The Start of a Memory Making Trip!

Finally, the day has drawn near for our Grandkid’s Birthday Journey!  We left our peaceful refuge at Fentress on the San Marcos River and headed to Splashway RV Park in Sheridan, TX. This is where we all agreed to meet up for the weekend together before we launch on our trip to the Grand Canyon and beyond with Aiden and Lucy.  The only issue we seem to face at the moment is Tropical Storm Hanna (which ended up going inland as a hurricane south of us in the Rio Grande Valley). It might just become a tropical storm themed birthday party for the kiddos!

 

Lucy, Aiden and Liz

Aiden and Nana

Friday morning Ron and I had errands to run in Sweeny which is about an hour and a half drive.  We were picking up new sunglasses and I was getting a haircut.  We stopped by the house to pick up our mail and reload our freezer with fresh meat from a steer we had butchered. We got back to the park in time to enjoy the fun swimming that Splashway offers.  Liz, Lucy and Aiden had been having fun without us!  Amy and James parked beside us in their RV.  And after dinner, we actually got to go listen to their outdoor music, which was really good!

 

Me and my girls

Aiden and Lucy playing putt putt

Fun evening!

They thought since it had a key it was an automatic.  That pedaling uphill got them some red faces!

Liz and Lucy coming off the slide

Liz and Lucy

My family waving before going down the huge slide

Saturday was a rainy day, typical tropical storm type weather.  I made a birthday cake and finally later in the afternoon the kids got to go to the water park for a little while.

 

Birthday kids!

Hiding from rain showers

Sunday after breakfast we finally said our good-byes and the 4 of us left!  Our destination is Abilene State Park.  Thankfully they have a swimming pool and we were able to purchase tickets to swim late that afternoon.  After a 334 mile drive and a busy weekend, we were pretty tired.

See y'all later!

 

Wore out!

Ron and Lucy

Aiden

Chefs in training

Rinsing off the road rain scum

Lucy has to stage us lol

Due to New Mexico’s COVID procedures, they had canceled our State Park Reservations at Bottomless Lakes and Blue Water Lake. They also don’t want out of staters to spend the night. Therefore, I rerouted us to stay a night in Amarillo so we could cross using I-40 to get to Arizona.  And we had fun in Amarillo!  It was about a 4 hour drive from Abilene. We stayed at Route 66 RV Ranch, which was nice.  Took the kids to the Cadillac Ranch where we found lots of leftover spray cans for them to write their name on a car.  We decided to go eat at the Big Texan Restaurant and guess what!  They offer free limo service!  I wish you could have seen the kid’s eyes when they saw the old Lincoln Continental with cow horns on the hood drive up to pick us up. Priceless.  That evening we were able to watch some pretty significant rain, lightning and thunder.

 

Our limo ride lol

Cadillac Ranch

They love a jalapeno challenge!

These cousins have always been close!

Tuesday we knew would be a 511 mile drive from Amarillo, across New Mexico, to the first RV park we could find which was in Holbrook. So we left out of Texas at 7:30. The KOA we stayed at was very nice. We left Papaw to take a nap and I drove the kids to the Petrified Forest National Park. We were able to get the Jr. Ranger books and complete them for another badge, even though Nana had to do the swearing in. (Really some of these covid extremes.)  We ended the day with a nice cool swim.

 

New Junior Ranger Badges

Petrified tree

You explore and learn by touching

Get your kicks on Route 66!

So far, so good!  Everyone is getting along and having fun!

 

Next up!  Homolovi Ruins State Park and the North Rim Grand Canyon!

 

Pandemic Times = A Koether Fixer Upper!

It's been a while since I've written a blog. I guess that's what happens when everyone is going through the Covid-19 experience - you don't really need to go anywhere.  But it worked out good for us as it allowed us to pretty much complete the remodeling project we had in mind for Phase 1 of our house. In case you don't know, when we came back to Texas last October we had difficulty locating a place to park the motorhome, which is insane if you knew how many RV parks there are in Brazoria county. But there is a lot of new construction and expansions and turnarounds at the Phillips 66 Refinery, so that explains it. I just happened to drive by the house I grew up in as a child through age 18 and there was a For Sale sign in the yard. The house looked sad. I called Ron and asked if he would be interested in going and looking at it and he says no. But we did. And there was the marks on the broom closet door marking my brother's and my growth chart, and our dog Snuffy.  The rest is history.

So I thought I'd take a little bit of time to show some before and after pictures of the remodel.

