Souvenirs From The Road: 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.