Camping and thoughts about family

Last week in Texas it was spring break. The campground was filled with many families. Yogi Bear campgrounds cater to kids. There are activities like tee shirt painting, hay rides, Yogi Bear visits and outdoor movies. There is also a waterpark with slides and a huge bucket that empties water onto all the screaming kids. It was crazy here. Kids all over the place. They were all having fun riding bikes, roasting marshmallows and fishing at the lake.

Our jobs were cleaning the bathhouses, security, pool duty and I worked in the snack bar one day. I also went around meeting people, especially those near our RV. There was a guy, Bob, who played his guitar for two nights. Most of the people around us were families.

The neat thing was that many were groups of families. I meet the families of two sisters. They invited me for a margarita. Yum. Across the street from us was a big group: three siblings with their families and Grandpa and Grandma. Each had their own RV parked next to each other. I loved watching Grandma pass around the new grand baby, who was about four months old. These families went to the pool together. The uncles took all the kids fishing and at the end of the day they had a great feast around the campfire. Laughing and drinking as the kids roasted hotdogs. A large group of related people tented together and had a big fire everynight.

These families are lucky. They have discovered a way to keep the family connected and bonded together. So camping is a great way to bring families together.

Many of us however, come from fractured families. The ones where someone doesn't talk to the other because some thing that happened 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. I come from one of those. It makes me sad to think how fractured my family is. Most of them seem like nice people. They all profess to be Christians, yet they can't follow the Golden Rule and certainly have no compassion for people who are different from themselves. Traditionally it was the variety of talents that made a family strong. People don't seem to care about that anymore. Too many view their families in terms of greed. I'm too poor to be around my brother's kids.

Many of you have the same story. So what we "black sheep" have done is created our own family. A family of dear friends. We watch the children grow and love them as our nieces and nephews. We watch each other get older. We probably could spend more time together, maybe we could all go camping...

I'm out in space at the Johnson Space Center NASA

One of the best places I have visited was the Johnson Space Center. You drive in on NASA Drive and see rockets. There is a model of the solar system in the parking lot with planets markers. Like Neptune was across the parking lot when we stood at Jupiter. I was again with 11 yr Camden and Grace and Lee. The main building had a shuttle display that you could go inside. There was so much to see. A movie on "What is it like to be an astronaut". Space suits worn by astronauts. Simulated shuttle crafts that you could try and land. I crashed every time! There was also a lunar rover that I crashed too! There was a life sized model of the mars rover hanging from the ceiling.

We walked into a full size space shuttle mock-up, seeing the flight panels and living quarters. It is easy to understand how cramped the area is.. we were fascinated by the toilet...where does it go???

We took a simulated space ride to some wild space port. Camden really liked that! The center was fun, interactive and educational. It is a great place to bring school kids, and there were several schools there.

The best part is the tram ride to the actual NASA part. It is in a restricted area and we had to go through security and get our pix taken. Once on the tram, we rode through the campus like facility.

The first building-building 32, is the mission control offices. We had to walk up 87 steps....to the 3 rd floor where the original Apollo mission mission command center was. I was looking at where history was made. Where Apollo 11 reported "The Eagle has landed" and Apollo 13 "Houston we have a problem". It was amazing.

Right below the Apollo command center, is the shuttle command center. Since the shuttle was still at the space station when we were there, we got to see, via TV monitor, the shuttle mission control.

The next building we went to housed the training facilities. This is were all astronauts and staff learn to work in space. They had the model of the observation pod that was just installed on the space center. Our guide explained some of the training the astronauts have, including living in space and learning to work the large arm/crane that is helping to build the space station. There was a bonus, we got to see the next group of astronauts in a training session. I wish I was younger, I would have so done this.

Our next scheduled stop was to see the over 800 pounds of lunar rocks and soil, unfortunately as we were turning the corner, the tram driveshaft broke..bang...and we stopped. We sat there until another tram came, of course I commented, "Houston, we have a problem" everyone laughed.

Once on the new tram, we went to the rocket building. there was "Little Joe" a test rocket, a Mercury rocket and the Saturn V rocket. Watching the rockets on TV does not give you an indication of how huge the rockets are. As we walked into the rocket building, every person said "Wow" in many languages.

