Santa Anna National Wildlife Refuge

Well we have finished up our volunteer gig at Santa Anna National Wildlife Refuge in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) and are moving north to begin our AK trip later this month.  As usual we have enjoyed it and are ready to move on. Sorry I have not been on the blog since arriving, just too…  

We had a nice spot to park the RV. We were one of 13 rigs with volunteers. There was another smaller park with about 8 rigs.

Our spot at Santa Anna NWR. The lights kept the local mice at bay or so we were told!

The South Texas Refuge Complex consists of Santa Anna National Wildlife Refuge, Laguna Atascoitia NWR, and the Lower Rio Grande NWR and numerous dispersed parcels of land in south TX that are managed by the complex.  There are nine World Birding Centers in the lower Rio Grande Valley in addition to the NWRs.  Two major bird migration routes cross this area and it is an area that attracts birders not only from across the US, but from around the world!  My favorite birder, BJ, has been in seventh heaven here. She has been on a constant birding expedition since we have been here.

Santa Anna is frequently referred to as the Jewel of the Refuge System.  It is one of the few remaining undisturbed subtropical plots of land in the country.  The refuge can be traced back to a land grant from the in the early 1800’s.  Over time the original grant was combined with others and much of it farmed extensively; however, the section that is now Santa Anna NWR was never farmed and most of it is still the thorny scrub that once pervaded the Rio Grande Valley.  As you walk the trails you can see the solid wall of scrubthorns that are impenetrable except for the many small animals.  The southern border of the refuge is the Rio Grande River.  The US government acquired the Santa Anna section in 1943 to create a NWR. 

While here BJ has worked in the Visitors Center helping visitors learn about the refuge and operating the book/gift store.  

BJ minding the store!

But, she also enjoyed doing some yard work for a change!

She has loved the interaction with all the birders that come here.  She had fed the birds daily and I think she talks with them while doing so.  She added some bird feeding stations outside the RV and every day she watched them as then enjoyed the repast she laid out; fresh suet, only the best seeds and clean feeding stations.  The birds loved it; and so did she!

Crowned Blue Heron

Chackalaca (looks like a chicken - but lot louder)

Our first visitor to the RV - an Altamira Oriole 

Greater Kiskadee

Green Jay

There are some spieces of birds that you will find no where else in the US except here in the RGV which is the northern range of there natural habitat.  The Altamira Orielo and the very beautiful Green Jay, for example. When somebody told me after we first got here there was a bird with green, black and blue coloring my thoughts were - ugh!  But, once you see one you think "what a beauty!"  My picture does it no justice! 
First time I went to the RV for lunch this little Altmira Orieol came up and sat on the window sill looking inside as if to say "Aren't you going to invite me in for lunch?" I took a dozen pics of him and it did not faze him.  He would fly off for a while, then come right back.   


I worked Sundays in the Visitors Center with her, but the other two days (sometimes more) I worked on the team of volunteers building a new boardwalk in the refuge.  I also had a blast.  The project was started shortly before I got here.  99% of the work was done by volunteers.  The staff did some heavy excavation and clearing and some of the initial concrete work but the volunteers did the rest.  The refuge figured the volunteer effort saved them about $100,000 it would have cost of have it done commercially.

In the beginning...

The first joists are down!

The observation deck is started under the tent which was erected to keep rain from washing out the excavation before the concrete was poured.  

Each joist weighed 240 lb and was manhandled into position!

The final extension takes shape

The decking is down

The uprights to carry the roof over the observations deck are up and the railings in progress

Work continues!

It is done! Now they will refill the lake with water and the birds will love it!  

The volunteer team was six guys but other members of the volunteer cadre here helped from time to time.  It was started right after the first of the year and finished up in mid-March before most of the volunteers left.  (They had started their volunteer stint in Jan and finished end of March. BJ and I started in Feb and finish end of April.)

Our Summer will be on the road to and around AK and we are excited about that.  We will head to Albuquerque from here and rent a storage space to unload some gear from the RV to make it easier to setup camp and break down as we will be doing frequently. Also, all the advice is to lighten your RV as much as possible to reduce the stress caused by some of the roads we will see on the trip.  We plan on crossing the border from MT to Canada on or about 20 May.  It is nearly 2,000 miles across Canada to Tok, AK, the town you visit twice! Since Tok is on the AK Highway across the border and the AK highway is the only way you can drive to or from AK you see it on the way in and you see it again on the way out!  My brother, Gary, and his wife, Floy will be joining us for part of the trip in their RV.  We are leaving a little earlier then they are but they will be catching up with us we expect about the time we get to AK.  They will be returning ahead of us, but we expect to spend a few weeks together, maybe a little more!

