On the road again!! 2013 travel season

Greetings from the road! Finally!!

Apologies for the delay in getting things updated here. We've had little to no internet service or cell phone reception since leaving home, and we've also had trouble with the broadband card. It keeps changing settings on it's own, and with little reception anyway, it's been a real battle.

This summer our travels will be taking us through Four Corners country and we have no idea how good service will be there, or even if we’ll have it, so updates will probably continue to be sporadic.

May 30 - Thursday - We were up early and out the gate before 9, pretty early for us, especially on the first day out! We planned a fairly lengthy drive this first day, as it takes us two days just to get out of the state we didn’t want to dawdle too much.  First night’s stop,  Lake Colorado City State Park, near Colorado City, between Midland and Abilene, west of Forth Worth. The town has special significance for us, as Steve’s parents had their first date at a movie theater here. No, we didn’t hunt up the theater, but it was fun to think about the times they spent in the area. 

As with most lakes in the Permian Basin lately, the water level  is quite low which changes the personality of the park considerably. We didn't plan on fishing or boating, so it didn't bother us much.

The campsites are spacious, surrounded by dense stands of prickly pear and mesquite.  Most sites have a permanent shade over the table, and some have a tree or two.

There are faint trails that would probably lead down to the shore, if the water were high enough to meet the shoreline! Shiner and I did go exploring  in the area adjacent to our site.

She had great fun checking under every cactus for lizards and other fauna, and she only ended up with one spine in her muzzle!

The sloping sandstone cliff had faint trails, from human and critter travel I would guess, that wandered through the patches of cactus and brush. Here and there a few wildflowers bravely nodded in the breeze. It’s a pretty area, best enjoyed when it’s not too hot or windy…. And this part of Texas is known for wind I’m afraid. That would explain the huge windmill farms we passed. Wind energy is one of the booming industries in this part of the state.

Spring update

My goodness, it looks as if we've lost a month or two... guess that's a sign we've been a bit pre-occupied...... with primarily non-travel related activities I'm afraid!

March and April have been very busy, and much of the time has been spent watching Jax while Kendra had therapy following shoulder surgery. What fun! 

He's an ambitious little fellow and definitely keeps us on our toes. We've taken walks in the field next to their house, played in the sand and water, baked cookies, washed dishes, read stories, and played with the dogs of course!

Kendra's shoulder is totally recovered now. She did sign up for a week long class, and that gave us another brief opportunity to have him all day, but now things are back to "normal", for a while at least!

Progress on the bathroom remodel included removing the old tub, some modifications to the plumbing and electric, and antiquing the paneling. We're just finishing up on the texturing and painting of the walls, and when that's done the reassembly will begin.

At the end of March we made another trip to Mathis.... There's been a lot of progress on the building project. Since then they've gotten the sheetrock up on the insides too, so the end is in sight! Yeah! 

Snuggling with Auntie Darlene

When my sister Darlene scheduled her visit for early April this year we were hoping we'd have a good crop of wildflowers. No such luck.

With the on-going drought the wildflowers are few and far between. We planned a trip up to Fredricksburg, hoping to see more flowers there as that area usually has more rain. Apparently that wasn't the case this year, but we did stopped at Wildseed Farms.

At least she had a chance to see a few fields of wildflowers, and we enjoyed browsing the butterfly garden and their display beds, complete with some very nice metal cactus sculptures.

We also took Darlene to see Jason Boland and the Stragglers at the Texas Music Theater, with Shooter Jennings backed by Uncle Lucius (The Gunslinger Tour).

Jason and the Stragglers performed a range of new and old, including one of their most popular "No Reason Being Late." I also have to include a link to the song that got us hooked on Jason in the first place, performed in my favorite style, a beautiful acoustic version of "Comal County Blue". (FYI, this is a very local piece and, again, an autobiographical song, as Comal is the county just south of us, Austin is just north.)

We've loved Jason's lyrics and balladeer style ever since we first heard him. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to translate well into the larger venues, especially the Texas Music Theater here in San Marcos. It's a great facility, with a state of the art sound system, but they can't seem to get the balance right, so the drums run over everything else.

Shooter on the other hand is pure Southern Rock, rowdy and loud. 'Not especially our style, but we could appreciate his talent aside from that, and Uncle Lucius did a great job backing him up. Here's the tour namesake, "The Gunslinger" from the album The Other Life. Uncle Lucius also performed the number they've been playing a lot on the radio lately, a powerful autobiographical piece titled "Keep the Wolves Away."  Their style fits well with Jason and the Stragglers' - blues, ballads, and a little Southern Rock. (FYI - song titles above all link to YouTube videos of the music)

It was a fun evening, basking in the glow of neon lights, as they say. We had great seats in the balcony, and as it was a week night the crowd wasn't too bad. The beers are cheap, and cold, and it's a smoke free theater. . . also great for people watching!

