Professor Emeritus!!!

At a board meeting of the Alamo Colleges this evening, Guillermo was recognized for the 32 years of service he put in at San Antonio College.  The president of the college called him up and then talked about his accomplishments, praising him for the excellent job he did with the students and letting the board members know that Guillermo was well respected by all his colleagues.  Then he presented him with a plaque and a certificate proclaiming him Professor Emeritus.  I was very proud to be standing there, listening to the nice things the president was saying about Guillermo and hearing everyone clap for Guillermo as he was presented with his plaque.

Earlier in the day, we drove to the house again to get our mail, and then went to the post office to find out how long we can continue to receive mail at that address if we don't live there.  We filled out a form so that our mail can be held at the post office for the next few weeks, which will be better for us since the mail carrier doesn't usually deliver the mail to our house until sometime around 3:30pm.  So, instead of having to go to our house when it's hot and close to rush hour traffic (and sometimes the mail carrier STILL hadn't come so we'd have to hang around and wait), we can just go to the post office every other day and ask them for our held mail.   One less reason now to go to our house.

Not much has been going on at the house lately.  We got a call from Decker today saying the house mover is running behind, but will be there on Saturday and Sunday to get it ready to move.  The expected moving day is Tuesday, possibly Wednesday.  So, we'll see.

It was a tough Tuesday

Well, we pretty much went the whole day yesterday without water.  When they turned the water back on in the afternoon, after apparently fixing it, well, the whole thing blew.  Water started spewing everywhere and flooding the area behind us.  We watched as the people in the RV closest to the leak scrambled to get their dog back in the RV and then pick up everything that they didn't want getting wet and muddy.  So, it didn't look promising that the problem was over.
The water was out in the entire RV park.  No bathrooms available to use or anything.  We had planned to cook a nice meal, but our only choice at that point was to go get something to eat somewhere else.  When we got back from eating dinner, there they were - still working in the hole.  After all was said and done, the water wasn't turned on again until after 11:30pm, and even then, they said the leak was not fixed.  We were very grateful that they at least turned the water back on for overnight.  When we saw water trickling out of faucets, we scrambled to fill the storage tank of the RV (thanks to our neighbor for that advice and help in how to do that) and then went inside when it seemed the water pressure was back to normal to take some quick showers, just in case the water had to be turned off again.

This morning, we ate breakfast early and did what we needed to do while we still had water but were surprised when the crew still hadn't showed up here by 8:30am.  We both left the park to do things, and I got back first and was pleasantly surprised to see the water was back on and they were actually covering the hole back up!!!  Now THAT looked promising!!

It is SO nice to have water available. The excitement wasn't over quite yet, though.

This evening, we decided to take our walk around the park earlier than usual, then take our showers and THEN cook dinner.  All was fine until we started using the microwave.  When we turned on the microwave, we blew the electricity to the trailer.  We didn't know the first thing about what to do about that.  We looked around at all the possibilities of things that could be done, but none of them worked.  We ended up calling John F. and getting his advice.  Well, he walked Guillermo through what could be done, and sure enough, we got the electricity back.  Whew!!!  Turns out, we shouldn't have taken our showers before cooking.  There are 3 big users of electricity in this trailer - the air conditioner, the water heater and the microwave.  Using hot water before using the microwave is not a good idea, because then the water heater has to work to make hot water again - while the air and the microwave are going.  So, anyway, now we know.  Talk about rookie RVers getting a crash course in RV life!!!!!!!!!  That's what we've been getting these last two days.

The red room

A picture of the red room - and you can see how they have started tunneling.  This is for the rails that are going to go underneath the house to lift it and what the house will ride on to its new location.  I didn't get a picture, but today we saw that they had put in boards across this concrete which most likely will be the new floor of the house.  Hopefully I can get a picture tomorrow.

To the right there, where the tunnel meets the wall, that's where the skunks hung out in 2009.......

We've been without water for most of the day here at the RV park because crews have been working on a water leak.  When we were first notified about it (around 11 this morning), we decided to go to the nearby HEB Plus store and pick up a few items.  In the afternoon we drove to our house, picked up our mail, talked with the neighbors a little and when we got back home around 3:45, the water was STILL off.  It's 4:30 now, and they said it may be another hour, so hopefully that's right.

6th day in the RV park

On our 6th day in the park, we had our first visitors!!!  Mom, Linda and Jacob came by - I met them at the entrance to the park where they parked.  We walked to our trailer site and we set up 2 potted plants outside that Linda brought from her house.  Sure makes the outside of our trailer look nice!  Then, after sitting in the trailer for a little while, we all drove to a nearby restaurant - The Egg and I - and had a nice breakfast.

