Mason, Texas

The Fort Mason City RV park is operated by the city, and backs up to Comanche Creek, surrounded by baseball fields, a playground, and a 9 hole golf course. It's a beautifully maintained, quiet park, and reservations are definately recommended as it's very popular with locals as well as travelers. We were lucky to find a spot, as most had already been reserved for the weekend.

A small marker just outside the campground gives details of the history.

The settlement of Mason grew up around Fort Mason which was established by the United States War Department as a front-line defense against Kiowa, Lipan Apache and Comanche, on July 6, 1851.
The fort was named in honor of George Thomson Mason, a United States Army second lieutenant killed in the Thornton Affair during the Mexican–American War near Brownsville, TX, on April 25, 1846.

The fort was home to several historic figures, among them Gen. Robert E. Lee. The fort was the last command for Gen. Lee before he left the U.S. Army to join the Confederacy. Ft. Mason is part of the Texas Forts Trail, a trail we'd like to follow one day so we can get the whole picture.

This is a fascinating little town, and it's too bad we lost the extra day we had planned to explore here. This is the prime place in the state to look for Texas Topaz, a section of the fort has been restored and is open for tours, and then there's the bronze statue of Old Yeller. Did you ever read Fred Gipson's book, Old Yeller - or see the Disney movie? Gipson grew up around Mason, and his stories definately reflect the area. You can read more about that here in a Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine article.

The downtown area is quaint, with shops and cafe's clustered around a classic courthouse. This place is just begging to be explored! We'll be back!

Packing the Wagon - Preparing to depart

"You've been doing this for so many years now it must be easy", someone said. . . meaning, it's easy to get ready to hit the road for the summer. Not so much. Like the pioneers, we do have a checklist, including the cast iron cooking pot, food stuffs and clothing.

The challenge is, every year is different, requiring different equipment, different clothes (like the year we added a cruise to Alaska) and Fate throws us different curve balls every year.

Last year's challenge was extensive water damage to the trailer, this year we had a variety of challenges. None were fatal, but we were beginning to feel a bit snake bit.

We were feeling a bit cocky as we thought we were on top of things schedule wise. The garden timers and drip hoses had been in place for several days (instead of the day before we leave), we'd already taken care of several small repairs and improvements on the rig, like a new storm door, and there was no major cleaning to do. We were right on schedule!

We don't drive the truck much when we aren't towing, but we did take it over to the kids about three weeks before we were due to depart - good thing! The cruise control didn't work - so to the dealer it went. Feeling very confident because the problem had been corrected ahead of time we went on with the packing and last minute projects. Departure scheduled for May 24.

Sunday, May 21. Loading a few things into the galley I noticed the light over the sink wasn't working, nor was the ceiling light by the door, or the fan. . . what's up with that? Steve went to work tracking it down - must be a bad ground - crawling around under the rig examining connections led to an onslaught of terrible insect bites, some with blisters, and no solution. Final determination - it was loose wires in the switch for the ceiling light causing the problem.How that impacted the other lights and the fan us unknown, but, crisis resolved.

With all the lights and fan running I went on with loading, only to come back after a trip to the house to find they'd all quit again. Heaving a big sigh, I went back in for another load, and came back to the rig to find them all working again. No explanation for that, but they are still working, so that's good enough for us!  On to the next challenge!

A couple of final loads of laundry to do, get one load going and on to other things, now go check on it. What? The tub's sitting there full of water (and wet clothes). Sigh., The repairman will be here Monday.

Monday, May 22. Super nice repairman, and boy were we happy to see him so soon. We feared we have to wait several days for someone to come out.  He fixed the washer and ordered a part for the dryer too (it had been cranky lately).  On to other chores on the list!

