September 19, 2008 by Karl.

Good afternoon, my friends,
Yes, we’re back in Rockport after 2,300 miles of driving through the desert southwest. Amazing how many modern windmills are being put up on mesas to catch the wind and turn it into electrical power. Maybe we’ll get off oil after all. Someone has a great idea and is following through on it. We saw countless 18-wheelers hauling parts of the towers and big blades.
We spent an enjoyable week with my sister and her hubby, went casino hopping, (Carol won - I lost - what’s new?), shopping (more items for the collection), and saw some new sights.
Rockport didn’t receive any wind or rain from Ike - thank goodness!! We could use some rain, but not ten inches like they got in Chicago.
So, our shutters are down and put away; and we’re trying to remember where everything in our art collection goes - it will take us a couple days to get it all straight, but have decided next time, (let’s hope not a next time), we’ll just leave it and drive away. It’s just too much to handle when we get back.
We were lucky and feel sorry for many of our friends in Houston who either lost it all, or had severe damage. My fishing buddy says they only had about $2,000 done to their home, and his son about the same, so they were also lucky in that sense - they still have a home to come back to.
On another subject, the political scene is warming up and it looks like John and Sarah may have caught up with and passed BO. We’ll have to wait and see.
Drop by again, my friends. I hope to have more news about my next book shortly. Keep the faith.
Via con Dias,

Karl

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September 11, 2008 by Karl.

Good evening from Tucson, AZ, my friends,

Yes, we’re two states over, trying to avoid good old Ike. He is not liked back in Rockport, or any part of Texas he may choose to visit. We got up early Tuesday morning, put up our shutters in about two hours, packed a lot of clothes, my book discs and computers, some personal items we’d like to keep from Ike, and then put up our large collection of Southwestern Art - statues and paintings, and many other items we hated to leave behind, but couldn’t take with us. We took our art collection off the walls and put them on top of our bed, covered them all with a large tarp and tied it down, hoping against hope that Ike would not take off our roof. Then we put the statues and other collectables in top drawers of chests. It was a long, long day and we went to bed late, to get up early and pack the car and head out after the bank opened for our safe deposit items. (We have one just off the floor and figured if water came in the bank, the items in the box would be ruined. Better safe than sorry). We left at 9 a.m., expecting lots of traffic, but guess everyone else stuck around to see what was going to happen, as the road was practically empty and we maintained 70 mph all the way - either luck or good planning - (I like to think it was the latter).
We had a good trip to Fort Stockton, TX, and stayed overnight in a motel that was gouging people ($159), but took it in stride.
Today we made good time until El Paso, where they had a terrible accident on I-10 that had one vehicle crossing the divider near downtown and hitting an 18 wheeler or two and causing them to take out the center divider. It was a mess, both sides closed down for over an hour. The result was 14 miles of trucks and cars backed up in the Eastbound lanes. We were lucky, as we were only a mile from the accident scene and when one lane of traffic finally started moving, it only took about 30 more minutes to get back on the Interstate after crawling along and then being detoured onto a side road for several blocks. I hate to think about how many vehicles were behind us… All in all, another adventure and an hour and a half lost, but we weren’t involved, so counted out lucky stars. The rest of the trip was uneventful, with lots of rain, heavy at times, but we got in here at my sister’s at 3 p.m. their time. We have no idea when we’ll be able to return, and what we’ll find with we get back, but we hope you’ll join us in a prayer to ask that the residents of Houston and the surrounding towns be spared the horrific damage usually associated with a hurricane of this magnitude.
I think I messed up my sister’s computer by trying to get online to post this message, but hope we can restore the memory to get on AOL when I am done here… I should know by now not to mess with someone else’s computer.
Thanks for stopping by again, come back and visit often. I’ll let you know when we get home, and if we have a home to go back to. Thanks for your prayers and good thoughts. We appreciate them.
Until next time,
Via con Dias, my friends,

Karl

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