Bedroom antics
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, both college and high school kids. We worked on rehabbing two houses and of course continued with residing the Habitat bldg. The first house we did had been a rental and it was a mess! The first step was to clean up the yard and 10 of us spent about 2 hrs raking leaves. We got 17 large leaf bags and it looked like we hadn't even touched it. After lunch we came back with more kids and got another 15 or so bags. It looked pretty good as we headed to the 2nd house for more yard work. This one was much easier, it was dedicated to the family just a few weeks ago and they are moving in this weekend. We were doing the finishing touches.
My next stop was Houma, Louisiana. I'm going back in 2 weeks for another Habitat build, so I wanted to check out the area while I had some time. It’s about an hour from New Orleans so I headed in for a city tour. I was a little disappointed. I don't know what I expected, but I didn't see anything spectacular. I liked the market in the French quarter and of course had to walk down Bourbon street for lunch. I love red beans and rice, but not the Cajun kind apparently. In Costa Rica and Puerto Rico I couldn’t get enough. This tasted much different and was not to my liking. On the bus tour, we saw some houses still not repaired from Katrina, but it just looked like any rundown neighborhood with abandoned houses. I liked the Artist neighborhood, these were houses specifically rebuilt to draw the jazz musicians back to the area. As an added draw, they built a music school too. The houses were so colorful. We went by some celebrity homes including Sandra Bullock and Nicolas Cage. Looked like anyone else’s house in the neighborhood. The tour guide said more movies were filmed in New Orleans then in Hollywood and I believe it We saw at least 3 film crews in different parts of the city and he said that was a slow day.
We also went by some cemeteries and got an interesting explanation. Back in the day, space was very limited and the water table too high for the typical 6 feet under burial practices, so they buried bodies under Napoleon law which has no embalming. They build large family mausoleums and left bodies inside for one year and one day before another burial could take place. This would allow the body to fully decompose, thanks to the heat and humidity. When the next person died, they open the mausoleum and moved the bones to another compartment. This way, generations of the same family could be buried together. During the yellow fever epidemic, of course families lost people more rapidly than could be buried a year apart. There were other mausoleums that were built to be much larger. These were temporary tombs with many ‘drawers’for the dead. Once the body in a drawer was sufficiently decomposed, they could then be added to the correct family mausoleum. The poor couldn’t afford the elaborate mausoleums, so were stored in shelves in a large filing cabinet type mausoleum. Once the body in a drawer had decomposed, they were pushed to the back with a rake like device and their bones went down a shaft in the back, hence the term getting the shaft!
I didn't take many pictures, my battery died.
https://picasaweb.google.com/118205599704530902363/NewOrleans?authkey=Gv1sRgCLr7hca24MbEXQ#
The campground was OK, but the site they gave me was very hard to get into. The best sites are at a good 45 degree angle from the road so you don’t have the jack knife the rig to get into it. This one was a straight 90 degree angle like you would see on a driveway or parking space. As if that wasn’t bad enough, directly across from the space was a newly built fence. This meant that I had no room to pull the truck forward. Finally the maintenance man took pity on me and came to help. It took about 30 min of back and forth to get it in there. As if the difficulty parking wasn’t bad enough, when I rolled down the windows so I could hear him, about a million mosquitoes took that as a dinner invitation. When I go back, I’m going to request a different space for sure!!
I arrived in Corpus Christi yesterday afternoon for the next Habitat Build. The RV park is really nice and the neighbors are friendly. We’ll have a meeting and potluck this evening for all the Care-A-Vanners, so I get to meet everyone. I’m not sure what I’ll do today. I think I’ll go check out the town and break out my grill and a good book. The weather is great and there is a very nice breeze.
This sound like much more fun than the camp host positions I was looking for. I need to slow down the outpouring of money or I'll be broke in no time. By staying in one spot as a volunteer, I get my site paid for as well as not driving around in the huge diesel hog!
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, both college and high school kids. We worked on rehabbing two houses and of course continued with residing the Habitat bldg. The first house we did had been a rental and it was a mess! The first step was to clean up the yard and 10 of us spent about 2 hrs raking leaves. We got 17 large leaf bags and it looked like we hadn't even touched it. After lunch we came back with more kids and got another 15 or so bags. It looked pretty good as we headed to the 2nd house for more yard work. This one was much easier, it was dedicated to the family just a few weeks ago and they are moving in this weekend. We were doing the finishing touches.