It's nice having a few plants to take care of again.  

After breakfast, we drove to our house on El Verde and spent about 30 minutes walking around looking at all the changes that have been made.  We went in through the front door, too, and we all took one final walk around the inside.  Since they have already started tunneling under the red room in preparation for putting the rails underneath, it's just a matter of time before the house will be totally unavailable to us.  So, we decided to go inside - making it the last time all of us together will ever do that.

The weather was hot, again, and it gets pretty hot inside the house, so it's kinda hard to stay inside for too long.  But we are glad we took that final walk around.

Good old Cricket!

Used the internet early again today, and it worked fairly well.  After breakfast, we drove to our house and Guillermo stayed there working on the things we had stored in the shed out back.  He sorted items in a little storage shelf, and painted some tool handles - among other things.  Meanwhile, I went out and ran all kinds of errands - post office, wash the car, HEB, credit union, etc.  At HEB I picked up some water to take back to the house, since we have no water there at all to wash our hands with or to clean things.  We ate Subway sandwiches - standing up - out by the shed, and then, since the mailman hadn't come yet (and we certainly didn't want to have to come back again later in the day) Guillermo did a little more around the shed and I went to Walmart.
But the best thing was that one of the errands I ran earlier in the day was to go back to Best Buy and this time, I actually bought an internet card!!!  Just took the plunge.  Well, we figured it'd come out cheaper than going to Starbucks everyday - even just buying 2 small smoothies there cost close to $10!!!
So this evening, I set up the little card and it works like a dream.  Now both of us can be on the internet at the same time, and the little card will follow us wherever we go, so that will be good.  We HAVE come to the conclusion that the internet works good enough in this RV park, if only one of us is on the computer.  I guess  both of us trying to access the internet here at the same time threw it into a tizzy!!!!!!

Here are the latest pictures from our house:

As you can see, the little carport on the side was taken down today.

The carport sure was a great place to park the car!!!

Here's how it looks with the Loquat tree gone.

Other possibilities

So, in trying to come up with ways to beat the slow internet here, we got up at 6:30 this morning and logged on, to see if the connection would be any faster at that hour.  Believe it or not, it actually was, and that lasted a good hour or so.  So, getting up early everyday may be what we're going to have to do.

I also went by Best Buy to see about an internet card, but we are still mulling that one over.  The provider we'd LIKE to go with (which has the fastest internet) makes you sign a 2-year contract, and we certainly don't need that right now.  The other possibility has a slightly slower speed, but at least you can go month to month.  So, we'll see.  Right now, we are at the neighborhood Starbucks, since Linda told us yesterday that all Starbucks now have free wireless.  We remember trying to use wireless at Starbucks before and what a hassle it was.  But no more.  I was able to log right in, no problem.  Thanks, Linda!!!

Maybe between getting up early and spending some time at Starbucks is how we'll be spending everyday.  But we'll still think about those internet cards......

We went back to the house in the afternoon, got the mail and walked back to the creek like usual.  It was very hot and we didn't stay very long.  While Guillermo was doing something else, I walked back into the house, and it was such a weird feeling!!!   I mean, the house feels like "ours".   "Those are our cabinets, our vertical blinds, our bedroom doors, that's our dining room, our bathroom, our door to the TV room" - those are the thoughts that came to mind while walking around.  Looking around at everything - it just looked so familiar - it felt like a very real part of us was being left behind.

But the house was hot, and dirty and messed up, so it was easy, anyway, to get on our way and get back to our nice comfortable trailer.

Second day at RV park

You know, this would be an absolutely heavenly place to be except that the internet is worse than anything we have ever come across in Costa Rica, Panama and even South America!!!!!!!!  Internet was unreliable in South America, but NOTHING like we are getting at this Admiralty RV park.  Makes South America's connections seem lightning fast.  At least over there, we were able to connect - here, if we can connect we feel like we won the lottery or something.
Other than the internet thing, this place is very nice - it's quiet at night which is a good thing.  Here are some pictures of where we are living currently.

The section we are in has lots of trees.  In the evening we took a walk around the whole perimeter of the RV park and saw that the section we are in is actually the nicest part of the park.  We did see rabbits running around here, too, just like at the house.  So that's nice!!

We drove by the house again today and Decker was on the roof cutting down the Loquat tree outside our bedroom in front.