Let's Back Up

I'll try to catch you up since the beginning of May, now that I have good internet and Google fixed my photos.

 After we left Bastrop, Texas, on May 7 our next stop was Lavon Lake COE CG in Wiley, TX where we met Donna and Ron after our gate guarding experiences.  While we parked there we drove in to Ft. Worth to see the long horn steer cattle drive down the street.  They were very docile, but still very large. 

This guy was saddled, but we passed on him. Ten dollars for a photo.  Poor guy.

The cowboy and his gal:

 These guys decided to have a Buffalo Butt Beer while sitting on saddles at the bar.  Apparently the beer is not recommended. They said it tastes like buffalo butt.  I don't know how they know that...

The next day we drove into Dallas.  Dealey Square was our first stop, and below is the Book Depository where supposedly JFK's assassin fired the fateful shots.  Our tour guide, Sherman, had a lot to say about that, and we debated the facts and fiction near the wooden fence.  We toured the memorial, the first house in Dealey square (a little log cabin) and the courthouse. 

Driving home an hour in the rain and dark was not pleasant, but I'm glad we got to see all we did.

It was time to move north again, to visit Ron's brother, Willis near Paris, Texas.  We were very kindly offered a spot in their yard and had 30 amp.

our site

Cowboy Up

The weather turned beautiful, and we were excited because Gary was hoping to ride a real horse, not a stable horse.  With permission, he and Willis saddled up Noah and Mouse and off they went.




 

Dixie and Donna did the honors for this picture of Paris's Eiffel Tower with its Red cowboy hat.



low cal chicken fried steak

Where can one find this delicacy?  At Weezy's, in downtown Paris, of course.

Weezy's

We enjoyed our stay even celebrating Mother's Day (happy belated Mother's Day to all moms) at Willis and Dixie's daughter's home with a BBQ.  Thank you, all of you, for your hospitality.

Normally we don't drive more than four hours a day, but this was a special circumstance, and we needed to be in the middle of Missouri by Friday.  That was a long haul, but they are worth it, and we made Ron's Doctor's appointment for Friday morning.  We were parked at their daughter, Lorisa's beautiful farmhouse in a country setting, but it was a challenge to get there.  Gary did it just fine!

our new spot
 



the view out our side window

There was a lot of severe weather threats, and a tornado did touch down in St. Charles, where their other daughter lived, however their home and family escaped harm by 1/4 mile.  We drove out to see the damage one day.  It was not pretty, and similar to hurricane damage which we had seen plenty of.

 

One sunset out of only three we saw all two weeks.  But it was a pretty one.

 

 

 

We had lots of ruby-throated hummers so three feeders were necessary.  Even so, six little gluttons were at this feeder on my window.  We had to refill the feeders every day.

 

On Sunday, June 2 we drove near to St. Louis and parked in an Elk's Lodge in O'Fallon.   We met some of their family that night at Macaroni Grill which was delicious and fun! Then we toured some of the tornado damage in St. Charles, where fortunately, no one was killed.  Lots of homes need help, though. 

 

There is a delicacy that you should not miss if you're near this way.  It's called Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, and is something to write home about. 

 

 

Here we are enjoying a delicious cup of creaminess:

 

 

Soon it was time to ride over to the airport to pick up our grandson, Lance, for his two week adventure with us.  He arrived all by himself (he's 12) about an hour late at 9:30.  It's an hour time difference from Tampa, so he was a tired puppy by the time we got him tucked in.

 

The next day we had planned to visit the St. Louis Zoo and the Arch, but we could not get anywhere near to finding a parking place.  It was jammed everywhere, so we abandoned the zoo idea and went straight to the St. Louis Arch.  At first we watched the very informative and beautifully done movie about the Lewis and Clark Expedition, then our journey up into the arch in this tiny thing:

 

 

 

Lance was a little claustrophobic, but he manned up and decided to go for it.  It was a 4 1/2 minute ride and dark and noisy, but we made it up to the top at 630 feet.  

 

And what a view! 

Busch Stadium (red)



Court House (green dome)

 

On the Missouri River side, it was not as pretty.  So much rain had flooded the river way over its banks (although not as much as other times), and a lot of things were under water:

 

 

notice tent roof? steps are covered to it.

