It’s been a busy week here in Corpus Christi. I’m on a Habitat build with 18 other Care-A-Vanners. We started with nothing more than a concrete slab and now have all the interior walls, outside plywood and the roof joists up. We’ve been working with a group of about 20 high school kids from the Baltimore area. Several in my group have only been working partial days since there are so many of us. I really do like working with the kids. Usually if I find something to do and notice one of them standing around, I’ll show them what I’m doing and move on. They really want to work and I want them to have a good experience so they continue to volunteer. The first day on the build, one of the kids came to me with an injury. She hit her thumb with a hammer. Luckily she missed her nail and just had a nice cut. I had a first aid kit and patched her up. The kids can’t use power tools, so I spent a lot of time on the power saw. I think that’s all I did on Friday, I was covered in saw dust. The fi...

OK, first, get your mind out of the gutter! Both Brutus and Sammie sleep in the bed with me. Brutus is a snuggler, in fact he wedges himself as close to me as he can get, even better if he can use my arm as a pillow. He groans with happiness as he settles in. This morning I woke up and was petting Sammie. She was stretched out and purring when Brutus woke up on the back side of me. He climbed over to the front, snuggled in and went back to sleep. Sammie apparently thought he was stealing her petting time and rolled over and proceeded to slap him. As she reached out her arm for the first slap, she must have moved backward and fell right off the bed! What a great way to start the day with a good laugh. For me anyway, she was none too pleased. Brutus had no idea what was going on, he was snoring away! I had a great time in Tennessee, I loved the Habitat affiliate and would like to go back. The 2nd group of students promised to be as outstanding as the first. There were two groups,...

I just finished a week of building with an awesome group of 20 college students from Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. I was so impressed with these young people! They were hard working, got along really well and had fun. It reminded me of all the military deployments and annual training trips I went on, I really miss that kind of camaraderie. Their school has about 3500 students and 10% are Habitat volunteers. They split up to do 4 builds in different states over their spring break. They do fund raisers to finance the trip and a local church put them up in their gym.   Other church groups fed them each night and one invited them to a play.   A local volunteer fed us during the day.   His wife prepared a great lunch, but he specialized in fabulous desserts.   We spent 2 days working on a Brush with Kindness house. It's a neighborhood revitalization program. We trimmed hedges, cleaned the car port roof and gutters.  We spent the rest of the week...

I spent 2 nights at the most friendly campground I've ever seen!  http://www.brickyardgolfclub.com/ The camp host lead me to my site and while I was setting up, people walked by and said hello.  Someone even knocked on my door when he saw my VA tags.  As I was walking Brutus, several people stopped and chatted, much longer than dog walkers usually do.  I was invited to a baked potato potluck where several people made a point to come meet me. Most were snowbirds who came to the campground every winter to play golf at 3 local courses.  They were an older crowd who seemed to be fascinated by my youth, (they didn't believe I was 50) my journey and my past military career and travels.  The host and owner even came up to me at one point and invited me back any time.   I'm certainly going to keep that in mind for my winter home. I stopped by Habitat for Humanity's Global Village, it was pretty interesting.  I uploaded pictures...

Savannah was really nice; I may have to go back.  I stayed at Skidway Island State Park for 4 days.  The sites were some of the nicest I've ever camped in.  The lots were huge with a canopy of large trees everywhere.  Of course this means no satellite TV, but who needs it.  Every morning and every evening I walked all over the campground; it was so beautiful.   I spent one day on Tybee Island where I basically just walked around.  The beach was nice but of course it was too cold to do anything. It was also very, very windy.  I saw a bunch of people in the parking lot with surf boards, but the waves didn't look that big to me.  After checking out a very small 3 room aquarium, I walked about 3 miles (and back) to the light house.  Not much to see in the off season, but it was a beautiful day for a walk. The next day I took a tour of Savannah.   What a great city, I see why it was voted one of the most walkable in the co...