The last part was driving past the Astronauts Memorial garden. A tree was planted for each courageous souls who ventured to space and was lost. As we stopped to reflect, the tour guide played a speech George W. Bush gave after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. It was a wonderful speech. (see Dad I can say something nice about Bush!)

A great day was topped off with a Mexican dinner..Thanks to Grace and Lee for taking me with them.

Houston Museum of Natural Science and Children's museum

HOUSTON MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCE

I met some wonderful people here. One couple is Grace and Lee. Their grandson, Camden, came to visit from NY state. They were going to visit some of the sights and I asked if I could go along. We all got Houston City Pass, which gave us 6 venues for $39, which was a deal.

Our first stop was the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Did you see the movie, "Night at the Museum"? This place really reminded me of it. There were huge Dinosaurs, stuffed tigers, little men talking to you, and a mummy. The museum also has a big butterfly room, and the Fabrege' collections was there too.

As you might expect, the museum has a big section of the museum devoted to geology and the oil industry. One display simulated going down an oil well and how they drill for oil. That was fun and noisy.

There was also an amazing mineral and gem collections with some wonderful examples of emerald, beryls, rhodochrosite and calcites.

Another great display was the Mayan and people of the Americas area. There was a beautiful totem pole and a painted story bison skins. A wonderful collection.

Because NASA is a big part of Houston, the museum has a simulated space shuttle command center, but there were several school groups who were in there, so we just looked.

The web site is www.hmns.org

HOUSTON CHILDREN'S MUSEUM

Not far from the Natural Science Museum is the Childrens Museum. Camden wanted to go, but the adults had just as much fun. The primary attraction is a kid's Main Street in Kidtropolis. It had a working bank, city hall, grocery store, diner, vet, EMT, and TV station. The kids got to do adult jobs. It was fun, especially watching the kids get into their jobs. They were cashiers, cooks, bankers, and TV staff. They could do a TV broadcast.

There were also jungle gyms, those dance step machines, which I tried. I got a score of 1200, Camden got 6000.

They had a great energy section, where kids could experiment with forces. And then there was the phone man. A 20 ft Telephone man made of recycled phones. He was cool! The dragon and faerie room was filled with a Vietnam village explaining their culture and religion.

We did art, business, science and exercise at this museum...we all slept well that night.

The web site is www.cmhouston.org

Houston is the 4th or 5th largest city in the US. They have freeways all over, but the traffic is crazy. Getting around takes some time. They do have a Metro system, but it needs to be extended to the burbs, The city is very widespread.

All the museums are in one area and nearby is a beautiful park too.

This city also has a major medical area with many teaching and research hospitals, mostly aimed at cancer. Rice University is situated right between the medical and museum centers.

I like it here thought, much to do and see. Tomorrow I will blog about NASA.

A Story about the Crows and a Hawk

Have you ever noticed that many times you will see 2 crows and a hawk flying around together?

There is a reason for that.....here is the story.

Some time ago, there was a Mother Hawk. She was ready to lay her egg, when a strong storm arrived at the hillside. It was a violent storm with high winds, whipping rain and flashes of lightening that jetted across the sky.

One of the lightening strikes was near the tree where she had lovingly built a nest of twigs and moss. It scared her, so she flew down to the ground and took cover under a bush. The wind came like an explosion, blasting rain and tree branches.

When the rain stopped, Mother Hawk realized she was ready to deliver her egg. She flew up to the tree and sadly found that her nest was gone. It lay on the ground, a shattered mess. "Oh My!" she said, "What am I going to do? This egg is coming, and coming soon." She was quite distraught.

Mother Hawk took to flight. She flew all around the forest, trying to find an abandoned nest. She did not find one. She was worried that she would have to lay the egg on the ground, but knew that some animal would come and eat it, so she kept flying.

Then she saw a nest sitting in a big old pine tree. She watched and no one was there. She landed above the nest and saw it had two eggs in it. She saw no other birds around, so she quickly flew to the nest and sat. After a few grunts, she laid the egg.

Looking at the egg, she said, "Oh dear little baby, I have to leave you here. I hope you will be OK." Mother Hawk flew off, crying as she went.

