A new granddaughter has arrived!

Hi All,
It's been three weeks since I posted and it seems time to let you know what we've been doing. We made it back to Dallas and then played the waiting game. It seems Brianna faked us out a bit with a start and then a stop. On Friday, October 7, she made her grand entrance at 4:14 in the morning. Mother and daughter are doing great. So are Dad and Brothers. That being the highlight of the last three weeks there are a few other events of note.

While hanging around the Dallas area we did a small construction project at the lake. We also made a trip to Austin to see my grandson Alec who has started at the University of Texas this year. We had a nice evening with him and his girlfriend. The next day we drove over to Kemah and saw some friends we use to share a pier at the marina with. Bryan and Cindy even treated us to an afternoon sail around Galveston Bay. That was Saturday. Sunday we drove to Mason to spend a couple of days eating Cooper's BBQ, making prickly pear apple jelly (after picking the fruit) and vaccinating calves- all while spending time with our good friends at the Grote Angus Ranch. There were also some small side jobs of herding horses and longhorns back into the pasture where they belonged and butchering a feral hog.

From Mason we went back to Dallas to go to the State Fair of Texas and then spend an afternoon with Brianna, her brothers, mother and father.

Now we're in Robertsdale, Alabama. Susan said she was 14 before she found out it wasn't pronounced Ala-dam-bama. Susan found us a "job" here helping a guy fix up an old house to be a bed and breakfast. Our pay, for a couple of days of work a week, is a place to park the camper with water, electricity and sewer. We just arrived this afternoon and so far it looks like it'll be an interesting way to spend a couple of months.

What are our plans to get back on the boat you ask? If you've been following our odyssey you'll know we change directions frequently but here's the current plan. While here in Alabama we'll go up to the boat at some point to do the work on the bottom that needs to be done (paint). Then somewhere in January or February we'll put the boat back in the water and make our way towards the Bahamas. Our thinking at this point is to stay in the Bahamas until sometime in June before we come back to the US. Who knows if that's what we actually end up doing. Stay tuned to find out.

That's it for now.
Take care.
Brian

Carlsbad Caverns and Big Bend

Hi All,
Since last Sunday we've moved back into the world where city limit signs tell you the population rather than the elevation.  Monday we took the Kings Palace ranger guided tour at Carlsbad Caverns and also took a stroll through "The Big Room". Here are a few pictures from inside the cave...

Monday evening we stayed around for the bats exiting the cave. No pictures are allowed so I have none to post. It was pretty cool but surprisingly there aren't as many bats there as there are in the cave in Mason, Texas.

Tuesday morning we drove down to Marathon, Texas which is about 80 miles north of Big Bend National Park. We looked forward to a night without listening to trucks making deliveries to Walmart. The previous two nights hadn't been great for sleep, even with earplugs- but the price was right. Sure wish I had noticed the train tracks that run by the campground. Being right by an intersection each of the four freight trains that went by during the night had to blow their whistles, repeatedly, as they went by.

Wednesday morning I got a text from my daughter Amy letting me know she had been having some contractions and was going to go to her doctor appointment early. They weren't consistent or very strong so we decided to go ahead and drive through Big Bend National Park while keeping updated with how Amy was doing. Here are a couple pictures of our drive through Big Bend. Not many but it really is beautiful.

As we came out of the park an update from Amy came that made us decided we wanted to head back to Dallas. It made for a long day as we had to get back to Marathon and hook up the trailer before the eight hour drive to Dallas. As we got back close to Ft Worth and Amy hadn't progressed any further we decided to head to Gun Barrel City where we could drop off the trailer and get some sleep.  After 15 hours in the truck on Wednesday we got to Gun Barrel City at 1:30 on Thursday morning.

Now we're at my brother's house in Sachse, Texas  waiting for Brianna Leigh Bennett to make her grand entrance to the world. I can't wait to see her.

That's it for now.
Take care.

Brian