Our Winter Home

We were sad to say goodbye to our campsite in Austin, Texas.  It was a really great spot and I'm sure we'll go back there.  Cleo misses the squirrels.

We didn't leave too early since I had miscalculated and thought we had a much shorter drive than we did.

Palm trees!

You know you are in Texas when..............there is country music being played everywhere.  You hear it at the gas stations.

You even hear it in the bathrooms at the rest stops. 

We arrived in Weslaco, Texas to very warm temperatures.

By the time we settled in to our site and had dinner the day was over.  We spent Monday and Tuesday grocery shopping, doing laundry, cleaning the rv, and of course, swimming in the pool.  

A very sad Thanksgiving dinner. 

I'm sure we will get a great dinner on American Thanksgiving Day.

We are enjoying our outdoor cooking appliances. 

Such a pretty sunset.

The weather has been hot and sunny everyday.  We're told it's hotter than normal.  It's also humid, however nothing like it was when we got to Mexico last year.  We are looking forward to cooler temperatures.  

Almost a full moon.

The green building behind the mailboxes is the pool hall.  

We have been looking at the list of activities that will start once there are more people in the park.  There is aquasize, yoga, Zumba, cards, crafts, pickleball, horseshoes, golf, shuffleboard, bingo, potluck dinners, dances, entertainment, movie nights and more things than I can remember.  

We went to a bar one night for karaoke.  The managers of our park sang a couple of songs.

We bought Cleo some booties.  The pavement is very hot and there are really pokey burrs in the grass.

The night we went to karaoke our truck was acting up and doing some strange things.  The next day, Friday, Dave took it to the GM dealer.  They determined that we need a new transmission control module and of course, they want a lot of money to replace it.  We made a lot of phone calls and did some research online.  Dave was able to remove the old part and we ordered a new one which will arrive tomorrow.  Once it arrives we will have to take it to GM to be programmed.  We have been without our truck for a week so have not been able to do any of the exploring that we were looking forward to.  Since we have been stranded here we have been doing lots of swimming.  

Dave burned the back of his neck so had to wear my scarf to go for walks.

The full moon was very bright.

More heat.

More swimming.

Our view at the moment.  We practically have the park to ourselves.

Dave took some pictures of the vegetation around the park.

There are so many fruit trees.  Oranges, grapefruits, lemons, limes, mangos and even avocados.

Home sweet home.

Cleo enjoying the screen tent.  She is probably dreaming about all of the little bunnies in the park.

I did warn you that my blog wouldn't be too exciting this winter.  Cheers!!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Our last weekend at Great Woods was lots of fun.  A big group went out for Chinese food. 

We were treated to a beautiful sunset.  

We raked, prepared our site for winter and packed up for our big road trip.  

Monday morning, October 3rd we hit the road.  It didn't take us long to cross the border into North Dakota.  What did take us a long time was purchasing a cell data and phone plan in Grand Forks.  We started at AT & T, then Verizon, then back to AT & T.  We got a plan to do for short term.  Hopefully we'll find something better when we get to Weslaco. 

We were fighting a very strong south wind all day which didn't help our fuel economy any, but we had no complaints from our truck. This truck and trailer combo really doesn't seem to be bothered by the wind.  

We ended the day in a little town called Hankinson, North Dakota that has a park with a few campsites.  You put your payment into a slot.  We had the place to ourselves. 

At the base of the tree in our site were these "nuts".  Maybe someone knows what they are but we didn't.  

We walked a few blocks to the grocery store since we had cleaned out our fridge before crossing the border.  We walked past this law office which has a unique name.

It's a very pretty town with huge, well kept homes and impressive churches.

We had a huge thunderstorm that night.  Our trailer was rocking and rolling.  The next morning was pretty overcast and once again, we were driving straight into a strong wind.  

I'm not sure what the building is but usually, the biggest, grandest buildings are banks. It almost looks like a golf course but I don't think that would be a clubhouse.

