Good, no, Great Morning!

We are sitting outside right now sipping coffee, maybe shivering just a bit(it's 57 degrees) looking out over Elephant Butte Lake.  Elephant Butte Lake was created in 1916 by damming up the Rio Grande.  It's a large lake, 40 miles long with over 200 miles of shoreline.  Sun is making its way up, but hasn't quite risen yet.  It is dead quiet with just a gentle breeze.  Pretty perfect.
We are in a campground in the Elephant Butte State Park well removed from civilization.  Our site is on a point so we can see no one else, it's like we are the only people around.  Unfortunately, it's not all perfect though.  We are due east of a large fire in the Gila mountains about 75-100 miles away and with the prevailing wind out of the west there is smoke in the air, in fact last evening for a bit we thought we'd might have to leave it was so smoky, couldn't see very far and it was irritating our eyes.  As the wind shifts the smoke shifts, we'll see how it goes today.  This is a picture of our fabulous site.

And a couple of me enjoying the view from our covered picnic table pavilion.

We had a great drive from Lakewood yesterday over a pass in Cloudcroft, NM at about 8600 feet, scenery was fabulous amidst the smoke.  Before we left we did some more geocaching, did pretty well, 3 out of 5.  It is turning out to be a fun activity.  A shot from our geocaching endeavor.

And a shot of Jan, I know not enough of her, but she is our photographer and not in most of our photos.  But here's proof she's here:)

Happy Memorial Day!

                 In between the fun and games today, don't forget what's its all about.

2 very unwelcome guests and a learning experience

The weather here in Lakewood, NM is sunny, hot, and very windy.  The mornings are magnificent though.  For those of you sleep-iners, that's the time from a bit before sunrise until noonish.:)  It's cool and quiet and beautiful.  With that in mind we left yesterday at about 0530am, a little before sunrise to explore an area to the west of Carlsbad Caverns.  We have been in this area before, in fact, I have been into the caverns twice and Jan isn't comfortable in caves, so the Caverns isn't in our plans this trip.  We wanted to get off road, one of our favorite things to do and see how the new Jeep handles it.  We took a fantastic 165 mile loop with about 70 miles of it off road.  The Jeep is superb, the air suspension that allows you to raise it up to clear obstacles is awesome!
Anyway as we are making our way just after sunrise I see a dark blob on the road ahead.  It took a moment for it to register, turn back and take a picture, yeah only a picture, of one of my favorite creatures, a Desert Tarantula, NOT!

We continued on and kept climbing in altitude to the 6000' range which kept the temps fantastic.  We saw beautiful scenery.....

Lots of mule deer, a big eared Jack Rabbit......

And the crowning event, one we did NOT get out of the Jeep for, a big Western Diamondback rattler, of which the guide book succinctly puts, "bites can be fatal"..

All in all we had a great day, a nice drive, a bit of walking about, and some interesting creatures.

About dinner time some weather started to move into the area.  We were watching the radar on our phones and a severe thunderstorm watch was raised for the area we are in.  It looked to me that it would just miss us to the west.  All of a sudden we start hearing loud booms, one after the other!  We didn't know what it could be, we go outside, go up and down the street trying to figure it out?  Pretty soon a lady across the way, who must have seen us looking puzzled, came out to tell us what we hearing were "hail cannons".  Seems the pecan farmers fire these cannons to prevent hail from forming that could ruin their crop.  I was a bit incredulous, but this lady assured me that for the many years she had been here, that whenever the cannons were fired they had experienced no hail!  I was a bit amazed and searching through my meteorological training and understanding I could not picture how firing a very loud cannon could have any effect on hail.  Well, on searching the internet, seems they have been using cannons for this purpose since 1901!  And, although there is no scientific proof that it works or can work, the believers swear it is effective and continue to use them.  It is impossible to prove yes or no evidently.  So it continued about every 3-4 seconds for an hour, and we had no hail!  Must work, huh?

