Flamingo on a Stick

Image from Amazon see link but don't click until you get there. :) Recently John and I both read a book that was recommended to us by our friends, Jim and Wendy in Houston. The book A Walk through the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail written by Bill Bryson . Jim said he thought this guy wrote a lot like John (when we get him to write) and interestingly enough to us, he grew up in Iowa. Bryson was actually a travel writer for many years in England and traveled all throughout Europe and has written columns and books about some of those adventures. This book was written after he had returned to the US and was living in New Hampshire, not far from the Appalachian trail. I know many of my fellow RVers and bloggers like to hike and for that reason I think you will enjoy this book. Bryson decides to start at the southern end of the trail and hike it north. He starts early in the spring as the trail is approximately 2100 miles from Georgia to Maine. If you want t...

The Alamo   It has been a good week here in the Hill Country. The weather has been a little up and down. Hot for a couple days and then the last few have been cool and breezy. On one of those warm days (Wednesday) we decided to drive down to San Antonio for the day. I tried to get us to a place that our friend Gayle recommended for breakfast but between the traffic and a train we had to wait for, we decided to just take off walking on the on the River Walk. We have been to San Antonio twice before, once with kids and then on John’s 50th birthday. He turns 60 in a couple months so that means it’s been almost 10 years.  Zuni's cafe patio on the River Walk We started looking for a place for lunch when we noticed one restaurant was still serving breakfast, John’s favorite, so we ate at the Zuni cafe. It is so wonderful to be able to sit outside and enjoy our meal. Their breakfast is excellent; they have wonderful pancakes with cinnamon. We continued our walk and headed up t...

Downtown Bandera, Texas We had a couple days of heavy rains but Sunday it cleared up and the blue Texas sky returned. Can’t let a day like this go by so after our workouts, we cleaned up (necessary for any outing in public) and headed to Bandera. We talked to a few folks and they said there wasn’t a whole lot in Bandera so we figured and afternoon was plenty. Bandera is about 20 miles south of us and is considered the cowboy capital of the world. I think that is a proper description. As we got to the downtown area there was a little bit of a back up as a group on horseback was going down the road. Leading the group was something I am sure you only see in Texas. I’ll let the photo do the talking. Only in Texas! After perusing the shops,not all were open, we decided to stop at the Chickin’ Coop for a beer as they had an outdoor area and it would be a shame to be inside on a day like today. Interestingly enough they had a big screen TV out on the porch area and as a special treat...

Pretty sky over the Triple T Resort Wednesday night we got together with the Brights. The lodge here is actually nicer than I first thought. The day I was up there I really didn’t explore enough but Sheryl showed me that there was also a library and kitchen area along with the pool table, ping pong table and big screen TV. We met up at the lodge for games. Now John and I don’t know a lot of card games but we are always open to learning. I know that seems odd to a lot of people but we didn’t grow up in card playing families and with our kids we played more board games than cards. So now we are learning. John at the pool table in the lodge Jeff and Sheryl are a lot of fun. The guys played some pool while Sheryl and I played an interesting game of ping pong. Out went the rules; we figured if we could just keep the ball on the table and going back and forth that was good enough for us. I mean who really cares how many times it bounces on the way there?!  The we sat down to lear...

Hope y’all (I’ve been in the south now for months so the language is wearing off on me) had a wonderful Valentine’s Day and were able to spend it with someone you love. Our day was excellent! The sun was shining, the temperature perfect, I don’t know if it gets much better than that. The patio at Grape Juice We got up and got our workouts in so we could spend Valentine’s Day having a late lunch in Kerrville. I had checked out a restaurant/bar/wine shop called the Grape Juice online and it looked like an interesting place for our lunch. I checked the menu online and one of the things that intrigued me were the selection of antelope burgers and quail that was local to Texas. I really like to patronize places that strive to use local products. We’ve been to other restaurants that use local produce, cheeses and local grass feed beef. I truly believe that keeping it local makes for fresher better tasting food and helps local economies. So off we went to the Grape Juice. Jordan, our ...

Yesterday it was high in the 40s with rain and sleet. Today sunny and high 60s. Wow is it beautiful. Got our workouts in, went grocery shopping and then stopped by to meet the Brights who are now in our park. So much fun to meet other full timers and fellow bloggers. Tomorrow is Valentine's day, hope you all get to spend it with the one you love! Happy trails......................

Longhorn on the LBJ Ranch, these fellas are huge! Yesterday turned out to be a very blustery day. Our original plan was to go to Luckenbach to listen to some music but it was just too cold for that so we changed it up and headed to the LBJ Ranch and historic site. We had heard it was mainly a car tour so we could stay nice and warm. This park is both a State Park and a National Park and the amazing thing is the only charge is $2 for the ranger led tour of the Johnson Texas White House. When he donated the house and land, President Johnson felt it belonged to the people and wanted to make it affordable for all. What a great concept. John with statue of President Johnson LBJ is really the first US president I remember much about. I was 8 years old when President Kennedy was assassinated and I remember that event but not much else. LBJ in my memory was a bigger than life character. When I would see him on TV or hear him talk he would remind me of my grandfather, but Texan style. Un...

Downtown Fredericksburg On Monday we took our first foray into the Hill Country and headed to Fredericksburg. It was not the nicest of days, raining on and off. We wandered down the east end of the main street wandering through the various shops. I’ve been looking for a new purse which would be my Valentine’s gift. I found one I liked but when I checked the price tag I about had a heart attack -$228, yowza! I know some women might not have a problem with that but I couldn’t get myself to pay that even on my most extravagant day.  Down the street a ways we came to the Fredericksburg Brewing Company. I had read about this microbrewery so we were ready to have lunch and try one of their local brews. Fredericksburg, you may gather from the name was founded by German immigrants and embraces its German heritage. The brews here are also German type brews; John had their Porter and I tried their brown ale and we were happy with both selections. This is a very nice brew pub and the foo...

Our site We arrived safely at the Triple T Resort in Kerrville where we will be staying for a month. This winter I have been making us month stays to save a little money which was good since we just spent a bundle to get the transmission replaced. That worked well coming here and I think John is almost in the mood to blog about that whole project. He actually got under the truck today to take photos of it. This resort is ok so far. There are two areas of sites and we are in an area with longer term rentals but all pretty nice rigs. There is also ann area for larger rigs with pull throughs that will fit your big rigs. There aren’t a lot of rigs here but unlike Port O’Connor the rigs that are here actually have people in them. We even sat and had a beer with a couple of folks who have the two rigs across from us. Both are from the Galveston area and now are full time residents here. They said they are tired of running from the hurricanes so sold their property bought trailers and mov...

View from RV site at Port Lavaca Park The truck has a new transmission and so today we are headed to Kerrville TX.  John was excited to get his truck back and feels confident now that the transmission he has worried about for months is a rebuilt high performance one. We had a really nice and relaxing stay in Port O’Connor but we are both ready to move on. It was a great place to regroup and get back to the way we want to live. Our vacation to Galveston and Houston was a refreshing break and we are ready for a move to a new area. The Hill Country of Texas is an area I’ve been looking at for along time and I am looking forward to discovering all it has to offer. Another view of wildlife viewing area from RV sites, these are the sites we would choose. While we were waiting for the truck to be finished we went to the Port Lavaca park and bird sanctuary. The park is right on the bay and they do have an RV park which we checked out.  The sites are right on the bay and all h...