February 28, 2004
Yesterday we pulled into the Colorado River Thousand Trails preserve near Columbus, TX, after leaving the Foretravel factory in Nacogdoches. Barb has her certificate for completing the Ladies Driving Course. Four days of training, and she's telling me about where to drain the water from our air tanks, when to check the fluid levels in the different places we have fluids, and all that kind of thing. So, in addition to learning where the pivot points are for turning corners without running over curbs, she learned all about the "walk-around" before and after a trip. What a kick! And we had a wonderful graduation banquet to cap the training on Thursday night--but I didn't have my camera with me, darn it.
One of the husbands was the official photographer, and the pictures on the board would change daily. The rest of us husbands were only allowed to join our wives during meal breaks. We got fed during the entire training.
The schedule said "Continental breakfast," so we ate before going over to the training center because to us, that means donuts, juice, and coffee. Only when we got here we discovered sausage sandwiches, ham & cheese & egg sandwiches, and several kinds of sweets along with coffee and juice. You can bet we quit eating at home from them on! And then yesterday as we went through Houston, we saw some trail riders on their way to some kind of (big) event.
We were in heavy traffic, but still rolling along about 45 MPH or so. Barb had to go dig out the camera, get into position, and then fire off shots as we were driving along the freeway while these guys were on the frontage road. No telling how many of them there were, but it sure had the earmarks of a big deal.
While poking around counting the deer laying in the meadows around our campsite, we spotted this sparrow and Cardinal taking a bath together. There were about 35 deer (too far away for pictures) and numerous pretty birds, squirrels, and rabbits. Nice to be around wildlife again after two weeks of the factory parking lot.