We expect to cross the border in to WA about 10 Sep! From there we will be headed to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta from 8-13 October (and we will pick up our stuff from storage)!  My sisters Marla and CC will be coming out in Marla’s RV and will join us at the Balloon Fiesta and the trip back to FL!

All-in-all we see a busy but enjoyable Summer in front of us and I will try to keep the blog up a little lot better than I have done here at Santa Anna!

Always at home, no matter where we are!!

WAT for a Month+

It has been about a month we have been Wandering About Texas and we have become increasing entranced with the State, especially along the Gulf Coast where we are as I write this from the southern tip of South Padre Island in a nice county RV park.

After leaving New Orleans we traveled to the Galveston area and stayed at a small county park, San Luis Pass.

It was foggy when we rolled thru Galveston!

San Luis Pass and the weather while we were there!

Along the coast in TX a pass is an opening to the Gulf – we call them inlets in FL!  It was a fisherman’s paradise but not much fishing was going on because the weather was cold, windy, rain, and cold and windy!

The Roseate Spoonbills were always around San Luis Pass! 

We enjoyed some touring and BJ had a ball with all the new birds for her to see and identify.

Next we moved on to Corpus Christi and stayed at the FamCamp at the NAS!  We were still on the Gulf Coast, just a little further south and west.  Again a bunch of new birds and some beautiful new landscape!  Still a little too cold and windy, but we had some nice sunny days while there.  Aransas National Wildlife Refuge was about 70 miles from us and it is winter home to one of the two groups of  Whooping Cranes in the US.   We took a day and made the trip over so BJ could see the Whooping Cranes!  And, that was the day they decided to stay inside out of sight! But, we enjoyed the trip nonetheless!

A tower to observe Whooping Cranes

Aransas NWR looking for a Whooping Crane

We did have a problem with the RV while there – the washer door locked and would not open. It was holding our clothes hostage. Called an appliance repairman who managed with some great difficulty to get the door open so he could install a new lock! As soon as he got the old lock removed I removed the clothes and he put the new lock on and it promptly locked and remained such!   We decided to start shopping for a new one rather then put anymore repair money in the one we had – the hostage holder!

Next we moved north to San Antonio and stayed at the FamCamp at Ft Same Houston.  We started shopping for a new washer and made a quick trip to the beautiful river walk through downtown SA.

The River Walk in downtown San Antonio 

 The highlight of our stay there was the day we met a friend from the USAF days and his wife for lunch.  They live in College Station and we met them half way there!  What a great time we had catching up! We enjoyed our busy and short time in SA and weather was improving.  We had several bright and sunny days and as we left it was getting nicer!

Next we moved a little further north to Comfort TX, near Fredericksburg TX, the site of the National Museum of the Pacific  War!

The plaza of the Presidents at the National Museum of the Pacific War

Fredericksburg was the home town of Admiral of the Fleet Nimitz, the Pacific commander during the War.  The National Museum started out as a museum for Admiral Nimitz in his hometown not long after the war ended.  It starts out with his early years in Fredericksburg and his departure for the Naval Academy.  Most of the museum focuses on combat operations in the Pacific Theater and the leadership of Admiral Nimitz. A very well put together museum well worth a day to see it. 

And, an added bonus is that Fredericksburg has a strong German heritage and we had a great dinner in one of the German restaurants in town before heading back to Comfort and the RV!

We left there and headed SOUTH at last. First stop was the border town of Laredo. We stayed in a great TX state park.  We spent a few days there, BJ bird watching the whole time!  Laredo is a very busy port with a lot of international traffic. 

We moved on to Falcon Lake State Park about 90 miles further down the border back toward the coast! Falcon Lake is really a reservoir formed behind Falcon Dam built across the Rio Grande!  The lake is about 30 miles long.  The nearest town was Roma and we went there to see a local bird center.  It turned out to be operated by the Fish and Wildlife Service.  We met the volunteer coordinator that “hired” us for the volunteer job we start at Santa Anna National Wildlife Refuge which is about half way between Falcon Lake and the coast!   We are nearly ready to settle down for a few months and do some volunteer work so it was a nice unexpected pleasure to meet Christine and get some info on our “job” for the next few months.