A catch up, lots of stuff post (long)

We've been having quite a time.  A lot has been happening for us.  First and foremost, I have talked about my retirement as if it was done.  Well, not exactly, I have been on a schedule for April and May in which I don't have any responsibilities (or pay), kind of a leave of absence.  That's over now, my retirement letter has been submitted and accepted so my last day of work will be June 3rd.  Then I am officially retired!  It hasn't struck us that we are fancy free yet, although we are beginning to lean that way.

As I said we had a wonderful time in Round Rock with Larry and Mary Ellen.  My friendship with Larry goes way back to college so it was fantastic to pick up right where we left off!  We share a love of food with L&ME so we certainly tried out several restaurants in the area and had a gourmet meal at the motorhome one night.  They are in a small apartment til their fabulous new house is built, so have been sampling the restaurants in the area.
We started out with the Salt Lick barbecue, not the original one in Dripping Springs, but a clone near the ballpark in Round Rock.  We have been trying to get to the Salt Lick for years, but always ended up at Cooper's in Llano instead. So first critique, Salt Lick was great, we sampled pork ribs, excellent, brisket, tender and juicy, and it was great to see the huge open fire grill in the middle of the restaurant.
Lunch at the Monument Diner in downtown was fun, an eclectic, local place specializing in local food, a lot of it grown right outside in their garden.  Fresh, tasty, and reasonable, what else would you want?
We then had a superb dinner of filet mignon from the Central Market in Austin, quite a top shelf store, cooked expertly by our own gourmet chef, Larry!  Oh yeah, much wine was also consumed.
A super breakfast followed at a little hole in the wall, Tio Dan's Puffy Taco.  Authentic, delicious Mexican with their specialty being a "puffy" taco.  It seemed they took a corn tortilla and fried it until it puffs, then fill it with delectable fillings.  Yum yum!
We, of course, wanted to explore all cultures so for dinner we went to Ho Ho Chinese BBQ.  This was the most authentic chinese restaurant Jan and I have ever been to.  Filled with asians speaking many different dialects of Chinese it was quite an experience, oh yeah, and absolutely delicious!  Best Hot and Sour Soup we've ever had.  Even had Peking ducks hanging near the entrance, one of their specialties.
We had to counter and offer a place we had been to in the past, Maria's Taco Express down in Austin.  Jan and I are Food Network fans and we had seen this place featured on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives and visited it several years ago.  We wanted to see if it was still going strong.  We showed up to a huge crowd and line Sunday morning, and had a great brunch.  Busy, busy, interesting little dive with great Mexican.
Our farewell dinner was at Fish Daddy's Seafood Grill.  We had killer clam chowder, yeah in Texas!  And excellent fried catfish, cod, and shrimp.  We believe it is a small chain in the area, but highly recommend it.  Ok, enough of the food reviews, lets move on.

After our repair we headed northwest to San Angelo, TX to the state park by the same name.  It was a great choice, huge sites with 50 amps and water.  Very private, quiet, tons of room between sites and a bit of a view of the lake that is quite low right now.

We had a great sunset.

And a fabulous sunrise.

We also had a very interesting visitor, a Flycatcher.

It was neat to watch his awesome maneuverability as he hunted down his dinner of insects.  We would definitely go back to the San Angelo State Park for some R&R.

Then we went a "grueling" 88 miles all the way to Big Spring, TX.  It is getting hot now, in the high 90's and bumping 100, but as they say, "It's a dry heat".  We just stopped for the night but felt we had an obligation to see the Big Spring.  Seems when the pioneers were in the area, their indian guides took them to this area as there was a huge spring gushing over 100,000 gallons a minute out of the ground that could be counted on anytime in the year.  Well, after the mining and farming hit the area they depleted the spring to the point that without rain there is very little water even in the spring itself.  As you can see in the picture it is pretty low and didn't appear to be flowing at all.

We have discussed our internet issues a few times and as you know we have been weighing different options for internet access on the road.  There was none in San Angelo State Park and the provided WiFi in Big Spring was terrible so we decided to turn on the tethering on one of our iPhones and see how that goes.  It only adds $20 to our present data plan and gives us 5GB.  It works well, so with acceptable WiFi juggled with tethering we think this will answer our issues, of course, that's until we don't have cell coverage or weak coverage and then we will have to revisit this issue and see if we want to get a cellular amplifier.