So, how did they build this amazing structure?  We saw a 40 minute film describing the initial concept to completion, and it was truly amazing.

 

We still had some time, so we chose to see the Cathedral of St. Louis begun in 1907. 

 There are 83,000 square feet of mosaic art created by twenty artists and installed over a period of seventy-five years.  Two chapels on the west side were created by Tiffany.  Forty-one million, 500 thousand pieces of tesserae in more than 8000 different colors are on almost every surface within.

 

To get married here (if you are a resident of St. Louis) will cost a mere $2000, but get on the waiting list now.  It's over 5 years long.  Truly a magnificent piece of architecture.  The lighting (which was not on by the time we arrived) costs the church $31 a minute. 

 

The next morning (we're up to June 5 now) we parted ways with Ron and Donna, as they went home and we traveled east towards Kentucky.  Our first stop was in Indiana at Diamond Lakes, a PPA campground, and it had lots of things to do.  All Lance wanted to do was fish.  So fish he did, and he was very successful. 

 

 

Bass pro

Gary had corvettes in his youth, including one of these.  We had wanted to tour the GM Factory Plant, but tours were cancelled until the fall.  So the boys went to the Museum, hopefully to see a 1963 split window coupe stingray, one of Gary's former cars.  However the gentleman who loaned it to the museum was caught with evading taxes, so had to hand it over to the IRS.  Bummer.

However, Lance liked this model and decided to go for a spin.  (not)  Looks good, though...

At our next stop, Singing Hills RV campground in Cave city, KY, there just happened to be another pond with fish in it, so Lance was there with worms.  Again, he was successful two seconds after he cast his line.  We'll never get to eat any as it's catch and release.  OK with Gary - he dislikes cleaning fish.

 



A little one for Poppy

 Then we did more fun things:  Golfing,

 Driving cars,

Going up high and coming down fast:

 

And then stopping at the bait store for more worms.   Back to the lake for more fishing. 

 

Now you are caught up on our adventures.  Tomorrow we will be moving again into Tennessee this time where our destination is Pigeon Forge for a few days before Lance goes home on Friday. Hopefully we will get in some educational stuff too.  So much to do, and so little time. 

 

Thanks for hanging in there for this long blog.  Because right now, Life is Good!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, We Are Still Out There

 

We are still here, folks.  Just have been really busy, or had no internet service.  And now I have so many photos to show you, I am frustrated because after adding them to this post, half the photo is black.  Of course, Google has changed their photo addition format yet again, although, in my opinion, it worked just fine.  Sheesh.

 

Anyway, until I get that resolved, I'll fill you in with words.

 

We drove from Bastrop, TX to Lavon Lake, a COE CG in Wylie, TX to meet Ron and Donna.  They used to live in Dallas, and wanted to show us the Stockyards in Fort Worth and Dealey Plaza in Dallas among other things. 

 

Wednesday we had left Ron's brother's home in Blossom, TX and stopped in Wagoner, OK.  We made a stop at a cool store called Atwoods Ranch and Home where three of us bought cowboy boots for a great price!  [Now I just need a horse...] That stop put us back quite a bit mileage-wise, so it was a long 9 hour drive to get there Thursday night, as Ron had an appointment on Friday.  We are now parked at our friends, Donna and Ron's daughter's house in Fayette, Missouri, enjoying the beautiful farm land with rolling hills, pastures with horses and cattle, millions of birds, hummers everywhere and threats of tornadoes.  We could do without that last one.  Bad storms last night, but beautiful this morning.  Bad storms are predicted tonight, too, but there is a cellar in the farmhouse we can run to. 

 

We will be staying here a week or so, but need to be somewhere to pick up our grandson soon to have a two week visit with us.  More on that later...

 

Another thunderstorm is upon us, so I'm signing off.  If anyone knows what's up with photos, I'd appreciate a comment or email....

 

 



Back in Civilization

Saturday, May 4 was our last day of gate guarding.  We spent 70 days straight out in the wilderness with only three days off between jobs.  We are glad we did it, but we're glad it's over.  Now we get to spend all that money we made...

