We are finally hitting the road. We left Bloomington today at 11:25 am, heading to Davenport, IA to visit friends and go to a wedding.
We finished clearing the house of all we are taking and making 5 trips to the mission to make donations of the things we decided we didn’t need. Of course, we didn’t get rid of everything. James and Stacy are buying the house and are storing some things there for our return next March for their wedding. I think by then we will be ready to clear more things out.
We are a 2 car family for a while longer. Our son, John and his wife will be buying our Buick. So, I am driving it to Texas behind Denny and our rig. We have been staying in the RV for a week now and it really feels like home to us. We are heading to Davenport, Iowa to visit friends for the last time this year.
We joined my friend Lorna and some of her family for dinner tonight. They are a fun group. We went to Sneaky Pete’s in LeClaire. It is always a fun time there. The food and drinks were good too. The steaks are huge but never wear a tie to that restaurant. They will cut it off and make it part of the decorations.
LeClaire’s main street has really changed. It looks great with all new lights and parking. There are several restaurants, bars and antique stores and a paddle boat to ride the river. It would be a nice place to spend an afternoon exploring the shops.
We arrived back home around 9:00 for a quiet end to a long day. Tomorrow we will try to connect with other friends and attend a wedding reception. I hope the weather holds for the wedding. Lorna will come over after we return from the reception for a visit.
More adventures to come.
Final Goodbyes and Family visit 27 September 2009
We enjoyed our visit with Lorna. We tried to catch Don and Lynn but they didn't return our call. They are pretty busy with family and probably away from home.
We traveled the 60 miles to North Liberty to see Denny's cousin. He likes these shorter drive days and I have to admit I don't mind them either.
We had a great visit with Norm and Louise and we'll officially hit the road to begin our new life tomorrow.
Iowa Rest Areas 28 September 2009
We got started after breakfast with Norm and Louise. We decided to head south into Kansas from Iowa. The drive was long today compared to yesterday. Of course we started a little later as well.
We started looking for a campground later than we like (5:00 pm). We spotted the Iowa Tourism Rest Area as we were about to leave Iowa and it was one of those joint N/S direction rest area. We stopped hoping they would have information about a place to stay.
The gal working there gave us permission to spend the night in the rest area and told us where to park. We were given permission to use our generator and even opened the dining room slide to give us access to the kitchen.
Denny got the grill out and grilled pork chops for dinner. We had a great meal at the picnic table near us and then went inside and sent the satellite up to watch some TV. Denny was pretty tired and it surprising how tired I get just riding beside him. We turned the generator off and went to bed.
There was some steet noise but not enough to keep me awake and Denny even slept well. It was pretty chilly when we woke up but we had a quick breakfast and readied the rig for travel.
Freedom 29 September 2009
Now it is up to us to determine when and where we stop. We continued on but the highway turned into a toll road. Not our favorite thing. Pretty pricey when there may be another way to travel and we certainly have enough time to get to the rally. So... we're looking for a campground and get off at El Dorado (pronounced with a long A), KS. The campground we found was thankfully full. It was not my kind of campground and we weren't too disappointed but getting tired and had to find someplace to stay. We decided to stop at WalMart. When we stopped, Denny said he heard some noise coming from the truck.
He got down on the ground and had me drive forward a bit. He had noticed a GMC dealer across from Wal Mart and said we should drive over there. We did. A mechanic came out and told us it was a U-joint going bad and we made an appointment for the next day.
Denny asked about a place to stay. We were told about a state park. We were worried about driving the truck. We were offered to stay at the dealership but there really wasn't any place for us to park there so we headed the few miles to the park. Denny wanted to hurry so we could bring the truck back for them to start repairs right away or first thing in the morning. Thankfully we had the Buick yet so it would work but
we didn't have much time to make the round trip.
We got to the park and talked to the camphost. I don't think he wanted to help and told us to just drive through the park and find a place to park. The first three sections were full but the back section has several spaces and we chose the first one we came to. We quickly unhooked and headed back to the car dealership.
They didn't have time to do the work until the next morning and would call us with an estimate of cost and when the truck was finished. We looked around the park and had lunch before picking up the truck. We weren't sure how long it would take to repair the truck so we had an extra night there and it we just relaxed the next day and decided how to travel and avoid the toll road.