After several days at Falcon Lake we moved to the coast and stayed at a County park right on the beach at the very southern end of South Padre Island.

Our spot at Isla Blanca RV Park

 It is one of the largest, if not the largest, park we have ever stayed in.  It has 600 RV sites, is well managed and a place we will return to.  And, again another birders paradise.  We took a day and visited Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge not far from here and then over to Brownsville, another TX border town! 

We will be backtracking about 70 miles when we leave here and head back inland along highway I-2 to just south of McAllen TX to the Santa Anna NWR.


 BJ is really looking forward to the beginning of the bird migration season when the number and variety of birds multiples beyond the current population. 

The Green Jay - the pic does not do it justice! Beautiful bird

The Great Kiskadee - another pretty bird 

the Altimira Oriole 

Yellow Rumped Warbler

She is also getting into planning our AK trip for this summer and we have both started the Spanish language lessons we got for Christmas.  Not doing too bad, in fact it is going much smoother then I expected!   

Always at home, no matter where we are!!

Merry Christmas

BJ and I are on the TX Gulf Coast west of Galveston for Christmas.  Weather has been a little too cold and colder then we expected but all is going well.   We are enjoying some long anticipated time in the great state of TX! We are moving further south after Christmas and plan on spending New Years in the RV on the beach at Padre Island National Seashore with a fire going on the beach.

Galveston is an interesting beach side town and we are looking forward to seeing more of it then we are right now.  It looks like a great place to be in warmer weather.

An Old home in Galveston

My favorite place in Galveston!

We are staying at an RV park that is on San Luis Pass (in TX speak a pass is what we call an inlet in FL, a break in the barrier island where the sea enters a lagoon/estuary). It is a small county run park that is about half-full except that in the last few days many of the folks in the RVs have left their RVs here and gone home for the holidays!  We of course are in our home so are staying right here.

BJ has been thrilled to see these regularly

at the beach in front of our RV!

Low temps overnight have been too low in the bottom 30's!  Days have been in low 50's and sometimes have not reached the 50's!  And, it has been windy. But, sun has shined on most days, more on some days then others.

We are enjoying a sedate, for us, Christmas! BJ has a turkey breast to cook, she cooked a pecan pie already and our favorite 7-layer salad. She cannot remember if she got the recipe from Aunt Joyce or Myra but we remember that was the first time we had it one T-day at their house when we were stationed at KI Sawyer!

Some homes across the hiway from RV park

The gulf beach just west of the RV park

Merry Christmas and a Safe and 

Happy New Year to you all!

Always at home, no matter where we are!!

New Orleans in our time!

Our second visit to New Orleans went quite well. Weather was good, the famcamp at NAS New Orleans was very nice and we were glad to be there.  We will definitely make a 3rd and maybe more visits now we know!

As you may remember we arrived there from Red Bay AL in far NW and cold AL.  NAS New Orleans is a small joint reserve base south of New Orleans on the very edge of the suburban limits on the delta of the mighty Mississippi River.

USMC display helicopter

An A-4 attack jet

LA highway 23 runs on the west side of the river and in Belle Chasse the base on the west side of the highway the river on the other side.  Of course high flood control berms are between the river and the highway.  At the base we are about 15 easy miles on good roads to the French Quarter. 

Louisiana Citrus

It is 70+ miles south along the river road to the gulf and river mouth. We took the trip one day just to see the territory. Less than a mile from the base and we are in open country, to the west is open wetlands mainly but there are homes and small businesses along the road. There are a few small towns along the way but no major concentrations of populated areas. 

A partial view of one of the refineries 

Some of the remaining wetlands toward the end of LA 23

River traffic at sunset!

One surprise I got was Louisiana Citrus.  A small but thriving fresh fruit business exists along this highway.  Main product in Navel oranges with lesser amounts of Satsuma oranges which are like a tangerine, easy to peel and very sweet.  I was in a UPS store one day to mail a package and there were stacks and stacks of relatively small boxes proudly labeled "Louisiana Citrus" being mailed out.  We of course bought some of the citrus while in the area and it was delicious!  We took a few bags with us when we left. 

Our first visit to New Orleans was on our honeymoon, 40+ years ago.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit I visited New Orleans on the way to San Antonio TX to attend Officer Training School and again after commissioning with my Dad and sister Marla who came out for commissioning ceremony. But that is a tale for another day!) When BJ and I were last there we enjoyed the night in the French Quarter and rested during the day! This time we switched and enjoyed a few days in the French Quarter and rested at night! 