Not long after, Mother Crow came back to her nest in the pine tree. "What's this? I don't remember laying 3 eggs. Well maybe I did and forgot. I don't know." So she sat on her eggs to keep them warm.

After 2 weeks, her first egg started to hatch, first little cracks, then a beak, then a little head peaking out through the shell. Then the next egg did the same. A day later, the last egg hatched.

Mother Crow looked at her little hatchlings, "My, look at this one, he doesn't look like my other babies. He must get that from his fathers side."

Mother Crow took good care of her babies, feeding them, pruning their feathers and telling them stories. She taught them about the trees and animals that lived in the forest. She loved her 3 little birds.

Soon the babies all had feathers: 2 had black feathers, and the smallest one had grey feathers. The 2 Crow brothers grew quickly and were much bigger than Hawk brother. When their mothers was away, they would peck at him and call him names. Hawk brother tried to fight back, but he was too small.

When the 3 brothers finally learned to fly, Mother Crow would call out, "Now you boys play nice." But the Crow brothers didn't listen and always swooped under Hawk brother trying to make him fall. "Ha ha" they called, "You're a weakling."

But Hawk brother was getting stronger and he learned how to hunt small animals. Finally he grew and grew, until he was bigger than the 2 Crow brothers. He was tired of the Crow brothers picking on him, so he went after them. It was a big fight.

Mother Crow yelled at her 3 boys,"Now, you 3 are brothers, and I am tired of seeing you fighting all the time. I will not always be here for you, and you 3 need to work together. I want you to promise."

The 3 boys did not want to hurt their mother, so they agreed to work together.

So now when you see the 3 brothers, you understand why they fly together. But like all siblings, they still fight, and sometimes you see them swooping after each other, until one goes "Call Call, I'm going to tell Mom."

hope you liked the story. I did not take the pictures.

Life in Waller, Tx

It is hard to understand where the days go. We have been here at the Yogi Bear Campground a month already. The campground is fairly large with 60 cabins and about 100 sites. It is a waterpark, with a petting zoo and a fishing lake.

I work about 9 hours a week, mostly cleaning cabins, but sometimes we do yard work. One day our group picked up almost 6,000 pine cones. That's a lot of cones. Another day, I got to plant flowers, which you know I totally enjoyed.

The campground is surrounded with ponderosa pines. Tall and majestic, they dance in the wind. There are many birds here, big blue jays, bright red cardinals, hawks and white egrets. Dakota chases the red squirrels. There is also red ants, don't want to play with them!

At night, the stars shine as we sit with friends around the campfire. Our friends Donna and Tom are the king and Queen of the weinie roast. We can see the glow of Houston's lights reflected in the clouds. We watch the airplanes coming and going.

Waller is a rural area, mostly cattle ranches. There is a big college nearby, Prairie View Texas A & M. We have to drive 8 miles to a food store, but that is ok. About 20 miles is Cyress, which is suburb Houston, with malls etc.

So we are having fun, it is relaxing. Although lately I've been writing at the computer, which was the reason for the trip, after all.

Texas for the Holidays

We got to near Houston right before Christmas. We like this campground, and there are some nice people here, not many campers. Houston had the first snow in many years right before we got here, and right now, which is early January it is record breaking cold.

CHRISTMAS

The work campers here at Lonestar Yogi Bear Jellystone Park, had a wonderful Christmas party. Everyone brought a covered dish and the park staff made turkey. We had all the fixing, stuffing, mashed potatoes, bean casseroles, pies and deserts. Mike made his famous pea salad. It was wonderful, and we all stuffed ourselves. We also brought gifts and played dirty Santa, which is a game where you can "steal" someones gift if you like it better. Joe, who is diabetic, kept getting the chocolate. Some truffles were switched 5 times, before I ended up with them. You just can't stand between of a woman and her chocolates!!! We also had to sing for our dinner. We sang the 12 days of Christmas, and had to stand up for the number of the month of birth. So every 4th day of Christmas I had to stand up being my birthday is in April. This became very funny when some of our beer belly boys had trouble getting up and down, Mike had trouble keeping up. It was lots of laughs.

