South Texas - Fort Clark Springs

We have a couple of friends here in Bracketville, Texas that live in Unit 37 at Fort Clark Springs.  The town and nearby Fort Clark were established in the early 1850s.  Later, the town became a stop on the San Antonio - El Paso stagecoach route.

The first day we arrived we took a tour of the museum on post.

Some famous people were stationed here at one time including boxers Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Louis.

General Wainwright of Corregidor and Bataan fame was here.  Lt Col George Patton was also stationed here at one time.

Fort Clark was a major calvary base of the U.S. Army and the last active calvary base in the Army.  It ceased training here in 1944.  The base today is on the U.S. National Register of Historic places and a large part of the buildings are intact.  A civilian community of approximately 2,000 people currently live here with a town council and full city facilities.  On the base are a number of permanent RV homesteads that each have an RV pad, RV shelter, full hookups and attached RV buildings/storage facilities.

Our friends Joe and Frances live here three driveways away from Jerry and Kit.  There are RV loops/streets (called 'units' here) and it is a very unique place.  People live here full-time in their rigs while others live here during the colder months of the year and travel during the summer.

Jerry and Kit currently are 90 minutes away working as gateguards for a drilling company and invited us to use their place while we are at Fort Clark.

They put in an extra set of full hookups for visitors which is a pretty sweet deal.

We are here seeing Joe and Frances who gave us a golf cart tour of the Fort.  It took us along the river, down some back roads and we saw some of the older buildings, different neighborhoods and an armadillo.

We joined a large group of about 30 at lunch on Monday.  In addition to it being Valentine's day, the wood carving club at Fort Clark wanted to have a surprise birthday party for Wallace who teaches and leads the group.

We traveled up the road to Bill and Rosa's Steakhouse and Saloon.  It is one of those one-of-a-kind places with excellent food and a lot of atmosphere.  The chicken friend steak was great!

One of the highlights at lunch was meeting long-time blogger reader and new friend Darlene. She was nice enough to come over and introduce herself and we chatted for a bit.

She and her sister live at the Fort with their husbands who are brothers.  -- Talk about a close family!  All are RVers and have their places in Unit 37 near where we are staying.  Meeting readers of the Roadrunner is a big thrill and it was nice to meet them!

The weather here has been great (high 70's, low 80's) and we played golf on the base course.

It started out overcast but by noon it was bright and sunny.  We had a good time and will try to play again later in the week.

Folks here get together a lot and did so on Tuesday night to say goodbye to a couple that is returning north.  They had a cookout-social for them and we all brought some food to share.  William and Mary hosted the event for about 10 couples.  They are on unit 14? (I think) and have a very nice place.   Their property backs up to the desert with a great view.   They have all kinds of animals that come by every day to check out the bird seed.

We had a great time watching the birds, deer and turkeys wander by.  The cardinal kept his distance in a tree about 30 yards away.

Yesterday we made the 90 minute trip to the spot where Kit and Jerry have their gate guard gig.

We got there in time for lunch.  We had stopped in Eagle Pass to pick up some fried chicken and McDonald's large diet cokes for the occasion.  It was great to see them and visit.  The last time we saw them was in Galveston at a NOMADS project last spring almost a year ago.

We are may be interested in getting a position with this company so we asked a lot of questions.  Jerry and Kit are working a lot to put aside extra money so they can build and add to their RV property at Fort Clark.  The position requires one of them to be at the gate 24 x 7 and the pay is $125/ day.  The job is not hard but they have to deal with the weather and being fairly isolated.

We chatted and got caught up and learned a lot about their job.  We also learned about the drilling that is going on nearby.  We had a fun time in the great weather and had more fun chatting with them.  They are such nice and generous people.  They have told about their experience on their blog at kitandjerry.com.

That is it for this edition of the Roadrunner Chronicles.  Thanks for viewing!

Four Weeks and Done

Sort of.

We are done with our time here at Moss Point, MS with the NOMADS Disaster Response team.  But the work assisting those with homes that were damaged and/or destroyed continues.  It has been five years since Katrina and some folks still are not back into their homes.

One of the great rewards of working on houses here is to see the deep appreciation of the owners.  And sometimes they talk about how their lives are changed and how they had no hope.  No hope.  I have never been there and don't know what it is to be in that situation.  I can't really get to the point where I can imagine what it would be like to go through what they have been through.

But it makes me take a look at every piece of sheet rock, every roll of primer and wall or ceiling paint and do my best.  We all try to take the approach, "if this were my house..." with every door we hang, every stroke of the paint brush and every caulk job around the tub.

We started on a house that had been gutted and reframed.  Our job was to hang the sheet rock and get as much done as we could.

We went from no walls to priming and painting the ceilings and walls.

Here was the crew we worked with the last few days to complete the painting on this house.

On my left are Nelson, Nancy, Kyoko, Jerry, Pam, Jim, Chic and Larry.

We went out to dinner with the rest of the team for our regular Thursday night out and had pizza this week.

It was another good time of fun and fellowship.  We said our goodbyes and will be leaving for Slidell, LA.  We were hoping to make it to Houston, TX tomorrow and then on to San Antonio.  But the ice storms in the Houston area scheduled for tomorrow are enough to make us stay well east of the bad weather.

We will take a couple of days and drive the Honda south from Slidell and see New Orleans.

That's it for this edition.  Thanks for viewing the Roadrunner Chronicles today!

Hanging Out With the NOMADS

We have been here three weeks and are almost getting 'hitch itch'.  After a while we get the itch to move on down the road.  We pulled out the map and have made some reservations for the next couple of weeks after we leave here.

