What Can I Say, What Can't I Say??

We arrived in Whitsett yesterday, not a bad drive but that Texas Highway 72 coming from Yoakum could be just a little smoother.

After getting set up I went to the office to let them know we were here and I was given a two page letter. Sherry and I read the letter and it basically says that we are not allowed to give out any type of information about anything especially on the internet. I can't even take pictures anymore. OK I can understand this so far, I think.

I need to make an apology to some of my followers for getting upset about this.  I heard about this a few weeks ago and posted some comments on their blog, Sorry Debbie and Vicky. I do understand now since I have seen it in writing. We should be getting our assignment by Thursday we hope.

Now in the past, I posted a few things about the job but felt that it was general statements, nothing specific. I am not sure but I don't think I mentioned any names. I am getting old and the memory is short lived now a days. So what does this mean?

What this means to me is that I will not be posting anything about the job or who we work for and what we do. I will be posting our personal experiences and continue posting about our RV lifestyle and information about RVs in general. There is a lot to say about everything and anything, I just have to be careful on how to say it, which I am not very good at. I usually say what I mean and what is on my mind, I have been told that I have very little tact.

I have been following a couple of blogs about this lifestyle and now they have cleaned up their blogs that you won't find anything about this job. One blog doesn't even work for them anymore and won't be coming back either, but that's their choice.

I think that the internet is a great source of information and is a wonderful thing. I have purchased many items on the net, resourced items like my air conditioner, but it also can be a cruel tool. In this day and age posting or publishing anything on the internet is out there for good.I have a facebook page but don't really post anything there and I have no idea what this Twitter thing is all about and don't care to know either. My cell phone can make and receive calls and believe it or not that is all I do with it.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I understand where they are coming from and will do my best to abide by the rules of the game.

Oh, what do you think of the new layout??



So Until Next Time...............................Be Safe.

Summer Almost Over for Us, Final Chapter

I left on in the last post, I think, leaving Nails Creek and heading to Fredericksburg, Texas. We decided to stay at an RV park called Oakwood RV Resort. Boy were these sites tight. I mean TIGHT. I had a hell of a time getting the 5ver placed where the side would come out and not hit any trees. Outside of the site the park was nice and we had a good time in Fredericksburg. When we left Fredericksburg we headed to a State park called Lost Maples and to get there we tackled the "hills" of the hill country of Texas.

This park was nestled inside a canyon with mountains and trees all around. We stayed about 4 nights and if you want to get away from it all this is the place, no internet and no cell service. It was nice for a change. We travelled to some small towns to see what was there and to our surprise we stopped in a town called Utopia.

What makes this town special is that the movie "Seven Days In Utopia" was filmed here. This film is about a golfer and starred Robert Duvall. One of our favorite actors. We had lunch at a cafe called "Lost Maples Cafe" where some of the movie was filmed in. We bought the movie but have yet to see it. Looking forward to it.

We left Lost Maples and went to a city called Bandera. A nice little city but stayed at a park called Pioneer RV Park which was not so nice. The park was nice but the managers we rude and mean plus they charge 4 extra dollars for an extra person. I guess I will never understand why they do this. In Bandera we found a county park for only 15 dollars a night and we moved there for about 3 nights before taking off to Inks Lake State park.

This was a very popular park for the locals and was busy when we got there. The first site assigned to us was a no go and received a much bigger site just across form the bath house. We tried a little fishing and had a good time there. Sherry and I decided that it was time to start to head back to the Houston area one more time before we head to a gate. So off to Bastrop State Park.

Bastrop State Park was involved in a major wildfire last September which consumed about 95% of the park. We stayed for awhile and toured the area and it was pretty bad. The park is a nice one but will take years for it to be as beautiful as it once was. The next State Park we went to was called Buescher which wasn't far.

We were able to get the camp host site which had sewer and that allowed us to stay for a week. A real beautiful park that has a small lake for fishing so we took advantage of that one day. One nice thing about this park is that the sites are cheap, only 15 dollars a night, not bad.

Our time was up at Buescher and off to Stephen F. Austin State Park. We were at this park once before many years ago when our son was in the Boy Scouts. We picked our site which had sewer and set up camp. One of our neighbors was a first time, brand new 5ver camper. They had problems, but that's another posting. Knowing that this is our last park before heading back to a gate, we went to Tomball where we are at now.

We visited with the kids and grand kids last night but our son and his family was not able to make it. Today we have laundry and a few things to pick up at the store before we head off to our gate adventure for the next three months or so.

