Short Travel Day

This morning before we left Luling, we took a short walk around the rv park. Jim stopped at one loop so he could finish getting The Castle ready to roll. I picked up the camera and made one more loop so I could record some of the sights around the park.

The entrance to River Bend RV Park:



View of the park across the pond:

This mom and baby, are residents of the park:

A couple more park residents:

And another park resident:

We saw this fishing pole set last evening when we walked, but didn't see anyone around watching it. This morning, it was still there - I wonder if there are any fish in the pond?

We were heading east on I-10 by about 9:15 for our 100 mile trip today. We saw evidence of blue bonnets along the way:

We had a very easy drive and arrived at the Houston West RV park a little after 11. This park used to be a KOA. It's located about 30 -some miles west of Houston, in Brookshire, Texas. It's right off I-10, but so far I haven't been bothered by the noise. I actually heard more traffic yesterday from the River Bend RV park.

This afternoon, I left Jim to rest and relax on his own, and went to meet a friend of mine, who's name is also Ellie, for lunch and some shopping. We had a great visit and shopping trip. It was good to see her again. She and her husband, Ron, will be coming here for dinner tomorrow night.

While we were in Kerrville, Jim decided he really needs to have a portable fire pit/grill, so tomorrow I think we are going on a hunt to see if we can find one.

Back On The Road - Again

Well, this past week has been a social whirlwind for sure! We had just arrived at Buckhorn Lake RV Resort and started the activities with our friends from the RV-Dreams community when I last posted, and here it is nearly a week later.

We left Kerrville way before dawn this morning to make our way to the Cummins repair facility in San Antonio to have a bit of engine recall work done. While we were there, we found out we have another recall issue that must be taken care of, but that's a story for another day. The work on the motor home was completed quickly and we were on our way again by about 10:30 this morning. After a short drive, we arrived at Riverbend RV Park at Luling, Texas for an overnight stop before continuing on our way to Red Bay for the last warranty visit to Tiffin. It's hard to believe that we've been in The Castle almost a year now!

The week in Kerrville went by so fast, and we had so much fun, I was sorry to see it end. We got to see many of our friends and enjoyed the challenge of trying to stay on track with Weight Watchers. It seems that every time we got together, the subject was either the meal we were eating at the time, or the next one coming up!

We had one evening of "happy hour with snacks", a baked potato night, a potluck dinner, more happy hours, and several meals out. The weather was warm and the pool was open, so of course swimming and sunning were on the agenda as well. Of course, we kept up our walking routine each morning. What I did not have was a good internet connection. My Verizon card was not on broadband, so the speed was ultra-slow, and the park's wifi was iffy at best.

Here are links to a few other blogs for more accounts of the week's fun:

Nightly News - Sandra

Somewhere in Time - Speedy

RV Travels in Kram-a-lot-Inn - Ginger & Jesse

Keeping up with the Kendalls - Deb and Rod

Two Drifters Off to See the World - Molly and Bob

RVing With Poppa - Dortha and Mark

Mac & Nette's Road to Retirement - Lynnette and Greg

John & Brenda's Incredible Adventure - John and Brenda

Roaming When We Can - Arlene and Kevin

Green2GoRV - Keith and Donna

The Best Half of Our Life - Donna and Nolan

Averys Wanderings - Glenn and Sylvia

And a few pictures we took:

Mark and Keith look on as Dortha and Donna have a conversation:

Dortha really liked the strawberries dipped in chocolate!

A happy hour visit with the whole group:

I think Speedy and Bob have it all figured out:

We'll miss the folks from the gathering, but in this lifestyle, chances are very good that we'll be seeing them again, down the road somewhere! Now, on to the next adventures!

Enchanted - or Possessed??

I'm going to do this entry a little backwards - usually I try to catch up with missed days in order, but this time I'm starting with today's activities and will work backwards from there. This morning, we woke up and started the coffee as usual. When I poured our coffee, however, I noticed the pot was much lighter than normal, and when I'd filled our cups, there was no more coffee! What? That can't be right. First I thought I might have missed filling the pot when I set it up last night, and decided to make another pot. That's when I knew we were in trouble. The grinder worked fine, but that's as far as it went - no brewing action. Well, now, that's a serious situation in our household. We like our coffee freshly ground, and have had a grinder/brewer for years now. But this coffee maker is less than a year old, how could it be broken!

The plan for today was to climb Enchanted Rock, which we've been hearing about for a long time. Jim graciously volunteered to miss the climb and go find us a new coffee pot. We knew there is a Bed Bath and Beyond back towards San Antonio, and that he'd be able to find what we wanted there, so we went our separate ways today.