Oklahoma 1 October 2009
We continued south into Oklahoma and Denny was pleased with our choice of highway. We stayed in a state park near Sulphur OK and had great mexican food there as well. We moved on to Austin and stayed at the Lone Star RV Park again and we saw John and Shyla before moving on to Kerrville for the rally.
October 11, 2009
Great Rally on to Pedernales Falls
We arrived at the RV-Dreams Rally in Kerrville, TX. What a nice park. Too pricey for a stay for us under normal cicumstances but great for the rally. Out site was a back-in but roomy and beautiful level cement pad.
We said our goodbyes to our friends at the rally and headed to Pedernales Falls State Park. The Carradines told us about it and we are looking forward to staying there.
We left Buckhorn about 10:00 am and headed east on I-10 to exit 508 to continue north on Hwy 16. We drove through Frederecksburg and Hwy 290 toward Austin. I had read the directions to the park and knew we were traveling on 290 so those are the directions we used. Alas, we could have saved some miles by going north on FM 2726 from Johnson City. Hwy 290 is the way to come to the park from Austin.
We stopped at the ranger station and checked in. We paid for a week but may stay an additional week. We knew McKinney Falls was busy this coming weekend so we are glad to be staying here. McKinney Falls is certainly closer to Austin but this park is far above what we saw at McKinney. As Howard Payne says this park has the “it” factor. Pedernales has private sites, lots of animals, a waterway, hiking trails and quiet. What more could anyone want.
The ranger spoke to us about volunteering in the park. We are seriously thinking of applying. There are 3 different positions here. They are; camp hosting, cleaning the showers and bathrooms and cleaning the remote bathrooms. They all receive free full hook-ups for their stay, free laundry, free propane and access to an internet capable building for a commitment of about 20-25 hours a week. There are three volunteers doing the bathrooms. There are 2 showers and each of them have a separate volunteer. Clean in the morning and you are done for the day. Of course the busy weekends would need at least a second check on the weekend. They like everyone to volunteer for at least a month. Sure a good way to begin workamping with little pressure.
John had called us as we were leaving Buckhorn and said the wiper blades weren’t working on the buick. So we set up and went on into Austin. It is about 45 mi to John’s. John and Denny went to find the part they needed and got it ordered. We went over to Steak and Shake for dinner then Denny and I came on home. The part will be in Wednesday but we have to go into Austin tomorrow to get our phones and new contract.
We couldn’t find a Verizon store in the GPS but remembered all malls seem to have kiosks with them so we drove to Barton Creek Mall. We have been going there for years so were somewhat familiar with it. In fact that is where Denny’s bells palsy showed up last year.
We found the kiosk for Verizon and Jeremy was working. What a great guy. We told him what we needed. The type of phones we were looking for that had outside antenna capability and that we wanted something to help with the internet. What a great guy. He looked at every phone to find the ones with the antenna port. Of course we liked the most expensive ones. We chose the LG EV1 Touch. It has the antenna port, gps capable, internet, 3.2 mega pixel camera and video, touch screen and the top lifts for a qwerty keyboard. It is 2009 compliant and has a universal charging port. Love that one. We’ll have one in the house and one in the truck.
Wednesday –It is sure warmer and more humid today. We went into Austin today to get the part and fuel. Denny fixed the car and he told Shyla the warranty had run out on the car. We got fuel and visited with Shyla. Their neighbor, Susan, came over and invited us to a music jam session at Friendly’s Bar and Grill in Johnson City Sunday. Sounds like fun. I think we will go.
John was still asleep when we left but we really wanted to get home. We want to begin enjoying our retirement and have some quiet. It is good to be home. Denny even got the satellite to work. Whoopee!!! Now we can watch Ghost Hunters and Destination Truth on SciFi tonight.
More adventures to come.
October 25, 2009
Volunteering and Life at Pedernales
We are still at Pedernales Falls. We had paid for a week and decided to stay another week but knew we would have to hook up the rig to dump our tanks. We went to the ranger station Sunday to pay for another week and told Deloris (the station manager) how we loved the park.
