Posting to the Blog

Home ownership means responsibility.  We're home, but it's not like we're sitting in our easy chairs waiting for the next contract to start.  Praise the Lord we have wonderful, magnificent chores to do!

During our absence our kids have visited our home and left it as clean as a whistle.  But there's oh, so much more to our home.  There have been storms and trees are down in our "forest."  (We call it a forest, but in Texas it really is just a stand of trees on the land.)  There are flower beds that could use a little attention, acres to mow, the round-pen I work the horses in either has to have a complete makeover or be totally taken down, there is some touch-up painting that could be done on the outside of the house, and because we have a log home, there are logs to wash. 

Yup, I said wash the logs.  You can't power-wash the logs because you'd eventually eat away at the log itself.  These babies need to be hand washed.  Because we have wrap-around porches all the way around the logs are protected from the sun and wind and rain.  Because there is no rain on the logs they tend to get pretty dusty.  So, over the next couple of days I will be bathing the outside of our home.  It's not as bad as it sounds, but I do with I was taller than my 5' 2" ...  The walls are 10 feet tall, which means I'm up and down a ladder 40 million times.  But it's our home, so it's totally okay!

All of that to say that my posts to the blog may be a bit sporadic over the next two weeks.  Then we're on to Arizona for the new contract, and our son and his family will be here in their home to look after the day to day business of home ownership.  God bless our sons and their families!!  We couldn't travel without their love and support!  They are all so very good to us!

Hang in there, readers, we will return to the regularly scheduled postings very soon!  And I do hope you enjoy reading about our travels.  Very, very few ever "comment," but thousands of you keep reading, so I must be doin' okay "talking story."  Thanks for your patience.

Shuffle Off to Buffalo (Texas)

Tomorrow Granpa and I are going to shuffle off to Buffalo (Texas) to meet our Hawaiian friends for lunch.  Buffalo is kinda in Central Texas in Leon County and was established in 1872 on the International Great Railroad Line.  The city was named for the herds of buffalo (American Bison) that once roamed the area.  By 1892 the town had a population of about 500, and during the 1890's just about every business and church that a Texas community could wish to have had been established in Buffalo.

Not much has happened in Buffalo, Texas except for a plane crash in 1959 that killed a couple of dozen folks, and the city changing it's name to "Blue Star," Texas for a short while in 1993 and again in 1994 when the Dallas Cowboys went up against the Buffalo Bills in those two Super Bowl years.  (The Cowboys' logo is a blue star.)  Then the Dallas Stars went up against the Buffalo Sabers during the Stanley Cup in 1999, and the city changed its name again to "Green Star," Texas for a bit.  The Bills and the Sabers are both based in Buffalo, New York.

Oh, yeah, Buffalo, Texas is also home to "Slayer" bassist/vocalist Tom Araya.


There is also a place in Texas named Buffalo City that was established by John H. Reagan - but that's in Henderson County in east Texas.

Now, why, might you ask, were towns in such far-away-from-each-other-places as New York and Texas both named for buffalo?  That's pretty easy to answer:  before the Europeans came the American Bison roamed nearly the entire North American continent from Canada to Mexico and from the Rockies to the Appalachians.  They roamed in many distinct herds, but roam they did - by the millions.  The only reason the Europeans slaughtered them is because the Native Americans quite literally couldn't live without them.  To control the Indians the white man thought they had to destroy their food source.  The Indians, indeed, couldn't adapt and were conquered.  'Tis a bummer, too, because bison meat is higher in protein and lower in fat content that a cow. 

But Buffalo, Texas is a pretty good half-way point between our Hawaiian friends new home in central Texas and our home in east Texas.  So it's off to Buffalo we go!

Paperwork

Being a medical traveler requires a LOT of paperwork.  Think if you changed jobs every 13 weeks (give or take) how much paperwork you'd have to complete.  Well, that's what's required.  Now, I type about 93 wpm (words per minute); Granpa types about 20.  Guess who gets to fill in all of the blanks and guess who just has to sign at the bottom of the page.  Yuppers.  I type; he signs.  Skill related, financial related, health related, HIPPA, happa, and a hoppa.  It all has to be done, done and re-done.  Over and over and over.  Used to all that was needed is to submit a resume.  Now we have to submit everything but the kitchen sink!

