Crawdads and the Western Gulf

Paula and I visited the Gruene (pronounced “Green”) United Methodist Church (UMC) on Sunday, October 21.  Gruene is a historic south central Texas town, started by German immigrants in the 1840’s between what are now Austin and San Antonio.  The Gruene UMC, begun in 2006 as a daughter congregation of the nearby New Braunfels UMC, is currently thriving with 3 pastors and a youth director.

New Gruene UMC

  During our short Sunday morning visit, they demonstrated a thriving outreach ministry with plans the following week to send out teams to:

1. clean a playground at St. Jude’s Ranch, a Christian-based center that focuses on abused and at-risk kids;
2.  deliver cookies and cards to local fire and police stations, and hospitals;
3.  paint interior walls and hold fellowship with youth at a family services shelter; and
4. frame a home for a new Habitat for Humanity project family.

Gruene Historic Music Hall

After the service, Paula and I attended the annual Gruene Music and Wine Festival a short distance away.  [Since we began the day with music and wine, we thought it only right to continue the afternoon in the same vein.  Forgive me Lord. :-) ]  For most of the afternoon, we listened to a variety of western, folk, and rock music groups perform at  both outside and inside venues (see photo of 1878 Historic Music Hall).  The wine and beer taste selections were primarily of Texas origin.

As planned, Paula flew out of Austin airport the morning of October 16th to spend a few months in Vermont with friends and family.

In Louisiana, I stumbled onto a barbecue cook-off competition sponsored by the Ponchatoula Chamber of Commerce and held at their Memorial Park on a beautiful Saturday morning.  Believe me, these people took their cooking seriously and were all members of the BCA (Barbecue Competitors Alliance)!  I was disheartened to find out that the competitors prepared their meats solely for the judges, and the Chamber had hired a local restaurant to feed the public (that was me)!  I nearly lucked out though when I sat down at a park table next to the daughter of the couple who were the head judges.  It seems that only moments prior, her parents had been looking for another volunteer judge! 

Ponchatoula BBQ Broadcast

Somewhat dejected from this lost opportunity, I found a shady picnic table and began to assess my situation.  I introduced myself and chatted with a local radio station DJ about our shared strong Christian beliefs, and befriended Lily (granddaughter of the judges) who had a leopard face painted on her by some artistic high school Key Club members nearby.  

Lily the Leopard

A couple of them were even undefeated Ponchatoula High School Green Wave football players who had knocked off a respectable 3-3 Slidell High School on the previous evening! Later that afternoon, I walked the mile back to the motorhome on the outskirts of Ponchatoula, and headed east to Mississippi.

Biloxi is a gulf-front community that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  It has a beautiful white sandy beach,

Biloxi 2014 Beachfront

but many of the hotels, casinos and stately older homes that had stood here in the past were destroyed during that storm.  

While attending a yard sale at nearby J.T. Leggett UMC, I spoke with an elderly lady named Mae who told me that pre-Katrina she lived next door to the church in a very large United Methodist Retirement Home (apartment building complex), and many of the residents were members of the UMC congregation.  After the disaster, the Biloxi Housing Authority bought the building from the UMC and converted it into an assisted living facility for low income families. Mae and most of her friends did not qualify, and thus had to find another place to live. I could tell that Mae still held a lot of personal bitterness toward the United Methodist Church for ‘abandoning’ her and her friends who had lived in the area their entire lives.  Mae said that she still lives in another area in Biloxi where only 30 of the original 280 houses that were inhabited prior to Katrina have been restored to a living condition.  

New Leggett UMC Sanctuary

By the way, the J.T. Leggett UMC congregation just occupied their new sanctuary on Easter of this year, over 8 years (and 3 pastors) after the 1950's era church building was blown apart by Katrina's winds and flooding.  As with the Wesley UMC in Waterbury after the hurricane Irene floods along the Winooski, the property insurance that this church had did not cover the rebuilding costs.

Off to St Andrews State Park in Panama City Beach, Florida tomorrow, Oct 26th, for some gulf coast camping and saltwater fishing with my brother, Terry!

The Southwest

Friends,

During the early fall, we have moved through the southwestern States of Arizona, New Mexico, and finally to Austin, Texas where Paula has two friends, Jose and Anne-Marie.    

Camp Verde UMC

Water and outdoor campfire restrictions were in place throughout the region. 

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Native American Cliff Dwellings

We stayed in a central AZ RV Park outside of a small town named Camp Verde, not far from Sedona. We visited their small UMC that was doing a great job picking up children and bringing them to church on Sunday morning.  The congregation was demonstrating some new audio-visual technical equipment in their Sunday morning worship service that had been donated by a young professional in their midst.  Most of our time in AZ was spent with Cheryl and Rob, friends of Paula's from Phoenix, and being inspired by the red rock formations and beautiful sunsets.

   We only spent 3 days in New Mexico, but all three of them ended with wildlife suprises!  On the first evening, we ended up driving the motorhome into a remote high-elevation Apache National Forest area, where we were the only campers 

Apache National Forest

present.  As we munched on smores and snuggled under our blankets (first night below 40 degrees!), we listened to bull elk bugle the night away in the surrounding forest.  That experience was matched by one the following evening near Cloudcroft, NM where a small herd of elk occupied a grassy pasture across the highway from our rv park.

On our third afternoon in New Mexico, we visited Carlsbad Caverns National Park.  
Besides the truly amazing underground sights, we also returned at nightfall to view an amazing daily bat emigration from one of the major caves in the park.

Driving through hot and dry west Texas was not an exciting adventure.  A great deal of oil and gas drilling and extraction were taking place, and very large tractor-trailers hauling all kinds of liquids and heavy equipment filled the otherwise remote highways.  When we entered the Austin-San Antonio area, however, car (and pickup) traffic began to increase, and we looked forward to visiting with Jose and Anne-Marie, Paula's friends, who used to live in Vermont.
  
For the first few days, we stayed in McKinney Falls State Park, southeast of Austin, and became familiar with the prickly pear cactus and chiggers. 

McKinney Falls State Park

Prickly Pear Cactus Fruit

Both would cause you to itch if you weren't careful!  During the following days, we did learn how to use the prickly pear fruit ('tunas') in smoothies and in a pie.  During our last weekend in Texas, we attended the Gruene (pronounced "Green") Music and Wine Festival and the Gruene UMC Sunday morning worship service on Oct 12.  I will tell you about those more in my next post.

Later this week, I am headed east to Biloxi, Mississippi and St Andrews State Park near Panama City, Florida.  Talk to you soon!

Love,
Tim