My next stop was Houma, Louisiana. I'm going back in 2 weeks for another Habitat build, so I wanted to check out the area while I had some time. It’s about an hour from New Orleans so I headed in for a city tour. I was a little disappointed. I don't know what I expected, but I didn't see anything spectacular. I liked the market in the French quarter and of course had to walk down Bourbon street for lunch. I love red beans and rice, but not the Cajun kind apparently. In Costa Rica and Puerto Rico I couldn’t get enough. This tasted much different and was not to my liking. On the bus tour, we saw some houses still not repaired from Katrina, but it just looked like any rundown neighborhood with abandoned houses. I liked the Artist neighborhood, these were houses specifically rebuilt to draw the jazz musicians back to the area. As an added draw, they built a music school too. The houses were so colorful. We went by some celebrity homes including Sandra Bullock and Nicolas Cage. Looked like anyone else’s house in the neighborhood. The tour guide said more movies were filmed in New Orleans then in Hollywood and I believe it We saw at least 3 film crews in different parts of the city and he said that was a slow day.
We also went by some cemeteries and got an interesting explanation. Back in the day, space was very limited and the water table too high for the typical 6 feet under burial practices, so they buried bodies under Napoleon law which has no embalming. They build large family mausoleums and left bodies inside for one year and one day before another burial could take place. This would allow the body to fully decompose, thanks to the heat and humidity. When the next person died, they open the mausoleum and moved the bones to another compartment. This way, generations of the same family could be buried together. During the yellow fever epidemic, of course families lost people more rapidly than could be buried a year apart. There were other mausoleums that were built to be much larger. These were temporary tombs with many ‘drawers’for the dead. Once the body in a drawer was sufficiently decomposed, they could then be added to the correct family mausoleum. The poor couldn’t afford the elaborate mausoleums, so were stored in shelves in a large filing cabinet type mausoleum. Once the body in a drawer had decomposed, they were pushed to the back with a rake like device and their bones went down a shaft in the back, hence the term getting the shaft!
I didn't take many pictures, my battery died.
https://picasaweb.google.com/118205599704530902363/NewOrleans?authkey=Gv1sRgCLr7hca24MbEXQ#
The campground was OK, but the site they gave me was very hard to get into. The best sites are at a good 45 degree angle from the road so you don’t have the jack knife the rig to get into it. This one was a straight 90 degree angle like you would see on a driveway or parking space. As if that wasn’t bad enough, directly across from the space was a newly built fence. This meant that I had no room to pull the truck forward. Finally the maintenance man took pity on me and came to help. It took about 30 min of back and forth to get it in there. As if the difficulty parking wasn’t bad enough, when I rolled down the windows so I could hear him, about a million mosquitoes took that as a dinner invitation. When I go back, I’m going to request a different space for sure!!
I arrived in Corpus Christi yesterday afternoon for the next Habitat Build. The RV park is really nice and the neighbors are friendly. We’ll have a meeting and potluck this evening for all the Care-A-Vanners, so I get to meet everyone. I’m not sure what I’ll do today. I think I’ll go check out the town and break out my grill and a good book. The weather is great and there is a very nice breeze.
I found the perfect volunteer job after Louisiana. I'll spend 4 months in Stanislaus National Forest in California. Here is my 'job' description. I get a full hookup site for free and if I do the full 120 day tour I'll get $3.50 a day per diem
Volunteers will use All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) to patrol District roads and trails ensuring that forest visitors are informed about recreation plans and National Forest laws and regulations.
Conduct routine trail and road maintenance on Off Highway Vehicle routes. Installs and maintains information boards, travel signs, regulatory signs and other signs associated with recreation sites, travel management and safety. Work is accomplished out of doors in all kinds of weather and uneven terrain. Maintains District Off Road Vehicle recreation facilities such as road closure gates, picnic tables, fire rings, barriers, dumpsters and other miscellaneous structures.
This sound like much more fun than the camp host positions I was looking for. I need to slow down the outpouring of money or I'll be broke in no time. By staying in one spot as a volunteer, I get my site paid for as well as not driving around in the huge diesel hog!
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