It's okay by me.  I have everything saved to a single file, and uploading is a cinch.  Even if I'm not allowed to upload all the info, I pull it up on one side of the screen with the form that needs to be completed on the other side, and I just type away.  I simply canNOT image what it must be like for someone who's not a fast typist or computer savvy!

And so, I have been doing my Director of Operations thing and working on getting into compliance with this stuff.  If the government IS spying on all of us, it must be a real challenge to keep tabs on Granps and I.  I love it!

Finding a Home in Kingman, Arizona

When we have a new contract I use several methods to find housing.  This time I first tried VRBO.com.  That's Vacation Rentals By Owner.  Bingo!  Just the ticket - if the owner will work with our long-term stay.

You can see what I found by clicking on this link:  http://www.vrbo.com/430366.  Scroll down to get the details.

Yes.  Yes, I see that they will do long-term rents... Wow!  This even gives access to a swimming pool and tennis court!  We're right on the golf course, too.  (I tell Granpa that, and he immediately switches the TV to a channel showing a golf tournament!  He played golf in college.  That was so long ago I think he almost forgot it ever happened!)

Air-conditioned, heated, washer, dryer, dishwasher, microwave, patio grill, 3-bedroom, 2 full baths, 2-car garage, flat-screen TV, fully furnished including pots and pans and linens...

Hmm.  No cable or satellite connection - but there is wireless internet.  Books, DVD collection.

Yuppers.  I think this will be more than adequate!  We are all set!  I truly can just sit back and enjoy our Texas home for a couple of weeks.  Praise the Lord!!

End of Contract?

Friday is the end of Granpa's contract.  We've been preparing for that by very carefully planning meals so as to end up with as little refrigerated food  and as few non-perishable foods as possible.  We've gotten pretty good at that.  As I did laundry last week, rather than hang up the clothes I folded them for quick and easy packing.  We began yesterday making a couple of "leave in Texas" totes because we do tend to accumulate things...

About 10 a.m., Granpa calls to say - shock! - that the hospital wants this day, Monday, to be his last day.  Wow.  Talk about good news, bad news!  The ramifications of that jewel of information are pretty extensive.  First and foremost, we don't work for the hospital.  Granpa's contract is with the agency, and if Granpa doesn't get paid, the agency doesn't get paid.  We need to call our recruiter.

While half my brain is dialing her, the other half is trashing all of our careful planning and drawing up a new battle plan:  what to do with a week's worth of food we won't have time to eat, packing in one day what should have been easy over the next five days, telling our landlord we're going to short her a week's rent, oh, and there's that pair of new eyeglasses that's not due in until Thursday...  Well, first things first.  What's the agency going to think of this.

Our recruiter has been on vacation, and today is her first day back.  I hate to ruin her first day back, but, hey, we're grownups.  She surprises me by saying that we are the third travelers to call with basically the same information.  It's been so long since a facility has wanted to end a contract early that she can't even remember how to accomplish the paperwork much less allow it to happen.

Now a third of my mind goes to wondering what politics create this anomaly.  (My daddy was an inventor.  He told me to never look at a problem for one angle.  Walk around the problem, pick it up, turn it over, try to look at the inside and the outside, figure out the why's and wherefore's, look for what to do - and then look for the unintended consequences of doing each action.)  Why politics?  Because several facilities in several different states simultaneously want to cut costs.  What else besides politics (Obamacare maybe?) could cause that?

The recruiter has to get her account manager to reach out to human resources at our facility who will call the department head who will tap Granpa's supervisor on the shoulder and ask what's up.  Then information will reverse up that chain and back to us.  In the meantime, I'm reassessing our household.

Within the hour Granpa calls to say they have realized breaking the contract isn't as easy as they might have supposed - so they're just gonna bend it a bit.  Granpa is to stay home Tuesday and Wednesday (officially known as being "called off by facility"), but work Thursday and Friday.  Bummer.  No pay for two days.  Ha!  But Granpa gets to help me pack!  There's always a sliver lining if one chooses to look for it!

