We’re still alive! Still kickin! Around and around we spin, with feet of lead and wings of tin! To our fan, thank you for tuning in!

We’re still at Live Oak Resort in Washington, Texas, the home of Texas independence. We’re settled with a big steel pole barn, big deck (correct pronunciation and spelling, Mom) and shed. We’ve recently had big storms in East Texas with lots of trees down, a tornado or two and even a semi truck just tossed over.

What we got in Washington was a dry lightning storm at zero-dark-thirty. Lightning wasn’t flashing; it was simply “on”. We could see the trees thrashing around in the wind because they were continuously illuminated. I’d only seen it once before, anchored off Anclote Key, and my 35-foot mast was the tallest thing for many miles around. Might as well hang out the hatch and watch…

The other part of this story is that we have a family of grey foxes hanging around. They live in the wetland back past the bathhouse.

Dad is a bit smaller than a standard hound-dog with a beautiful grey back and dark red flanks. He doesn’t hang around much. Mom’s a head smaller, again with a grey back and dark red flanks. She’s around more often, I suspect to keep up with Junior.

Junior’s something else. He’s about the size of a big cat and he looks like a cat that got plugged into a light socket. Hair sticking out in all directions. And he hasn’t yet learned to fear humans; last night he toddled out and sat down in the middle of the street. And then he turned around, sat down and faced the other direction. And then he meandered up our front steps, checked out my flaps and went out the back gate. Junior’s a doofus; do we have to train him?

I don’t mind having the foxes around at all. We’ll never have any problem with rats or mice. One thing I’ll need to check on is anti-rabies vaccination baits; it’d be great if we could vaccinate them.

Speaking of roadkill (well, I guess not really), Bonnie and Tom had us up to their house for Critter Stew. Seriously. Squirrel and venison and something or other. It was good. Bonnie got a little flustered when I said “You guys are always driving around…”

It’s an interesting community here among the residents (who are the only people who count). The mobile home area is known as Snob Hill although of course many are not. Over here in the RV Village (snort) we have the folks who are over by the wash, known as “Creekside,” and the rest of us, I’m not real sure what we’re called as long as we’re called for drinks and dinner. I’d like to suggest that “Hillbilly Holler” might be appropriate.

While I’m in the word-smithin’ mood, let me paint you a little pitcher.

We pull out onto Lone Star Road, a paved one-lane with drowned bridges to W.M.Penn Road. No, that’s not William Penn, it’s W.M. Penn. And we rattle a mile or so down to TX 105. TX 105 is a good road but apparently the powers that be want it to be a gooder road so they’re putting in new four-lane bridges etc. That’s one thing Texas does well, apparently because there’s a lot of land that can be taken via eminent domain; highways are four-lane with a big median plus two-lane each-way frontage roads.

Navasota is a tired little town. It’s too tired to have potholes. It was, at one time, the absolutely real-life Wild West, and that wasn’t even 100 years ago. But now the bypasses have bypassed and the Wal-Mart is smaller than a Dollar General. It claims to be the blues center of Texas; I may just be professing my ignorance but I’ve never heard of the famous blues singer. But Navasota has Cooter’s Liquor Store and all’s right in the world.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!