I rode with Mark and Dortha. Also along for the climb were Deb and Rod, Donna and Nolan, and Karen and Donnie. Enchanted Rock State Park is about 15 miles north of Fredericksburg, which is about 25 miles or so from Kerrville. The rock itself is a very large dome-shaped rock. The distance to the top of the rock is listed on the park's map as .6 miles, but it climbs 425 ft in those six tenths of a mile. Since once you get on the rock thre really isn't a defined trail, I'm not sure how they came up with that six tenths of a mile, it sure seemed like a lot further than that when we were climbing it. We left Buckhorn RV Resort around 10 this morning and caravaned to the state park. Here's a synopsis of the adventure.

From left to right, front to back is Deb, Karen, Nolan, Donna, Dortha, Mark, Donnie and Rod. Everyone is ready to go, with appropriate shoes, water and energy. Enchanted Rock is behind the group:

Are we there yet?

What possessed us to do this??

I don't know about y'all, but I'm ready for a break!

Hey, we're doin' good - almost there!

Ah, we made it! From left to right are Donnie, Karen, Mark, Dortha, Donna, Ellie, Nolan, Deb and Rod.

We managed to get back down the Enchanted Rock and stopped at Subway in Fredericksburg for sandwiches before heading back to Buckhorn. When we got here, my first thought was to check out the hot tub! Oh, well, maybe saying hello to Jim and the dogs was actually first. And yes, Jim was successful at replacing the coffee pot. And yes, it was worth a 60 mile, one way, drive to get it.

We went to the hot tub and soaked away our cares for a while, joined by Dortha and Mark. It was then time to relax with a beverage for a little while before getting ready to attend the dinner being put on by the resort. We enjoyed the dinner of pork loin, carrots and mashed potatoes, roll and chocolate cake, and the company. I'm sure there will be lots of pictures posted on various blogs, as the cameras were flashing all over the place.

Now, to work backwards to yesterday. We had our walks in the morning, and then went into Kerrville to run some errands and have a quick sandwich at Subway. The plans for the evening for most people were to have a pot luck of beans and cornbread to celebrate Texas Independence day. However, we'd been invited to dinner at Jo and Fred Wishnie's house. They found out that we were coming to Kerrville for the "Gathering" and decided to switch some of their plans to come here. They are staying at a different park, so we went over there. Fred prepared his awesome meatloaf, Jo fixed roasted asapargus and mashed potatoes, and we brought a salad. It was so good to see them again and get caught up on all the adventures we've both had over the last year.

Jenny, this picture's for you:

After dinner, we sat for "family portraits"

We really had a great visit with the Wandering Wishnies.

More RV-Dreamers are expected over the next few days...stay tuned for more adventures.

Travel Day to Kerrville, Texas

It's been about six weeks or so since we posted a travel-day entry. We were definitely ready to get on the road again. After all the warm weather we've been enjoying, of course, yesterday it turned chilly again, and this morning it was pretty crisp with quite a wind!

We were ready to go early and left the Last Resort at 8:00 for our 240 mile trip to Kerrville. We fought a north wind most of the way, which hurt our fuel economy - we got 7.4 mpg overall. The good news though, is that we paid "only" $1.95 per gallon of diesel.

Here's our last view of the Corpus Christi skyline, with the Lexington in the foreground:


Crossing the bridge into Corpus, with that other Phaeton in front of us!

Hey, where'd the palm trees go??

We arrived at Buckhorn Lake RV Resort, which is just west of Kerrville off I-10 around 12:30 and got checked in and parked. Very shortly after that, it was time to go find some lunch. Six of us, Dortha and Mark, Karen and Donnie, and Jim and I, went to Mamacita's for a very nice Mexican lunch. Afterwards, Dortha, Mark, Jim and I stopped at Walmart. Dortha and I both just looked around with wide eyes at the size of the store, the guys kind of groaned and rolled their eyes. I was excited to find several things that the Rockport Walmart did not have. Well, sometimes it just doesn't take much to entertain us. We didn't stay long, though, and got back to the rv park in plenty of time to socialize with the other folks from the RV-Dreams community who are gathering here.

We have Arlene, Kathy, Debbie and Molly:

And Mark, Bob and Chuck:
Over the next few days, I'm sure I'll be able to get some fun pictures of all the people who are here.

Dortha, Karen and I decided we needed to get in our walk, so we made a couple of loops around the park and got 2 miles done. By the time we finished, most folks had decided to go to dinner, and we have now settled in for the evening.

Stay tuned for more adventures from the Gathering.