Souvenirs From The Road

We had a wonderful week at Rockaway RV Park, on the shores of Inks Lake in the Texas hill country. We had the grandkids for a while, and then parents showed up a few days later. What a great and relaxing time!

Aiden, Lucy and Papaw about to enter Longhorn Caverns!

Algae on the rocks outside the cave entrance.

Aiden and Lucy sure enjoyed helping the tour guide!

Lucy said this part of the cave looked like vanilla ice cream.

Sunset view from our campsite.

Aiden and Lucy checking out the baby catfish at the Inks Lake National Fish Hatchery.

The explorers at Buchanan Dam

We had great camping neighbors that let our grandkids play with their toys.

A view of our campground from the bridge.

The old bridge, complete with a huge swing!

Lucy with baby Marshall

They kept baiting the hog traps, so...….

Aiden wanted to go play a little shuffle board.

Which led to a game of pool.

Another beautiful sunset

Ron's new swimming friend

Amy trying to paddle with Aiden's kayak.

Aiden driving everyone around.

Colorado River view

Aiden and his sister Courtney

Someone popped out of bed and went and shot a pig!

Target practice

The dock on the river. Just beautiful!

My beautiful Double L girls - Liz and Lucy!

My beautiful girls, Liz and Amy

It was a little hard to say good-bye because we have been “home” a little longer than expected. But nevertheless, we were VERY excited to get this motorhome out on the highway and really see how she does. And the results are in…….This is absolutely the best mode of transportation we have experienced in our travels. Our motorcoach rides so smooth. I love being able to sit in my recliner and watch the highway go by. When you’re perched up higher, you get a much better view. My chair has a lap table so if I want to, I can drag out the computer and work on a travel blog, or whatever I might need to do on the ipad or laptop. Enough of that. Here’s where our travels up to our summer volunteer position in South Fork, Colorado have taken us.

Comfy ride!

We left Rockaway RV Park in Burnet (on Inks Lake) with our destination of Abilene State Park. We aim to keep our travel days to 3 or 4 hours, so this was a great destination. It’s been about 10 years since we visited here. Now that we’re retired, we are able to park the RV and then go check out the sights. We haven’t really explored Abilene before. I always check out TripAdvisor to see what is recommended. Therefore, we chose to go to Frontier Texas! This is a very fun place to go! It’s all about legends, history and adventure, presented in very well done multimedia displays. It really does bring the old west to life! They use holograms to portray stories from cowboys, Indians,

buffalo hunters and Indian captives. Fascinating. A must see if you haven’t stopped here before.

This place is a must see!

Buffalo skulls

I also decided to treat Ron to an early Father’s Day dinner so I googled for the best Mexican food in town and all the votes were for Abuela’s. And it did not disappoint! Wonderful! And we made it during happy hour and had really good margaritas half price! We walked around the park that evening after it cooled off and took a peak at Lake Abilene. They do have lots of the red cliffs here that are so pretty.

Yummy margaritas!

On Thursday we decided to travel to Bottomless Lakes State Park near Roswell, NM. We have been here before and remember it being very nice. They have 50 amp sites that are first come first serve (and they were pull through which isn’t a big deal) but why were all these sites filled with non 50 amp needing rigs such as pop up trailers and very small RVs? Oh well, we chose a nice site with 30 amp. This means we can only run 1 air conditioner at a time. So yep, it was a little warm with the bright sunshine, no shade, and 100+ degrees. No worries, we pulled the night shades down and went to Roswell to go explore. Decided to go to the Roswell International UFO Museum and Research Center. All’s what I can say is that it does make you wonder just a little.

My new friends!

Such a pretty lake!

When we got back to our campsite, we decided we needed to go for a swim in Lea Lake (where we’re parked by) to cool off. It was awesome and refreshing!!

Friday our destination was going to be Ft. Sumner, New Mexico. We were thinking the state park, but again they didn’t have 50 amp and it’s a little hot out here today. In town is a very nice RV park by the Billy the Kid Museum. If you’re here, you really need to include a couple of hours to tour this museum. So enjoyable! It’s not only about Billy the Kid, but about what life was like out here back in the 1800’s. They have a little bit of everything here. We also went and visited Billy the Kid’s gravesite and the Bosque Redondo museum. This is where thousands of Navajo and Mescalero Apache people were forced to go. It tells of the trials they went through.

At this museum, which is really great, you will find a little bit of everything!

Billy the Kid's gravesite

Yummy dinner. We finally got to grill a steak because we were in a private campground and fire restrictions were a little easier.

On Saturday our travel destination was Trinidad State Park, right inside the Colorado border. I will say this about Trinidad – there are quite a few marijuana stores in town, and it shows. But I am not going to get on a soap box about how that has changed the town. Finally, getting into some cooler weather. Trinidad Lake is beautiful. The state park here is very nice and we really enjoyed.

