Been Awhile

First I would like to thank all of you for the kind words left by you in regards to the passing of my Mom. Just have not been in the mood to write a blog. Been busy dealing with Mom's estate, doctors follow-up visits to VA, yard maintenance on the seven acres here in Lone Star just to mention a few.

Our weather for the past couple of  weeks has been outstanding. Temperatures ranging from the mid 70's to low 50's at night. Had ourselves a nice rain last Thursday and Friday about four inches I'm told by BIL James. All of our water levels are way above normal and our Lake O' The Pines is within one foot of normal. With all this rain our grass is really growing where I'm having to mow the acreage at least once a week now. Mowing for me is very therapeutically and relaxing for me. I can be stressed out about something and just a few hours on the mower seems to take all that away.

SIL Pam and her husband Mike came by this past Saturday and worked in our front yard pulling weeds, setting up our first flower bed around one of the four large oak trees in our front yard. BIL James with his Kubota dug up some small tree stumps and hauled off a bunch of dead limbs that have fallen off one of the oak trees that died last summer during our drought. They sure got the place looking spiffy. Will have to post photos once we get the flower bed planted with flowers. Right now Sandy is thinking of Azaleas. We also will be putting in a small 10x10 brick patio in this general area where we will put a outdoor grill someday. They also relocated the small windmill where you can now see it from the motorhome living room window. Thanks a bunch guys and gals for all you do for us.

Lone Star is booming with the addition of more liquor stores since they voted it wet last year. Also with the cost of a barrel of oil being what it is the steel tubing and support business are adding to their facilities. The tube hauling truck traffic is much busier than it has been. So, while we don't like the prices we are seeing at the gas pumps this higher cost per barrel of oil is helping this area.

We haven't been to Canton in awhile and decided to drive over to visit with some of our friends. The City of Canton is where they have located the Van Zandt County Veterans Memorial honoring our veterans. We drove by the place and saw they have really added to the memorial since the last time we were here.

The most significant
addition is a F4D Phantom flown in the Korean War and Vietnam Conflict. While most decommissioned jets become practice drones for the military, this fighter is on loan from the Air Force as part of a static display and tribute to veterans at the Van Zandt County Veterans Memorial Plaza.

 

Until next time. . . .MtnAire Travlers.

Rain, More Rain, Fire, Roll Out The Yellow And The Winner Is.......

What a race!!!! Sandy and I thought we have seen every thing at the Daytona 500 but no not this year. For the first time ever the Daytona was postponed due to rain on Sunday. They rescheduled it for noon on Monday but it rained again. Then finally they were able to get it started Monday night which is another first.

With 40 laps to go they red flagged the race due to an incident involving Montoya and a jet dryer truck. Something broke on his car during a caution that caused Montoya to crash into the jet dryer causing a huge explosion and fire from the jet fuel.

They delayed the race for over two hours due to the fire and cleanup afterwards. They had their eighth caution of the race with 25 laps to go. The race restarted with 18 laps to go. With 13 laps to go caution number nine due to a major wreck involving McMurray and about seven other cars.

The race resumed with seven laps to go. The top five when it restarted was Kenseth, Biffle, Dale Jr, Hamlin and Burton. With four to go we have caution number ten involving Stenhouse and Stewart. There were at least seven cars involved in this wreck. At this rate there will be no cars left. The race resumed with a green, white checkered. The winner is.......Kenseth with Dale Jr finishing a car length second, Biffle third, Hamlin fourth and Burton fifth. The race started on a Monday and finished on a Tuesday. This will go down as an unforgettable six hour marathon. Now on to Phoenix. (All photos by Getty Images for NASCAR)

Until next time. . . .MtnAire Travlers.

Barksdale AFB & 8th Air Force Museum

Friday two weeks ago my BIL Mike took us to Bossier City, La home of the 8th Air Force Museum and B52 Bomber. Upon arrival we cleared security at the main gate and proceeded to the museum. The ladies went shopping.

We drove by the Historical Housing District and saw many beautiful homes used by the families. Houses on the main base were originally built in 1932 and 1959, and the style has been preserved in any new housing being built. The large, two-story units on the main base depict French colonial settings. These homes were placed on the National Registry of National Registry of Historic Places in April 1992, along with more than 200 buildings on the main base that now comprise the Barksdale Historic District.

The museum was founded more than 30 years ago and is the caretaker of rare airplanes that include B-24, B-17, B-29, B-52, FB-111, British Vulcan bombers, and SR71 Blackbird to mention a few. Overall I believe there are more than 28 total static aircraft on display.

Also on exhibit in the museum is an exclusive September 11, 2001 exhibit. The actual podium and furniture are displayed when U.S. President George W. Bush made the first speech during the terrorist attack on the twin towers.

As we were leaving we saw this bad boy taking off.

