Yes, I Still Have A Blog

I know, I know.  It’s been over a month since I’ve updated my blog.  No reason, just lack of interest.  Sorry to all who try to keep up with us as we travel around.

The last time I wrote we were heading to Amarillo.  We actually stayed there for a few days.  The special at the RV Park was stay 3 days and pay for 2.  Pretty good deal.  Mac & Netters were parked right next to us so we got some visiting in.  Their daughter and son-in-law also live in Amarillo so they did a lot of visiting with them too.  We just had to visit The Big Texan restaurant too.  That’s the one that serves up the 72 ounce rib eye steak with all the sides (baked potato, shrimp, salad and veggie) and it’s free if you can finish it in one hour .  There were actually 2 guys there that were attempting to eat it.  As we left they still had 1/2 hour left and there was no way they were going to finish.  The cost for not finishing is $72.  YIKES

I also tried something I had never tried before.  Mac ordered a huge platter of Rocky Mountain Oysters.  Now, if you don’t know what those are they are bull’s testicles.  I know, gross huh?  They actually were quite tasty but I could only eat one of them just knowing what they were.  Rod and Mac, on the other hand, had quite the feast.

Rod and Mac literally “having a ball” 

Here’s the 2 guys trying to eat the 72 oz. steak, with 30 minutes left it doesn’t look good for them.

Mac & Netter’s daughter, Christy and her husband, Dusty (in back)

From there we headed down to Fort Worth, Texas to have a rendezvous with some of our RV’ing friends.  We met up with Mark, Dortha, JB, Brenda, Sandy, Weldon, Joe & Sherri.  We had a GREAT time visiting with everybody there before we all left with our own agendas.

Again, it involved more food…

A visit to the Stock Yards

Rod decided to see how he’d look as a Texan

Solving the world’s problems

Dortha’s kind of shopping

From there we headed down to San Antonio to spend Christmas with John & Erica.  Jim & Ellie showed up a few days after we did and we spent some time meandering around the area with them.  One of our trips was a 2 hour drive one way down to Rockport to buy some of their yummy shrimp.  We just love the gulf shrimp and theirs wasn’t affected by the oil spill.  We also knew Donna & Nolan were staying down there so of course we had to make lunch plans with them at The Big Fisherman.  The food wasn’t as good this time as we remember from past visits.

Nolan and Donna

Lucy and Oscar

We took another day trip with Jim & Ellie to Lockhart to have lunch at Black’s Barbecue, the oldest running bbq place in Texas.  It’s been owned by the same family since 1932.  Ellie and I decided we could make a meal on the side dishes alone but we needed to try the meats.  My sausage wasn’t very good and my pork loin was really dry.  The others had the smoked turkey which was okay but the brisket was amazing.  Best brisket EVER.

The sides

Jim really wasn’t alone we were just getting condiments

Uh oh!!  Thank goodness for Tide To Go

This was the Courthouse in Lockhart.  Amazing architecture

Soon JB & Brenda showed up in the RV Park.  We went with them along with Jim & Ellie to see the Riverwalk in San Antonio.  They light up all the trees that line the riverwalk for Christmas and it’s really quite pretty.  This year was a little disappointing though.  It seemed only about half the lights were on.  It was still pretty.  We may go back another night to see if they’re all lit.

First stop of course, was dinner

Everybody had their cameras that night!

Can you say “tourist trap”??  This cost me $3.90

We actually have been spending time with John and Erica too but I’ve neglected to take pictures.  I take my camera with me but we are having such a nice time that before we know it, it’s time to leave and I realize I didn’t take a single picture.  In my defense, I cooked the entire Christmas dinner at their new house in a BIG kitchen so of course, I couldn’t take pictures.  I will get some of them before we leave here.  We still have another week and a half before heading down to Rockport again.

Hope everybody had a…

Heading Down The Road

We reluctantly left Fort Collins on Tuesday.  We spent just over two weeks there and the weather was definitely changing for the worse.  We experienced a few days of snow and it was below freezing every night for the last few nights.  Time to head out!  I’m excited to come back in the summer when we’ll get to explore more of this beautiful state.