So Until next Time..........................Be Safe.

Summer Almost Over for Us Pt. 2

Let me see where I left off. I think we were leaving Amarillo and heading towards Wichita Falls, Texas. We stayed at a state park called Lake Arrowhead.

This park started out bad when we registered. The lady asked if we ever stayed there before and I said no and then proceeded to tell us to pick a site. For the most part this park was a hell hole with no shade and the power kept cutting out in the middle of the hottest part of the day.

The only saving grace this park had was a "Prairie Dog Town" that featured a small area of prairie dogs. It was pretty cool to watch.

Our goal was to head back to Houston and visit with the kids again. So we left Lake Arrowhead State Park and headed to the Dallas/Fort Worth area to another state park called Cedar Hill State Park. This park was real nice and shady. We went to Camping World one day and got caught up in a terrible rain storm on the way back.

Our next stop took us to Huntsville State Park. This is a popular park being so close to the Houston area. We had a nice site with plenty of shade but because of the trees we were not able to get a satellite signal, so DVD movies and antenna TV for our stay.

We are now in our favorite stop in Tomball which is where we are now. We visited with our kids in the north Houston area and then headed south to visit with our son and his family for a while. After that we wanted to head towards Fredericksburg, Texas. We were in Fredericksburg once before but only stayed one day so it deserved a few more days.

Before Fredericksburg we went to a state park called Nails Creek. There sites were very small and they gave us a site which had sewer but was a few dollars more. It was a bad park that we didn't like too much. I don't think that we will be back in the near future.

Wow, after looking at our log of where we have been I think I should stop now and continue later. I didn't realize that we have been to so many places this summer.......So

Until Next Time.................................Be Safe.

Summer Almost Over for Us

Well unfortunately our summer vacation is coming to a close. We are at Stephen F. Austin State Park and will be traveling to Tomball on Monday. We will be there for about a week to see the kids and grand kids. After that we will be heading back to gate guarding in south Texas.

We have had an interesting ride this summer. We had a scare with Brianne passing out on us to watching a family with a new fifth wheel camping for the first time. Let me see if I can recap some of our most memorable moments.

We left the gate at the end of March and spent some relaxing time in Laredo. We  left Laredo and headed towards where our son and his family lives in Dickinson, TX for a bit. We went to Tomball for our daughter's wedding. Finally got her married off. Now the fun starts.

Went to the Alabama-Choushatta Indian Reservation to camp for a week and this is the place where Bri passed out on us. She is fine now and doing well. We decided to go to the College Station area to see the George Bush Presidential Library. If you have never been to one you really need to see one they are just fantastic.

A change in plans and a pit stop in Austin to see the LBJ Presidential Library. This library is under construction and very little to see. So we will make sure to visit again when completed. Now we head to the River Walk in San Antonio. We stayed just outside of San Antonio at a park which happened to flood out during a bad rain storm, no problem for us though. Our plan is to travel up to Amarillo, so off to San Angelo for a few days and then to Lubbock which was interesting.

While setting up I had encounter with a scorpion which stung me twice in the right thumb. Boy that hurt but ok now. Off to Amarillo now. We stayed at an RV park which was somewhat uneven and had rough roads. Here we had a lot to see and do. We went out to dinner in a limo, went to see the "Cadillac Ranch" and cruised Historic Route 66. Our main goal was to see an RV Museum there. it was free and very nice. They had the RV motor home from the movie "RV" starring Robin Williams.

After thinking about our summer I think this post may be too long so I will break it up into another post later on. So........

Until next Time....................Be Safe.

What Ever Happened to Common Courtisy?

I remember watching old western movies and in some scenes I would see the cowboys at the camp. Then I would see a stranger coming to their camp yelling, "Hello in the camp". Of course back then if you didn't acknowledge the camp you probably would have gotten shot. But today it is a whole different story.

I come from a long line of campers. My parents loved to go camping and I watched them go from a very large tent to the great looking Starcraft tent trailer to an Apache pop up with fiberglass walls, no canvass. I joined the Boy Scouts and learned even more about camping and the proper rules that go along with it.

When I got married I introduced Sherry to camping and she loved it. For over 30 years we have been camping and enjoying it ever since. We took our kids and taught them what we learned in the past. One of the first things that we taught our kids was the proper rules that you must apply while camping.

One of the first rules that we tought was "Never pass through someone else's camp!"  Even if you have to walk a good distance around you never go through somebody's camp. I call this Common Courtesy! Can you tell that this is one of my pet peeves?