We are now in Lakewood, NM just north of Carlsbad at The Ranch, an Escapee's park.  Escapees is a club that was started some time ago that caters primarily to full-timers.  They offer all kinds of services, mail forwarding, continuing care facilities, and have numerous campground or parks across the US.  Their headquarters is in Livingston, TX.  We have visited only a few of their exclusive parks, one in Tennessee and one in Alabama.  They are friendly people and very welcoming.  Well, let me tell you here it is really true.  When someone enters the park a big bell is rung and folks come out and greet you with hugs and hellos.  We got invited immediately to their Root Beer Float gathering at 4pm, and had a welcome packet delivered and several more people drop by to say hello.  We went to the Float get-together, $.50 a float, can you beat that?  There were perhaps 25 people there and after visiting a bit a lady went to the front of the room with a mike and told a couple stories, did some announcements, then called the newcomers, JAN AND I to come up to the mike and say hello and let everyone know what we were up to.  Thankfully I've gotten over some of my public speaking terror while I was an instructor, so hopefully it wasn't too bad.  Nice, nice folks.
On the way up here, the wind really kicked up, we were glad we were only coming 200 miles.  Right on our nose 20-30 mph with gusts over 40!  It supposed to be with us for several days, at least it keeps the 100 degree heat at bay.  As we drove I kept noticing something moving on the road.  I mentioned it to Jan and she started to watch as well.  We thought we were seeing fairly big insects of some kind on the road.  What the heck????  I found a spot to pull over where there were quite a few of them to figure out what they were.  Turns out they were huge grasshoppers!  About 3 inches long!  As near as we could tell they were Horse Lubber Grasshoppers.  Here's a couple pictures:

One last thing before I close.  Windmills for electricity generation are popping up all over the West.  They are everywhere, and obviously wherever it is windy.  I'm not going to discuss their merits or disadvantages here, but it's good to see us tapping into alternatives.  We know that people that live near them consider them to be an eyesore and we have heard they make quite a bit of noise as they whirl around.  We have tried in years past to get near to one to see what they sound like, but had never been able to get close enough.  Well, we had an opportunity in Big Spring an area with tons and tons of them.  We were able to drive to about 200 feet of one.  Well, we can tell you they do make noise, a whishing, howling, rumbling kind of sound, and I imagine if you lived close it might be annoying, but if you owned the land it was mounted on, I imagine the rent might offset the sound:)

Finally done for awhile.  Thanks so much for sticking with it.  More to come later as we explore our freedom.

Quick repair

We showed up at Iron Horse RV first thing in the morning after they squeezed us in.  They came out to take a look right away and moved us into a bay.  They didn't have what they needed in stock to repair the exhaust, but got it in about an hour, 10 minutes for the repair and we were on our way!  Iron Horse is a comprehensive shop with many recommendations and I'm adding ours to the list.  They even have a 60,000 pound lift to get under motorhomes.  Very pleasant as well as competent, so if you're in the San Antonio/Austin area and need some work, give them a call.

New endeavor and a slight detour

We were sitting around talking with Larry and Mary Ellen and the subject of geocaching came up.  Jan and I have been looking into it just a bit and it turns out L&ME are old hands in geocaching.  After they explained more about it, off we went to look for 5 different caches within a 1/2 mile or so of their apartment.  Turns out they are everywhere both in urban and rural areas!  Geocaching is finding, with the use of a GPS, little stashes that people have hidden here and there.  They may be trinkets or challenges or puzzles or all sorts of things.  You can sign onto geocaching.com and see roughly where they are and what they are.  Now finding them is another story.  Of the 5 we looked for we only found 3.  The GPS gets you close and then possibly the clues get you closer, but eventually it just takes poking around to find them.  It's pretty interesting and looks to be a neat little hobby that we will do along the way in our travels.