Can’t drive in this stuff!

Reilly & Ashton

Wow, quiet time coloring!

It was a good day to travel.  The sun was shining and the wind was light.  We drove a few hours to Lamar which is in the southeast part of Colorado.  We had planned on staying just one night but when we got there the winds picked up and we rocked and rolled ALL night long.  We decided the next day it was NOT a good day to travel.  The wind was coming out of the north and we were heading east so that meant a side wind.  Not good in a RV.  Luckily, we don’t always have to stick to a plan.  We are free to wait out the weather.

We left the next day and headed to Plains, Kansas where our good friends, Mac & Lynette (Netters) were visiting their family.  We hadn’t seen them in such a long time and since we were so close we decided to stop in.  They invited us to their Granddaughter’s basketball game and then to their daughter’s house afterwards.  What a nice surprise.  Dana had cooked a roast with mashed potatoes, brussell sprouts, salad and even dessert!!  We certainly didn’t intend on intruding on their family time but they insisted.  We had a GREAT time with Dana and her family.

Samantha and Dakoda

She shoots, she scores!!!

Jaelynn

Dana and Brylee

So today we have left Plains and as I write this we are following Mac and Netters to Amarillo where they will be staying for awhile.  We are only staying the weekend but we’ll get to meet more of their family while we’re there.

See?  We really WERE in Kansas

We had to pass through the Oklahoma panhandle to get to Texas.  This is one of the lamest State signs I’ve seen

Then we finally made it to Texas where we’ll be staying most of the winter.

Still Hanging Out In Colorado

Yep, we’re still hanging out here in Fort Collins.  We do our own thing during the day and then the kids come over after work and school in the evening.  Sometimes we go over to their house but mostly they come here.  Saturdays are sleepover days and that’s always fun.

As I mentioned in my last blog JB & Brenda (click on it to read their blog) arrived today.  We were SO excited to see them.  They are our favorite Canadian couple.  Since they were arriving late in the afternoon I made sure to have a salmon dinner for them.  Brenda made a really yummy spinach & raspberry salad.

Together again…

The next day since it was going to be a beautiful day we all piled into our car and took the scenic drive on Highway 14.  This state is so beautiful that I think anywhere we drove would be a scenic drive.  We had planned on making one big loop but we stopped so many times for pictures that we would have never made it back in time.  Todd had made dinner (pulled pork) and was bringing it over so we had to be back in time.  We only made it to Walden and had to turn back after having a late lunch.

We found snow at 10,000 feet

Silly Canadian with flip flops on in the snow

Made it to Walden for our lunch stop

Lunch!!  You can guess which plate is NOT mine…

Sunday we had a “stay at the park” kind of day.  Football is on so we don’t usually go anywhere on Sunday anyway.  Brenda made a fantastic pot of taco soup with corn muffins on the side.  Man, that soup was so good but so filling that I could only eat one bowl.  I guess that's a good thing.  LOL, she also made her famous frozen peanut butter pie.

The gang (ever seen JB without a hat??)

And the other gang (Michele, Reilly, Ashton & Todd)

Monday JB & Brenda were supposed to leave but with some (A LOT) of gentle persuasion we convinced them to stay just one more day.  We really weren’t ready for them to leave yet.

We all piled into our car again and headed for the second part of where we were supposed to go on Saturday.  We were headed for Rocky Mountain National Park.  YAY, another stamp for my passport book!

We saw LOTS of wildlife along the way.

These guys were just walking through somebody’s backyard in Estes Park

HUGE herd of over 200 elk inside the park (see the “king” in the middle?)

Then we saw a much smaller herd on our way out of the park but still impressive animals

I don’t see how they walk around with that thing on top

So, we couldn’t convince JB & Brenda to stay any longer because snow was predicted for Wednesday night so on Tuesday they headed out.  We had already paid for another week here to visit with the grandkids so we figured we’d just hunker down and stay inside.

Sniff sniff, there they go…

And here we are…

And here’s our car

More snow is predicted for Saturday so we’ll be leaving here on Monday.  That’s our best bet for good weather unless we leave on Friday but we don’t want to cut our visit short.