While we were at Inks State Park we had quite a few unwanted guests come passing through our site. One man was walking through with his child and I asked him if he could please go around our site instead of through our site. His reply was that his little boy had to go to the bathroom. Where is the consideration for your fellow man??

I guess in this day and age there is a different type of camper out there. They leave trash at their site when they leave, don't pick up after their dog and keep you up all night with their loud music and partying. From what I have witnessed in the past, they just don't care.

I went online to look for camping etiquette and came up with a bunch of sites, so maybe some people need to take a look at these sites to get an idea on Common Courtesy for your fellow camper. Enough said and time for me to get off my soapbox.

So Until Nest Time.................Be Safe.

New Addition

Well it's been a while since my last post because we were in an area that had no cell service and no internet. I guess you would call that a dead zone. Actually it was kind of nice up until the time we had to figure out where we were going. We were at a state park called Lost Maples and surrounded by mountains, it was pretty cool.

Before we got there, we were in Fredericksburg and decided to go to a second hand store for the local SPCA. Needless to say Sherry wanted to go look at the dogs in their shelter next door. We stumbled upon this little dog, a Chiuaua mix. I don't think I spelled that right but I think you got the idea. I just ran spell check and no luck, oh well.

We took the dog out of its cage and went into another room so he can get a feel for Bri mostly. In short we adopted the dog and named him "Gizmo".

He seems to be adapting fairly well. When we left the park he road in his cage in the back seat. After Fredericksburg and Lost Maples we headed for Bandera, TX. When we left Bandera we had a short trip to Burnet, TX and decided to see how he would ride out of his cage. Gizmo did very well with no problems. We are now at a state park called Inks Lake State Park.

This place is very large and has a beautiful lake within walking distance from our trailer. It seems to be a very popular place. When we got here they assigned us a spot but after looking at it, we would have never been able to fit. So back to the office and they gave us a real nice long site. No problems getting the unit in here. We will be until tomorrow and then head for Bastrop State Park.

Last September Bastrop State Park was engulfed in a wild fire which burned about 90% of the park. The CCC back in the 30's built 13 cabins out of rock and the firefighters were able to protect them during the fire. Almost 10 months later it will be interesting to see what mother nature has done to this park. I also feel that this could be educational for Brianne. Hopefuly I can get some pictures and post them later. So.......

Until Next Time....................Be Safe.

What To Do, Where To Go and The Tree

This full-time RV lifestyle is great but it does have some problems of its own. Being forced into retirement early, I never thought that I would be faced with a problem of "Where to go and what to do?"

We are here in Fredericksburg, Texas now up to this Friday. The park that we are at is nice but very, very close together. There are trees around which makes the sites skinny. When we pulled in I had to place the door side tires almost on the concrete patio just so we could bring the slide out. This left only about six inches before the slide would hit the tree. It is quiet but next time we will request a site more conducive to us.

Speaking of trees, a few posts back when Sherry drove the truck and trailer for the first time we went to a park that day and started to back in. After adjusting a few times I ended up very close to a tree on the driver's side. I think overall we were only about two inches from it. Sherry was worried about it especially when we pull out and if we will hit it.

Well guess what, I DID! Here's my thought on pulling out next to a tree. I wanted to pull out and go right. I figured if I can get the tires just past the tree I could start making my turn to the right. Well that theory didn't work out so well. Sherry was outside yelling at me to stop but like an idiot I had the window up, a/c on high, and the radio on low. Needless to say I couldn't hear her.

Now for the damages. My city water connection was ripped out and the trailer has some bad scratches on the side. I was able to fix the city water connection and learned that when you have the water pump on and start to disconnect the city water connection water will start to flow out of the connection. In the city water line there is a one way check valve which allows the water to stop at the city connection. More lessons learned, when close to a tree you can not start to turn in either direction until the back of the trailer has cleared the tree.

The park we are at now I face the same problem again. This time I have to turn left to pull out and make sure that I clear the tree. I guarantee you this,  I will not be hitting any trees. Once I clear the trees I will have to go down to another empty site and back in to that one just so I can turn around to get out of this place.

We like to stay at state parks here in Texas but are finding out that they are filling up fast. So we will have to get creative about where we want to go. As we wind down our vacation I am trying to plan to get back to the Houston area for a doctor's appointment in August. After that if the plans hold up we would like to visit Corpus Cristi as our last hurray and then head back to the gate guarding thing. If any of you have any suggestions please let us know.

So until next time.........................................Be Safe!


P.S. Today is Sherry's Birthday............................Happy Birthday Honey, I Love You!