Natural Bridge Cave

Boy, the campground here is really emptying out. Our neighbors left a few days ago and we miss them. They were really nice. They're fulltimers from Wisconsin and were meandering back up there for the summer. They said they were coming back to Texas for the winter. We decided we are too. We drove around the area closer to John & Erica and found a really nice place called Braunig Lake RV Resort in Elmendorf. It's south of San Antonio but will be easier for them to get to than where we are now. We'll probably be there for a few months and then return here for a few months. We really like the park we're in right now but it takes them an hour to get here to see us. They live on the southwest side and we're staying on the northeast side and the traffic and construction through San Antonio is brutal. They did come over on Saturday and we had a nice steak dinner with baked potatoes and grilled asparagus and zucchini. John has been stopping by on his way home from work occasionally so on Sunday I made one of his favorite dinners that he hasn't had in a long time called pork adobo. It's basically pork cooked in vinegar and soy sauce for a few hours so the pork is soooooo tender. Erica doesn't eat pork or fish so I've been making fish when he comes without her and we have "Erica friendly" meals when she's here. :) She does bring us the treats from the bakery though and we REALLY like that. She also brought pizza from one of our favorite pizza places Papa Murphy's. She already knew we LOVE the chicken and garlic pizza. Since our oven in the RV is so small she cooked it at home and brought it over and we microwaved individual pieces. YUMMY YUMMY!!!

John & Erica


Today we went to Natural Bridge Caverns here in San Antonio. The name of the cave comes from the natural stone bridge, all that is left of a huge, collapsed room that now forms the entrance. It's only about 10 minutes from where we are staying. We've been in caves in Barbados and Ireland, and two caves in Texas. This cave was the most impressive so far. Someday we'll go to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. I've seen pictures and it's pretty amazing.

Natural Bridge with the opening to the cave on bottom left



Cave Entrance


Inside the cave

San Antonio, TX

Saturday we went to Fiesta Texas. Basically, it's San Antonio's version of Mardi Gras and lasts for 10 days. Lots of places to eat, lots of touristy souvenirs and LOTS of people. Some poeple were even wearing beads. It was so crowded all you could do was shuffle along with the crowd to get anywhere. Erica said the bigger party is called NIOSA (Nightime in old San Antonio) and is more for the younger crowd. You have to pay to get into the street parade and you spend all night getting your boobs and butt pinched. Now, for all of you that know Rod know that I can get that ALL night long at home for FREE! Oh well, it was interesting but just like New Orleans it's something to experience once and that's enough. Here's some pictures.






I told you it was crowded.

Rod was quite the handyman yesterday. Yes, a HANDYMAN! He took off the rear jack that was damaged on a steep campground site at Hard Labor Creek State Park. We thought about bending it back but read on the Everest forum that once they're bent they will just keep bending so we bit the bullet and finally bought a new set. The other one wasn't damaged but since they come as a pair we might as well have matching ones.



Tomorrow John & Erica are coming over for dinner. We're having steaks, baked potatoes and grilled veggies. Yummy. I promise I'll try and remember to take some pictures.

Austin, TX

Well, Rod made his stir-fry on Wednesday for John and Erica. It was really yummy. I had to make the rice cuz about the ONLY thing he knows how to make is stir-fry. LOL It's been so long since he's made it that he kept asking what order he was supposed to cook the veggies. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product and also forgot to take any pictures of John and Erica but here's a picture before it hit the pan (we didn't keep the wok from our house).


Yesterday we decided to get out and about. First stop was Camping World in New Braunfels. We picked up a new chair, wheel chocks, water regulator, marker light (it fell off somewhere), step covers, tablecloth clips.

After that we made a stop up the road a little further at Walmart. Man, it's like Starbucks in Seattle with the Walmarts. They're on just about every corner here in Texas. We needed to pick up a new weather station. One of ours got crushed by a slide (oops) and the other one just stopped working.

After that we stopped at AAA to pick up all the maps for our trip west. We have a Garmin GPS but I still like looking at a map. We got all the tour books and camp books too.