One of the bombers on display 

And a suspended fighter at the WW II Museum

The National WW II Museum was a highlight of the trip for me.  It originally started out as the National D-Day Museum but was "upgraded" to include all of WW II later.  I believe the original impetus was to recognize Andrew Higgins and his boats. General Dwight Eisenhower attributed a lot of the D-Day success to the Higgins boat which were the landing crafts that took some many of the troops and supplies right to the beach. Higgins was a New Orleans native and he came up with the basic design of the landing craft that was so successfully used in both the European campaign and the Pacific Theater. The museum certainly told the story of the boats, but that was just part of story.

The exhibits, while telling the big picture, featured a lot of stories of individual efforts during the war. Of friends and relatives lost (and sometimes reunited), of the privations of families and individuals to support the war effort. They had gathered interviews from the war years as well as more current ones from the people that experienced it firsthand.  All in all a very well done museum.  A repeat visit will definitely be on to-do list next time we visit NOLA! 

In the French Quarter we saw the St Luis Cathedral, a magnificent cathedral built in the very early days of New Orleans and still an active place of worship.

St Luis Cathederal 

The sanctuary 

The big picture

It is on Jackson Square for Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans that was actually fought about two weeks after the treaty ending the war had been signed in Ghent, Belgium.  Word of the treaty signing had not reached New Orleans by then so the British attacked and lost over 2000 men, including the commanding general while Jackson’s forces lost 8 men!  Even though the war was over, the decisive victory was a great source of pride to our new nation. That was also the last battle between the US and the British!

After a week in NOLA we were getting itchy feet to move on so we headed out toward TX our future home for 4 months. We have about 5 weeks to WAT before starting our volunteer gig in February and were anxious to get started seeing TX! 

So we packed up and headed west!    

Always at home, no matter where we are!!

Its December and you are heading NORTH!?!?!

Well we finished up in the Keys and are ready to start a slow journey west to Santa Anna National Wildlife Refuge in SW TX along the US/Mexican border.   We are excited about our volunteer gig there from February through April before we head to Alaska in May.
We wanted get some work on Tucson, our valiant RV, on our way west. Red Bay, AL in far NW AL is his birthplace and they have an extensive service facility separate from the factory.  Many, if not most Tiffin RV owners regularly visit Red Bay for service on their RV.  We were not enthusiastic about going to north AL in Dec but we were felt we wanted the service done before we went to Alaska next summer and this was really the only time. The procedure is to get there and wait until your number comes up - the number you get when you arrive!

Inside the service facility, service bays are on each side of this center aisle!

So we were anxious to get there and get our number so maybe we could be done by Christmas.
It took us a day and half and we got here in minimum time and got our number. The next day Norris, the "gatekeeper" came by and reviewed our work list with us and with a few minor mods said he could fit us into the schedule for an express bay in about a week, otherwise it might not be done before the Christmas break when the facility closes between Christmas and New Years.

Exterior view of one side of the service facility

 Express Bay means the work can all be done in one of the 50+ service bays by two technicians in 3 hours!  The bays start at 0700 and at 0630 you can hear the campground come to life as those with bay assignments crank up the RVs and start moving to the assigned bay - reminds me of being on the flightline as it comes to life in the morning!

So we relaxed and "enjoyed" the freezing temps and daily rain and waited for our number to come up!  Nightly lows were in low 30's when we got here and they kept dropping lower every night. The last several nights they have been in low, very low 20's! However, the last two days have been sunny rather then the rainy, wet days we had.  At any rate on our 7th day we got "the call" to be at bay 31 at 0645 the next AM. Hallelujah!

View of Tiffin land at sunrise. This use to be Red Bay Airport and this was the runway! Now it is campground for those with a number for service!

So by 1000 hours they were through except for one item that required some drying time for some stain to dry. And, by early afternoon that piece was installed and we were released and ready to roll.
So we are heading SOUTH in the AM. We have made reservations at a famcamp on a Navy base just south of New Orleans and we plan on being on the road by 0700 tomorrow. We should make it tomorrow afternoon and looking forward to visiting New Orleans for the first time since our honeymoon there 40+ years ago!  

This guy could not decide which of his vehicles to leave at home so he brought both!

Always at home, no matter where we are!!