ONE YEAR DOWN - MORE TO GO

May 18th marked our first year as full-time RVers. It was this date, one year ago, that we left our sticks and bricks home for the last time. I remember being totally overwhelmed by what we had done and.......well, tired. Thank the Lord for friends (Larry and Beverly Quinn with Sam and Brenda Soules) who surrounded us with love and caring as we spent several days at Lake O the Pines recuperating. 

After recovering, we made plans and set out on our adventure. 1) Take care of final business concerning sale of house (check).  2) Extended stay in Oklahoma visiting family (check).  3) Back to Longview for holidays (check).  4) Phoenix for RV Rally and other western points of interest (ah....no, that didn't happen).  Our plans are not always God's plans and He threw up a roadblock. After taking a step back, with time for healing from a health issue, we were ready to go again. Thankfully our friends were again at the ready with alternate plans to replace those cancelled.  4) Find bluebonnets (check and double check). 

We're back in Longview right now, taking care of appointments and other stuff. One thing we decided to do was upgrade our tow vehicle. We loved our Jeep Wrangler (Betty Boop as the previous owner had named her) but felt we needed 4 doors and wanted a hard top. Two days later we had a Jeep Wrangler, 4 door, hardtop. We bought it one gray, overcast day, as most have been, and to everyone that saw it, it was burgundy. Recently, when the sun peeked out for a few minutes, we discovered it was red, Deep Cherry Red Crystal Pearl to be exact (that's red with red metal flake). We were very pleasantly surprised. No name yet. We'll let you know. 

This has been a year filled with adventure.  Even with a bump in the road, it was still ours to experience. Many times we questioned whether this was really our life or if we would wake up and it would all have been a dream. I'm here to tell you that it is real and we are living it. Whatever tomorrow holds, we want to live life to the fullest, seeing this world that God has made for us to enjoy, one adventure after another.

See you on down the road. 

LAKE SOMERVILLE/BRENHAM

The last leg of our "Search for Bluebonnets" trip was based at Yegua Creek Park on Lake Somerville.

It was a great park with lots of trees for shade and dozens of deer that came through daily.  Although we saw many displays of wildflowers, we quickly realized that the grass had grown up taller than the flowers in most areas. We weren't really disappointed since we had already seen more bluebonnets than we ever imagined, and there were lots of sights still to see.

On our first day of exploring we stopped at the first location of Baylor University in Independence, Texas. This site was abandoned when the women moved to Belton and established Mary Hardin-Baylor and the men merged with Waco University to become Baylor University in Waco.   We then visited Washington on the Brazos State Park and learned much about the birth of our great state.












The Bluebonnet Festival in Chappell Hill was something we had put on our list of things to do before we even left on the trip.  The day finally arrived. Although it was overcast and rainy, we were excited. Larry was looking for the "largest bluebonnet on record" while Beverly and I just wanted kettle corn. We had lots of fun checking out the whirligigs and every kind of yard art you could imagine, most of which would be of no use to someone living in a motorhome.  Although Larry saw many sizes of bluebonnets, not sure he found "the largest" but Beverly and I did get our kettle corn.

 

The tour of the Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory (Brenham Creamery) was another definite we had on our list of things to do. There we learned how the milk comes into the factory, is turned into ice cream, has flavorings, fruits and such added, then packaged. The highlight of this tour was the ice cream we had at the end of the tour. Yum. Yum. Larry got a t-shirt while there that says "I get cranky without my Blue Bell". Little did we know at the time how true that would be.











Another day, another chance to explore.  This day we headed to La Grange where we saw some of the most beautiful older homes I have ever seen with lovely wrap-around porches and wonderful woodwork.  It also had two of the oddest things I have seen. The first was a tree in the road.

I mean a tree IN the ROAD.

 

As we turned the corner, this tree was in front of us, in our lane. No explanation. The second thing was a railroad track splitting two lanes of a street. (You'll have to trust me because I have no picture.)  Larry was trying to get back around to something we had seen when he turned onto this barely one-lane street. I quickly realized that we were right next to the tracks and that the other lane of this street was on the other side of the tracks. If a train had come, I'm sure we could have reached out and touched it. We were definitely glad to move on. 

 



Burton Cotton Gin
 

It's Saturday and time to explore. We tried some local BBQ (yummy) and happened upon Burton, Texas and the Cotton Gin Festival. We never expected to see antique tractors in a tractor pull or to tour a cotton gin. Although we didn't get to see this, the gin still bales one bale of cotton each year for the festival.   It was very interesting to see and hear what it took to bale cotton back in the day. This was especially interesting to me since my Great Grandaddy owned a gin in Henderson before I was born. He passed away when I was very young so I don't remember anything about the process.