From there we kept north on I35 to Austin where we were looking for the Congress Street bridge. That's where the bats hang out until sundown. Since it was only 5:30 when we got there we decided to go to TGIFridays. It's in the Radisson Hotel right on the river and right next to the bridge. Since it was so early there was hardly anybody there. We got a seat right next to the window and thought it would be a really good place to see the bats. Well, we SHOULD have sat out on the patio because that's where this big family sat right in front of us. We knew as soon as the bats came out they'd be standing up. We finished our drinks and appetizers and left. There were stairs right outside the restaurant that went down to the riverbank. When we got close to the bridge you could really hear the bats squealing. It was pretty awesome but not nearly as awesome as when they finally came out. Oh my gosh, there were literally MILLIONS of them. Well, actually according to their website (yes, they have a website) there are 1.5 million. I think it's up there with some of the most amazing sites I've ever seen. The pictures I took don't do it justice. Just enough to give my son-in-law Todd the heebie jeebies. You really need to click on the pictures to see them.



Look at how many there are!! All the way down the bridge!!



Click on this one and you can really tell it's a bat!

San Antonio, TX

YAY!! Finally made it to San Antonio.!!!

I know, I know, it's been awhile AGAIN since I've posted a new entry. It's hard when you're just sitting around doing nothing to find something to write about.

We did have a visitor the other day. There's a RV chatroom I've been going to occasionally for about a year and a half now. I knew there was a lady that lived close to Houston so knowing that we were going to be passing through there I thought it would be cool to meet up with her. Her name in the chatroom is LakeConroePenny. Well, come to find out she lives north of Lake Conroe which is way north of Houston. That wasn't gonna work out so she wanted to know where we were staying in San Antonio and made arrangements to come to us! She drove her Class B van and parked in a space right across from us. Too cool! We had a really nice visit over dinner with Penny, Rod, my son John and daughter-in-law Erica. No pictures of John and Erica yet (she resists having her picture taken) but I'll get one before we leave here. They are coming again for dinner tomorrow night for Rod's famous stir-fry. Here's a picture of Penny and I but please keep in mind I woke up only a few minutes before Rod took this picture. :)



Rod took this picture of a roadrunner who is a resident of the RV park here. She's up towards the top in the center. She has a nest in another part of the park but he caught her up in the tree with a mouse in her mouth. She was waiting for us to leave so she could come down so we left her alone.

Here's a couple of pictures of our site. Every site here has a little covered patio and yes, that's Rod washing the 5th wheel AGAIN. It got really dirty being on the road everyday since we left Sunrise. They charged us $5 so we could wash the truck and $15 to wash the 5th wheel. I guess it's to pay for the water use.




We're going to visit some other RV parks around this area a little closer to John and Erica for next winter. It does get cold here but doesn't last long. We're going to look at Boerne (pronounced like Bernie) and Fredericksburg. Rod just wants to go to Fredericksburg for some German food. We are also planning on visiting Natural Bridge Cave and possibly going to Austin to see the thousands of bats under this bridge that come out every day at sundown (sorry Todd).

Still on the Road (Just an Update)

We left Sunrise on April 1st and arrived in Tampa for our RV appointment at 9:00am the next day. On our way to Tampa we noticed the A/C in the truck wasn't getting very cold. Great, one more thing to take care of. We knew we had to get it taken care of before we began our trek to Texas. It was gonna be way too hot to be travelling without A/C. Fortunately there was a Fort dealer right across the freeway from the RV dealership. After they finished with the front jacks we unhitched, left the rig there and headed over to the Ford dealer. They didn't finish with the truck until 4:30 so we called the campground and made a reservation for another night.

We left the next morning on the 3rd (Happy Bday, John) and drove all the way to just past Tallahassee. Nothing eventful there either.

On the 4th we were just past Pensacola. Nothing there either.

On the 5th we were in Biloxi, Mississippi. We found out the campground had a shuttle to the casinos so we went there and had the crab buffet at Boomtown. Boy was that yummy. I can eat A LOT of crab.

Today we are in Lafayette, Louisiana and are headed for Houston, Texas tomorrow. Should be an easy drive. We have reservations for a whole long month in San Antonio on the 8th. It's gonna be so good to just sit for awhile and visit with John and Erica especially after all the travelling we've done this week!

