Ten Years Of Fun

Today is our ten year retirement anniversary.

Disfruta la vida.

Ten Years of Retirement - Part 4 of 4

We’ve been retired for 10 years!  This is a look back at our second year of retirement.

2011 Continued

July - August

We spent our last two months at Aroostook doing as much sightseeing as we could.  We didn’t think we would be back in this area again.

The park had kayaks we could use and we spent several evenings on Echo Lake.

There was a lot of fishing for hornpout on the lake also.

We cleaned sites, cleared trails and did a lot more fishing for hornpout.

Texas friends Sharon and Rick visited us and we showed them Quaddy Head Lighthouse, Acadia, Petit Manan, and went on a puffun boat trip.

We drove over to Canada several times. 

Grand Falls, New Brunswick

 Hartland potato chip factory tour

Hartland Bridge.

Longest covered bridge in the world.

A trip to Campobello Island with fellow Santa Ana NWR volunteers Carolyn and Wally was a lot of fun.

FDR's Cottage

Schoodic peninsula and a visit to Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery with fellow Santa Ana NWR volunteers Lynn and Jane led us to two years volunteering at Green Lake NFH.

Whale watching, chocolate factories and hot air balloons completed our time here in Maine.

Finback whale

Monica's Choclates

We drove from Presque Isle, Maine to Elgin, Texas in four days.  There was heavy flooding in the North/East and horrible wildfires in Texas.

September - December

We stayed in our RV during September while friends Kathy and Jan moved into our house after their house was destroyed in the Bastrop fire.

In October we were back at LBJ State Park for our second year of volunteering.  I worked in the gift shop while Mark was back at the farm.

This year was just as much fun as the year before.  We helped with all the Christmas decorations and the lighting of the Christmas tree.

On December 28th we picked up our new RV.

Our route from Texas to Maine.

I had planned to do a blog for each year of retirement but - if you blog, you understand - writing a blog takes up an enormous amount of time.  Writing ten blogs spanning over ten years was just too overwhelming.  We started blogging when we retired so each year of our travels is here, they are just spread out through many blogs instead of condensed into a couple.

It sure is fun looking at old pictures and reading our old blogs.  We have seen some wonderful places, and have had some amazing experiences traveling the US, Canada and Central America these past ten years.

There are more adventures to come in the next 10 (or more) years.

Stay tuned!

Ten Years of Retirement - Part 3 of 4

We’ve been retired for 10 years.  This s a look back at our second year of retirement.

2011
January - March

We volunteered at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in Alamo, Texas.  Our jobs were to lead bird walks, keep the birds fed, clean ponds and keep up with weeding and gardening.  Mark gave several presentations that were very well attended.

Mark leading a bird walk.

Feeding the birds.  They love the oranges!

Cleaning the pond.

All kinds of things live in the pond.

Planting tiny little plants.

Mark gave several different presentations.

While in this wonderful birding hotspot of Texas we took advantage of other birding sites.

S. Padre Island World Birding Center

April

In April we started making our way to Maine where we spent the summer.

States traveled through to Maine: Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine.

We enjoyed Caddo Lake in Texas.

Hiking in Arkansas.

Visited Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and found a few trails to hike.

May - June

We were still in Kentucky at the beginning of May.  Diamond Cave was our last stop before heading to Pennsylvania.

We made a detour to visit Hershey in Pennsylvania.  It was worth the trip.

Fellow Santa Ana volunteers Carolyn and Wally asked us to come to Magee Marsh in Ohio for the birding festival.

We had some cold, rainy weather in New York before getting into Maine in mid-May.

Letchworth Falls, NY

A tour of Morris Dam was fun.

Morris Dam, NY

In Maine we quickly discovered black flies, moose flies, and many other critters ready to take a bite out!

Each little black dot is a biting critter.

Our volunteer position was in Aroostook State Park in Presque Isle, Maine.  It was our first (and probably last) “host” position. 

The lead ranger really wanted to make Aroostook a birding destination so Mark was asked to give several birding presentations and bird walks.

Mark giving his wonderful Birds and Their Bills presentation.

The presentations were not well-attended.  The campers were not interested in birds.

We had a few other jobs such as cleaning the shower/rest rooms, and painting the flag pole.

Fresh paint on the flag pole.

We saw a few moose, discovered whoopie pies and went to the local festivals.

  

Draft horse demonstration at the local festival.

Moose poop is big!

Whoopie pies were a big hit.

Next time:  The last half of 2011.

Ten Years of Retirement - Part 2 of 4

We’ve been retired for 10 years.  This is a look back at our first couple of years.

2010 Continued

July - After spending the first part of July in Yellowstone we moved to the west side of Glacier National Park in Montana.

Avalanche Gorge

After several days on the West side of Glacier, we moved to the East side.

Bighorn Sheep

For my birthday we drove into Canada for the day.

Mid-July we headed back to Montana.  We tried our hand at gold panning and found a little gold and many garnets.

We found gold!

We went from panning for gold in Montana to caves in Idaho.

Minnetonka Cave

From Idaho we started heading home quickly.  After about a month in the Central Texas heat, we decided we were crazy and packed up the RV for Ruidoso, New Mexico.  We were retired after all, no need to be in Texas during the summer!

On our way out of Texas we stopped at Caverns of Sonora.  It’s a beautiful cave that we have been through a couple of times.  It’s always nice and cool too!

Caverns of Sonora, Texas

We spent a couple of nights at Balmorhea State Park and spent a lot of time in the pool.

Balmorhea State Park.

Spring-fed pool.

We finally got to Ruidoso, New Mexico where it was much cooler and did a lot of hiking and even a little geocaching.

We had to get back to Texas to start our first volunteer assignment on October 1 at LBJ State Park in Stonewall.

We spent three months here.  I worked in the gift shop while Mark worked at the Sauer-Beckmann Living History Farm.

Mark being a farmer.

Mark milking a cow.  It's not as easy as it looks!

We had plenty of time to visit the towns in the area.

Octoberfest in Fredericksburg

November - In November we started decorating LBJ State Park for Christmas.  It was a lot of fun putting up the Christmas tree and all the decorations.

LBJ State Park Visitor Center

December - We bought our park model house in the Texas Hill Country.  This is a beautiful area of Texas.

LBJ state park celebrated it’s 41st year of lighting the Christmas Tree and we helped with the festivities.

41st Annual Tree Lighting - LBJ State Park

Our route from Rockport, Texas (Goose Island State Park) to

Glacier National Park, Montana

Next time:   More from our beginning retirement years.