Things we found in the ashes . . .

We arrived to the Panhandle of Oklahoma about 24 hours after a wild fire had burned Denisa's Mother's house to the ground. The house and its contents were a total loss. But because the fire started from the back corner of the house, we were surprised to see that things just beyond the front porch were untouched. Gleaming in front of the rubble was a white cross still planted in its spot in the flower bed. That cross was made by our camping buddies--Dennis and Judy. We met them more than a thousand miles away from here, in a campground near Glacier National Park in 2017. Dennis has made thousands of these simple white wooden crosses, and given them away to people they meet. We didn't have a front yard to display ours, so this one landed in the panhandle of Oklahoma five years ago. It shines as a testament that Jesus and his sacrifice remain even when the world can take everything else away. 

We drove through some stiff winds to get here, and that wind continued to blow for two more days after we arrived. The embers from burning hay and grass continued to come to life with the winds. Fire trucks were back in this area for several days afterwards, fighting rekindled fires. That wind also brought a surprising amount of top soil that blew in from the fire-scarred land surrounding the house. This pasture that had grass and cattle a few days ago, now looks like a desert. The bar ditches are filled up with blowing sand.

With no grass to hold it in place, the sand sifted over the burned rubble in drifts. Even though we drove by the house the day after the fire, we couldn't see where the house had once stood. There was so much dirt in the air visibility was zero!

We thought that the metal roof would make it harder to search for any unburned treasures. It was actually the two-foot-tall drifts of sand that made it the most difficult. The large sections of metal roof did make it challenging, but we also found that they made the fire even hotter. The metal traps in the heat and flames, and will cause the inferno inside to be even hotter. 

After waiting two days for the wind to die down, Mark and our brother-in-law got up before daybreak to get the first pictures of the twisted metal roof and a few remaining metal pieces that were still standing. They were up so early because the wind was supposed to return later in the day--and it did. Mark was immediately recruited to patch burned fences to keep the cattle off the road.

But our brother-in-law started searching for several things. One was the key to the pickup that was parked outside the house. We knew that the key should have been on the kitchen ledge in front of the oven. We consider it a miracle that he dug through that two feet of sand and found it. It was scorched and had melted into a curve. But he carefully straightened and cleaned it. When he put it into the pickup ignition, it turned and started! It was even good enough that a couple copies could be made from it. That wouldn't be possible with a newer vehicle's computerized key! That was the best discovery of the day!

Right beside that key was another interesting find. A pottery dish filled with coins almost seemed intact. It's wooden lid was gone  . . . 

and the coins inside were melted together into twisted lumps of metal. 

It was eerie to walk through a house with no walls. The piano's metal skeleton and it's metal strings were a strange sight without its beautiful wooden exterior. It seemed odd that the piano in the living room was now lying beside the broken china from the dining room. There used to be a wall separating the two. Once you burn up everything wooden, there is little left.

The heat from the fire also welded some metal things together. This 50-cent coin was curiously welded to a metal jewelry box.

Stone can withstand the fire, but it two will become brittle. Parts of the fireplace were still standing. But it was interesting that the large pieces of petrified wood in the garden porch splintered into smaller pieces.

We found that pearls don't fare well in this much heat. While they remained in a line inside the metal jewelry display box, these pearls were a total loss. This string of pearls was a gift to Denisa from Mark for our 10th wedding anniversary.

While Denisa's Mother lost everything in the fire, we also lost a few precious things. When we moved into the motor home seven years ago, we gave away almost everything that didn't fit into our new mobile life style. But we had a few things that weren't easily replaceable that we would enoy when we returned to a sticks-and-bricks lifestyle. Most of those things were stored at Denisa's Mother's house. All those things were lost in the fire. We lost three quilts that Denisa had hand pieced and hand quilted. We lost our china, and stoneware dishes that were too heavy for the motor home. 