Still in Sunrise, FL

Wow, I can't believe our time here is almost over!!! We've been doing a WHOLE lot of visiting with old friends and neighbors. What a blast we've had. I think I'm done eating burgers for awhile though. It's going to be hard leaving here because we're not sure when we'll be back. The last time we left here we knew we'd be back in a few months. This time it'll be a few years. We ARE anxious to see John and Erica though and after that Ashton and Reilly (and their parents Michele and Todd, of course).

I've started this I don't know how many times now. I just can't seem to get into writing when I don't have really anything to write about. We've had our friends and neighbors over here for dinner or lunch almost everyday so I certainly wasn't going to take time away from them to write.

Tomorrow we'll be on the road again. We're stopping overnight in Tampa to get the front jacks fixed and then from there we're going to do something we haven't done since we became fulltimers. We're going to be overnighting at all our stops until we get to Texas. Well, except for Pensacola where we'll probably have to spend two nights. We need to change our address in order to vote and we have to do it at the Court House because we can't use our mail forwarding address as an official address.

Here's a few pictures of our visitors for the last two weeks...

Alan, Gabriella, Shane, Leska and Jessika



Dave practicing his swing



Our bbq with our old neighbors Andy, Bernice, Dave and Pennye



Christel, Lilliam, Elaine, me and Tom



Our site at Markham Park

Markham Park, Sunrise, FL

I warned you this was going to be a really LONG update. We finally made it back to the old neighborhood. We wanted to come back here for a few different reasons. One, of course, was to see our friends and two, to show our friends what we're living in now. We'll be here for a few weeks and then high tail it to Texas to see John.

Before we got here we stayed at Franklin D Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, GA. I think we have a NEW favorite state park. Actually, we have enjoyed ALL the Georgia State Parks that we've visited. This one was obviously named after the former President. What I didn't know is how much he loved Georgia. He even built a little White House here while he enjoyed the hot springs. He could actually stand in the four feet of water in the hot pools here. He had heard that people were being cured of their polio by swimming in the hot water so he thought he'd give it a try. It didn't work but he still enjoyed the freedom the water gave him. One time while he was visiting the Little White House he decided to have his portrait painted. While he was sitting for his portrait he suffered a massive stroke and died. The lady who was painting the portrait decided to leave it unfinished.

The Little White House



The unfinished portrait



Click on this picture and read it, it's very interesting




Another place we visited there was the butterfly house at Callaway Gardens. This place was amazing. Callaway Gardens is a huge resort out in the middle of nowhere. It has lakes, hiking trails, boat rentals, fishing, lodging, a huge visitor center and museum and of course, the butterfly house. I had read on the internet about the butterflies and knew that they keep the building at a constant temp of 85 degrees. Yahoo!!!! At least I was able to enjoy some warm temps if at least for a short time. We stayed in there for a looooong time. The butterflies fly freely throughout. You have to be careful because they sit on paths sometimes.

Inside the butterfly house



Isn't this cool?



Another one



After FDR we headed south and almost made it out of Georgia. We ended up staying at a KOA in Valdosta. We've been having trouble with our front jacks on the RV so we were looking at a RV repair place there. Neither one of the places there were any help so we moved on down the road and finally made it to Florida!! We ended up at another KOA (well, it USED to be a KOA) and stayed for two days. It was only a half hour from my cousin and her husband in New Port Richey so it ended up being a great place to stop. From there we moved a little further south to Tampa Bay East The Oaks in Dover, FL. It was still close enough for my cousin to come and visit but this place was a LOT better than the last place. We weren't really in a spot at the other place. We were kinda sitting on one of their roads next to a fence that had water and electric hookups. Weird.

We checked on a RV dealer there by the RV park. They were able to get us in and diagnosed our problem. It's being covered by our extended warranty but it's going to be a few weeks before the part comes in so that's why we left there. Now we're in Sunrise, FL at a county park only a few miles from our old neighborhood. This park is gorgeous. They have a shooting range, a dog park, remote control airplane field. Pretty nice for a county park. We're backed up to a canal and watch jet skis and speedboats go up and down. It's pretty cool. It's only $25 a night because our driver's licenses still have our old address on them so according to them we're still Broward County residents. We don't plan on doing a whole lot while we're here. Just visiting with friends for a few weeks then back to Tampa to get the jacks fixed. Tonight we're having friends over for dinner and a campfire. Should be a very nice evening.

