Meeting the Crew at Uvalde National Fish Hatchery

Wednesday, January 14, 2015  - Uvalde, TX

This morning we were up early.  We wanted to be up at the office by 7:00am to introduce ourselves to the crew at Uvalde.  We met Mark, Rick and Jeff.  Today is only Jeff’s second day, he is new to here also.  He will only be here for a month, then he will be returning to his fish hatchery in New Mexico.

After the introductions Rick took Jeff, Mike and I on a tour of the facility.  He was also showing Mike what he would like for him to do at each tank, each morning.  They have several indoor tanks and outdoor ponds.  Next week they will be moving the fish from one pond to another pond.  This should be interesting.  Mike will also be helping repair a damaged building, painting, and other odd jobs around the facility. 

I truly enjoyed the tour.  :)  I am sure we will both enjoy being here.

Rick had several appointments today, so he told Mike to take the rest of the day off and he would be officially starting tomorrow.  Since it was misty and cold outside Mike did not do much else all day.  He did work on the laundry.  In the late afternoon we headed for the grocery store.  It sure is nice having the cupboards full again.  :)

We do not have WiFi available here.  We are using my Verizon smart phone as a WiFi hotspot, so I will only be updating the blog when we are in town at a location with free WiFi.  In the meantime, I will be keeping up with the blog in a Word document.  :)

We don’t have TV here either, so we will be watching a lot of movies and reading a lot of books while we are here also.  At least we were able to find a good radio station.

It was another wonderful day!

Travel to Uvalde, TX

Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - Uvalde, TX

We were up moving early this morning.  We got packed up and on the road by 9:00am.  For the most part it was an uneventful drive.  Construction between Waco and Austin made for some tense moments.  It was a very long drive.  Just north of San Antonio we made a fuel stop and got something to eat.  We finally arrived at the Uvalde National Fish Hatchery around 4:30pm. 

It was rainy when we left Tyler.  We drove out of rain about an hour down the road, but we never did drive into the sunshine.  I sure hope we see the sunshine again soon.

We were both surprised by the size of the town of Uvalde.  I was expecting it to be no bigger than the town of Bremen, IN.  But it is actually bigger than the town of Plymouth, IN.  It has a population of about 16,000.

Patricia and Thomas greeted us and directed us to where we needed to park

This is our view out back of the trailer.

And this is the view from the front door.

After getting the trailer settled we went into town with Patricia and Thomas to an Italian restaurant, Napolis Italian Restaurant.  The food was very good.  We were there for about 1.5 hours.  It was wonderful catching up with Patricia and Thomas.

After dinner we came back home, did a little straighten of the trailer, then called it a day.

It was another wonderful day!

Truck is Ready

Monday, January 12, 2015 - Tyler, TX

Hall Volvo called around 8:00am this morning to let us know that they had fixed the problem with the transmission and were finishing up the problem with the other codes that had appeared.  At first we were hopeful that they would have it done yet this morning and we could get down the road a few hours this afternoon.  Just before lunch Mike gave them a call to see when the truck might be ready.  They let us know it should be done later this afternoon.

Around 3:00pm Hall Volvo called to let us know the truck was ready to go.  Around 3:30pm we headed over to pay for it.  The bill was only about $500, but they let us know there is an oil leak that eventually needs to be fixed.  That repair will cost around $2,300.  Mike says he is going to take a look at it while we are in Uvalde. 

There is no where to park the truck at the campground we are at, so Hall Volvo is going to allow us to keep the truck there for the night.  We will be headed south first thing in the morning.  :)

After taking care of the truck we ran over to Western Heritage Interiors.  It is a western furniture store.  Western Heritage Interiors  They had some really cool items.  We saw a door with a bull painted on it and it was really awesome.  We both thought it would be something Jess would really like.  :)

For dinner we went looking a Chinese restaurant.  According to my phone 2 are closed on Monday's, 1 with good rating was supposed to be open, but when we got there they were closed and it did not look like it was a temporary close.  I checked the ratings on a couple of the other restaurants and decided we would try a different cuisine.  We passed Casa Ole, a Mexican restaurant, so we decided to go there.  It was ok, but not a place I would rate very high.

We have a long drive tomorrow, so we called it a night early.

It was another wonderful day! 

Another Rainy Day in Tyler

Sunday, January 10, 2015 - Tyler, TX

It rained most of the night and it most of the day!  We were slow about getting up this morning, just laying there listening to it rain outside. We finally got up and got ready for church.  We went to 10:00am Mass at The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.  It is a beautiful cathedral. 

After church we went to IHOP for breakfast.  I had the Cinn-A-Stack.  It was not very good.  It was coated with a cinnamon sauce.  Way to thick.  I should have stuck with eggs and bacon.  :)

Since it was a rainy day, we did not do anything all day!  We did polish a bottle of wine and watched the Carbonaro Effect on truTV.  It is a very funny TV show.  :)  But other than that we did not do anything today.  :)

It was another wonderful day!