Beyond Friday?  Well, agencies have submitted Granpa's resume to facilities in New York, West Virginia, Kansas, and "the mid-west."  Beyond that, our Disaster Relief team is headed to Colorado Springs to feed the firefighters battling a wildfire out there.  If timing works out, we may deploy to Colorado Springs!  Ya' just never know where we might turn up next, but "home" would be a really good place to start...

Kingman, Arizona

Just prior to the Civil War, in 1857, Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale was ordered by the War Department to take his Corps of Topographical Engineer position and survey and build a federal wagon road across the west on the 35^th Parallel.  One day in the future this wagon road would become the famous Route 66!

At the heart of this road, in 1882, the town of Kingman was founded in the Arizona Territory.   It’s in the Hualapai Valley between two mountain ranges: the Cerbat and Hualapai.  The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad had a siding near there, and the town was named for Lewis Kingman who was a surveyor for the railroad.

Now Kingman will be the location of our newest contract beginning August 5^th!  Granpa starts Monday through Friday for two weeks.  After that, he will be working three 12-hour days.  That will give us 4-day "weekends"!  Lots of time to explore the ghost towns in the area, zip up to the Grand Canyon, and - uh-oh!  Vegas is only an hour and a half away...  Prayer.  Prayer would be good.

Yet Again - - - Home!

We are back in our little log cabin in Texas - for two weeks...  We were greeted at the corner of our land by the remnant of our flock of Guinea hens.  They stood by the side of the road long enough for me to snap a picture:

 

And when we got down to the other end of the land we smell the welcoming fragrance of wood smoke.  Then up the drive to our front door!  There lies one of our many cats, ol' Bootsy girl.  And here comes one of our grandsons to help unload things - oh, my!  He has a beard!  Mercy, it's good to be home!!

Our sons have left the place immaculate and laid in fresh staples like bacon, eggs from the flock and bread.  All we have to do is unload the van and settle into our personal recliners - from which I may not get up from for the whole two weeks!

Mount Mitchell State Park - The Highest Point East of the Misssissippi River

On our way home from Chimney Rock State Park in North Carolina, we moseyed up the Blue Ridge Parkway.  (See our post http://thetravelerstwo.blogspot.com/2013/07/flowers-of-blue-ridge.html.) This 469-mile roadway was built by several "alphabet agencies" beginning in the Franklin Roosevelt administration: the CCC (Civilian Conservatin Corps), the WPA (Works Progress Administration), the ERA (Emergency Relief Administration), and the CPS (Civilian Public Service - made up of World War II conscientious objectors).

The Parkway literally runs across the top of the mountains from the Great Smoky Mountains, thru the Blue Ridge Mountains, up to Shenandoah Valley and the beginning of Skyline Drive.  The views are wonderful.

Remember, there are almost 500 miles of these views - each spectacular in it's own way.

It is also possible to hike the Parkway and Skyline Drive.  Some folks have been known to toss a backpack on and spend a whole summer hiking from one end to the other.   Other folks just make a day of it.  Hiking it allows you to get up close and personal to sights you can't see from the road:

This is Glassmine Falls.  It is found at an elevation of 5,200 feet, and the waterfall itself is over 800 feet high!

But the highest point along the Parkway, and the highest point in America east of the Mississippi River, is the 6,578 foot peak of the Black Mountains.  Go back to the first picture.  You can see rows and rows of peaks - there are numerous different mountain ranges separating the eastern seaboard from the interior plains of America.  Geologists say that more than a billion years ago, the Black Mountains were as high as the Himalayas.  Time has worn them down (just like it's worn me down - I think I've lost an inch, and I didn't have an inch to lose!)  Even so, six of these peaks are among the ten highest in the eastern U.S.  It's because of those elevations that the flora and fauna here is more like Canada than the rest of the middle-eastern seaboard.

And here at the top of the world we find a grave!  This is the final resting place of Dr. Elisha Mitchell, the science professor who was first to measure the mountain.  In 1835, he calculated the highest peak to be 6,476 feet high.  He re-calculated it in 1844 and came in at 6,672 feet - just 12 feet off of what today's most precise instruments have come up with.  So they named the park after him, and eventually he was buried here.  That's pretty cool.  Better than the pig pen on the back of our land in Texas that I want to be buried in!

