This has been a very unusual fall season with far more than the normal rain. Like most lakes in north Texas, Lavon is a combination 
flood control & water supply lake. It is pretty normal for the level to fall as the summer wears on and for the lake to be down by five to ten feet below conservation level by fall and what rain comes just brings it back a bit. This year the lakes in the area are all full to well above the conservation level at present. Lavon was at 6' above and rising when they 
began opening gates to allow extra water out. While they are by no means open wide, even so it is pretty unusual for this amount of water to be released.
With the wet summer & fall that we have had, it is a really pretty season with leaves turning and the grass still green and growing. We are hoping for a really late freeze this year. That is particular true since we usually flee to the south well before this time.
To us, the very best part of our lifestyle is the many new friends that we have from our travels and our internet activity. I think that real friends are the most important thing that one can have to show for the time we spend in our travels.
Today we were fortunate to have lunch with fellow Escapees & work-camper volunteers, the Albrights. This made our trip to Ft. Worth a great day, in spite of the original purpose having been dental appointments. They are also volunteers with the Ft. Worth District of the USACE, presently at Benbrook Lake, just to the southwest of the city. Like us, they are staying in a park which is now closed for the winter.
This district of the Corps of Engineers tends to use more volunteers in the winter months to take advantage of low visitor numbers to do major maintenance in their parks and public facilities. It was a great day!
This morning we got up and the view was just too beautiful to not share with readers! I 
looked out of my window to the lake where sunset last night captured our interest, this morning early it was the full moon, followed a short time later by the sunrise. And some folks tell us that we do not get paid enough for our volunteer hours? How will we ever adjust to living in some house or apartment when the day finally comes that requires us to give up the road? What a wonderful experience this has been.
Last night was Halloween and we went out with our grandchildren, Andrew 4 and Harmony 3. It was a beautiful evening for it and the neighborhood was busy. Little goblins and spooks everywhere. But the two best were a ketchup bottle and a kitty! Now I wonder who's grandchildren those might be? There were many houses decorated for the occasion and even several with live participants.
My favorite was the home that had the garage door up, decorations out and four couples from adjacent homes who were partying and giving candy to kids all at one time. But the best part was the frozen margarita machine and were given those as treats for the adult escorts.
Today was a spectacularly beautiful fall day. The lake is full and overflowing and the fall ducks and other migratory birds are starting to arrive. The sunset tonight was just too great to let pass with no pictures.
It took about five hours but we actually traded off our faithful Honda CR-V. The one we had was a 2001 model that we 
purchased new. We drove it for 151,742 miles and towed it about 45,000 more. In that time we spent about $1500 on things other than oil changes and tires, with about $850 of that being the 100,000 mile maintenance. We had no repairs at all in the first 100K. As I remember, we had the electronic module and one motor mount replaced, two sets of front & one rear break pads, a valve adjustment and the manual called for 100K service of a timing belt & water pump. All in all I would say that it was a pretty good towd. Here is hoping "Whitey" serves us as well as did "Ole Silver."
Can anyone tell me why it is that an automobile sales department can drag something out for such a long time? We actually paid only slightly over than $500 more that my origional statement of what I would pay to drive away with it today, yet did "the dance" with them for another 2 1/2 hours to get there.......,..
We are presently sitting in the waiting area of Ontario International Airport, in Ontario, CA waiting for our flight to return to Texas. I have always found an airport to be an interesting place for people watching, and that has not changed much over the many years that I have traveled. I do think that with the current security in our airports, we don't have quite the entertainment value on the inside which we once had.
Security is a very interesting aspect of airports and to travel through different airport security facilities with the same exact items can be quite an education. All of us today no doubt want our flights to be secure and so some, or most of the systems in place today are perhaps important, but I find myself wondering about the knowledge of the inspectors, based upon the great difference in what is examined closely in each. For this trip, Pam is traveling with a nebulizer for her asthma and with an ultrasonic bone growth stimulator, both of which we have as carry on items. In Dallas they got quite excited over the nubulizer but paid no attention at all to the stimulator. In Ontario, the reverse was true. Clearly in watching the guards at each, they had no idea of what they were examining. In Ontario they used some time of wipe that looks like a wet hand wipe from a small package to go completely over the stimulator, then put the wipe into some type of analyzer, no doubt checking for explosives. A good thing perhaps, buy why was there no evidence of such items in use at Dallas? And had we put the two items into checked luggage, who would have even known that they were on board?
We should be back home to our RV and park this evening and we do look forward to that in spite of the great time which we had. We just find travel without our home to be a real pain in the .................., everything!
The big party was a wonderful success. Fifty years together isn't very common now days. Looks like we just may join that
club in the not too distant future!
Pam's siblings were once again all together for the first time in eight years so that made it a bit more special. And all of us got to see some folks that we had not been with in many years. It does seem that as years go by most of those types of gatherings begin to take place at funerals. It was really great to have this happen for a happy occasion.
Tomorrow we head back once again to Texas. Weather has been really great here, but the forecast for Texas don't sound so good.
I have been a bit remiss on getting back to the blog, but my excuse is how busy things have been. Once we got back 
our first thing was to get with our grandchildren who informed us that, "Grandma, you can come back to visit me anytime you want to!" And "Grandpa, why did you stay away to long?" One does have priorities!
After that we made contact with all of the lake staff and renewed our connections there as well as starting our jobs and leaning just what needs to be done. Since our volunteer coordinator was
leaving for a week himself we needed to go over what jobs we would get in process while he would be gone as well. And there is a new Lake Manager since we were here last so it have been really busy. Add to that the doctor visits with me having had one and Pam has had three, our first ten days here have been really busy!
In the midst of all of this, we have decided to make a fast trip to southern California. Today is Pam's sister's fiftieth wedding anniversary and so we made a flying trip(literally) to Redlands, California for a few days. We flew out of Dallas, Love Field at 7am and arrived in Ontario, California at 2:30 pm, Texas time. We will spend our time visiting with Pam's family and expect today to be a really special day, as all five of the children will be together once again for the first time in eight years!
This should prove to be a very special day.....