Tampa, FL

YAY We're finally found warm weather!! We've been having major internet problems but they're all fixed now. I was told that my modem probably had been "fried" in the eletrical storm and was told who to call. When I called I was told that the modem was fine and just needed to be setup again. I've been waiting all this time without internet because we needed to figure out where we were going to settle for a few days so we could have a new modem shipped to us. Gheeze. Oh well, we're leaving here tomorrow for Markham Park in Sunrise, FL. I'll have a HUGE update when we get settled there.

Franklin D Roosevelt State Park, GA

We arrived at FDR State Park on Friday after a really uneventful drive. I say this because we had major drama on Thursday after leaving the KOA in Sweetwater. Our plan was to go to Red Top State Park. We didn't leave the KOA until almost noon because it was only a 3 hour drive to Red Top. We got there at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Plenty of time to set up, right? Wrong. We weren't getting satellite reception so Rod was going to drive the rig around the loop and come in closer on the other side where there was a space in between some trees. When he tried to turn he got a little too close to a tree and scraped the slide cover. Not that big of a deal except that he still couldn't make the turn without tearing the cover off. He backed up and I guided him out of the site. Well, after that we decided we didn't want to stay there so we went back to the office and got a refund. The ranger said there was a KOA about 20 miles north. We left the park and thought we'd look to see if there was a campground closer than 20 miles. The GPS said there was one about 10 miles away. When we got there we found out it was closed for the winter and wouldn't open until April. Good grief!! We got BACK on the freeway and found the KOA north of Cartersville. It was a very expensive night but I think we would have paid $100 for a site and not complained a bit. By then it was 7:00 at night and I certainly wasn't in the mood to cook so Rod made popcorn and that was that.

We did learn a few things that day. The first was to always have a plan B, the second was to leave WAY earlier, and the third was if nobody at the campground answers the phone it probably means they're closed for the season.

We left the KOA by 10:00 in the morning (which is WAY early for us) and stopped to get gas. I asked Rod what our plan B was and he said, "We don't have one". Hmmmmmmm, so much for the lessons learned.

SOOOOOOO, here we are at FDR State Park. I had read on some other people's blogs that have rigs as big as ours that had stayed here before so we figured we'd be okay and we are. We only paid for one day but we liked it so much that we went back to the office and paid for 9 more days so we'll be here until the 10th. We got here at about 1:30 and were set up and having a beer by 3:00. Ahhhhhh, life is good.

The only bad thing is that we don't get cell phone coverage. We really have to look into getting one of those antenna boosters.

Yesterday we went into the town of Columbus. We picked up a few groceries and some outdoor carpeting for our patio. It looks so nice and homey now. The only other thing we need is a tablecloth.

It's been so nice and warm here. 70's during the day and who cares what it is at night. I'm looking forward to getting out and doing some hiking. There are so many trails around here and also places to visit in the area. We heard Calloway Gardens has a really cool butterfly garden. Also Roosevelt's little white house is here. So, I think we'll keep ourselves busy for the next week and a half.

After all the ice and snow we went through the windows were REALLY dirty so I sent Rod out to clean them. Well, it IS an outside chore, right?



It is so beautiful here, this is the view from our campsite.

Sweetwater KOA, TN

We had dinner Monday night with Lisa's daughter Sarah, her husband Joel and their 2 kids Caleb and Amelia. Caleb is the long lost brother of my grandson Ashton. Just kidding, it's just uncanny how much they look alike and they are also only 2 months apart in age. Joel entertained us on his guitar while Caleb danced a jig. Very nice evening and Joel is an excellent cook.

Caleb dancing


Amelia


Not a good comparison picture. Caleb in top picture, Reilly and Ashton in bottom picture


We left Louisville yesterday morning after one little snafu. When Rod hooked up the truck on Monday we discovered that the cover James had made for us had too small of an opening for the 5th wheel to hookup to the truck. Rod called him and he came over the next morning to where we were, took the cover off and took it back to his shop. There he cut a bigger opening and made a cover for the opening with velcro so we can still put things in the back of the truck with the cover on and not have to worry about what can be seen back there. Pretty cool. Again, James was a SAINT!!