Our campsite in Round Rock, as I mentioned, is in a very nice park called Old Settlers.  There are quite a few restored cabins and buildings from the pioneer days amidst huge live oaks and rolling fields.  And even if the campground itself is little more than a parking lot, the grounds are beautiful.

The little detour we are on has taken us down to San Antonio, actually just to the northeast of the city.  We need to get our exhaust leak taken care of and after asking on the Monacoers forum it turns out that a very highly recommended service facility, Iron Horse RV is right here and they were able to get us an appointment for tomorrow morning.  Hopefully they can fix us up quickly and we'll be on our way west!  Cross your fingers for us!

Busy, good times!

We have been on a whirlwind for the last couple days.  It's been wonderful to see and visit with our friends, Larry and Mary Ellen.  They are building a beautiful house in the area.  We went to see their house under construction, then over to see a similar model, very, very nice!  I'm sure they will be happy with it.  It's in a great area, nice and quiet and rural looking, but close to all amenities, and a short drive to work....Perfect.
We've been eating up a storm as well.  Mexican, Chinese, Barbecue, American, all the nationalities:)  And I think today we'll do some more.  We hadn't been to the Austin area for several years, but from all appearances, things are bustling, busy, and lots of signs of building.  The economy looks great here in the Hill Country.
We are in Round Rock, TX as I mentioned.  As we were driving around Larry asked if we wanted to see the "round rock"?  I thought he was kidding.  It turns out Round Rock is named for an actual round rock. A section of the Chisholm Trail goes right through the area and crosses the Brushy Creek.  There is a round rock in the river at the crossing.  If the round rock was exposed, above the water level, the crossing was safe, if not, you needed to wait until the river lowered.  Pretty interesting.  Here's THE Round Rock.

On another note, the exhaust leak that I thought was caused by a missing exhaust clamp is actually a leak in a section of flex exhaust pipe that is coming apart.  We will probably detour down to San Antonio on Monday to get it fixed.

Pleasant day

We eased out of Longview on this beautiful morning, but not before we found out we lost an exhaust clamp somewhere along the way.  Decided all would stay together until we could find another clamp in Round Rock or Austin, so away we went.  A peaceful quiet mostly two lane road all the way, 250 miles to Old Settlers Park.  We are just a few miles away from friends here so we aren't too concerned about the campground.  We are parked right across the street from a AAA baseball stadium and are hoping to catch a game during our visit.  The campground is a packed gravel parking lot, but with full hook-ups, so we are all set.  Looking forward very much to our visit here.

Easy day

Had a pretty quiet day yesterday.  Kids in school, Todd at work, and Kelly at several meetings along with transportation duty of course.  We did a couple things on the motorhome though, one we were planning to do and one we tripped over.
We have 3 air conditioners, actually heat pumps that sit on the roof.  As you know even in house AC units, a lot of water is produced as they run, a lot of RVs just allow the water to run down across the roof and then down the side.  Ours has 2 catch cups on each unit that tie into flexible tubing that routes the water under the coach.  It's great most of the time.  Unfortunately, especially when the ACs haven't been used for awhile, the tubes tend to gum up and get blocked allowing the water to run down over the side of the coach.  So periodically we clean them out.  We have tried several different methods of doing this, blowing air up through the lines from the bottom of the coach, dropping the ceiling panels over the ACs inside, disconnecting the hoses and using a wire to run through as much of the tubing as we can, or forcing water up the tubing from the bottom.  The water solution is new and we are hoping is the answer going forward.  What makes it challenging is the manufacturer didn't just use a single run of tubing from the ACs to the underneath of the coach, they used several 90 degree fittings which prevent a snake from getting through.
The rear AC seems to cause most of our problems.  We had tried to blow it out previously with high pressure air that was not successful, so we had pulled down the ceiling and cleaned it that way.  It was acting up again and we didn't feel like pulling down the ceiling so we decided to try the water method.  I got outside with the hose and Jan went inside so she could scream holy hell if the fittings gave way and water started pouring out of the ceiling, meanwhile I turn on the water and immediately get soaked as water pours out of the air intake above my head on the back of the motorhome!  What the hell? All I can think is one of the 90's way up in the rear cap gave way and it's somehow pouring out the intake.  NOT SO.  Come to find out I'm an idiot and have the wrong hose!  And I realize when we tried previously to blow air up through to unclog it I had the wrong hose.  I had the hose that allows water to drain out of the intake to prevent water from getting into the engine, duh!  Found the right hose, right near the other one and forced water up and through with no disasters.  Jan went up on the roof to make sure water was coming out on both sides of the AC unit, which it was, so we think we have discovered a new and better method of cleaning these tubes, once we got around my stupidity:)
The other repair we stumbled over.  We park the Jeep in front of the motorhome where we are and as I pull in yesterday I notice what looks to be a small hose or wire hanging down under the front of the coach.  I check it out and sure enough it is a small air hose that been dragging along the road for who knows how long!  We have an inflatable door seal on our entry door.  It is supposed to inflate when we put the motorhome in gear to cut down on any air noise from the door.  It works very well usually, but lately Jan and I thought it was louder than normal, and as we found out, it wasn't working at all..  A quick trip to Lowes, some new rubber hose, a new fitting, and we're good as new.  Wish all repairs were this easy.

