June-September06

2006

It has now been three months since I have updated this web site. A lot of things happened in that three months. Libby and I were in North Georgia on our way to doctors and dentists appointments as we do every year. The day our Doctor did my blood test, he called me back to the office that afternoon. His first words to me were John you have diabetes. I am asking how serious it was and he said I was close to needing insulin. that, of course, got my attention. He put me on a strict diet and told me to lose weight. It is now September 16th and I've lost 30 lbs. I walk two miles almost every morning. Libby and I follow the South Beach diet fairly closely. I have my blood sugar under control, take oral medication twice a day, and seem to be doing just fine.

Of course before we did our doctor, visits Libby and I attended the John C. Campbell folk School in Brasstown N.C. Libby became a master wire jewelry maker and I became a banjo aficionado.   I'm surprised you haven't seen us on the jewelry channel or maybe the Nashville network.

After our doctor visits we drove the motorhome to Florida to visit our kids and grandkids. We spent three nights at the KOA at St. Petersburg. Remember this was midsummer and the cost per night was $48. Wintertime rates at this park run about $85 per night.

After leaving St. Petersburg we drove the motorhome to Okeechobee and spent two weeks at our old park, the Big O. We stayed on a lot that belongs to our friends, Tom and Bonnie Breward. We visited with Becky and Harold Hilliard who are some of our best friends also. Harold and Becky have still to recover from the hurricanes of 2004. We also drove to West Palm Beach and visited with our son, his wife and our newest grandson, little John.   John's other grandparents speak mostly Spanish so when John walks outside points to the canal he says "agua".   When he sees a bird he says "duck". We are very pleased that will John is going to grow up bilingual.

We had a good time being grandparents for our newest grandchild. We spent several days in West Palm Beach and hated to leave. After Okeechobee we drove back to St. Petersburg for two more days. We took our grandchildren swimming in the pool at the KOA, and then headed back to North Georgia

We spent about one more week in the North Georgia and North Carolina mountains and then got a call from FEMA asking if we like Mexican food. I knew that meant that FEMA wanted me in EL Paso Texas, so we headed west in the RV.

We covered the distance between Hayesville North Carolina and El Paso, Texas in three days. It was a very fast trip for us. We stopped in Pecos, Texas to get the truck and RV inspected and to renew Libby's driver's license.

When we arrived in El Paso, our temporary office was in a hotel downtown. The county of El Paso, had a lot of flood damage due to to a significant amount of rainfall. In fact, they had more rain in three days than they usually get in an entire year. Lots of homes were flooded, lots of homes had mud in them, lots of roofs were ruined, and there was just general destruction in certain areas of town. In fact, one Blockbuster store was completely destroyed by the flood.

We moved to a permanent headquarters on Tuesday and I went to work in the Joint Field Office. There were several folks with whom I have worked before, so it was good to see them again.

The first couple of days I spent driving around looking for rental resources for applicants. Then, I moved into my more usual job of working on cases in the joint field office. I did get out and about several times to survey damage in some hard-hit areas of El Paso. These pictures really did not do justice to the damage we saw. Many homes had up to 4 feet of mud in them. One small area of about 50 homes was completely inundated. At this point, most people have had to move out and the city is trying to buy their property.

It looks like we will be here until about mid October. After that Libby and I plan drive to Telluride, Colorado to visit our youngest son Taylor. We haven't seen him for several years and we want to get up there before the weather gets bad.

After we leave Telluride, we intend to go back to The Ranch for Roundup. Of course, we don't know what FEMA has in store for us. Lots of FEMA employees are being called into the New Orleans area and we would not like to go there. There's a flood disaster in New Mexico, but they seem have all the people they need to handle the disaster at this time. New Mexico would be great deployment for us since it is only 40 miles to Las Cruces.

A couple of weeks ago, we drove to Hatch, New Mexico to the Hatch Chile festival.   It rained for several days before we got to the chile festival and it rained the day after we left. But the two hours a we spent there were dry. We've never seen that many chile's in our entire life.

After we left Hatch, we drove over to Deming, New Mexico for lunch. There used to be one subdivision with RV ports there, now there are several. It appears that Deming has become a very large retirement community. Land prices are reasonable, and home prices are reasonable just like they are here in El Paso. Homes and would sell for $400,000 or $500,000 in Florida sell for $200,000. Of course, El Paso also has the third largest population at or below poverty level.

Of course we've had a few other things happen since our doctor's appointments. We've added RV the cat. RV has adapted well to motorhome living and he allows us to share the motorhome with him. As you can see he needs to learn to relax.

Tomorrow, a number of us from the office are going into Juarez, Mexico. It's time to get Libby a new purse and maybe some antibiotics.

Our current release date for this disaster is October 13th. So we probably won't have much new news until after that date.

We hope to spend some time this winter in the Rio Grande Valley and have picked out a park near Riviera, Texas where we might spend a few weeks. Film at 11.

Quick update.

Its now November, almost Thanksgiving and I am deployed in Alexandria, LA for another flood. After El Paso, we visited our son Ty in Colorado and then I got called to do Preliminary Damage Assessments in southeast Texas. In fact, I was in San Jacinto, Jasper and Newton counties. All around Polk County and Livingston, TX where the Escapees are, but did not work Polk County. Now I am in Rapides Parish, LA working disaster 1668, severe storms and floods. I expect to be here until Christmas, maybe New Years. When I get some time, I will update the site again and get some pics on the pages. Sorry to be so slow, but I have been working a lot more than I expected and simply don't have the time (or the inclination) to update the website. When I get out of this one, I'll do a better job. Promise!

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