They have such great rest stops in the U.S.  

Love the lack of traffic.

I will start with the UGLY.

We pulled into a Walmart in South Dakota to do a bit of shopping.  As we were pulling out to leave on a very tight corner, Dave noticed that the trailer was getting very close to a post in the parking lot.  We backed up a bit, then carefully made the turn, watching the post and the side of the trailer.  Suddenly, we heard a noise.  At the top of the post there was a sign which we hadn't seen.  It took out the bottom of our bathroom window.  ☹️

We pulled into an RV service lot and they were nice enough to tape it up for us at no cost.  They told us not to feel bad, they've seen it done before and much worse.  That certainly put a damper on our day.  

The weather was warm and wet.

We were happy to put South Dakota behind us and enter Nebraska.

We bypassed Omaha.

We spent the night at Cabela's in La Vista, Nebraska.  We had an even bigger thunderstorm overnight.

We had a great day of driving.  Into the south wind!

We had sunshine.....

clouds.......with pink roads

......construction

.....then back to sunshine.

Very little traffic.

The road took us through the middle of small towns. 

Construction.......

........more construction.

Borders of states are often rivers.  We were briefly in Iowa at some point, not sure if it was this day.

Back into clouds and construction.

It's always interesting to drive through small towns.

I missed part of this sign but in case you always wondered where the Prairie Chicken Capitol of the World was, it's in Cassody, Kansas. 

The ever changing sky.

We arrived at our destination in El Dorado State Park in Kansas.

I went for a long walk to explore the park.

We loved our campsite.

Cleo had a ball.

A great place to read a book.

Just beautiful.

After the gorgeous sunset it's hard to believe but we had another thunderstorm overnight.

The next morning when we got up the wind was ferocious.  When we opened the door of our trailer we had to hold on with all our might to keep it from slamming open.  Every trip in and out of the trailer was a challenge while we were preparing to leave.  The BAD. On one of our trips out of the trailer, when we opened the door, the force of the wind blew the kitchen window out of its track.  We couldn't get the little wheels back in the track to wind it closed so......duct tape to the rescue.

I believe this was the morning we went briefly through Iowa.  Love the pink roads.

It was a beautiful day for driving.

We are approaching Kansas City.

Gorgeous scenery in Kansas.

There is plenty of wind for these wind turbines.

We are arriving in Texas.

We had a great sunset at the Walmart in Denton, Texas.

Right across from where we were parked was a Petco.  Cleo desperately needed a haircut due to the heat, and without power Dave was unable to do it.  Dave made an awesome deal with a girl at Petco to shave the main part of Cleo's body and Dave would finish the rest.

She came back with her new do, feeling much cooler.

Our first night with no thunderstorm, just rain.

Friday morning, we had a rainy drive.

We passed the Texas Motor Speedway.

You know you're in Texas when the semis start to outnumber the vehicles.

We drove through SO much construction.

Fort Worth in the distance.

A maze of freeways.  Thank goodness for GPS.  Most of the time.

More construction.

Blues skies and great roads.

Gorgeous scenery on the way to our campground in Austin.

We have arrived at Emma Long Metropolitan Park.  We were extremely lucky to get a campsite in Austin.  Everything I tried was booked.  I kept checking for cancellations and found one.  We found out after we arrived that the ACL (Austin City Limits) music festival is on.  It's also a long weekend here.

More fun for Cleo.

We barely fit in our site.

We had no storm or rain overnight.

This morning, Saturday, Dave repaired our kitchen window.

We watched a wake boarder.

We drove into Austin for a bit of shopping.

We went to Rudy's BBQ.

The scenery is beautiful.

Back to our campsite.

Half moon tonight.

A great end to a great day.

The GOOD. All of the trip except for the Bad and the Ugly.  We will be leaving tomorrow, Sunday, October 9th and going to Weslaco.  Happy Thanksgiving!