Exploring Fredericksburg Area

Today was a gorgeous day and it was our day to explore some of the “Hill Country” surrounding Fredericksburg (Tx.). Why not make the first stop the Sister Creek Winery in Sisterdale, population 25. The trip would take us 25 miles through the rolling hills southeast of Fredericksburg. Turns out this little winery is in the 1882 Sisterdale Cotton Gin, a place showing evidence of it's age but still a great spot for producing some good wines. Since it was a Monday the tasters were scarce at the wineries. Nice for us. Sometimes we learn interesting facts just talking with locals and this was one of those times. The wine merchant mentioned that in the little town of Comfort, Texas, about 10 miles away, there stands the only monument to Civil War Union soldiers in the south.

Sounded like somewhere to go - just to see for ourselves. The monument honors a group of German immigrant settlers who because of their decidedly anti-slavery views were determined to join the Union army. They were on their way east when massacred at the Neuces River in Mexico by Confederate sympathizers who pursued them across the border. After the war a group of their friends and family brought their bones back to Comfort and erected this monument to them. Hence, here stands the only monument in the south to Union soldiers.

Comfort is a pleasant town that suffered the same fate as many whose railroad business dried up in the 1900s. But wait just a minute, now there are Bed & Breakfasts and antique stores and quaint cafes recovering some of the life of the old place. We enjoyed our few hours there reading about the historic sites and having lunch at Cathy's Hen House, near the Comfort Hatchery.

Traveling the countryside today we saw some beautiful scenery and a part of that is the ranches indicative to Texas. Most of them have an elaborate gate with a stone wall or towers marking the road onto the property. But this one seemed so imaginative, a fence of drift wood and a lovely tin vulture perched ready to take on anything weaker.

Gave us a chuckle.

Tomorrow we'll pull out of this area and find other places down the road to explore. See you later.

A Great Museum

We arrived in Fredericksburg, Texas, yesterday afternoon and found our spot at Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park south of town - a decent place to spend a few days seeing the Hill Country

This morning we decided to first stop in town to gather some more information on the wineries in the area and check out what we remembered as the Admiral Nimitz WWII Museum that we missed on our visit a few years ago. We were curious about the famous Admiral Nimitz who was born and raised in this little town in the early 1900s. As sometimes happens we learned this place was more than we thought. The museum is the National Museum of the Pacific War, including a Nimitz museum and much more concerning WWII in the Pacific. There are many extensive displays of memorabilia, some of it personal items donated by veterans' families. One of the most striking exhibits to me was toward the very end. There was this flag, a bit tattered, that would maybe be similar to many old flags that you see displayed in historical exhibits. But then we read the explanation of this one tacked to the front of the plexiglass holding this old specimen. It told the story of this 48 star flag made by POW Paul Spain and two other inmates while prisoners of the Japanese. Just before his unit surrendered he and other prisoners destroyed their flag to save it from being captured and burned. Somehow they tore the flag apart and saved the stars for 3 and 1/2 years of captivity. Waiting for their liberators to rescue them, Spain and his fellow prisoners managed to use a nail in an old sewing machine to construct a U. S. flag using these saved stars and the remnants of U. S. parachutes that dropped supplies to them in their POW camp. This was one of many stories told in the museum.

Granger Lake - A Nice Spot

We're meandering our way from Livingston to Fredericksburg, Texas over a couple of days. Tonight's location is a favorite Corps of Engineers Park near Taylor, Texas, - Wilson Fox Park on Granger Lake. It's a nice spot to stopover, just northeast of Taylor off State Highway 95 and FM1331. Preferring to take state highways, especially avoiding Houston all-together, the park is on our favorite route through middle Texas. If you are eligible for the Golden Age Pass, this park is well worth the $7-9 fee. Here's an example of one of the sites, empty tonight but, just waiting for the weekenders who have reserved it. There are also these unique little screened shelters on some of the sites with tables and a sink inside - great for a family. There are just a few of us in the park tonight. I'm sure that changes on Fridays when, surely, there are fishermen and families everywhere.

Today is also a test day for us with our new Verizon air card. Usually when we have a one night stop in a park such as this we don't have the internet. It's too short a time to make it worth setting up our Direcway satellite dish and there's no free wifi available. But tonight is a new scenario for us! This blog posting is our first using our new air card system. So far we are doing well. There is a glitch with one of our computer's wireless adapter's communicating with the router. But the air card is working great tonight and we expect increased usage due to the convenience. Just makes us slightly closer to our goal of simplifying our lives for more travel.