Our tour took about an hour and half and was worth every minute. We returned to the mall to join up with the ladies. To our surprise with the exception of several packages they were pretty empty handed. They both wanted us to go with them to Best Buy so they could show us a wireless keypad they both wanted for their IPads. We approved (not that they needed our approval anyway) and they each came home with one. On our way home Mike treated us to dinner at the Longhorn Steak House. Thanks Mike and Pam for a wonderful day.

Until next time. . . .MtnAire Travlers.

In Loving Memory Of My Mom and Answers To Prayer

MARY E ROFFE
10/21/17-2/17/12

Mother has had her bags packed for quite awhile ready to go to be with the Lord. Mom would have been 95 years old this October. These past few weeks have been her worst. The pain of arthritis, neuropathy, and other ailments had become very difficult for her and because of these I firmly believe she was ready for the Lord to take her home.

I'm told she  passed peacefully and quickly once she got to the hospital which was another answer to prayer. While no one wants to loose a love one and because of her suffering we feel very blessed that the Lord took her home when he did. We are also blessed that the good Lord allowed her to be with us for 94+ years. One of our prayers was for the Lord to take her home and her not have to leave her assisted living home at Rosemont. She absolutely loved this place. He followed through with this request.

While we may be sad we are also happy that she is no longer in pain and has a new body. No more does she need her scooter or assistance to go from her bed to her favorite recliner.

I guess if you would ask the hardest thing for us was the morning we went over to clear out her personal things. Normally when we visited her Sandy and I would come to her door and quietly open her door. Usually she would be sound asleep  in that favorite chair. The surprised look and joy she expressed when she awoke and saw us was worth all the gold in the world. That morning she was not there and we miss her dearly.

She has also reunited with her best friend and lover, our Dad who went to be with the good Lord 38 years ago.
We love you Mom and Dad. Rest in peace.
The Kids

What A Strange Start To Our Day and Barksdale AFB

Sandy and I were up by 5:30am in anticipation of our trip to Barksdale AFB with her sister Pam and BIL Mike. As we were exiting the motorhome I noticed behind us a strange car parked on our side of the driveway entrance. I asked Sandy did she recognize the car and she said no she's never seen it before. It was still pretty dark so I decided to walk over to see who it might be. As I drew near I could tell it appeared no one was in the vehicle. I came back and Sandy was talking on her cell phone to her brother James. He said he didn't know why the car was there and we should call the police.

I didn't want to do this so we drove around to the the drivers side of the vehicle. I got out and tapped on the drivers side window. I saw a male figure raise up from the front seat and turned the ignition on to roll down the window.  He was a young man in his early thirties. I asked him what he was doing in my driveway and did he realize he was on private property. He replied he wasn't aware of this and was just tired and sleepy. He said he pulled in about 2am this morning. I asked him if perhaps he might have had to much to drink. He said no just tired. I told him he needed to move on and this he did. As he drove off we both said......"What a strange start to our day."

After he left we noticed there were pretty dark looking clouds to our west. Sandy looked at her weather app on her IPhone and what we saw heading our way was a storm system.. Oh nooooo  looks like our trip to Shreveport might get rained out. We saw the storm was tracking more northeast and just might miss Shreveport. So, off we headed to Longview to meet up with Pam and Mike.

On our way we ran into several popup showers but decided we would continue on. We stopped at the Whataburger and had breakfast. After we ate it was about thirty minutes before we were to be at Pam and Mikes home. I asked Sandy if we should call them to let them know we were headed their way. She called and got no answer. I said I hope they are not on their way to join up with us in Lone Star.  Originally our plans were for them to pick us up at the motorhome. We changed plans last night as I needed to check the Post Office to see if my medicine from VA was in.

Lady luck was on our side. Just as we turned on to their street who do we see........them in their Toyota. We stopped and asked them where were they headed. Yes, you got it they were on their way to Lone Star to pick us up. They had forgotten our conversation last night. Now who has memory problems they are much younger than us.

We finally got our act together and headed out to Shreveport about 9:15am. As we were running down I-20 I over heard Sandy and her sister talking about perhaps they would prefer  we drop them off at the shopping strip center off Youree Drive and us guys go on to Barksdale without them.

This strip center has the usual stores that women enjoy shopping at like Bed Bath & Beyond, TJ Max, Target and many more. So, as they wished we dropped them off and said we would be back in about two hours to pick them up. After dropping them off Mike and I headed to Barksdale AFB which was about eight miles from where we were. So far we've had no rain just over cast skies.

I didn't know this at the time but in order to get on the base you had to have a Military ID. Mike being retired Navy after 24 years had one and we drove right in after showing his ID to the gate guard.
Well I see I've managed to ramble way to long so we will have to cover our tour of the base in a later post. I might add it was a great two hour tour of the museum  and static aircraft displays on the Airpark.

Until next time. . . .MtnAire Travlers.