TWO STORMS

Leaving the lushness of the Gulf and heading into the more barren interior of Texas we see a lot of open space, less population and fewer "official" places to hang our hat for the evening.  We arrived in Alice, TX around four in the afternoon with threats of storm riding heavy on the air.  Being able to neither locate a city, county or RV park, we settled for a Wally-World parking lot with a couple of other rigs for the evening. 

I won't relate the whole story here, so for brevity's sake, let me say, "Not long after we had pulled the sheets up for the night, Jackie jumped out of bed, got dressed, *strapped-em-on* and stormed  to the mo-home behind us that was running a VERY loud generator.  She banged on their door and gave them a good scolding for disturbing the piece and quiet...specifically hers...I was asleep until she slammed our door on exiting our rig.  She returned, still in a bit of a huff but her Yooper furry had it's desired effect, the generator puttered to a stop not 5 minutes later."

The big storm was Jackie, the little storm blew in at 4 AM.  Rain, hail, rig-rocking 50 mile an hour winds and tornado warnings. 

I like watching ants.  Your trivia for today:  Ants represent 25% of the animal biomass of our planet.  They have evolved from wasps and all still have tiny stingers.

Living in their large, Class A motor home 12 months a year, "Full-timers" Freeman and Sharon Fox from Mason City, IA. were on their way to interview for a "job" hosting a campground on the Gulf Coast.  I met them while I was working on our flimsy screen door latch that had cracked, and would eventually snap off, leaving us without a way to keep the bugs outside.

Freeman comes over, sort of sidles up to me in a quiet way and wants to know what I'm doing.  I tell him about the door and my need for a *specific* size/angle of aluminum to fix the latch so it wouldn't break again.  Without a word and in less than a minute he was back with *exactly* the piece of metal stock needed.  I hacksawed three inches off the foot long piece he had handed me and marveled at how things seem to "just appear."  The community of wheeled tin-tepee travelers are always looking to be of help to others.

A flowers stigma waiting for pollination.