Sunday night we were invited to go into Johnson City to the Friendly Bar and Bistro so Denny could join the Hill Country Pickin’ Circle. Denny was excited to be able to play music with a group. Shyla came out to the park and joined us. It was her neighbor Susie who had invited us to join her boyfriend and the other players.
The Pickin’ Circle hosted by Gale was so much fun. There is 93 year old Louis and his wife of 75 years who join the group nearly every week. His voice is still strong. He was a professional singer on the radio back in the 30’s and 40’s. Host Gale plays and teaches the fiddle. He also sings and must have been influenced by Elvis the way he moves. Alan has one of the best voices I’ve heard and writes a lot of his own music. Carolyn says this is the best jam session available in this music filled Hill Country and with the harmony she adds to each members turn at the “mike” is beautiful. Rick has a true old country sound and they all seem to have so much fun. Denny enjoyed it and we will be back next week since we are staying another week. This is Gale who leads the group.
We arrived home and had a note from one of the hosts on our door. We had been talking to them about joining their coffee meeting at 4 pm each day but hadn’t been able to join them yet. We thought that is what they wanted.
We got up Monday morning and put things away to move the rig to the dump station. Denny pulled the rig out leaving chairs and our rug and grill at the campsite. As we were about to go around the corner to get to the dump station the camp host Warren Petrovkik stopped us and asked if we wanted to take one of the camphost jobs for the rest of the month. Denny and I looked at each other and said YES.
Warren told us to move the rig to the camp host site and use the full hookups there. He said to pick up our things after we were set up and we moved from site 56 to 68. We were sent to the ranger station to get our shirts. The park provides cotton ranger shirts that must be returned at the end of your gig. Delores also gave us 3 t-shirts that she had left. The t-shirts were provided to the camp hosts in the past and were not returned. She only had 2X shirts but they work fine. I have one and Denny got 2. I wear the cotton shirts over one of my own t-shirts but they are somewhat constrictive and I really prefer to clean in the t-shirt. We signed on until Dec. 1 but can stay until the end of Dec. I would have said stay until then immediately but Denny was a bit more cautious.
Tuesday morning 7 am we met LaVerne and Harold Soefjke who are our bathroom cleaning partners. Harold and LaVerne trained us. We had both bathrooms cleaned and were trained in 1.5 hrs. We have Monday and Tuesday off and the Soefjke’s have Wednesday and Thursday off. The weekends are busy and we are all needed to keep up with the shower and bathrooms usage. Of course the parks are open year round here and it seems a bit strange to us.
We have cleaned bathrooms for a week now. Not bad. I actually come home and take a nap. Well, not really a nap I have been known to sleep another 3-4 hours. Denny is so good to let me do that. Of course it gives him some alone time too.
Denny played at the pickin’ circle again Sunday. There were more musicians there. It was a good thing Denny was prepared with several songs because 2-3 of them were used by other performers. It was so much fun. I sang along with almost every song. It was amazing to hear some of the old songs again. Shyla joined us again and had a good time. I think she will come next week and may do a song of her own. I hope so, she has an amazing voice and she likes some music from the big bank era and the blues. All music types are welcome.
An announcement was made that someone is going to put the circle on her radio show and have some well known entertainers join the circle for 11 weeks. We may be here for some of that but we don’t know for sure. I’ll let everyone know if Denny plays during any of these radio broadcasts.
We got our first box of mail. James sent everything that came to the house. It was nice to see the things but we certainly don’t need the junk mail. I have to remind him that he can scan and email the utility bills and throw away the labor newspapers and junk mail. We’ll get this right yet.
I had my protime done. Wow, the doctor called a few hours after the test was done. I have to go and have it done again this week because it was a bit low but I know the results will be fast. I have to go to Marble Falls, it is about 30 miles from the park. They have a walmart there, other shopping and a great restaurant (Blue Bonnet Café) with homemade pies.
Well, I’ve run on enough. I know we have more adventures to come.
October 25 2009
VIEW OF PEDERNALES FALLS
John called and said he wanted to come spend the evening and night with us. We happily agreed and waited for him to arrive then drove into Johnson City for dinner.
We ate at the Circle K Cafe and they had live music. It was great and the food was out of the ordinary, reasonably priced and wonderful. We got back home around 9:45 and Denny went to bed soon after that.
