THE RANCH…LAKEWOOD, NEW MEXICO

Tuesday, September 21 – Got an early start today. We had a six hour drive (too much) wanting to get to the Escapee Co-op Park in Lakewood, NM – The Ranch. Today's drive is more than we like to do, but there aren't many stopping points in west Texas. We drove through some desolate landscape most of the day.

The Ranch is a really nice park. Rainbow's End, the Escapee Headquarters, could learn a lot from this park. When we pulled-in, they rang a dinner bell and a half dozen residents came out to meet us! WOW...what a welcome! They have paved street, huge level sites, double electric and sewer access (at mid-point of site and at rear), reverse osmosis water treatment, a beautiful club house, and a very friendly group. The Park is located near the foothills of the Guadalupe Mountains and located in the Chihuahuan Desert. It is beautiful around here.

Looking down our street

The clubhouse is very nice outside and inside.

The big room.

Kitchen

The one refrigerator is loaded with drinks, candy bars and ice cream in the freezer. Everything is $.50-$1.00…nice little extra.

 

Exercise room and game room.

 

Library

The park has a desert garden called The Wedge. It is filled with native plants and artifacts. It is a nice place to relax and enjoy nature.

We even saw this little fellow.

Due to the fact that the park is a co-op, many of the residents have casitas on their property. Some are really very nice.

It was a beautiful sunset.

And the moon was was showing off too.

Another great day!!

Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day. Hope to see you back real soon.

WHERE THE DEER AND THE ANTELOPE PLAY

Saturday, September 18 and Sunday, September 19- Spent the weekend with the girls. We watched football most of Saturday, but we think they are trying to kill us. They talked us in to going to another country dance bar, Wild River, in Katy. The problem is…these young kids don’t go out until 10:00 p.m. Paul is usually heading to bed by then. Anyway, we went. They had mercy on us and started out at 9:30…whoopee. It was a really nice place. We surprised the girls by staying out until 12:30 a.m.

Sunday we hit the couches at Kelly’s. Everyone was a bit tired,especially the girls. Seems they stayed and closed the dance floor down…in Texas that is 3:00 a.m. Oh, to be young again. Marsha made her special spaghetti bake. We left Kelly’s about 4:00. Spent the rest of the evening getting ready to hit the road in the morning, watching football and talking to Marsha’s dad on the phone. What a great ten days we had with the girls.

Monday, September 20 – This was the first day of travel with our new residential refrigerator. When we pulled out of Houston West RV the freezer temperature was 7-degrees and the refrigerator box was 26-degrees. Upon arriving at Junction, TX 5-hours later the freezer was 26-degrees and the refrigerator box was 52-degrees. This was without running the generator. So it stayed fairly cold. We'll check it again tomorrow. We may decide to run the generator at mid-day to keep the refrigerator a little colder.

We are at South Llano River State Park in Junction, TX. This is a very nice park. We have a double wide concrete site with water and 30-amp electric.

Marsha took Bella for a walk. Bella was almost crazy wanting to get outside....ha ha!!   She spent quite a bit of time exploring the wilderness. She's been listless the last couple of days, so it was good to see her so active.

Looking up and down our road.

It has all types of hiking trails and numerous types of wild life. We seen many deer, antelopes, and all types of birds...including turkeys!

Antelope

 

Deer

 

They have a couple of bird blinds that you can sit in and watch the birds in their natural habit. It was enjoyable.

 

 

We took a couple mile hike along the Llano River and is was beautiful.

There was cacti all through the brush.

 

South Llano River is a blue-green color. It was very calm.

 

This evening we were sitting out relaxing and doing some reading when Marsha whispered…look! Not ten feet away stood a mother deer and her two fawns. They were investigating our cat, Bella. The mother would snort and stamp her feet. Bella just sat there staring at them. Not really alarmed. This went on for about 30 minutes.The deer would walk away and graze for a few minutes and then return. Very fascinating!

Stamping her feet.

Mother and babies

Bella wasn’t afraid…look where she was sitting. Marsha had to move her paw to turn the page of her book.

There was a gaggle of turkeys too, but they were much more aloof. They kept their distance. You could just see them sneaking around about 100 feet away in the tall grass.

A very enjoyable stay here at South Llano River State Park. We will definitely stop here often during our trips through Texas. This could be one of our favorite campsites so far!

Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day. Hope to see y’all back again.

NOTHING BETTER THAN FAMILY TIME

Saturday, September 11 – We are headed to Carrie's house (youngest daughter) to watch some football. She travels in her job with Exxon but flies home most weekends. So for her, weekends are busy, busy, busy! She has to stuff most of her “friends time” into a very short weekend. Our other daughter, Kelly, will be there....after her volleyball tournament this morning.

After watching Ohio State beat Miami (We are former Ohioans.), we headed out to Best Buy to help Carrie but a new computer. She decided on an HP and now Marsha can get it all set-up and all her programs transferred before we leave the Houston area on the 20^th.

We then headed to their “hang-out”.....Rebels. This was a fantastic TEXAN Honky Tonk! Man could these kids do the Texas Two Step. Paul really wants to learn this dance but these guys shamed him into getting off the dance floor. Guess we'll have to find an “old fogie” place to practice.

Kelly and Carrie

Kelly, Nick (one of Carrie’s room mates), Carrie

Kelly and Nick

Carrie and Nick

Paul and Carrie

Sunday, September, 12 - The girls came over to watch pro-football. Direct TV was having free NFL Channel for week #1 of the season. Probably the only Cleveland Browns game we'll get to see. By the looks of them, we won't be missing much.

Marsha worked some on Carrie's computer set-up, and then we decided to go out for dinner before the girls headed home.

Monday, September, 13 – Paul tore out the dead refrigerator this morning.

He got the maintenance man, Duane,  here in the park to help him pass it out the emergency window behind the driver's seat and into his pick-up truck. Duane is going to tear it apart for the recyclables. The tearing out went really well, and the idea to pass it out the emergency window made a difficult problem, of how to get it out, a very simple procedure.....worth remembering if you ever have to get a big object in or out of your MH. Paul got the idea off the Tiffin RV Network forum page. That's the way they remove things at the factory repair shop.......cool!

We spent the rest of the day investigating refrigerators. Using the cooler is getting old. We need to buy a big bag of ice each day just to keep a few things cold and have ice for drinks.

Tuesday, September 14 – Doctor day for Paul. Paul’s appointment was scheduled for 9:45…the optimum word his is scheduled. He finally got to see the doctor an hour later. He got an excellent report. Doctor Wimberly said his back is super and he can do whatever he wants to do. Paul was concerned that when we go to work at the Balloon Fiesta, he wouldn’t be allowed to take a balloon ride. The doctor said, “Go for it!” Great news.

While Paul was at the doctor, Marsha washed the clothes, scrubbed all the tile floor, attended an hour Bible study at the campground, and did her exercises.

We went to Kelly’s volleyball game. She really has a wonderful group of girls.

Can you tell how the game was going?

Well, you probably guess right…not so good. There is always next time.

One BIG difference we see here in Texas compared to Ohio is that they have cheerleaders at each varsity game. The mascot also shows up. Mayde Creek has a great looking mascot. We didn’t get a close up, but you can see from the picture below, it even has the feet of a ram…LOL

Thank for stopping by. Have a great day. Hope to see you back real soon.