January Personal and Group Adventures

We like to take driving trips and explore as much as possible and sometimes it takes us on dirt roads, over cattle gates and through dried up or almost dried up creek beds.

Some people like to fence in and gate their properties and don't want to share it with outsiders.

Jim and I enjoy hiking so one Saturday we headed to Enchanted Rock State Nature Area. Here we climbed part way up to the Summit of the Rock and also hiked the Echo Canyon trail.

After driving past Pogue Sculpting Studio many times our MDS director arranged a tour of the studio and foundry. Here we saw how they made brass castings from the original clay figurines. We received a tour by the owner who is a renowned artist here in Texas.

A few pieces of art on display in his gallery.


Over the door of Lyndon B. Johnson's home.

Friday we did our monthly MDS outing with the group. We started the day by going to the LBJ State Park where we saw a working farm like it would have been in LBJ’s childhood. Then we did a driving tour of the 600 acre LBJ Ranch (Lyndon Baines Johnson, was a past president of the United States). We also toured part of the LBJ Texas Whitehouse on the ranch.

The president's office and desk in the Texas Whitehouse.

Picnic lunch on our day outing.

Then our group headed to Fredricksburg where some of us did a walking tour of the historical district. One of the things we saw was the “Sunday Houses”. That was a very tiny house owned by farm people who stayed there on weekends when they came to town for church.

After we all had enough of walking we headed to Luckenbach which is nearby. This is a town of about 25, where everybody is somebody. They had live musical entertainment, but it seemed like they catered to beer drinking bikers and we didn’t seem to fit in. We ended the day with a wonderful Swiss Bavarian restaurant meal in Fredricksburg.

This cowboy entertained us by showing off his steers skills.

Saturday morning one of the couples did a delightful waffle bake brunch and another couple supplied some spicy venison/wild boar sausage. It was great!

The First Two Weeks in Marble Falls

We are a group of seven couples with four being Canadians from Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec and three couples from Ohio and New Mexico.

The fall MDS crew that worked at Delores’s house here in Marble Falls did a great job doing painting and finish work.

It took Pete and Jim three days to complete the work under the house

Jim was put in charge of the group to insulate the floor from underneath and tacking up chicken wire to hold up the insulation.

One corner of the house was a bit of a tight squeeze

Annette and Suzette assembled and nailed all the skirt framing sections

To keep the water pipes from freezing we added skirting around the base to meet the angled terrain.

The completed house for Delores

Half of our crew worked across the street on a home renovation for Debra and Wayne. This homeowner had received some money from FEMA to repair the house. As we got into the work of removing siding and wallboard we soon realized that there was a lot of rot problems with the frame work. The exterior got new Hardiboard siding and the porch area had the front door framing repaired and some of the drywall replaced. But there is only so much you can do with an old house and very limited finances to buy supplies.

Pete, Sherman and John put up the last of the exterior trim

Camp of the Hills Lodge



As the two homes were nearing completion the women had worked themselves out of a job. Warren, our MDS director asked the Camp of the Hills camp manager if they had any jobs for the ladies. The result of that question led to a clothes sorting job.

This camp is for inner city kids which often come with only one set of clothes. So Camp of the Hills collects clothes all year and gives them what they need for the week.

Deborah and Wayne had our whole crew including their neighbour Delores for a thank-you supper.

Returning to Marble Falls

It’s been over two months since we last posted to our blog. In the interim we have enjoyed spending time in November and December with family and friends, especially attending the 1st birthday party for our grandson’s Ajay and Maddox.

Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa’s

Left home early December 31 with the temperature hovering at -30 degrees C and then slowly improving and by the time we reached Marble Falls it was 25 degrees C. Apparently this was unseasonably warm for this time of year.

Ready to be dug out from under the snow.


Sunrise along I-29 in Iowa.

We kept watching the snow beside the road, while driving in North Dakota there was quite a bit, but it kept decreasing. At Council Bluffs, Iowa the snow was nearly gone.

Jim and I were wondering where we would see the first motorcycle. We saw one soon after entering the state of Oklahoma.

Friday morning we started our travels in fog which lasted approximately 2 ½ hours. The fog then lifted and we had beautiful sunshine. We arrived safely at the MDS site by 3 p.m.

Saturday evening we heard a helicopter circling our campsite and all of a sudden saw it coming down for a landing near our trailers. We were informed there had been a serious car accident on our camp road and they were going to be air-lifting a patient to the Austin Hospital.

The first days back where busy with unpacking, meeting new people, and getting oriented with the tasks to be done.