Tomorrow we'll roll along into Texas Hill Country, avoiding interstates and seeking out new scenery.

Shakin' it up in Texas

You know the saying: "Everything's bigger in Texas." Take a look at this big guy! We encountered this lovely creature at the Xtreme Paint and Graphics Company in Nacogdoches, TX, while we were there having Ferd , the motorhome, repaired. In Texas they call these humongous spiders "shakers." This one measured about six inches, end to end. When you get anywhere near them you discover that the name is very appropriate as he/she starts the entire web moving vigorously.

Besides learning about spiders, we've had an interesting and pleasant time during the past few days while getting Ferd's repairs done. We came to Xtreme Graphics on a recommendation and expected this time to be the usual painful, or at the very least, boring but necessary experience. But it was anything but painful due to the company owners, James and Jennifer Stallings, and their staff.

Here James and Jennifer stopped for a second to smile for us and you can catch a glimpse of some of their products on the wall behind them.

We can't say enough about the quality of the work done on our motorhome and the attitude of everyone involved. It was fun getting to know these folks and we would strongly recommend them to any of our rving friends who might have need of some exterior changes or a complete new face for your rig. They can transform an old, drab, exterior into a one-of-a-kind showpiece. Unfortunately, we weren't in the line for one of their complete makeovers, but our rig still got expert care.

We snapped this photo of the young man who did our great fiberglass work, Rance. He had a patient and smiling attitude with every one of our questions and did a fantastic job making Ferd all better.

(Don't have a before photo but the right front was torn up and the door hinge had to be straightened. And then there were scratches down the side.)

We were able to incorporate a few paint changes in our work and are pleased with our new striping, well done by Socko, an expert painter. Some of you will remember that we had these awful pink stripes all the way around the rig through the middle of the basement storage doors, along with a big "unicoach" lettering on one side. Well here's Ferd after Xtreme Graphics did their magic on replacing that....

And we had the front striping and headlights cleaned up, too. Our time was well spent.

We drooled over some of the creations rolling out of the Extreme Graphics big barns and had a great time hanging out with these people. Here's an example of the personalized paint job and new front headlights of one customer. Ain't it pretty?

Traveling Again

Thanks so much to our family and friends in Indianapolis for the good visits over the past few months!!! We both feel so fortunate to have such a good bunch of folks in our lives. Among those special people, of course, are our children and family members. It was difficult but we managed to talk them into sitting still for this photo the night before we hit the road again. We love you guys!

About ten days ago we pulled out of Indy, heading southwest to an appointment in Nacogdoches at Motorhomes of Texas. Good old Ferd had several aches and pains to find remedies for and we were lucky to get into MOT's busy schedule with the many Foretravel owners converging on central Texas for a national convention. What a nice experience! We spent two days parked at the service center and were very impressed with the quality and courtesy of this company. Now we are in a waiting mode again before we can have the body work done from our little skirmish with a bridge. Hopefully we will have all these chores behind us by the end of October. We are really looking forward to just doing our thing for a while......wherever and whenever...

Meanwhile, during our little break here in Livingston, Texas, Jerry decided to make another change and shaved his mustache. I was pretty surprised and can't decide yet if I like the change or not. Let's take a little survey. What do you all think?????

Southern Indiana Wanderings

Recently we traveled to southern Indiana's rolling hills, to Dubois County, an area with an abundance of German heritage, rich with farmlands, wood products and offering many a sportsman the perfect fishing or hunting opportunity. We had interests in satisfying more than one taste on this trip, among them were the scenery, the history and our taste buds. The small towns of Dubois County, specifically Ferdinand, Jasper and Huntingburg hold connections to Jerry's maternal ancestors, who came in the 1830s and 40s, plus we had information on some great places to eat. We found a lovely spot to park "Ferd" at the Glendale Fish and Wildlife Recreation Area at Dogwood Lake. Each evening the fish cleaning hut was packed with the anglers busily preparing their catch of the day for their families waiting at the campground.


One of our objectives for this visit was to have some highly recommended German food at the Schnitzelbank Restaurant in Jasper, a feast we thoroughly enjoyed. It was worth it to destroy our diet for the yummy Knackwurst, Weiner schnitzel and dumplings. We had to take the leftover potato pancake and sauerkraut home with us, of course.























