Who's That Following Us?

"Sister to sister we will always be,
A couple of nuts off the family tree."

-unknown

 My sisters and father had at times expressed the desire to move to Texas-Corpus Cristi area to be specific.  Oddly, through my sudden change in circumstance, I am the one who ended up moving here; even though I had never considered it.  I had no intention of bringing anybody along or influencing others to join me, after all the housing situation in Midland is inadequate, although the jobs are plentiful.  As it turns out, somebody was going to surprise me.

Karlie had found herself in a difficult situation in Idaho.  She was working overtime to make ends meet and along the way she was loosing her health and sanity.  She decided, as the circumstances presented themselves, she was going to join me in Texas for a fresh start.  

During John's visit to Idaho in August, we were able to help her find cute fifth-wheel of her own for an amazing price.  Her fifth-wheel has a single living room slide-out and a spacious front end kitchen.  Storage is abundant so she filled it with her things and has room to spare.  The wallpaper is peeling to reveal a nice wood finish underneath and the windows could use some coverings (Can you say projects!!).  She secured a place in the same trailer park as us, with our influence on the managers, and her home preceded her to Texas as John towed it down.  Sounds a little familiar doesn't it? (see post Small Space Living)

I truly enjoyed having my sister join me on this road trip, although keeping her on my tail made negotiating big city traffic a bit challenging.  We drove our final day through Arizona, New Mexico, and into Texas through a flash flood.  I continued to reassure her I moved her to a desert, but she was skeptical.  

Anxious to start making a paycheck she set out immediately to find a job.  With determination and no direction sense (a curse of my siblings, not myself), she managed to only get out 3 resumes the first day.  She was called for 4 interviews that afternoon and the next evening she was offered four jobs.  She accepted a position with Reliant Holdings Ltd. for $3 more an hour than she was asking and full benefits....welcome to Midland.

Karlie replacing breakers.

As she moved into her trailer, which John had parked for her in a spot about 3 blocks away from us, everything worked fine... to start with.  Not familiar with the constraints of RV living, she quickly blacked out her trailer by using a heater and hair dryer on the same breaker.  The breaker would not flip back so her house was in the dark for a few days.  She and I tried replacing the breakers and rigged a battery of mine to give her some temporary DC power, but in the end we girls failed and John was able to fix what we could not once he got off work...three days later.  Well, we tried!

Karlie easily made friends, as she often does, and was soon joining her new friends for house warming parties, dinner parties, football games, ice-skating, soccer nights and the like.  

What a  beautiful bunch of girls!!

Rooting for the Longhorns...and they won!!

She even managed a camping trip over the Thanksgiving weekend to Inks Lake to visit our friends from Corpus Cristi.  (I'll have to make her do a guest blog on that one.)

John and I are happy to have her here where we can help her get going, point her in the right direction, literally and figuratively, and enjoy her company.  Karlie has found, as I do, that Midland is not the prettiest place,  but with a positive outlook and surrounding yourself with awesome people, any place can be great.  She's really making her own way successful out here.

 

Swimingly in Texas

 "Thaaank Yoouuuu Siiiiiiiirrrr!"  -Marlin

"Wow, I wish I could speak whale." -Dory

-Finding Nemo

photo from http://www.animalport.com

As long as we're going to live in Texas, we should take advantage of a few things we could never do in Idaho, so as soon as we arrived home, John scheduled a family trip for us to San Antonio to visit Sea World.  We had promised Zoey we would take her there since before we left for Texas. She bounced and squealed in excitement when we told her, as we packed the car, as we drove there, and as we walked through the gates.  That alone made the trip worth it.

John decided to include our other "daughter", my sister Karlie, in the family trip, so early Saturday morning we set out for San Antonio.  Finding our way to Sea World was no problem, thanks to GPS and we arrived early enough to make it a full day of fun.  We started by passing the kiddie rides and I went on the obligatory Shamu kiddie-coaster, definitely much smoother than the one I rode at the Twin Falls County Fair.  Then we zipped over to the dolphin and Beluga show.  The show had some beautiful animals and talented performers doing all sorts of acrobatic water stunts.  Although great, there was much more people than animal time, which was a bit of a disappointment. 

This was the second time down!!

Soon we found the Journey to Atlantis ride.  Seeing the tall splash-ride plunge into the water, I wasn't sure if our little girl, although just meeting the height requirements, would be up for it.  Without hesitation she joined us on the ride and rode the entire thing with her hands in the air, much to the astonishment of the trembling teenagers behind her.  After plummeting into the pool of water she was ready to be on the receiving end of the splash from the viewing deck.  Mom ran but Zoey took the whole brunt of the wall of water with joy.   She was even willing to ride a second time at the end of the day (pictured to the left), although she was getting tired.