We lost some jewelry and a hand-made stained glass clock. We lost the antique bowl and platter that was a wedding present to Denisa's grandparents in the early 1900s. We lost our antique sewing cabinet that Denisa's Father had rebuilt for her. We lost the antique metal trunk that had been in the family for 100 years. We lost many of our photo albums, and twenty years of the journals that Denisa wrote. She had written daily about all the cute things our children said and did while they were growing up. We're hoping those electronic copies that we made are still retrievable as we haven't checked on them in these last seven years. 

Our losses are very trivial compared to all the things that Denisa's Mother lost in that fire. This was the house where she was born almost 92 years ago. This was the home that her parents raised her brothers and sisters. This was the home that she and her husband remodeled and then raised their family. They did the work themselves. Denisa's Father built all the cabinets and woodwork himself. It was a physical and sentimental loss!

Mark did find two tiny diamonds among the sand. While the mountings melted, we have proof that diamonds can withstand fire. A second long day of hunting through the ashes didn't turn up any surviving momentos. While we found that hand-made pottery can survive a fire, those pieces had melted glass dripped on them from neighboring glassware. We never could find the bank safe deposit box key. Besides that pickup key, nothing was salvageable from inside the house.

While the house and a couple other buildings are total losses, it is very interesting that the big red barn on the other side of the corrals escaped unscathed. It still sits proudly on the top of the hill. It's nice to see the outpouring of love from friends and neighbors. A couple days after the fire, a couple friends brought loads of hay to feed the cattle that now have no grass to eat. Denisa's Mother lost 60 bales of hay in the fire.

Denisa's Mother, Betty, loved her lawn ornaments. That would include her namesake wooden "Betty Boop" statue out in front of the house. It had been in the front yard for years. This picture taken from the front of the burned house shows that the cross and Betty Boop are unsinged. That represents the important things that remained in the ashes. We're glad to report that the real Betty is still alive and well, and the fire hasn't burned her faith. She is clinging to her favorite bible verse: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28

When you get bad news . . .

We are always behind in our travel blog posts, but now we are further behind than usual. Maybe we will go back to finish up those posts about our last days in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, and our great trip along the Gulf Coast. But for now we thought it was better to explain our week-long absence from wandering His wonders. You see, we got some bad news. 

We got a phone call from Mark's brother that a wild fire had started in the panhandle of Oklahoma. They are in a drought, and were experiencing 40 mile-per-hour winds. When he heard about the fire, he went to check the cattle that he had in the area. He also realized that the fire was getting close to Denisa's Mother's house. But he didn't have her cell phone number to call and warn her about the fire. So he called Mark's Mother--who called Denisa's Mother. It was afternoon, prime nap time for a 91-year-old, and the phone call roused her. When she looked out her front window she could see the billowing smoke. With a second look, she could see the flames in her pasture just north of her house--pushed by those 40 mile-per-hour winds straight towards her. So she grabbed her cane, her purse, and her rings, and backed her car out of the garage. It was only minutes later that the flames engulfed her house.

Many of the roads were closed, but a man she didn't know was stopped at the intersection a mile and a half away. We still don't know who it was, but we'll just call him her "guardian angel." He offered to drive his pickup ahead of her car, leading her out of the path of the fire. He led her all the way to Mark's Mother's house, 20 miles away.

When we got the phone call about the fire, we knew that Denisa's Mother was safe. But we didn't know if perhaps the volunteer fire departments in the area would be able to guide the fire away from the house. It was moving too quickly, and the house was quickly burned into a pile of rubble.

We were in a campground in east Texas when we got the news of the fire, and then the news that the house was gone. So we packed up the motor home and headed to the Oklahoma panhandle. We have several rules about motor home travel. 1) We only travel around 100 miles a day. 2) We never travel through large cities. 3) We never travel on really windy days. We broke all three of those rules in order to get to our destination as quickly as possible. It was 523 miles going straight through Dallas and Oklahoma City.

The traffic and the construction made for stop-and-go traffic on many occasions through-out our journey.

Besides all that, the wind was blowing straight out of the north at 30-40 miles per hour. We had to break all three of our traveling rules that day! Mark had to work hard to keep the motor home in its lane every mile of the very long drive. It was the worst travel day since we started this full-time adventure. As we got closer to our destination, the sky was brown and the sun was an eerie color from all the dirt and smoke in the air.