Tobacco Plant

Friday Granpa went out and took pictures of the beautiful flowers atop the tobacco plants.  

  

That was a really good idea, because on Saturday they came along and cut off all of their heads!

  

Before:

After

I wonder if they were harvesting tobacco seeds? or extending the growing life (and therefore the number of leaves to dry and sell to manufacturers)?  or both?

To read more about the tobacco plant, check out one of our earlier posts:  http://thetravelerstwo.blogspot.com/2011/10/huron-indian-myth.html

Flowers of the Blue Ridge

Yup, the flowers of the Blue Ridge have been around for a long, long time.

Tom Landry

One of our sons got this genuine official Tom Landry hat for Granpa.  He likes it so much I thought he was gonna sleep in it that night.

Tom Landry was an awesome man, and Granpa has always admired him.  He was a football player and a Pro Football Hall of Fame coach of the Dallas Cowboys.

Landry was born in Mission, Texas in 1924.  Mission is over 500 miles from Dallas, about as far south as you can go in Texas and right on the border with Mexico.  He served in World War II as a B-17 bomber pilot with the United States Army Air Corps.  He flew 30 missions out of England including one that crash landed in Belgium when they ran out of fuel.  When he returned to Texas he finished his interrupted college years.

Tom Landry was a Methodist Sunday school teacher who would not even skip out early on game day.  He would get to the field with only minutes to spare when the Cowboys played in Dallas and had a noon kickoff.  Landry was a quiet man, calm in any storm.  He was active in the FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes), and a friend of Reverend Billy Graham, the humble yet larger than life evangelist, who had Landry speak at many of his crusades.  Landry was even featured in a comic book in 1973 promoting Christianity.

Some people think Christians are weak and need to lean on someone or something.  I think Landry proves that there is no truth to that misconception.


Landry's first year as a pro-football player in 1949, was with - of all teams! - the New York Yankees of the All-American Football Conference. (What's a Texan doin' playin' with those Yankees?  Ah!  Texas didn't get it's first pro-football franchise until 1952.)  From 1950 to 1955 he played professional football with the New York Giants.  In 1954, he played AND was a defensive coach for the Giants.  His on-field career ended in 1955, but he stayed on as a coach for another season.  Guess who the offensive coach was at the time... Vince Lombardi.  That's pretty cool.

In 1960 he was appointed as the very first head coach the Dallas Cowboys ever had.  He was pretty good at it, too, taking the Cowboys to - are you ready?  are you sitting down?  not just 20 winning season, but 20 winning seasons in a row (1966 - 1985),  including 13 division titles, 5 NFC titles, and 18 playoff berths!  He also, through his amazing coaching, took them to multiple championship games and five Super Bowls.  He was named NFL Coach of the Year in 1966 and NFC Coach of the Year in 1972.  And you wonder why Granpa admires him...

Only George Halas and Don Shula have more career victories than Landry ( he compiled a 270-178-6 record), and nobody tops his mark of 20 playoff wins in a row.  Landry also mentored two future coaches:  Super Bowl head coaches Dan Reeves and Mike Ditka began their coaching careers on Landry's staff in Dallas.  To be a Super Bowl coach you have to be an "innovator, motivator, tactician, and teacher."  Or so says ESPN, and Landry was certainly all of those things.  Tom Landry died in February, 2000, at the age of 75.

I think all of these things are the reasons Granpa is and always will be a Dallas Cowboys fan, in remembrance of Tom Landry.  I'm certain that when Landry got to heaven the Lord said, "Well done, My good and faithful servant."  (I think He'll say the same to Granpa, too.)

I Love Lucy

I'm so glad that there was an "I Love Lucy" show because there are so many times in my life that I've had those "I Love Lucy" moments.

The most recent was last week.  I had to have a few days to put it all in perspective because, you see, it was a Granpa-induced event...

We drive a van that has what I call wing-windows at the very back.  The way far back.  So far back that you almost have to open the hatch to get to them.  Granpa likes to open those wings up to improve the flow of fresh air.  He never tells me that he's done that, and he usually forgets to close them.

Last Monday, after our trip to Chimney Rock, I decide to fill up the gas tank and run the van through the car wash.  Mmm-hmm.  You guessed what happened next, but let me play it out for you.