Front of house.  We had to remove the pecan tree to make way for more cement. The carport got recycled and relocated to backyard. The boxwoods in the front were circa 1960 and they went away. Ron hung smartboard, made cedar shutters and window box. I did the landscaping.

Back of house.  On left is a window box under kitchen window. We had to remove about 10 feet of vines and weeds from the back fence. Added a small vegetable garden, redid a flower bed and you can see the old carport turned into a garden shed.

The old garage on the left, the new on the right.  We poured concrete in to raise the floor to be level to the rest of the house. We added a 9' long island with a ton of storage. Pantry, microwave and 2nd oven and fridge and more storage on the right. Piano by the window.

Old utility room on the left. You got to it by walking outside or through the garage and it looked a little scary in there!  On the right is the new utility room and you see the brown door? That's the original broom closet door with my growth marks on it.  We changed up walls and you can enter now from the kitchen.

On the left is the new kitchen area. Right is original. Now, the green linoleum and formica were installed by my parents in the 70's. We were able to open it up a lot more.

On the left is what the living room looked like. On the right you will notice the wall(s) are gone. It really opened it up.  You're even able to see into the dining room.

Original dining room on left, opened up dining room on the right.  The built in china hutch was original.

The first picture is of the garden shed that used to be a carport. We recycled the shutters from the front of house.  The second picture shows the 1950 ligustrum privacy fence my dad planted.  Not very attractive anymore.  The third picture is the garden shed with the yellow front door that was original.  The fourth picture shows a mess!

The piano sits in what used to be the garage.  The right picture shows a tangle of shrubs.  There is now concrete here and we park the motorhome here.

Well it happens when you seem to have a little bit of gypsy blood running in your veins.  It gets really hot here in Texas, and humid.  We've been planning a 2 week road trip with our 2 grandkids, Lucy and Aiden, leaving July 25.  Plans are to head to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, stop at Zion and spend a few days at Capitol Reef National Park before winding up in South Fork, Colorado where we will stay at least a month and enjoy friends from there. Yes we're monitoring all the covid stuff and right now the only hiccup looks to be New Mexico making you quarantine for 14 days. We're only spending 2 nights and they will both be in state parks, and my interpretation of that is that we're ok. At the end of the trip, we will leave the motorhome behind, drive back to Texas in 2 days, drop off the kids, then head back to Colorado.  

Now the interesting thing is that we had an opportunity to rent our house out for 6 months to a friend.  How cool!  So in September we plan on leaving Colorado, maybe go to Idaho, Yellowstone, over to the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Michigan's Upper Peninsula and then to a date with Spartan on October 28.  I'm sure the cold weather will then make us turn south and maybe we'll spend some time in West Virginia or Arkansas. Who knows. But we plan to be home at Christmas.

So the past few weeks we took a family trip out to Gulf Shores Alabama. We stayed at Gulf State Park. Had a little bit of an issue when we cranked up to leave - our DEF monitor apparently decided to go out, but thankfully we were still in the driveway. Took a couple of days for the part to arrive.

Nana and Lucy

Yes we were social distanced!

Lucy and Aiden

My family!

Amy's family rented a condo which allowed us pool access and easy beach access.

Aiden snagged the biggest red snapper!

My crazy girls!

Yes.....had to make a trip here

Lots of bras.......

Sure have missed our live music and dancing!

Making the most of sleeping spaces in a house built for 2!

On our way back from Alabama, we stopped at Cajun Palms in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Pat's!

After that we returned to El Campo where we enjoyed staying at the Lost Lagoon. Awesome waterpark! Lucy was able to stay with us for the fun!

We then headed back to our favorite spot on the San Marcos River.  Enjoyed good river time, no people, and shade. From there we headed out to the Frio River. We stayed at Nana's RV Park.  We enjoyed the week since we were there with our friends Donna and Greg and some of their kids, but we were so happy to make it back to the San Marcos where there weren't people!

My favorite swing spot on the San Marcos

Our favorite float spot. We tie to a big brick in the middle of the river.

Sitting under the cyprus trees on the banks of the Frio

Old Baldy in the background.

We arrived today at Inks Lake State Park where we will stay for a week.  It's over 100 degrees in the shade though. Next week we go to South Llano River State Park for a week, we'll stay 3 days in Fredericksburg before meeting up with family at Splashway WaterPark and leave on our trip.

Praying that the Pandemic will go away soon.  Prayers for families with ill ones. And hopefully soon we'll be taking a wonderful trip with our grandkids!  Stay tuned!