Our impressions:  loved the wildlife, turkeys, bobcats, numerous birds, javelinas, boars, deer, armadillos, turtles and all of them Texas sized.  We had no contact with any illegal immigrants, although we were warned on our last job about a chase near the river.  Only the Sheriff came by to ask which way was out, as he was lost.  We could help with that.

We only had two night-time thunderstorms in all that time. They were spectacular storms, made more visible because of the wide open skies.  The last storm had non-stop lightning (which I loved watching) and shortly we saw a large fire about 1/4 mile from us.  It was in the direction of a pumping station, but we knew there was no flare on those pumps.  It wasn't moving in any direction, and wasn't getting larger, but we called 911 anyway.  The Fire Marshall arrived in 5 minutes, with the Sheriff close behind.  In about 10 minutes an oil company supervisor showed up telling us he received a signal of malfunction on the site.  I thought he was extremely brave going in there, I mean that fire was large.  The Sheriff said we did the right thing, because last month there was a real oil fire that required lots of manpower to put out, as no one reported it.

That storm created some mud that the trucks drove through leaving huge ruts.  I got on my rubber boots and went out to be 5 years old and play in the mud. 

One morning a herd of turkeys came running toward us, around the front of the coach and off on a side road.

 

 

Sun rises and sun sets were also beautiful.

 

This little guy came out at dusk and was totally oblivious to my approach.  I was getting closer and closer until I stepped on a thorn branch which went right through my Topsiders.  There are some wicked thorns out there.  There are armadillos in Florida, but this guy was about twice as big.  

 

I am pleased to say we never saw a snake of any kind.  Plenty of pictures were shown to us on oil men's phones of gigantic snakes they had killed, but none were interested in our neck of the woods.  Whew.

 

We were released from our job on Saturday and C-R-A-W-L-E-D  for 2 miles on that dirt, rutted road at 10 mph until we hit pavement and rolled into the gate guard yard around 6 pm. There were no hookups at the yard, and that was no problem until we hit the generator button which gives us 50 amps, the generator started right up, but the 110 didn't kick in.  No 'Set Clock' on the microwave.  Huh??  Called on our go-to guy, Ron, but he was stumped.  We checked our generator troubleshooting guide.  No answer.  So we called Newmar and Jordan suggested we get our volt tester out to check the Transfer Switch in the electrical bay.  But we couldn't get the cover off, which was a sign we were probably not supposed to.  So we got our last meal at Choke Canyon BBQ across the street, had a quiet evening, and slept very well in our quiet parking lot.  The employees arrived in the morning, and Gary went to ask Joe, who suggested checking the GFIC switches.  All were OK in the coach, but my smart hubby said "I think there's one more."  He went out to the genset and sure enough, flipped the little switch and ta da!  we had power!  Simple solution.  [Smart guy I married]

 

Around 10 am we left for Bastrop State Park where we planned to stay two nights.  I was ready for some tall trees, however, in 2011 a devastating fire destroyed over 11,000 acres of woods and the town.  A windstorm had knocked over power poles which started a fire in the surrounding dry trees.  The fire fighters and trucks were away helping other stations with another fire, so the town was helpless. In all directions during the drive, the dead trees surrounded us.  But the town is coming back, even better. 

 

our site number 2, FHU !

We chose Bastrop for another reason other than getting Gary's port flushed.  In 1944 Gary's parents were married in the chapel on the Camp Swift Army base.  His mom took the train from North Carolina all the way to Taylor where she was met by her fiancé.  The were married by the Chaplain who, because he had hiked the day before for 10 miles, had such bad blisters on his feet, he asked them if they would mind if he just wore his socks at the ceremony.  Of course, they didn't, and that's their funny wedding story.  So Gary and I decided we'd go around Bastrop and to Camp Swift to take photos of what she remembers about her wedding day and honeymoon.  It was so interesting talking to old and young people.  We had a great time visiting the Bastrop Museum and the Courthouse, listening to stories and looking at old photos.

 

Nobody would flush Gary's port, so we will wait until Tennessee where he had it put in, and ask them to take it out! 

 

Tomorrow we are on our way again, up to a COE campground (our first) at Lake Lavon in northeast Dallas where we will meet up with our friends, Donna and Ron again for some FUN!