The thing about Christmas that I missed was not baking cookies, not putting up decorations and not seeing my friends and family. I was feeling a bit low on Christmas eve, so I decided to go to church. I found an Episcopal church in Prairie View, St Francis of Assisi Episcopal Church. I went alone, my GPS was wrong, but found the little chapel. I was the only white person there, and I felt so welcomed. I sang along and enjoyed the service. The children played bells, which was so cute. I was asked to introduce myself. (Yes, Liam, high Episcopal service-very much like St. John's.) I stayed for a while for some refreshments, but I left feeling very refreshed in my soul. It was a starry night, and when I came home I looked up, saw a shooting star, and said Thanks.

Christmas, itself was pretty quiet. No tree, a few red bows to dress up Agatha. We exchanged a few gifts. had left over turkey and watched TV. Sean called and it was nice to hear from him.

NEW YEAR's

It is hard to believe that it is 2010. There were people camping here, some even in tents,and it was cold. I never thought about camping for New Years, but it was a great idea. No driving and fun parties. Many people had kids. The staff had a New Year's Eve Party. The room was full of families and kids with balloons, hats, and noise makers. There was snack food. The host had a karaoke system and all the little girls sang Hannah Montana songs, styling along like they were on American Idol. It was cute. I took some pix of that. Before the party, we turned on the Grateful Dead and listened and sung the good old songs for hours. Mike made Black eye peas and I made my traditional New Years Offering. This was paced down from my mom's mother. Every New Year's she would put out a plate. The plate had a piece of bread, rice, sugar and some pennies. They are to give thanks and for abundance in the New Year. I added tobacco as a Native American offering to the Great Spirit to hear our prayers.

By 10 pm all the families left the party, we helped clean up

and came home to watch the ball drop in NY. They delay the broadcast so it appears to be dropping here at midnight central time, which was great...except I know I am getting old when I don't recognize any of the musical guest... oh well...

Hope you all had a Great Holiday season...

SAN ANTONIO, THE ALAMO, RIVERWALK at CHRISTMAS

We rolled into San Antonio right before Christmas. We stayed at a San Antonio KOA right on the east side of town. The KOA was nice and we were able to get some hot showers. The night was got there the staff had a big Christmas Party for everyone. The staff had tamales, meatballs, rice beans, salads, and deserts. There was a lady playing Christmas songs on the electronic piano and there was a campfire out in the courtyard. It was great fun and we met some very nice people. There was a lady from Newfoundland who was traveling alone in a tent around the country. We talked about our experiences of solo female traveling in a tent. In front of us was a couple also from Newfoundland, who lived in the same town as this lady, but hadn't met. small world.

Outside at the fire, we met a couple of young men from Germany who were seeing the US and Edward from Northern Ireland, who was working as a waiter at Mad Dog's. We talked about the state of drinking and smoking. They had some rum to keep us warm. It was a fun night, and free food, which is never bad.

The next day we got on a city bus, which stopped right in front of the campground and went downtown. This was great for $1.10 a trip I didn't have to worry about directions or finding a parking place. The town was teaming with people. Part of the reason was the Texas High School Football championships were being held there. Cars and people were decorated with their team spirits.

First we went to the ALAMO. In 1836 Mexican General Santa Anna attacked the small force at the Alamo, including Jim Bowie , Davy Crockett and a possible relative Robert Cunningham, from NY. For 13 days the Texan forces held the Mexican army, but in the pre-dawn hours the Mexicans broke through the walls. Santa Anna killed all the brave men there and burned their bodies in one big pyre. Interestingly the few women at the Alamo were let go. Most of the actually Alamo is gone except the Long barrack and the church. It was interesting seeing the site, which many consider hallowed grounds. They told us 3 million people see the Alamo a year. It was well worth seeing.

After the Alamo, San Antonio is famous for the RIVERWALK, which is a series of canals right in the middle of town. It was a beautiful site with Christmas lights drapping off the very old trees that line the walk. There are boats which travel up and down the canals giving tours. The place was packed, there were people singing Christmas songs, football people and people with their families. We went to see Edward, our Irish friend, at Mad Dogs' Pub- an English sytle brew pub. We had fish and chips and a pint of beer. Do as the English... Then we walked dinner off and enjoyed the festivities. A great day. I like San Antonio.