Texas Wildlife

Here are some of the interesting animals and birds Mrs McLeay and I have photographed in Texas:

This is a cardinal on our first morning
near Houston

This is a squirrel at Fairfield Lake State Park, half way between Houston and Dallas.

                       




           This is a robin in Cleburne

This is a Yellow Crested Heron near the house we stayed in in Cleburne  We spent two nights camping at Cleburne State Park, and two nights with Dr Bruce and Mary Mertz, who we worked with in the jungle hospital in Ecuador back in the 1980s.

These buzzards all nested in a tree just above our campsite near Cleburne.  They were all flying around in circles above us as we had a BBQ tea.  A little chilling!

Cleburne Schools

A Busy Day in the Schools of Cleburne.

On Thursday we had a full day visiting and learning about the Cleburne Independent School District.  The word "independent" does not mean private.  These are public schools funded by the government and the state.  Ms Tammy Bright, the Assistant Superintendent of Student Services, was our host and, after a 90 minutes meeting with her, learning all about how their principal appraisal system works (and many of the requirements and systems in the state of Texas), she then took us to visit three of their elementary (primary) schools.  We also met briefly with the new District Superintendent, and finally had a short time in the middle school where a celebration of wounded war veterans was taking place.

This photo is of Ms Tammy Baker, with me, outside one of the schools we visited.


Cleburne has 7 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, one "alternative school" for special learning programmes, and one large high school.  It has an interesting mix of students, with the largest number being Hispanic (speaking Spanish), and also a number of students from the Marshall Islands.  Have you worked out why people from these islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean are here?  There are two important factors: the first is that the USA did nuclear testing on one of their islands in the 1940s, especially on Bikini Island (the bikini swim suit is named after this very small island - can you get the connection?) and the second is that many Marshall Islanders attend Seventh Day Adventist churches, and there is a Seventh Day Adventist University in Keene, close to Cleburne.

First School Visits - Keene

First School Visits:

Tuesday, April 21:  Mrs McLeay came with me for my first school visits today.  We hired a rental car and made our way to Keene, a small town northwest of Cleburne where we had fun meeting three special people and looking through two amazing schools.

I had interviews with the School Superintendent, the person who manages a group of schools, and then interviewed the principal of Keen Elementary School (the photo to the right is the main entrance) and Keene Junior High School.  The Superintendent appraises all the Principals, which is what my interviews were about.

There are 480 children at the elementary school, in 24 classrooms with an average class size of 20 - I am sure we would all love this at Riverview!

There is also a Keene High School, and all the sports trams in all three schools are called the "Keene Chargers."  The photo to the left is the elementary (primary) school gymnasium.

The elementary school also has specialist teachers for P.E., Music, Art, Computer Studies, Learning Assistance and for Counselling.

Part of me feels a little envious of all these things, but what I really think is that Riverview School has fantastic teachers who do all of these things in their own classrooms.

One other interesting fact that I found surprising is that about 20% of the students come from the Marshall Islands.  You might like to find these Islands on a map.  I don't know why so many have moved to this town in Texas, but there certainly are a lot of them.

Things to see in Texas

We have seen some interesting things in Texas.  Here are a couple:

In Texas nearly half the vehicles on the roads are "trucks" (or pick ups or utes).  These are mostly big ones with 8 cylinder motors and are very popular.  We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant last night and came outside to see this parked by us.  You need to climb up several steps to get into it.  Mr McLeay has three brothers who would all love to have a ride in this beauty!

This is something you won't see in New Zealand.  In case you can't read the sign it reads: "Crazy Gun Dealer.com"  We drove past it and were so amazed, we went back and took a photo.  Then we thought, maybe he really is crazy and doesn't like us taking photos, so we drove away very quickly.

Just this week a new law was passed in Texas allowing people to now carry their guns openly in public.  This means people will be allowed to have a gun just like in the cowboy days.

Our home for the next 5 weeks.

This is our home for the next 5 weeks.  Jan and Tim Cooper own this 12 meter long motor home and there is a jeep behind which we use for short trips once we have set up camp each night.  The State Parks often don't have internet connectivity, so there may be times when I won't get a post up for a few days, but will try to catch up later, like I am now.

Our first night was spent with a family in the little town of Hull, an hour east of Houston.  We then took two days to travel up to Cleburne, a town of about 30,000 people, just south of Dallas-Fort Worth.  This is an area called "The Bible Belt" where many people go to church.  This town has 77 churches and many of them are very big and are full on Sundays.

Here we are at Cleburne State Park.  Most of the time we will be staying overnight in state parks. When we were having tea at this table a squirrel came and watch us eating and was very inquisitive.  We`have seen beautiful deer and lots of colourful birds

Kerikeri to Houston

We;re off!

We flew down to Auckland on Saturday afternoon on the start of a very long day.  In Auckland three of our adult children (Anna, Robbie and Yanita) came to farewell us, which we really appreciated.

This is the Boeing 777 we traveled on.  We` thought it was pretty cool being in the Hobbit Plane!

The flight to Los Angeles was very long (about 10 hours), but we had great seats; the two at the very back of the plane.  I watched three movies while Mrs McLeay watched two and caught a bit of sleep.

We`had to wait at Los Angeles International Airport for 5 hours before our next flight to Houston, in Texas which took another 3 hours.  We`arrived their at 10 o'clock on Saturday night, only 8 hours after we had left Kerikeri!  How could that be?

The Chauffeur and the Chef

April 16:  The Chauffeur and the Chef.

Meet Tim and Jan Cooper.  Jan is Mrs McLeay's sister, and we have had many adventures together over many years.  The Coopers left today for Houston, Texas.  Here they are at Kerikeri Airport.  They arrive in Houston before us so that they can get their big Motorhome ready for the American part of our journey.  Tim is a retired pilot and engineer and he will do most of the driving in the USA and Canada.  Jan is a fantastic cook,

Hence: the chauffeur and the chef.



Note:  Chauffeur and chef are examples of words starting with a digraph.  
Can you name 5 more?

Here is Margie with Jan and Tim just before the Coopers leave Kerikeri.

Here are two questions:
Tim has estimated that we will drive 3,350 miles as we travel around the USA and Canada.

• How many kilometers will this be?
• If we are travelling for 33 days, what is the average number of kilometers we have to drive each day?