The weather's been so on and off that gardening has really been a challenge. My little veggie seedlings had been in the starting flats for too long already, so while Darlene was here we got most of them set in the garden. We did have to cover the okra one night when it got chilly, but so far everything is coming along well, including warmth loving sunflowers and one lonely little sunchoke. I'm hoping that will spread so I have a permanent clump of them.

In between working on the bathroom remodeling and regular maintenance Steve has been working on organizational systems for the hold of the Enterprise, and just installed a grill guard. Unloading the guard was a snap, as well as the actual installation, with the tractor and the new "forks" he just installed (a boy's gotta have new toys now and then!) It was certainly an improvement over having me hold the monster up!

Wildlife Notes:  This month's featured critter is the Texas Spiny Lizard.

You can see several eggs right behind her

I had spent the morning weeding in a cactus bed, then passed it coming back from the mailbox. Looking down I noticed two beady little eyes staring up at me from a small cave in the gravel. That wasn't there an hour before when I was working in the bed! Staring at me from the cave entrance was a somewhat aggravated Texas Spiny Lizard, guarding a clutch of eggs she'd just laid.

I snapped a few pictures and the shutter noise scared her away. A couple of hours later I took Steve down to show him where the eggs were, but by then she had carefully covered the cave with mulch and gone on her way. The sun will warm the eggs and in a couple of months they should hatch. As the nest is now invisible I've made a little marker so I don't get ambitious and attempt to plant something right in the middle of it!

Though this hasn't been a good year for the wildflowers at least the cactus are enjoying the moderate temperatures and the occasional sprinkle.

The cactus here bloom primarily yellow - an amazing lemony, translucent shade of yellow that turns to a gorgeous apricot orange as the blossoms age.

The lime green stamens make an amazing contrast to the petals, and the bees love to work the flowers for the nectar. Judging by all the blooms here should be a good harvest of cactus fruit this fall. If I can get a few away from the critters I'll plan to cook them up into jam or something.

Escape from Orange County

....or in the vernacular of the region, Escape from the OC. Everyone in Southern California is in a hurry, all the time. Radio announcers have no time for length descriptions of local regions such as the "Inland Empire", so it's now "the IE". If you aren't well schooled in the lingo of local acronyms the new cast will make sense to your head swim, as it's largely a series of numbers (for freeway designations) and letters (all the acronyms).

All that hurry and scurry is easy to forget in some areas. Leisure World in Seal Beach, where we were staying with Steve's mother, is like a giant park, a world unto itself. Calm, green, and quiet in spite of the nearby freeway. We had a busy week getting everything on Mom's To-Do list done and visiting with family.

We took an afternoon off and met longtime friends Mike and Nina for lunch. They had their RV parked at the Orange County fairgrounds, a nice place to grab a few nights for not too many bucks. They'll rent space with or without hookups. Nina introduced me to a great fabric shop - this will probably become one of my favorites! Piecemakers Country Store, just a few blocks from the fairgrounds, has an amazing array of fabrics, patterns, embellishments, and more. 'No pub next door, but they do have a coffee shop area so the guys had coffee and visited while we shopped. Perfect!

We finished up the to-do list (and started one for next time!) 'Good to have it all done, but good also to now be on the road headed for home. We learned the hard way on the trip inbound to trust Ohura, the navigator  in the dash, when it comes to re-routing around traffic jams, and she did a good job routing us around a couple of jam-ups on the way out. We had great traveling weather Monday morning. A beautiful sunny morning and clear skies accented by the snow covered San Bernardino mountains in the distance.

 The day warmed up nicely and we had an uneventful drive until we hit Arizona, when the skies darkened and we began to notice a  it of rain, then slushy snow on the windshield. By the time we arrived in Benson (just south of Tuscon) our stop for the night, the whole place looked like a winter wonderland. It was late, dark, cold, and we were hungry! So we threw our stuff in the room and took off for a restaurant the hotel clerk recommended.

We had  a pretty good meal at Magaly's Mexican Restaurant, so we'll probably look that one up again. It's always iffy, finding a decent meal on the road, and we really miss having our kitchen with us.

Tuesday was chilly but uneventful, and we made good time, arriving in Fort Stockton (TX) just about dinner time.  We unloaded the luggage and then headed for K-Bob's Steakhouse and had a nice, inexpensive steak dinner. 'Only downside was that the service was pretty slow, and according to other patrons that's typical. Looking around it was obvious they have way more business than they are used to handling. Increased activity in the surrounding oil fields has brought hundreds of temporary residents. The hotel parking lots are all full of dusty pickup trucks, and the restaurants are all busier than they can manage. As we sat eating our dinner there was a constant stream of men coming in to the restaurant. When you read about increased petroleum exploration and production in the Eagle Ford, this is it. We're right at the edge of the region, which extends east and south to the Gulf.

We've got sunny skies and warmer temperatures today. We'll be home by early afternoon.