Our trip south was pretty uneventful. We didn't know how far we were going to go, we just knew we wanted to go south. We kept seeing RV's on the other side of the freeway going north and were just glad it wasn't us this time. We ended up at Sweetwater, TN and found this KOA easily and it is pretty inexpensive here. We were only going to stay one night but it snowed during the night and then again this morning. There's no reason for us to be driving in the snow. We don't really have anywhere we HAVE to be until May 20th so if we need to stay put we will. It's nice and warm inside. The weather reports say 40's tomorrow so we'll take off then.

This is what it looked like when we got up this morning. If you click on the picture you can see the snow better

Hot Tub, Loretto, KY and Louisville Tour

The hottub Friday night was AWESOME except when we had to get out. Boy was the air cold when it hit your really hot body. :)


Saturday we went to Loretto, KY to the Maker's Mark Whiskey Distillery. Maker's Mark is the whiskey that has the red wax on the neck of the bottle. It was a very interesting tour and best of all it was a FREE tour. Driving out in the Kentucky countryside it was amazing to see all the distilleries out there. There are these huge buildings about 10 stories high just sitting there. Inside they are full of aging whiskey. I didn't get a picture because we were driving and no place to pull over. The roads were very narrow.


On the Marker's Mark tour we were actually able to stick our fingers in the vats in the fermenting room that contained the sour mash to taste it. I've never been on a factory tour where you can actually walk right up to the product and touch it. It's funny though, it smelled like fresh baked bread in there. From there we went to the bottling house but since it was Saturday nobody was working. They had screens in there with video of the dipping line. That was pretty cool. Since it's such a monotonous job they change every 30 minutes and go do something else like shipping or packaging or something like that. From there we went to the barrel warehouse where the whiskey ages. These are small warehouses for the tour and only hold 4000 barrels. The big buildings we saw from the road hold 15,000 to 20,000 barrels. The plaques on the barrels are people who have registered to be Ambassadors for Maker's Mark. All you have to do is go to the website to sign up and promise to tell people about their whiskey. Then they put your name on the plaque and send you emails about how "your" barrel is doing in the aging process. Then when "your" barrel is properly aged you have the opportunity to buy a bottle from "your" barrel. Pretty cool.

The fermenting room


The video screens


The barrels


The Ambassador's plaques


They have a pretty cool thing you can do in the gift shop after the tour and that is to dip your very own bottle. Rod wanted to do this for a souvenir. I bought some chocolate bourbon balls. They gave us free samples of the whiskey before it was aged and after the aging. The stuff before it's aged is clear and tastes like tequila but after it ages in those barrels it takes on an amber color and a more mellow taste. They also gave us samples of bourbon balls. Pretty good stuff.


Rod enjoying his taste

Steve and Lisa REALLY enjoying their taste!

Rod dipping his bottle

We left there and went to get a bite to eat at this place called Joe's OK Bayou. Funny name but good cajun food. Rod had red beans and rice, gumbo and crawfish etoufee. Lisa and I had the muffaletta. It was sooooooo good. In case you don't know a muffaletta is a warm sandwich filled with salami, ham, provolone cheese and an olive relish. So yummy. Steve had the the crawfish where you rip off the head and suck out the juice and then eat the meat that's in the tail.


Today we started the day with a brunch of quiche, country ham, biscuits and fruit salad accompanied by mimosas. Thank you Steve and Lisa!!! Then we did the Louisville tour compliments of our hosts. They drove us all over the place, from out in the country to see the horse farms to the old part of the city and all places in between. We even went out to the Kentucky Truck Plant where our truck was "born". That's where they build all the super duty trucks for Ford. We stopped at the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie place for a snack and then we picked up barbecue for dinner and brought it back to their house. Whew!! We're exhausted and are back in the rig at 7:30!

Self explanatory







Tomorrow we have to get everything arranged and put away for our trip SOUTH on Tuesday. Can't wait to get into some warm weather!! We sure have enjoyed our stay here in Louisville and we couldn't have asked for better hosts. Thank you Steve and Lisa!! You really made our stay in this COLD, COLD weather enjoyable.