But the last three weeks here have been good ones.  We have enjoyed our time here at Caswell Springs UMC.

This is one of those big beautiful churches in the South that catches your eye.

Inside on Wednesday nights they open the kitchen and feed about 100 people including us.  (On Mondays some ladies in the church cook a lot of food and take it to the homeless in the area.  They make enough for the rest of us on Wednesday night for a donation.)

Then after church every Sunday we all go out for lunch.  Here is the group at a catfish restaurant not far from where we are staying.

We haven't done this enough but, last Saturday night Patty got us all together for a game night.  Usually we are all pretty tired for games, but we decided to give it a try and it worked out great.

Roger and Donna are setting some of the munchies on the food table.

Linda, Lil, Chic, Kyoko and Dawn are chatting.

Don is showing Bob and Eldon pictures of the train that got weighed down with too much coal which burned up the wheels and cause it to come off the tracks.

 Lil is showing Chic and Patty her afghan while Jim, Bob, Don and Larry are in the background.

 I sat down at this table and played 'Sequence' with Jean, Larry and Eldon.  Jerry was explaining the finer details of Mexican Train to Donna, Linda, Kyoko, Patty and Chic.

It was a fun couple of hours except Pam came down with the bug.  In fact she was down with it all last week and stayed in the Roadrunner to recuperate.

We also get together to say goodbye.  Each week we have someone leaving and others coming to take their place.  Here Jean, Jane, Chic, Jim and Ricci took a quick photo as we said good bye to Jane and Ricci.

And after our dinner at the Pizza Place last week it was good bye to Patty and Bob.

The night before they left, they called for some propane to be delivered so a lot of us jumped on that and took our turn getting filled up.  We waited for the delivery and another get together broke out.

 Eldon, Don, Larry, Marley, Hank, Jim, Dawn, Chic, Patty, Jean (hidden) Pam and Nancy were there.  It was the first time Pam had been outside in four days.  She is getting a little better each day.

 Patty, Nancy, Jean, Pam, Chic, Dawn, Jim, Marley, Hank, Larry, Bob, Eldon (hidden) and Don from another angle wait for the truck.

The propane truck stayed for about thirty minutes which was enough time to fill two motor homes and three bottles.  It was very convenient and worked out great.

This week we tried a different restaurant for our Thursday 'Night on the Town'.  We went to nearby Hurley and ate at El Capesino Mexican Restaurant.

Everyone is studying their menus intently.

It was a very pleasant surprise but I really enjoyed my enchilada, chalupa, tamale, beans and rice.  Who would guess you can get excellent Mexican food in Hurley, Mississippi?

As I have said we have met a lot of folks we hope will become life long friends.  We like to work with these guys and we like to get  together with them and have had quite a few opportunities to do that while we have been here.

That's a quick look at some of the ways we get together.  Hope you all have a great week end.  And thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

Some Tools of the Trade

Welcome! to Joe and Nancy who just signed up to Follow the Roadrunner Chronicles.

We finished up our second week here in Moss Point, Mississippi working with NOMADS.  There are 9 couples on our team and we are divided up into groups to work on four houses in the Pascagoula area.  The house we are working on is about 17 miles from where we have our RVs parked.

 Moss Point/Pascagoula are between Pensacola and New Orleans on the Gulf Coast.

The primary task at our house is to get the sheet rock up on the ceiling and walls.  We have been at it for two weeks so far and it will probably take us another week to finish it.  Then we will have to do the mudding.

Steve and Jerry are unloading this stack that was delivered while I take the pictures...

We have been working with four types and sizes of sheet sheet rock.

The two stacks of sheet rock are 4' x 8' sheets of 1/2" regular wall boards and  'greenboard' which goes in the bathrooms and around sinks in the kitchen and the laundry room.

In the garage, we had a stack of 4' x 12' sheets of 1/2" sheet rock that we started with to put up on the walls.  After that ran out we went with the 8' sheets.

Another size,  the 5/8" sheets of 4' x 8' lengths went up on the ceiling.

And this brings me to the Tools of the Trade.

The lift for the sheet rock is one of those Tools that is a back saver.  We hoist the sheet on that guy and crank it up to the ceiling and can maneuver it into place so that all we need to do is get the 'drill guns' (drills with Philips head on the end for the screws) and we are all set.

The drills are indispensable.

Pam and I have a Ryobi and Kawasaki drill.

I think Roger's is a Craftsman.  Though none are what I would consider to be construction 'name brands'
they seem to be doing the job well.  We keep one battery charged while we use the other and have had no problems.

Another tool we use is our beloved tool belts.  In mine today I have sheet rock screws, a quik square, a tape measure, band aids, screw drivers, a putting knife, pencils, a utility/razor knife, and gloves.

My work gloves keep me from busting up my fingers.  After the second time I tried to drill my finger, I decided it was time to try the gloves.  My bloodied and bruised finger is much happier.

Knee pads ~ very useful for as much time we have been spending putting the screws in the bottom part of walls.  And we usually are on the ground cutting pieces to fit in lots of places.

And the ladders.  We couldn't do this with out lots of ladders.  I prefer the shorter one which works great.  We climb up the ladder, find the studs (most of the time) and screw in the top of the wallboards.  Good exercise.

In fact, we find ourselves getting stronger and stronger.  That is not to say that we are not tired and sore each day, but it is good exercise and we are enjoying it.

Working of the sheet rock has been good  and we estimate another week before we will start the mudding.  My goal every day is to get a little better and these tasks and learn something new.

And we love learning how to use different tools.  Next week no doubt we will expand our skill list on that.

Thanks for joining us today on the Roadrunner Chronicles!  Hope you have had a great week.