After a brief lunch, we made our way to the main attraction, the killer whale show.  The animals are as beautiful and majestic as ever (I want one).

Unfortunately for us we made it into the arena late, leaving only the splash zone to sit in.  As it turns out,  they instruct the whales to barrage the audience with their tails; and big fish make big splashes.  The assault of water was less than pleasant.  It seems that splashing the audience is a feature of the shows, and we found out (with research afterwards), that the trainers are under court order not to enter the tanks with the whales due to a death at another Sea World.  Although a great show, a little something is lost when you don't get to see that interaction.

After a few more exhibits and roller coasters, we made our way to the water park.  One of our favorite rides included the four-person raft ride that ended with an underwater view of the Stingray aquarium.Since it was already October, the weather was not ideal, but we made the best of it until the water park closed -too early for our liking. Good thing we have year passes (they are a deal) so we will get to explore that area further at a warmer time.



Zoey was tired and chilled, so we made our way to the hotel we had reserved on the Riverwalk.  After a quick change into dry clothes, we wandered the Riverwalk looking for dinner.  Unfortunately for us, on the weekends the wait for restaurants is extensive and we were very hungry.  So rather than wait for an hour and a half for a place we loved, we settled and found a quick bite as Zoey took a nap on the table.  Karlie and I got our Dos Equis-agaritas, so we were okay despite the fact the food was a bit lacking.

The next day was a chilly Sunday and we wanted to do one excursion before heading home.  We drove by the Alamo, which was closed at the time, and found our way to the Tower of the Americas.  After rounding the tower a few times to get full views of San Antonio, we left for breakfast and then back home again.  The trip was short and sweet, but not to worry; San Antonio and Sea World, we will see you again.

Beach, But No Water - Monahans

In Idaho we lived with natural wonders all around us.  The Snake River Canyon was on our front door step, the "South Hills" recreation area less than an hour away, lava tubes to explore a little over an hour away and the Rocky Mountains, Sawtooth National Recreation Areas peaking in the distance.  My only complaint is we never had enough time to enjoy all of it fully, but we can always return to beautiful Idaho for visits.

Now that we have moved to a new area we're ready to explore our new surroundings.  I've asked around and searched the internet to find out what outdoor destinations are within our reach.  There are a few places we can visit, but since the dry Texan desert is mostly privately owned and dedicated to oil production, outdoor entertainment is at a premium.  We've already explored many city parks in the area, but we really wanted to see something different and a little more exciting, so last weekend we headed out  Monahans Sandhills State Park.

The park is located a brief 45 minutes West of Midland just off the interstate.  The entrance fee is $3/adult and is paid at the visitor center which has educational information, a nature trail with labeled flora, and sand disks for rent or purchase.  The road accessible area of the park quite small, but the entirety of the park is open to explore without restriction.  Most of the park's sand dunes are covered with small bushes  (Shinoak trees, but in the rest of the world they only qualify as bushes) and other native plants. These dunes are considered inactive dunes, but some areas have active dunes which are nothing but pristine white sand peaking high above the desert.

Zoey and John Sled-sinking

There are several picnic areas for day-trippers to enjoy and a camping area for those who can't get their fill of sand all in one day. We chose to picnic at the largest picnic area near a large area of active dunes.  As soon as Zoey's feet hit the ground, she bolted toward the hill of sand.  She didn't stop running until she peaked the dune and we found her at the top rolling in the sand and running her hands through it. Almost immediately she asked to take off her shoes andbecause the sand is a soft and powdery, I soon joined her and  found it was easier to tread barefoot than dump a 1/2 pound of sand out of my shoes every 10 steps. I i think we both loved the feel of the sand between our toes.  Thinking sliding down the dunes is a great idea, (after all why else would they offer disks if it wasn't great), we purchased a sand disk and took it for a few runs.  It turns out that when the sand is that soft, you sink, not slide.  After a few sinking attempts, we abandoned that idea.

Admiring the view.

Zoey had the time of her life.  She ran up and down the dunes, made sand angels, barrel rolled to the bottoms, and drew pictures of "snakes" in the sand.  Mom and dad had a great time too, especially watching her.  Leaving the park Zoey asked if next time we can visit the beach with water, Texas has those too, but we'll have to drive a little longer to get there.

Sand Angel!!