When you pull into the bay, a sign lights up telling you it's time to stop and put the car in neutral.  This is when I usually start cleaning the steering wheel and dashboard, etc. with my handy-dandy baby wipes that no car should be without.

The mechanism that sprays water and moves itself around the car kicks on, and high pressure water begins to bombard the car.  I'm scrubbing away when I think I feel water coming at me from somewhere.  Granpa also has a tendency to lower all windows just a tad during the summertime because it can get so hot in Texas that if you don't, the windows may break.  (Our son sent me an iPhone photo yesterday of the reading on his digital thermometer that he had pointed at the ground on our lil' hobby farm back home: 157.  The weatherman only tells you the ambient air temperature not the ground temperature...)  So, guessing that's where the water came from, I hit the electric window buttons to make certain all windows are up tight.

I go back to my cleaning; the high pressure spray is now putting out soapy water.  Suddenly I'm being hit with globs of soap!  What in heavens name?  I twist in my seat and realize that Granpa has done the wing-window thing again!  Good grief!  I can't get out of the car, open the hatch and close the windows while that thing is moving around the car, not to mention the tons of water spraying everywhere.  If those windows are going to get closed it's going to have to be from the inside.

I shut down the engine (because I can just see me hitting the gear shift when I try to climb over the console and through the front seats...), unbuckle the seat belt, shove the seat all the way back, and try desperately to twist my enormous ol' buttinsky out from under the steering wheel and over the console.  I essentially fall headfirst through the two front seats onto the back floorboard, all the while trying not to think of what the guy monitoring the security cam for the car wash is seeing.

As I raise up, my head smacks the clothes rod that our hanging clothes go on when traveling.  It falls, and as I try to step to the back of the van, I trip over it landing in a heap on the back seat.  Just then the rinse cycle of water sprays in under high pressure from both wing-windows, and I'm drenched - as is the whole interior of the van.  The cup holders now have a half-inch of water in them...

I know that what comes next is the wax, and I must get those windows shut before that stuff gets all over the upholstery!  The problem is, I never can get that silly latch to un-latch so that the window can close, and this time it's covered in slippery soapy water!  It's a race against time, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna lose.  Granpa is in SO much trouble!!

I clamber back to the front of the van to grab the roll of paper towels we keep under the console, then back to the windows.  How does this latch work!?  Truthfully, I still don't know, but somehow I manage to dry it off enough to get a grip, release one and close it, but by the time I get to the next one - whoosh! in comes the rainbow colors of the foaming wax right in my face!  He's gonna pay.  Granpa is gonna pay, and pay, and pay for this one!

More paper towels to wipe my face enough to see, close the window, try to get as much wax as possible off the upholstery, ceiling, side panels, and floor.  Then back to the front seat before the rinse cycle is done and the "go" light comes on.  My blouse catches on the arm rest, flipping it down so that my behind lands on it as I try to straddle the console and slip under the steering wheel.

The light goes green.  I have to start the engine!  Put it in gear, calm down, and inch forward (no easy task since I'd been on an adrenaline rush the last few minutes...) so that the monster blow dryer could dry the van on the outside.  I suppose it's up to me to dry it on the inside since Granpa doesn't get off of work for another eight hours!  Trouble.  The man is in trouble.

* * * * * * * *

I am so tempted to call him at work and give him a scolding as only wives can, but that's not something to do when he's at work.  Besides, I need a lil' distance from this event before discussing it with him.  I need a lil' perspective...

* * * * * * * *

About noon-ish my phone rings.  It's Granpa.  He very, very rarely calls me during the day.  I don't even remember what he called about, but I begin telling him about my morning.  I choose to give him the "I Love Lucy" version because, no matter how much trouble he's in, he doesn't need to get chewed out at work.  By the time I'm through he's laughing pretty good.  I calmly tell him how much trouble he's in.  I can still hear a big smile on his face - but he knows he's done a bad thing.

* * * * * * * * 

Throughout the evening, after each string of conversation, I end by saying, "Oh, by the way, I'm not talking to you."  After I say our bedtime prayer to the Lord out loud, I pause, and quietly say to Granpa, "I'm still not talking to you."  Granpa hugs me tight and kisses my ear.  "I know," he says, "I know."