Older than we think

We had the grandkids over for the weekend.  They came on Friday evening and stayed til Sunday noon.  Sure showed Jan and I we haven't had kids in awhile:)  The fact it rained off and on on Saturday challenged us a bit.  But we played games, taught each to play checkers, and watched a movie when we had to stay inside.  We had a wonderful time, but it definitely reminded us of how much effort it takes raising kids.  So I guess this is a big, belated Happy Mother's Day!  Faith and Christian sure bring a lot of joy to our lives.
We had a surprise visit with Todd's parents, Irv and Peggy.  Nice seeing them.  They have entered the world of RVing also with their second motorhome, so we were able to share the joys and the challenges of the lifestyle.  So after a great Mother's Day dinner, we left so the kids could get to bed to be ready for school in the morning, or was it so Jan and I could go to bed early??

Making plans, say WHAT?

We had this idyllic idea that when I retired we would just travel to and fro wherever the wind would blow us, stay as long as it was fun, then move on to bigger and better pastures.  Well, that is still the underlying goal, but there are events we need to take advantage of as we travel about.  We have very good friends who have been out of the country for years and have returned so we want to see them as we go by, and we have a big event in New Mexico June 6-9, and have farther out plans in Sep for Boise and Yellowstone.  Doesn't sound like a lot, but it does pose a few challenges for campgrounds.  During the summer, high season, a lot of the National and State Parks, where we want to stay, get reserved early.  A lot of people are out RVing these days.  We have made reservations at several public parks, and at several private campgrounds in places that are popular such as Santa Fe, Durango, and Pagosa Springs.
Most of the info on the Public parks is not as specific as the private places, so it can be interesting.  We are still learning and hope to pass on some of our findings with you as we proceed.  We are using several specific websites to find parks such as:
 All US and Canada Campgrounds
Park Reviews
Boondocking

And most are now taking online reservations which does make it easier.

Meanwhile we are really enjoying visiting with family and grandkids here in Texas.

In Texas now

We've been in internet withdrawal as I mentioned.  You never realize how much you depend on it to do the normal things in your life.  There's only so much you can accomplish with your phone.
We left Old Town, and wanted to spend a few days on a beach, pretty out of character for me, so Jan jumped on the idea.  We ideally wanted to stay somewhere in which we could just walk right out of the coach and on to the beach.  We looked and looked, and unless we wanted to spend $175 a night, it wasn't available.  And, no, I'm not exaggerating the cost!
We had never spent any time on the beaches in the panhandle of Florida, but understood the beaches were wonderful, wide and soft.  We found Fort Pickens National Park on the border island south of Pensacola and reserved a spot there.  We picked a site that appeared to be close to the beach and headed into the park.  After checking in with the rangers, we went to the site only to find that our electric cord was not long enough to reach the electrical hookup way, way behind the site.  With a busy weekend coming up, we feared we might not be able to change sites.  Turned out they keep back several sites for drop in's, non reservable sites, and we were able to choose one that just fit us.  Only downside was it was quite a bit further away from the beach.