Taking our usual look around the small town for the local spots, we came across the Dubois County Museum in Jasper. (2704 North Newton Street.) It was wonderful find! This is a museum that shouldn't be missed if you are traveling in southern Indiana. The displays are so well-documented and explanatory, overflowing with artifacts that provide examples to spark your imagination. Very quickly we found ourselves planning to come back to be sure we hadn't missed something. There were friendly and knowledgeable volunteers that kicked off our visit with information on the hows, whys, and whens of the community. The early settlers walked the Buffalo Trace from the Ohio River west to discover this county's bountiful forests and farmland. (Interesting fact: The settlers knew that the buffalo's trail was the best ground to follow because their hooves were so small that they had to find the most solid ground in order to not sink.)
It isn't difficult to imagine the attraction of the German immigrants to this area with its rolling hills and forest, similar to their native country. Dubois means "of the Woods", a name appropriate for the area said to be the Nation's Wood Capitol. Many will recognize the Jasper Desk Company name or maybe your family has an example of this well known furniture. This museum contains many curious pieces of the early craftsmen's tools. The antique farming implements and sawmill equipment also tell the story of the people who made a life here.

As Jerry was scouring the Civil War memorabilia and many other local historical items, I was compelled by the display on immigration. Here was the construction of the bunk as it would have been on a passenger ship carrying immigrants on their journey across the sea (see photo). Think of spending around six weeks with only this tiny space and with 2 or 3 hundred other passengers, sharing one water faucet to wash dishes or whatever. Look closely at the photo and you'll see items on the bunk, such as wooden shoes and a rat that poses among the belongings.

As we were soaking up the exhibits we noticed a young man taking photos with a camera much more sophisticated than my little pocket-sized 4mp digital Nikon. Soon we were talking to him about the antique wagons and wood-working tools. He then introduced himself as a photo journalist and asked if we would be receptive to him walking through the museum with us and taking photos for a piece in the Jasper Herald newspaper. Why not?!

In this photo Jerry and the "chief photographer for The Herald," David Pierini, share some historical perspectives amidst the forestry equipment in the museum. Of course we had to ask about this young man's background and why and how he was in Jasper. It turns out he is from Detroit and was drawn to Jasper ten years ago for a job with this particular newspaper due to its reputation for promoting photojournalism. He seemed satisfied and embedded in the community. It was nice to add another perspective to not only the museum itself, but to our experience in this little corner of the world. What better than to share a few spaces in time with a local journalist who has adopted this town as his home.

These few days in the hills of southern Indiana were another enjoyable episode in our journey-on-wheels. Seems as though no matter where we choose to spend our time there are interesting and exciting people and places.

Revisiting, Renewing and Relishing

For the past six days we've been renewing relationships and reminiscing with Jerry's Begley clan, his maternal cousins who came to Indianapolis from California, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Texas. Four of the five aunts and the one uncle's families are represented by these jovial and attractive people pictured here. It's been a blast listening, laughing and just being there! After the first few minutes of handshakes, reintroductions and hugs, the stories started flowing. Do you wonder what tales are being told by these three guys? They seem to have onlookers from the painting listening and questioning their full truthfulness, don't they?






Due to the generosity of Cousin Jeff we had a very nice place where the fifteen cousins and spouses could gather to share memories, tell favorite jokes and have fabulously-hosted meals. I got Jeff to stop hosting for just a second to pose with cousin Jacque, who also was a great organizer and shared many of the cherished old photos of Begley grandparents, etc.



For example, here's William F. Begley, everyone's grandfather,
who with Emma Lillian Hollingsworth Begley, is responsible for this group of very interesting cousins.

Some of the remembrances made us all laugh out loud and others brought a slight bit of silence to the group. Whether it was about how Aunt Mildred's wonderful "hunky peppers" made her brother and sisters cry as they begged for more; Aunt Mary Eleanor's deathbed comment to her son Bob, "Don't you think you're old enough now not to be so rotten;" Aunt Dorothy's helping hand to her nieces and nephews, or each person's contrasting recall of their grandparents' personalities; this memory-sharing escapade surely had to be thought-provoking in some way for each relative present. Some of us assembled a family history book for the group and others searched their photo archives for snapshots of the past that jogged more memories.

And then to top it all off we created the "Begley Caravan" as we followed each other in our cars visiting the former Indianapolis homes of grandparents and cousins, the high schools of parents and cousins,
and the firehouse that ties together a cousin and two uncles' histories. It seems to me that, through their open minds and hearts, this group that gathered from near and far to the former home of all in Indiana created another festive memory to add to the annals of their family scrapbooks.