John and I stayed up for a while. Of course I went to bed and he was still watching TV. We woke up this morning to a beautiful cool day. A cold front had moved through earlier in the evening and it made for a glorious sunny cool day. I fixed a breakfast of eggs and sausage and after cleaning up we all got in the truck and headed for the Pedernales Falls.
It seems a walk is in store for every sight in the park, so I got my walking sticks and we headed for the falls. There is a nice overlook at the paths end with stone stairs down to the falls. I stayed with Ursula (John's dog) at the overlook and snapped picture after picture. Denny and John walked down to the falls and climbed the rocks in the riverbed.
Denny and I had taken the walk down to the swimming hole yesterday and it was a lot warmer than today. Denny did his usual checking the temp of the water and I just admired the views.
After our visit to the falls, we stopped at home to pick up sunglasses and headed toward Johnson City for lunch and the LBJ Ranch. We arrived fairly late but were able to see the film which was produced in 1966 and included an interview with President Lyndon B. Johnson giving a tour of his ranch to the reporters. He took great joy in driving visitors through the Pedernales River that runs in front of his home the Texas White House.
We enjoyed the tour and hope to go back before we leave to see the living history farm connected to the same visitor center. LBJ donated 600 acres of land and house to the federal government with the stipulation that there be no entry charge. There is a fee of $1.00 for the tour of the house. They are on a five year plan to open the house to visitors. LBJ's office, the living room, dining room and kitchen are open now. The Johnson's bedrooms will be open next year with more the following year.
LBJ died in his bed in January 1973 and Lady Bird continued to live in the house until she died. The Secret Service drove her home on weekends at the end of her life so that she could stay in Austin to be near her doctors during the week.
It is a beautiful area and the Johnson's loved the country. He loved the land and she loved Texas wildflowers. There is a wildflower study center with Lady Bird's name near Austin. We visited there a few years ago and it is lovely and very interesting.
We stopped for groceries in Johnson City and came home to fix brats and fried potatoes. John at with us, watched Monk and then headed home to be with Shyla. He has to work tomorrow and Sunday and we hope to get together with them next week.
We are looking forward to more quiet times here in the park and plan to stay a bit longer than originally planned. There are a few more campers here for the weekend and Monday will bring more quiet again.
I'll report more about the numbers of additional campers in the park at a later time and tell everyone how much longer we'll be staying.
More adventures to come.
October 26 2009
Visit from the grand-birds and our kids
John and Shlya came out for tacos and brought three of their birds. They have two crested cockatoos, Bill and Anakan (Annie) and an African grey names Brutus. Brutus and Anakan have been confirmed to be females and Bill is a young male.
We had a nice visit and the tacos were great. John took the left overs home with him.
John also joined us for a visit to the Lyndon B. Johnson home. It was nice to go through it and we enjoyed the day.
January 5, 2010 Our life at Pedernales comes to an end, for now
Wow, time flew by at PFalls. We made so many wonderful friends and have signed up for next December with the hopes that we will be able to go earlier. October, November and December would be great. Of course the ideal would be October and November but we'll take what we can get for now.
We had a Christmas party with the staff and volunteers. It was great food and fun with the "chinese gift exchange". Here is the volunteer group below.
the staff
New camphosts came in December 1 but our partner to clean bathrooms decided not to come until January as the park would be closed to the public for 2 weeks that month. So... we cleaned both bathrooms but still had no bippee cleaner. (the stock disappeared the second week we were there and we furnished our own comet).
Tom and Ginny and Charlie (thier dog) Reeber came from their home in North Carolina in their Newmar 5th wheel and we became fast friends. They were both in the military when they met. She outranked him. They then started their own company and Tom later went into sales, selling supplies to the military. They have two children both living in Texas.
Kay Rutherford and Sasha (her Alaskan sled dog) from LaCrosse, Wisconsin, joined later in the week. She is living in a tent. It was touch and go for her at first. The park managers decided they didn't know she would be in a tent and they weren't sure they liked the idea. She worked very hard to change their opinion. She and Sasha are delightful. Kay has had an interesting life and is originally from Iowa. She graduated from Iowa State University and has lived on the Alaskan Alleutian Islands and near the Artic Circle. She has raised 2 daughters and has written 3 books. She works as a psycho-analyst and is trying out the full-time life style for 2 months. She writes poetry as well and has encouraged me to write my life story. Kay, I am going to try to do that and do a better job keeping this journal going. I hope to meet you again down the road.