We arrived about 24 hours after the fire burned its way through a life-time of accumulation. It didn't burn the memories--just the "stuff." We are now in the middle of sorting through the rubble and making plans for the future. Perhaps we'll have a chance to fill in those travel blogs that we have experienced but haven't written about yet. In the meantime, we are taking care of life--after you get bad news.

How do we celebrate holidays?

We celebrated a whole list of holidays while we were staying in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas this winter. Some of the holidays are well known. For example, we celebrated Valentine's Day at a local dance.

Denisa celebrated her love for Mark by making a card for him. (yawn)

Mark's gift was much more elaborate. He spent the morning making a red home-made pie crust and pie filling. He lined up his ingredients, including red toasted coconut, and a stencil for sprinkling it on the finished pie. He also used hearts to decorate the present of a new watch to count all those steps that Denisa gets in line dance.

She's a happy Valentine with that special red coconut cream pie to celebrate this holiday.

On Ground Hog Day, our park organized a scavenger hunt to celebrate. The game involved going all over the park, completing tasks like counting bird houses, or measuring statues, or putting on the park's green. 

We are proud to report that we won a free ice cream dessert for our successful performance in the Ground Hog Day scavenger hunt. We are glad that the ground hog didn't see his shadow, so we are hoping that spring is on the way. We've heard some complaints that this has been a cold winter for South Texas. We've had some brutally cold days when it barely got up to 60 degrees! The average high is supposed to be in the mid-70s, and many "winter Texans" were ready for warmer temperatures here. People were wearing big coats and hats at our next south Texas holiday.

We are at the Winter Texan Fiesta in Mission, Texas, to celebrate this holiday. You see, if there isn't enough holidays on the calendar, they invent new ones to celebrate. The fiesta included a free lunch, and free entertainment provided by two of the performers that spend their winters traveling to resorts all over this valley.

We did lots of dancing on the asphalt during the Winter Texan Fiesta, and found it was a good way to keep warm on a nippy day.

Another day that was invented in our resort is one to honor the park's latest king and queen. We celebrated with cake and punch. We include the picture of Denisa's Mother, who looks like she dressed to match the robes of the royalty.

Even lesser-known holidays are reason to celebrate among the retired folks down here. For example, we celebrated "Pi Day." If you've forgotten your math skills, Pi is the number represented by the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter--or 3.14. So the 14th day of the third month (3-14) we celebrated Pi Day by baking pies. At 3:14 on 3-14 we met to taste all the pies. Denisa picked a pie recipe out of the new Bentsen Grove recipe book. This was her first ever frozen peanut butter pie.

Each pie was cut into 16 pieces so there were plenty of pieces to share. While Denisa signed up to bring a pie . . .

Mark signed up to taste pie on Pi Day. Denisa took a picture of some of the men in the front of the pi line. Yes Mark is right in the middle of the guys planning to get first choice of all those pies.

Aren't those delicious pictures of pie for pi day?

Just three days later, our park was in full swing to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. We waited outside for the decorated golf carts to come down our street, and we weren't disappointed. 

A line of around 30 golf carts zig-zagged their way through every street in the resort.

When a friend saw us watching the parade, they encouraged us to join them. So we jumped aboard their golf cart and suddenly became part of the parade. This is Darlene and Patrick. Patrick was named for St. Patrick's Day, as he is celebrating a birthday today. This is when we learned that while many of the parade participants throw candy to the spectators, some of the spectators serve refreshments to the parade participants. What fun!

The day's festivities also included a green poker run, where we collected a playing card (and treats) at seven different houses. We had 130 people participate in the St. Patrick's Day poker run. The best poker hands won cash prizes, but we all won delicious snacks and tasty beverages. We finished our Irish holiday by eating corned beef and cabbage for dinner.

So that's a summary of how we celebrate some well-known (and lesser known) holidays here in South Texas. It seems that if the calendar doesn't include enough festivities, we just make up our own special days to celebrate.