Another Day in Tyler

Saturday, January 10, 2015 - Tyler, TX

Got up this morning and it was another over cast day.  We talked to Tony last night and Mike told him we would send him a couple of things, so we headed for the post office again this morning.  The post office we went to yesterday is closed on Saturday's, so we had to go to another post office.  It happened to be by a nice little park, so we took Gracie for a walk.  It was very nice.

By afternoon it was raining, so we pretty much sat around not doing much of anything today.  We did drive by the Volvo dealer and saw the truck was in front of one of the doors, so we hope that means it will be first to go in on Monday.

It was another wonderful day!

Day 2 in Tyler, TX

Friday, January 9, 2015 - Tyler, TX

I was up early this morning and started to work.  It sleeted off an on most of today.  Not the kind of weather we were hoping for.

This afternoon we decided it was time to go do something, so gathered up a few things that we needed to mail off and headed into town.  First stop was the post office to deliver a package to Jess and another to Tony.  Next we went to Kohl's to get me a couple pair of jeans.  For Christmas I got some money from my mom and dad, so I decided I would get me a couple pair of jeans with that money.  :)  Thank you mom and dad.  :)


We had not eaten lunch and it was already after 2:00pm, so we started looking for a place to eat.  I remembered seeing a place on the way to Kohl's that looked interesting, so we looked it up and headed for Coyote Sam's Bar and Grille.  It is a very unique restaurant.  The website says it best:

"When you step into Coyote Sam’s Bar & Grille, you’ll instantly be swept away to a different world. Museum-quality antique firearms and trophy big-game mounts from the world over adorn the heavy cedar walls."

After ordering Mike got up to take a closer look at some of the rifles on the walls.  When he did Sam, the owner, came over to talk to him about the guns.  I know they could have gone on and on about the subject, but out food arrived and it was time to eat.  :) 

 
I had the BBQ Brisket and Mike had Southwestern Philly.  We both enjoyed the food.  :)

After our late lunch we headed back home and took Gracie over to the dog walk.  We took her Chuck-It ball with us, but she was not real interested in playing with it.  Too busy smelling all the smells.  Now as soon as we would pick up a rock, then it becomes time to play.  So rock it was.  :)

It was another wonderful day!

Travel to Tyler, TX

Thursday, January 8, 2014 - Tyler, TX

When I got up this morning it was only 20 degrees outside!  We headed south to get away from the cold.  What is up with this.  :)

We were on the road around 9:30am, but we only made it about 40 miles down the road when we ran into a problem.  An error code appeared on the dash of the truck.  At the exit we had planned to take Mike was unable to shift out of 10th gear.  Because the truck was having a problem Mike turned the wrong way at the top of the hill.  At the next stop sign we came to a stop and this is where we sat until the tow truck came. 

This was view that Gracie and I had.  :)  That is I-20 below us.

After about an hour of sitting at this intersection the tow truck finally arrived.  Since Mike was successful at getting the truck into neutral, the tow truck driver asked if we could roll forward to the other side of the intersection, so he would not block the intersection as he got us hooked up.  This is what it looked like.

Fortunately we only had to go about 15 miles to Hall Volvo in Tyler, TX.  When we arrived the lady at the service counter told us that it would be 2 or 3 days before they would be able to look at it.  I thought "Oh no now what are we going to do!"  Well after checking the phone for the nearest campground, which happen to be only 0.6 miles down the road and 5 star rated, we now had to find someone to drive our RV to the campground.  So now I checked the phone for RV dealers in the area.  I called one of the dealers and they gave me a number for someone that would be able to tow it for us.  When I called, I found out he just got out of the hospital and would not be able to drive until Sunday.  I called the RV dealer back and got another number.  I the meantime, the wonderful lady behind the counter was also trying to find a tow for us.  Before talking to the second guy from the RV dealer she let us know that one of the employees was going to use his truck to tow us.  :)  The gentleman towed our home to the RV park and when we tried to give him money he just said "Just pay it forward"  :) 

The RV park is named #1 RV Park of Tyler, yes that really is the name of the park.  :)

After getting set up Mike just happen to look down the road and saw this sign.  :)  We both just started laughing and I just had to take a picture.

It is not a bad park, but it is not anything special.  It will definitely work for the next couple of days.

By the time we were done setting up it was 2:00pm and we were both hungry.  Mexican sounded good to me, so I looked on my phone again for a good Mexican restaurant.  We chose Don Juan on the Square in downtown Tyler.  Both the food and service were great!

After our late lunch we headed back home and took Gracie over to the dog park.  She really enjoyed it.  :)

It was another wonderful day!?!  :)