One of the most enjoyable places we visited was the George H W Bush library at Texas A&M. What a wonderful tribute to a wonderful man. It was so interesting to follow his life from birth, through marriage, his military service, his many political positions including President.

Behind the library was the Barbara Bush rose garden. It was a beautiful, peaceful place. There were several people, walking, sitting peacefully on a bench, sitting on the grass studying, laying in a hammock or sleeping on the grass, all taking advantage of this wonderful garden area.

Behind the garden, down a quiet, winding path, is the Bush burial plot where their daughter Robin is already buried.

On our last afternoon at Lake Somerville, we were sitting out enjoying the scenery when it began to sprinkle rain.

As we were putting away our chairs, Larry came over holding a rather large hail stone, oddly shaped and dimpled like a golf ball. This is a picture of it in Beverly's hand after several of us had held it. OMG. I'm glad we only saw a couple of these and that they didn't hit anybody or anything.

This has been a great adventure. Can't wait until the next one.

 

 

 

FLOWERS, FLOWERS EVERYWHERE

We left Fredericksburg and headed to Canyon Lake where we settled in at Potters Creek Park on the lake.

 

 

The gate attendant told us we had one of the prettiest sites in the park and I would agree.

 

Large trees and lots of room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a group of at least a dozen deer that come through the park each day along with a fox and some strange looking geese.

We've been told these are Egyptian Geese which we were skeptical of until David found an article from a Houston newspaper that talked about these very birds.

One advantage to traveling is that sometimes you get to see people you haven't seen in years. We had a visit from our friend and David's former co-worker Robert and his son Travis who live in the Austin area. We had a great time catching up and convincing him that he needed to give RVing a try. Great way to teach Travis about this amazing country of ours.

We visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center near Austin, to learn all we could before exploring further. Well, not sure how much information we retained but we did have a lot of fun. Walked through the Family Garden where we saw all kinds of flowers and flowering trees.

Along the way we found exercise equipment so David felt obligated to continue his rehab.







We also walked along the trails where we saw flowers, swings and learned the history of various oak trees.

SWINGS????? 

Did you say SWINGS? 

Yes I did.  Gave us a few minutes to rest and laugh at ourselves.







We've taken almost daily road trips to look for wildflowers and have definitely found them. The countryside is covered with beautiful wildflowers. There are fields of Bluebonnets and fields of Indian Paintbrushes plus many areas with a mixture of flowers. Not only are there the blues and oranges but yellows, pinks, reds, purples and whites of more flowers than I could ever list, even if I knew the names of them all. What an awesome God to create such beauty for us to enjoy.

We made one last trip to the Willow City Loop (our third this season) and oh what a difference a week makes. The "Boot Fence Area", as we call it, was thick with blooms. As we proceeded down the road we thought that was all, but then, BOOM!!!!  Bluebonnets and other wildflowers were everywhere.  They were beautiful.  We also saw a wild turkey crossing the road, paying no attention to us. We are so glad we went back one more time.

After having lunch at the German Bakery in Fredericksburg, we took off following a tip Larry got about where more flowers were.  Mile after mile we traveled without seeing a single flower. It was late afternoon when we stopped at a store in the middle of nowhere and David again thought he heard banjos playing (can you say Thorntown, IN?). We (Beverly, David and Sophie) decided it was time to head back to the RV. On our way back, we were all surprised as we traveled some curvy, windy, switch-back type roads that made us think we were in Northern Arkansas. Along one of these roads we saw a herd of Buffalo. These were not the wild type that we saw in Yellowstone, but unexpected none the less.


We have just seen the motherlode of bluebonnets. I mean it. After David saw a video on Facebook about this great field of flowers at Muleshoe Bend Recreational Area on Lake Travis, we headed that direction. We had no idea what to expect but the OMG Fields, as the lady in the video called them, lived up to that name. There is no way to adequately describe the vastness of these fields of flowers. As Larry pointed out that the GPS thought we were driving in the middle of the lake, we realized that God had taken the drying up of Lake Travis and turned it into beautiful fields of bluebonnets. OMG. What a mighty God we serve.

On the way back to the campground we stopped at the Bluebonnet Cafe in Marble Falls for lunch. Established in 1929, it specializes in home cooking and pie. We had both. After stuffing ourselves until we couldn't eat anymore, we then had pie. I said earlier that Fredericksburg Pie Shop had mile-high meringue so I must now say that this pie had mile-high plus meringue. Don't believe I've ever seen anything like it. We're now headed back for a nap.