I'm not sure how Kay did it. The temperatures got down to 22 degrees more than once. We had a lengthy cold spell with freezing water outlet pipes at the park. The park was surprisingly busy during this cold. Many people in tents. There was a lot of wood sold by the camphosts during this time.
We spent a lot of time with Joan and Don Feltch (they were in charge of the bird blind at the park). We took a day trip to Austin. We took them to a local restaurant and the Bob Bullock State Museum. It seems strange that they have been going to this park and volunteering for 7-8 years and had never been to the museum. I think they enjoyed it and we certainly enjoyed their company. We watched several movies with them. Don didn't even fall asleep. Joan kept watching him and one night they left our rig at midnight. She was shocked but he really enjoyed the movies.
We had a movie night at the park for all the volunteers at the maintenance building. It was great fun. We served popcorn and snacks and watched Santa Clause 2 and some stayed late for the double feature, John Waynes, Horse Soldiers.
We left PFalls January 5 and headed to Houston to see Tom and Ginny where they are volunteering on the USS Texas Battleship Museum. Tom works as a docent and Ginny works cataloguing items in the archives. They arranged a VIP tour of the ship for us and it was wonderful. I have great admiration for the sailors and marines who sailed on that ship. It is the only remaining ship that was in both the First and Second World Wars. We had dinner with Tom and Ginny and a wonderful day, even if it was still cold.
We stayed at Pine Lake RV Park in Baytown, TX while visiting the Battleship. It was nice with level concrete pads and full hook-ups. They have several long term residents there. But it was still cold. They suggested that we leave the water running all night. It was $30 a night.
January 7, 2010 Louisianna
We moved on to Louisianna after two days. I had found a state park near the interstate and wanted to stay there. I was beginning to think I had made the wrong decision after finding that we had to travel 25 miles along a levee road. Denny was skeptical but the signs kept saying we were going the right way, when we saw a sign so we kept going. Besides there was nowhere to turn around and we had the directions from the state parks website. We made it. The park is in the bayou. Nice level blacktopped pads but there was water everywhere. They had had a lot of rain and it was sitting everywhere. We paid for two nights thinking we could renew if we wanted. And at $16 plus the daily $1 per person charge it was a good price and they have wi-fi.
The weather didn't really improve. It was still cold and was predicted to remain so for several days. We got up the first morning and there was a layer of ice on the surrounding standing water. We took off to explore. We went into the nearest larger town of St. Martinsville, found a Wal-Mart and had lunch.
Everywhere we looked there was seafood, boudin and crackle advertised. Denny was not impressed with this. We found a little local cafe and went in. Denny looked at the menu and I looked at him knowing we needed to leave. We had seen a little mexican restaurant next door and we moved over there. He had a salad and I had shrimp enchiladas. Pretty good.
We decided to stay through the weekend and paid for the additional days. We explored the following day and ended up in New Iberian. There is a plantation home there that was in the same family for four generations before being donated to the National Trust. Having always been in the same family the furnishings in the home is 90-95% original to the home. It was a wonderful tour given by a nice young (20 yr old) man. We were able to enjoy the grounds for as long as we wanted but it was too cold to linger long.
We stopped at the local tourism office and asked about somewhere to eat. It seemed most local establishments and stores are closed on the weekends and of course we were there on a Saturday. We ended up at Bon Creole. All the locals eat there and I had a seafood combination basket with shrimp, oysters, catfish and crawfish. It was good and I was glad we stopped. Denny had a roast beef po-boy and he said it was pretty good. He tried the crawfish and oyster. He had several bites of the crawfish but only one of the oyster. I have to admit that the oysters were not my favorite part of the meal either.
Our last day there we basically hung out at the rig. We did leave at one point trying to find cell service so we could call Noah. We drove about 12 miles before we had service. It was great to talk to Noah and worth every mile.
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