

The topgun shootoff last night was entertaining as usual. It's amazing to see the targets that the top shooters could hit. The party was a little different this year. They set up a buffet line outside of the stadium. It included several kegs of beer and a table full of wine bottles. Everyone seem to have a good time. They sure went through a whole lot of food. I think the kitchen staff were run ragged by the end.

We picked up a couple of real estate brochures and started looking at ads. It seems that prices have dropped a little since last year. It will time to get serious a looking next week.

Day 13

Ah retirement. I can't even manage to make a blog entry every day. I thought about it last night, but I just didn't get around to it. I'll write this as if I was doing it last evening.

Our competition starts tomorrow (Thursday). Today we shot the practice course. It was about the same as last year. There were a couple of targets that I had problems with. One I never hit at all despite shooting at least 10 pairs. Overall I shot it about as well as I did last year.

Apparently the K cup targets are a lot harder than last year. Wendell Cherry only shot a 79. High score was some kid (a sub junior) with an 89. We shoot the K cup tomorrow at 10:00. It's supposed to rain heavily tomorrow afternoon while we are shooting the main. Oh well.

Each year they have a contest where you go around to different vendors and get their initials on a sheet of paper. After visiting 24 vendors you turn in the sheet of paper. That enters you in a drawing that they hold on Friday night. We got our sheets filled in. Now all we have to do is win.

I ordered a new set of shooting glasses from Ranger. I really like a couple of the tints that they have. The glasses are supposed to be here on Friday. Because the glasses use tinted clip ons, the glasses without a clip on will make a good second pair of glasses. The special show price was another reason to buy them. They are going to cost less than a normal pair of glasses.

The rest of the group showed up today - Dan & Patsy, Gerry, Kim & Justin, Don, and Gary. We went to Rudy's for dinner. Unfortunately, no one told Rudy's that the Nationals were going on. There was a long line and by the time we got to the front they ran out of food.

Day 12

We are in San Antonio. After setting up the trailer we headed to the National Shooting Center. It's good to get there early. There was no line at registration, which is a lot different than the long line that will form there later in the week.

It's too early for all of the vendors to be open. However, there were enough open to do some of the bargain hunting that is part of the experience here. Even though it was early it took less than a minute after we parked the car before we met someone we knew. It was a man and his daughter that we had squadded with at a tournament in Arizona.

Lucy had a great time. People were continually stopping to pet her. Of course she loves the attention. She also got to meet a couple of other dogs and get in a good sniff. Finally we took her up near the pavilion so she could do some retrieves. All the activity made for a very tired doggy tonight.

After we got back, I got up on the roof to try to find the leak that I thought I had sealed last year. Yesterday's rain storm showed that I hadn't. I really couldn't see any place that looked like it would leak. So I just spread some more caulking around the skylight. I hope it fixed it. It's supposed to rain again later this week.

I got the guns out this evening. Tomorrow we'll shoot the practice course. We might also shoot a couple of the games. The rabbits look like fun. Also there's a five stand that has a couple of targets that I'd like to try.

Day 11

Yesterday was so boring that I forgot to post. The day started early (about 2:00 AM) with an impressive thunderstorm. The thunder was so loud that it actually caused the trailer to shake. There was rain, lots of rain. It rained hard until late in the afternoon. We were depressed that we've traveled 2000 miles and it's still Oregon weather.

The day was spent in the trailer. We left only to do the wash. For entertainment we downloaded a bunch of George Carlin videos from youtube. The man was a genius. We ended the day with some preparation for today's move to San Antonio.

Day 10

Not much going on today. We did some more shopping at the shops in Fredericksburg looking for Christmas presents. We managed to find one - that's slow progress. Shopping was much easier as the big crowd that was here yesterday for the wine and cheese festival was absent. We happened to pass the main area where the festival was held. Parked on the street were two large garbage dumpsters. Both were full to the brim with empty wine bottles. It must have been quite a party.

I decided to spend the rest of the day reading. A book of three short stories about fighting terrorism. Nothing too heavy.

No real plans for tomorrow. We'll probably go visit a couple of real estate offices.

Day 9

Traveled from Midland, TX to Fredericksburg, TX. It's interesting driving along in the boring flat landscape that's around Midland and suddenly making the transition to the hill country. The hill country consists of rolling hill (imagine that). Also trees! Mainly oak treas that grow about 15 to 20 feet high. It's nice looking country and absolutely gorgeous after several hundred miles of west Texas.

Fredericksburg is the hometown of Admiral Nimitz, the man who commanded the naval forces in the Pacific during WWII. He spent a lot of time fighting with MacArthur over the conduct of the campaign. Fortunately he won out on the important parts. There is a large museum here dedicated to the Pacific war. It has some very interesting exhibits, some old WWII armaments (tanks, armored vehicles, and a gun turret). It even has a life sized mock up of a Japanese submarine. One sobering area is a courtyard containing plaques. One each for every naval vessel sunk in the Pacific during WWII.

The rest of the town is dedicated to the tourist trade. There are about 6 long blocks that are solid stores. There are clothes shops, jewelry stores, restaurants, specialty food stores, furniture stores, knick nack shops, and ice cream parlors. There's even a gun shop (my favorite). Of course everything has a Texas theme. Lots of five pointed stars and references to cowboys. Scattered about the outskirts of town are the trappings of a small city (Walmart, grocery stores, schools, and a hospital).

After setting up the trailer we played a round of miniature golf at a course that is adjacent to the RV park. Miniature golf is one of my weaknesses. Then we went into town. They were having their monthly wine and cheese festival. The place was packed. We saw plenty of people with wine and beer glasses - no one with cheese. One of the reasons we are here is to find Christmas presents for people. I scored a good one for my mother. We'll go back again tomorrow for some more shopping when there is less people.