Beautiful view of Trinidad lake from our campsite!

Our home sweet home at our campsite.

Sunday we arrived at Alpine Trails RV Park, our volunteer spot for the summer! Very happy to see our friends Roy and Brenda who we previously volunteered with at Garner State Park in Texas. We will be hosting with them. And the owners, JoyceAnn and Rodney Reed are delightful! We got settled in and got to enjoying the park. There’s so much to see and do in this area, I doubt we will get it all done this summer. It’s just spring time here so on Monday we went and bought some beautiful hanging baskets. Ron built me two planting boxes so put tomatoes and peppers in one, and flowers in the other. We will be working a 4 on and 4 off schedule, so Tuesday we started “work”. It’s a very nice, easy pace here. Most of the folks here are retired and spend every summer here. They have been very accepting of us and invited us into their extended family.

This is our front porch view!

Got to get what I love to do! Help landscape the front of the office!

Eating lunch at Pagosa Springs with some of our fellow campers!

Yep.....altitude change for us!

Over the weekend on our first day off, we decided to drive up to Creede and do the Bachelor Loop Historic and Scenic Byway. Beautiful scenery! There’s so much mining history here and remnants of the booming mining times. I will let most of the pictures just speak for themselves.

Look for the deer!

Really liking the jeep on these back roads!

What a construction project!

Have to look for the marmot!

Sunday after church friends David and Barbara Matthews invited us to go with them on their UTV on a ride up the mountainside here by the campground. Breathtaking scenery. Lots of dust (very, very dry here) but lots of fun and memories made.

Having fun!!!

South Fork in the valley

I look a little dangerous!

Until next time!

Well, things do happen in life that change your plans. We had another one of those game changers, changing our plans to travel to Florida. (I am saving that itinerary for another time!) Our daughter Liz who was in an accident early March ended up having a 5^th surgery on May 3. Because so much attention was given to her skin graft healing, it resulted in freezing her ankle. So here we go again! The orthopedic doctor had to release the achilles tendon in the back of her ankle. That means that mom/Nana needed to spend more time in Houston. Thankfully this surgery was in Sugarland at the Methodist Hospital – such an awesome facility.

Pre surgery. She's a pro at it!

I walked into WalMart by Liz's house and was greeted by a mariachi band. Never seen that before!

However the weekend before surgery, Ron and I left the LBJ Historical Park and headed for some relaxing time at our favorite spot – Fentress on the San Marcos River, at my cousin’s land.

Forgot to mention that it was also my 60th birthday weekend celebration!

Ron is swinging out over the river!

This extra time with Liz and Lucy gave me the opportunity to watch several of Lucy’s softball games and go to her dance recital. She’s an awesome 3^rd base player. I am amazed at her level of concentration. And that dance recital! Such a production!

Lucy and her friend Elle

Lucy getting her hair and makeup!

Hardly recognize her!

Beautiful smile!

3 generations here!

She always gets a hit!

Also got to see another of Aiden’s baseball games. He has so much fun and is really good.

Ron and I went to the Hostyn Catholic Church picnic one Sunday. These picnics are so fun! Not only do we get to see family, but there is great food, beverage and polka music!

Yummy!

Good music!

Original Czeck dancers

I felt things were going good enough with Liz that on May 21 we pulled out and headed to Garner State Park for a week. It was so nice! The perfect time to come as the crowds started pulling in that weekend for Memorial Day. The river is pretty low. It’s not going to be much fun if they don’t get some much needed rain soon. We went back to Fentress for Memorial Day weekend. My Uncle Pete passed away but we were able to head back for his service. So good to see my cousins again!

The Frio River has such pretty clear water!

Ron getting our floats ready.

Check out this woodpecker!

This Vermillion Flycatcher was quite entertaining!

A beautiful pair of cardinals!

We headed back to our spot in Sweeny at the Backyard RV Park on Memorial Day. This is a nice place, but it’s still concrete. It does back up to the city park so it’s easy for me to go walking on the days when I’m here. I am thankful that we have family that gives Ron things to do while I head back to Houston and Liz. Lucy has one more week of school and Liz is still in a hard non-weight bearing cast. Just easier for me to go back and help. However, she ended up getting into a walking boot after her doctor appointment this week. I decide to go back to Sweeny and then……whammy she gets an abcessed tooth the next day. She just can’t catch a break!

Lucy got to go to an Astros game with cousin Matt!

Swimming after a long day of school!

That last day of school!!! Check out my piano!! LOL!

Off with the cast of 2 weeks!

Into a walking boot, finally, for the next 2 months!

We stayed in Sweeny for a few more days. Babysitting both grandkids and getting in those final doctor appointments before we head out to Inks Lake for a week long vacation with family and then finally leave for Colorado. Did some fun things with the grands during this time!