We had a great 4 days there, visiting the fort, and all the gun emplacements built to protect Pensacola harbor from foreign invasion.  The fort was begun in 1829 and completed in 1834, used until 1947.  Ironically, the only action the fort had was during the Civil War when it was occupied by the Union and drove the Confederates out of Pensacola.  Numerous changes were made over the years as weapon technology improved, but the fort was finally obsolete after WW2.

Now as to the beaches.  We were surprised to find the walking area, you know, the packed sand along the water that's easy to walk on, was very narrow, only a few feet wide and quite angled, making those long, long walks pretty impossible.

 The rest of the beach was beautiful soft white sand, deep and almost impossible to walk on.  So all in all for us, admittedly not beach people, it was not all we had hoped for.

 It was a great hiking and biking area though, miles and miles.
On another note, Jan has a bike.  I got rid of my mountain bike years before as I wasn't into it any more.  I've been contemplating getting another bike lately, especially since they make "comfort" bikes now.  A more upright, comfortable position, just for tooling around, although fully capable of doing longer rides. Yeah, I know, for older folks, but I'm just not comfortable leaning over the bars anymore.   I pretty much decided to get one after being at the National Park.  We even went to a bike shop in Pensacola to get one, but they had none in stock.  I'll try later along the way.  I have to admit it's kind of silly Jan having a bike and me not.
We left Pensacola enroute to our Daughter's and decided to visit New Iberia, LA.  I'm a huge fan of James Lee Burke's books, particularly his series with his principal character, Dave Robicheaux and his sidekick, Clete Purcel.  These books are all set in the New Iberia, southern Louisiana area where Burke lives.  We found what turned out to be a very interesting campground in Breaux Bridge within easy striking distance of New Iberia, right off the interstate.  Interesting, in that every site is waterfront!  They all back up to lakes full of fish and they allow free fishing.  A pretty place that we will probably visit again as we pass through.
Burke talks of the Bayou Teche, the waterway that goes right through New Iberia, in fact it is 125 miles long, quite picturesque, quiet, slowly flowing.  And when I say he talks of, those of you familiar with his work know he makes you feel you ARE there right on the banks.  We had a good visit, the downtown is lively, busy, with many mansions backing up to the Teche.  Got a good feel for the area, especially as it pertains to the books.  Then to boot, we shared an awesome seafood Po'Boy at a little hole in the wall, Bon Creole.
Now we are in Longview, TX visiting our daughter Kelly and Todd, and, of course our grandkids, Faith and Christian.

Yeah, we're still here!

Just a quick entry.  Sorry we haven't been on for a week.  We haven't had any internet and we're really in withdrawal mode!  We've got it for a couple minutes so I wanted to let everyone know we are still alive and kicking :)
A real post tomorrow, I promise.

On the move!

We left Nokomis yesterday morning along with almost everyone else.  We feel exhilarated moving again, but it still hasn't sunk in that we aren't meandering our way back to Atlanta and work.  A short day with a quick stop at Lazy Days to return that relief valve I didn't need then up to Old Town, FL.  We are at the Yellow Jacket RV Resort south of Old Town right smack on the Suwannee River.  A beautiful spot nestled in the trees overlooking the river.  The campground is gorgeous, nicely landscaped, with decks and docks, and even rental boats.  Very nice.  We are chilling here for just two nights as we work our way out to Kelly and Todd's in Texas.  The only downside is the 1 1/2 miles of incredibly dusty dirt road leading to the entrance of the campground.  Well worth it though.

The Suwannee River is quite wide here and interestingly there are signs up warning people about the jumping sturgeon that live in the river.  Seems these very large fish are prone to leaping in the air and smashing into boaters, jet skiers, and the like.  A bunch of folks have actually been badly injured.  Weird, huh?  We have seen a few huge fish jumping out in the water so we wonder if it's them?