 

We'll be leaving this area in a few days on to another to see more flowers. What a beautiful adventure this has been so far. Can't wait to see more!

ON THE ROAD AGAIN - FREDERICKSBURG

David got the final okay from his doctor and we hit the road the next day. Since we didn't go to Phoenix, we decided to make a trip to the Hill Country of Texas and wait for the wildflowers.  We arrived in Fredericksburg and were very excited to see sun and be able to sit outside and enjoy it. It has been way to long. 

After settling in at the RV park, we headed to Charlie's Grill to have one of the best hamburgers around. They have a jalapeño bun that is indescribably delicious. Yum. Yum. Next day we headed to Enchanted  Rock. Well, it wasn't until we saw the flashing lights indicating it was full and closed to new arrivals, that we remembered it was spring break. Oh well, an adventure for another day. 

Since we have all been walking, cutting back on what we eat and snacking less, we decided to treat ourselves to pie at the Fredericksburg Pie Company. We each had a favorite, Chocolate Cream, Coconut Cream (each with mile high meringue), Chocolate Pecan and Key Lime served on vintage china. Great pie and great fun. 

We can now say we have "been there, seen that" to Luckenbach, Texas. Glad we went but were quite out of place with all the bikers. As the song says;  "Out in Luckenbach, Texas, ain't nobody feelin' no pain" would probably have been true for later that day. 

We took a drive along the Willow City Loop to check out the wildflowers. We knew it was to early for them to be blooming but we wanted to check out there progress. David and Beverly weren't sure what the plants looked like, so we stopped along the way to show them. While looking, Beverly found an early bloom which we are calling the 1st Bluebonnet of the season. Looks like it will be another week or two before they will really be out. 

Larry and David went to the National Museum of the Pacific War/Nimitz Museum to finish the tour they started on our visit 2 years ago. Both of their fathers had seved during WWII, so they were especially interested in various aspects of the war.  Beverly and I used that time to visit the shops on Main Street.  

Sometimes you don't even have to leave the park for entertainment. Martin the "cat man", as Larry calls him, "walks" his cats in a stroller.   





Neighbors to the park are these goats who "greet" you if you get to close to their young.










The airport is just down the road and we have seen several vintage aircraft fly over. Recently we heard what we thought would be a larger plane but when we looked up this is what we saw. This group of vintage aircraft flew in various formations for quite a while. 
It's almost time to leave here.  








We've had a great time but look forward to our next adventure on down the road. 

THE UNEXPECTED

After 3 months in Oklahoma watching baseball, basketball and gymnastics, celebrating a birthday and Thanksgiving, visiting with extended family, performing taxi and babysitting services, we headed back to Longview in December.  Little did we know what was ahead. 

Our plans were to take care of appointments and other matters while in Longview before heading toward Phoenix and an RV Rally. Well........that didn't happen. 

After seeing several doctors and some additional tests, it was determined that David needed heart bypass surgery. The surgery, rehab and his recovery have all gone very well. Think he is now better than new. Because of this, we felt it would be pushing his recovery to make the Phoenix trip so we postponed it for now.

This was definitely the unexpected.  We had no idea that David would require surgery. We had plans.......... but God had other plans. We are so thankful that things worked out the way that they did. We were able to get back to Longview where our family and friends were there to help us.  Not only is David in good health now, but we were able to take care of some things that needed attention.

We were able to fix the "Big Boy" slide on the RV. For you that don't know, that's the entire driver's side slide out. It started as a small problem then progressed to not pulling in or closing up at all. After much taking apart, jacking up, ordering parts, replacing motor and rails and putting everything back together, it works like a dream. Thanks to Larry and Dennis for all their hard work. 
The down time in Longview allowed David to resurrect an old hobby of his, Ham Radio.

He had obtained his license in the 70s and had kept it current, although he had been off the air for many years. He recently purchased a radio and antenna that could be easily setup as we travel around. He has made contact with amateur radio operators around the world including Puerto Rico, Germany, Lithuania, Guatemala, Portugal, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Cuba, Bahamas, Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary. It's amazing who you can talk to on a small  radio with a wire antenna hanging from a tree or pole.

We are so thankful that the Quinn RV Park has covered parking so that we easily survived the rain, ice, snow, more snow, more rain and even more rain that has been the

weather of late. We did, however, have to wade to the door on some occasions. We definitely want sun.

To us, all of this was unexpected, but God knew all along what was going to happen. He wasn't surprised, He was in control and we thank him for it.