We’re in a large RV park that reminds us of the Siesta Bay Resort near Fort Myers.  Palms, flowers, and noisy blackbirds grace the grounds.  The temperature is now 74 degrees and a fresh breeze feels cool.  We have been exploring woodlands, marshes, and scrublands of the lower Rio Grande Valley and enjoying the associated subtropical flora and fauna. 

We’re within the boundaries of the famous King Ranch though not on ranch-owned land.  That is now in parcels but the ranch continues to be larger than the state of Rhode Island.  Today cattle are only a part of the business.  Remember the movie Giant?  Oil and gas are a big part of the business.  Today half of the land produces sorghum and cotton.  Tourism also provides big dollars.  We bought a birding tour and hunters pay thousands of dollars to sport here where the game is managed to insure abundance and large racks.

I write here after a long pause.  I came to think nobody was looking at these blogs.  But, the suggestion was made that I resume posting.  So, here goes.

We finished our holiday duties and I completed manufacture of a dining room table for the Eisenburgs of Brooklyn.  Anne and I made another trek to visit the kids and see our grandson.  Then we returned home and prepared and provisioned the motorhome while the winter weather held off for a bit longer.  Thanks, I guess,  to this year’s El Nino.

Our wanderings took us across the southern Appalachians to this point.  We enjoyed our visit to Cherokee finding old friends and the Smoky Mountains.  Anne and I completed a stiff climb of the Shining Rock ridge to collect blue berries and enjoy the views.  Glad we can still do it.

The town of Cherokee and that of Sylva too are looking prosperous.  We dined in the later with friends and listened to a band make music at the town park. 

Arrived here at the Tuckaseegee RV Resort between Sylva and Cherokee NC this afternoon to vist old haunts and meet with old friends over the next week.  The mountains look green and the river below our camp is one that Anne and I have paddled several times.  Its rocks have torn a few junks out of the seal coat over the teflon fabric of the craft.

It has been a long time since we have been on the road with our Winnebago Minnie.  Today finds us at this West Virginia State Park within the strange Canaan Valley, a three thousand foot high bowl along the Allegheny Mountains.  Its isolation within a rim of mountains and the altitude make it a “four-season playground.”  The damming of its drainage crates a maize of open bogs and rocky meadows between spruce and fir woodlands and small forests of northern red oak, beech, and red maple.  Deer are too abundant and the boreal parkland provides habitat to various

Our roles in life change continuously.  Sometimes it seems we engage in various lives during our reign of mortality.  Anne and I became grandparents on April 9 with the arrival of Roman in this town late that evening.  I neglected to post anything here during our long wait on the mountain for news (Roman arrived almost two weeks late) in part because all seemed so pre-climactic. 

Now at age 65 I am enrolled in the government’s difficult and socialized health care system, Medicare.  In a previous report I wrote of the difficulties in making decisions about the various choices available and the limited time period in which one must make the decisions or be subject to various and somewhat severe penalties for failure to do so.

Birding is an odd sort of a sport or hobby, involving adventures of various sorts across the land and sea in search of winged creatures.  We planned a visit to our son in San Francisco in February and decided to take time during our stay in the Golden State to seek out birds that we had never before seen.