Tuesday, May 23. One of those chores was actually several small tasks, all of which required my mower/wagon to haul things around, do a little mowing at the edges, things like that. Well, ol' Chuy, as we call it, has always been a little cranky to start, but this time it started ok, then ran for a bit and croaked. It made it about 30 feet and then died, repeatedly. OK, it's dead, and scratch those chores off the list. I loaded the necessary stuff into a little red wagon and pulled it by hand around the yard - no fun with our steep grade and bumpy ground, but we got the job done. Chuy is now resting peacefully under a tarp and hopefully he'll be replaced when we get home in the fall. We'll give him a nice funeral - no telling how old he is (around 20), and he's given us great service, but why did the thing have to die today!  (Chuy is named for the bumper sticker he wears, from the restaurant in Van Horn, Tx)

Wednesday, May 24. This is supposed to be departure day, but we are one day behind schedule for obvious reasons. No pressure - we'll still be able to make the reservations that have been set up. Things went pretty well for most of the day, then late in the evening, when much of the very last minute items get finished up, our water service went out!! Really?? I'm glad we keep a few bottles of water in storage, so it wasn't too big a deal, but after all the toting and packing I did really miss my long soak in a hot bubble bath!

So, all of this is to say, every year is very different - and we hope we don't have another like this!

Thursday, May 25 - Yeah! We're On the Road Again! First stop, Mason, Texas.

Autumn in Texas

Ah, the cool crisp days of Autumn. . . they must be happening somewhere, but certainly not around here!


We've been in the humid 80's and 90's every since returning home in mid September.

Some days it's been nice enough to do this. . .

And mow the yard and trim the weeds. . . . .



. . . and other days it did this . . .

 All that rain has been great for the plant life, and wonderful for the fireflies. They are usually a spring only phenomenon, and a real treat to watch. This year we have had so many they soon became commonplace.

Things have been dryer the last few weeks, so we aren't seeing them anymore, though I did see a straggler last night. Along with the fireflies, the butterflies are enjoying all the late-blooming wildflowers.

Common Mestra

We have, literally, hundred of  Common Mestras. They hover over the grass and open gravel areas all day. The boys and the dogs all like to run among them and see if they can catch one. They are a delicate little butterfly with pale coloring, so when flying they look dull white, but when they finally sit still they have a very nice pattern.

We've seen several butterflies we've never had in the yard before, like the Zebra Long Wing. We have a wild clematis blooming, and it's the preferred host plant for the Long Wing, so that must be what attracted it.

Zebra longwing on clematis vine

Butterflies come from caterpillars of course, so the downside of butterflies is that the caterpillars have attacked most of the plants in the vegetable garden, and they now look like skeletons! The spiders have been pretty active too, and we had a huge one guarding the back porch - he really set the tone around Halloween!

It's a good thing we've had the butterflies to watch from the porch, as the birds haven't really shown up like they usually do. We've had a few stray ones, but not the huge numbers that usually show up right after we return from the summer travels.

The fall weather has held so well that I decided I'd get brave and plant some peas. Raylan helped, and so far they are looking pretty good. I hope we don't get any sneak freezes before we get some kind of a harvest.  More photos of plants and wildlife here - with captions.

On our way to inspect the hog trap

In mid-October we had a chance to take a weekend camping trip to the Krebs' hunting lease over near Pipe Creek (between Boerne and Bandera.)

For those not familiar with Texas-style hunting, it's a bit different than the west coast. There's very little public land here, so hunting on BLM or forestry land isn't an option.

walking down Fossil Lane, as Jax calls it

People "lease" an opportunity to hunt on large landholdings and ranches. Some landholders lease to so many people that you might as well be in a public campground. In this case only the three Krebs men are on the lease, so there are no crowds to worry about.

The area is interesting, full of fossils, and a variety of wildflowers and varied terrain. We had a great time just visiting with the kids, taking the boys for walks and sitting around the campfire at night.  Skot did a little hunting but it was mostly just a fun time to relax and visit.

Album with more photos of that trip here.

In late October friends from Nevada visited for a week. They hadn't been to San Antonio for years, so we headed down there, stopping first at the Alamo and then to the Riverwalk for lunch. It was a really nice day, and the crowds weren't bad at all.


 Just as they left we geared up for the AMVET Post Chili Cook-off. It was combined with Halloween event this year, so costumes were in order - pirates for us.

We won first place with the chili and the theme! Another award for the cookporch and some cool goodies.Yeah!!!

Cook-off album here.

The boys had different costumes for their trick-or-treating, so they got to celebrate Halloween twice!


And now, all of a sudden, it's November, and our to-do list is longer than ever. At least we are never out of entertainment!