9/11 A Day We Will Always Remember

Just a few thoughts on this day for remembrances: No matter where we were on this day six years ago, all Americans will always remember how we felt when the planes hit the towers, went into the Pentagon and went down in that field in Pennsylvania. There are many viewpoints about the resulting actions of our leaders, but I believe we do all agree that our lives changed that day directly due to the evil actions of these murderers. And, also, we will never forget those who perished. Our lives go on but their's were ceased unfairly. For Jerry and I Sept. 11 was a day we wished we could instantly travel thousands of miles to be near our family. We were traveling in Ireland. However, our experiences in that country are a lasting memory that we will always feel thankful for. The Irish people reached out to us to offer condolences and give us support. It was quite a week we spent before it was clear to fly back to the U.S. It was great to be back home. So I guess this brings me back around to being appreciative of the life we are living.

On another note, plans are underway for us to get back on the road in good ole Ferd soon. After Jerry's cousins reunion this week, we'll be rolling along to points south and west. The list of possible stops for the next six or eight months is getting longer, first Nacogdoches, Texas, the Hill Country in Texas, then maybe Tulsa or Bartlesville, OK, and who knows..... Roswell, Socorro, Ruidoso, NM.... Congress, Goodyear, Quartzsite, AZ.... Anze Borrego, CA.......Ely, Carson City, NV...... and places beyond. For now we are still enjoying our vantage point here in Fishers, Indiana. Today especially, it's an absolutely beautiful day, sunny and 70s.

Labor Day Update

Hope everyone is enjoying the last big blast of the summer on this Labor Day Weekend. Jerry celebrated his 65th yesterday, not something he especially was thrilled to record.

Here he is a few years back. Could you tell what his future occupation might be??





It was a good day with good people and we are so thankful for all of them.
His wonderful grandaughter, Caroline, told him she couldn't believe he was 65 because he did so many things and acted much younger.

Aren't grandchildren wonderful!




What better to do for your birthday than reminisce about some of the old days and laugh at our newest stories. There was a lot of that going on. And, of course, we had a cookout with lots of great food, including delicious German potato salad that my daughter Krissy made especially for Jer's birthday.




We also had a great time last week attending the Mount Comfort Air Show, east of Indianapolis. Watching these dare devils twist, turn and dive in ways that tempts fate is a real thrill.




And there's really a special description deserved for the performance of the Blue Angels. The skill and power of it all is very exciting.
Wow! What a roar in the belly!



Some of us took in the many interesting aircraft exhibits. Here Jerry enjoyed touring with grandson Ben, daughter Jenny and friend Lance.

A highlight of the airshow was that we had a perfect vantage point at our friend Tim's hangar. He was a great host, serving up various grilled delicacies and liquid refreshment all day long. Here is Tim on the right, with old friends, Tim Hurley in the middle and Dave Shinn on the left. These guys have a lot of history and epitomize what the term "good friends" means!

Summertime

Well this long hot summer is coming quickly to its simmering end here in Indiana. The past few weeks have set some records for heat index. But we've managed to stay cool through all kinds of activities. One of the highlights of our visits is playing with our "grand dogs." Here's one of them, Rio, who is absolutely devoted to retrieving anything you throw for her. She's intensely watching her "Gramps" for any twitch of his body that may indicate the ball will be going airborne.

Our trip to the Allen County Genealogical Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a couple of weeks ago was a great time. If any of you are interested in genealogy, this is a fantastic place to visit, with a huge selection of references, records and data. For those who aren't genies, it's a fully functional, new and impressive library in a nice town. There's a friendly, helpful atmosphere throughout. We spent a few days digging up some old bones and enjoying our spot at the Johnny Appleseed Campground. Do you know about John?
Wikipedia says:
Johnny Appleseed, born John Chapman (September 26, 1774–March 18, 1845), was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced the apple to large parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. He became an American legend while still alive, largely because of his kind and generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and also because of the symbolic importance of apples.
Well some friendly folk at this campground pointed out that Johnny is buried just up the hill so we had to go find his gravesite.




While at our home in the Johnny Appleseed Campground, we made some new friends who invited us to their sing-along night. It was a blast! You just never know who you'll meet out on the road. We are thinking that these will be some of our most cherished friends in the coming years. Whadya think?


And what better to complete the summer than a visit to the State Fair?! A few days ago I had a great time taking in the animals and eating everything fried with my daughter, Krissy. We had just enough time to watch the Percheron horse shows, see the worldest largest sow and the state champion piglets, peruse the photography, art and crafts building, sample the fair food-contest-winning Cajun Corn Dogs. Then for the perfect ending to the day, we had to get an elephant ear to go.