We are now in the part of Texas that we are considering living in. We picked up a couple of real estate brochures and looked at the display windows in a couple of real estate offices. We'll be going back to those offices on Monday to ask about some of the properties that we saw there.

We've got three days here and then on to San Antonio. The alarm clock is off until then.

Day 8

The activities for today were shooting and grooming.

The reason we came to Midland was the Windwalker sporting clays course. The course is unique because of the shooting stands. The stands are built by various local contractors to show off their fabrication skills. Some are two stories high. One was a two room structure with a tile floor. The course is set up on land that is basically flat with no trees. There's a depression at one end that's filled with low bushes. There are two very nice towers with two machines in each tower. The target setters did a good job with what they had to work with. We had a good time.

I suspect that the place makes a good profit. The proprietor says that they have charity and corporate shoots almost every weekend. The shoots have up to 1100 people at them. They certainly have a lot of capital equipment. They have at least 40-50 good quality golf carts in addition to enough traps for two 11 station courses, two five stands, and a sub gauge course.

After the shooting it was time to give the dog a bath. She hadn't had one for two weeks and the smell was getting to be too much for a small trailer. We went to a self service dog wash. It had a couple of modules in it with a tub for the dog and a hose. You put in $10 for 10 minutes. The module has a dial that allows you to select hot water with soap, plain rinse water, rinse water with creme rinse, and blow dry. There's a timer to let you know how much time is left. It turns out that 10 minutes is plenty of time to wash the dog.

After we got her home we did Lucy's nails. This involves both of us. I hold the dog in my lap while Ellen grinds down the nails with a Dremel tool.

Tomorrow we go to Fredericksburg, about 300 miles. That means using the alarm clock again. This is the last stop before San Antonio and the Nationals.

Day 7

Today's trip was from Roswell, NM to Midland, TX. The road east from Roswell crosses into the Permian Basin. It's easy to tell when this happens because the oil wells start appearing. The Permian basin is the floor of an ancient sea that used to take up most of the middle of the North American continent. The oil that they pump out of the midwest consists of the remains of the sea life that lived in that sea.

Most of the trip was made over flat land. I mean table flat land. It's weird for someone who spent their life in the Northwest. Think about it. Where in the Northwest can you look in all directions and see nothing but the flat line of the horizon. That describes the area for at least 50 miles around Midland.

Midland is one half of a pair of cities. The other is Odessa. The cities are about 9 miles apart. The business of both cities is oil. There are refineries as well as every kind of oil drilling support company (pipe, drilling, fabrication, tanks, pumps, etc.). I can't recommend Midland for its scenery, but there are some interesting things here. First, the oil fields themselves are impressive. They go on for miles, covering more area than many states. There are a couple of very interesting museums. One describes the history of the oil industry. It has many interesting exhibits including a collection of old oil drilling and pumping rigs. The second is a Commemorative (used to be Confederate) Airforce museum. This has a wonderful collection of old aircraft, many in flying condition. There's even a meteor crater outside of town. It was formed by a fragment of the bigger one that formed the meteor crater in Arizona. Apparently it is one of several that are strung out between here and the Arizona crater.

This is the first time in the three 10,000+ mile trips that we have taken that we've called up a campground and they've been full. The second campground (the one we are in) only had a few openings. Why would this be in the late fall in the middle of nowhere you ask. The answer is oil. Both campgrounds are filled up with the trailers of oil field workers. At $80/barrel the oil business is booming. There ain't no recession in Midland/Odessa.

So why are we here? Because there's a gun club here of course. When we were here last year we couldn't shoot the course because they were setting up for a tournament. They are having a tournament this year also. However, we will be there on a Friday instead of a Saturday so we can shoot the course before they reset it. This is the last practice we will get before Nationals.

Best of all, I'm turning off the alarm clock. Tomorrow is a sleep in, leisurely breakfast, day.

Day 6

Traveled from Gallup, NM to Roswell, NM today. Didn't see a single alien the whole day. At least no non-human ones. It rained most of the way. Luckily the rain stopped about 40 miles north of Roswell. The folks at the RV park said that a big storm passed through yesterday. It snapped off several telephone poles. I can't say I'm sorry we missed it.

The drive is singularly boring. There are some red rock features near Albuquerque. Other than that the land is featureless. It's just dry range land. There isn't anything growing that's higher than a low bush. The only thing interesting is that we passed through Lincoln county. That's the site of the Lincoln county war and Billy the Kid's exploits. I'm really glad we didn't have to travel through Lincoln county on a horse like they did.

Roswell is a surprisingly large town. It seems to be a service town with many car dealerships, equipment dealers, a large hospital, big box stores, etc. It's also home to the New Mexico Military Institute which is a fairly large college. There's a two block area in the middle of the old downtown that's oriented towards the UFO story. Lots of blow up little green men, and every sort of item (coffee cups, golf balls, towels, t-shirts, etc) with images of the big eyed alien on them.

There's one establishment called the UFO museum that is a fairly honest portrayal of the incident. Apparently there was a secret Air Force project to use high altitude balloons as part of an early warning radar system (remember, this was 1947). One of the balloons crashed near Roswell. Of course the Air Force didn't want to admit anything. Some really neat detective work done years later traced the "spaceship fragments" to a factory in the East that had contracted to make the balloons. The factory also made party balloons. The "alien markings" on some of the debris turned out to be designs on some surplus party tape that the contractor used in the construction of the balloon.

Of course the conspiracy people would say that all of this was cleverly set up by the government to cover up the truth. I doubt that the government is anywhere near clever enough to pull something like that off.

Tomorrow is a relatively short (212 mi) drive to Midland. I think I'll leave the alarm off.