Seeing Green

Its good to see green again! After over three months in the desert areas of CA, AZ, NM and TX we started to see green grass and trees as we traveled from Big Bend National Park to Del Rio, San Antonio, and Houston. In Baton Rouge, QT seemed to be saying, “I remember this!” as she stretched out in the green grass next to the motorhome.

Our current campsite near McComb MS is nearly void of campers and is still covered with the brown leaves of last Fall/Winter but open areas are green, there are pine and hardwood trees everywhere , and wildflowers are beginning to appear. We are enjoying watching the squirrels and a couple of large red-headed woodpeckers.

One of the ways we try to keep in touch with what's going on in the world is local TV. Near Del Rio our campsite was in Amistad National Recreation Area and we received 5 stations, surprisingly all in Spanish. In Baton Rouge we had our choice of over 20 stations but our favorite, CBS, would keep breaking up—of course that was the one with the basketball games on it. Here, near McComb MS we get three PBS channels and two of them are identical, but it does include an evening BBC news broadcast. In Benson AZ I had to go buy a TV cable as it was the first time we had ever stayed where cable TV was available. Usually we are staying in campgrounds rather than RV parks.

Jim & Ora Lee Kirkham served with us in Malaysia

For the first time on this trip we parked our motorhome in someone's driveway. Carefully maneuvering it to one side of the driveway we were able to put out the two slides, almost to the roof eaves on one side and overhanging into the neighbor's yard on the other. Thanks to Jim and Ora Lee Kirkham's hospitality we were able to add 5 nights of zero $ campsite fees to help us as we work toward an overall average of $10 per night. We had a great time together visiting the Houston Space Center, the Sea Center Texas, their Southern Baptist mega-church, and hours of catching up on each others lives since serving at Dalat School together many years ago.

Amber Marshall, former student at ICA, Cote d'Ivore

While in Houston we were able to spend a short-time with two former students. Both of them were also on basketball teams that I coached, Amber Marshall at International Christian Academy in Cote d'Ivoire and Steve Livingston at Dalat School in Malaysia. Amber lives North of Houston where she is studying to be a paramedic. Steve Livingston lives with his wife Becky in Houston. Steve is head of a Christian private school in Houston and Becky, also a former student at Dalat School, is a nurse.

Steve Livingson, former student at Dalat School, Malaysia

Some Interesting Campsites:

The Amistad National Recreation Area near Del Rio TX is a joint facility with Mexico. The large reservoir has a string of buoys that mark the international border between the two countries.

Happy Valley RV Park near San Antonio TX is a regular RV park with rates higher than we want to pay, I was surprised to see a paragraph from the management on the Internet stating that they had an area outside the park that one could stay overnight for free. It was true. The lady was friendly and helpful on the telephone, asked us to call just before we arrived, and was there to meet us and guide us to our place to park for the night.

The Farr Equestrian Park is part of the Baton Rouge park system. Its a huge area with a hundred or more electric/water hookups located just over a levee from the Mississippi River. Very reasonable price and only a handful of campers there. Immediately adjacent to the RV section is an indoor arena, outdoor exercise area, and grazing area. We thoroughly enjoyed watching the horses and riders just a few hundred feet from our campsite.