Category Archives: Alpine Coach

Aransas Pass

Flexibility is a good trait when you live in an RV. Right now, our daily plans change from hour to hour depending on the weather. I don’t particularly like planning my activities around thunderstorms, but that’s the lot we drew when we booked time here in Rockport, Texas.

I expected more thunderstorms in the afternoon yesterday. We wanted to get out and explore the area. At 11am, we rode the scooter into the historic downtown Rockport neighborhood. One of the things we had in mind was a visit to the aquarium. Admission is free, but we found out that the museum hours are 1pm to 4pm daily except for Tuesday and Wednesday when they’re closed.

We kicked around downtown and shopped at a health food store. It was housed in half of a duplex, I’m assuming the proprietors live in the other half. There are a few funky little shops along six blocks or so of Austin Street. We took a look around the marina which had just about every type of boat imaginable docked there.

Then we decided to blast down the TX35 business route to Aransas Pass, about 12 miles south of Rockport. I thought Aransas Pass was a larger town than Rockport, but it really isn’t. Aransas Pass has about 500 fewer people than the population of 8,700 in Rockport. There wasn’t anything too exciting to see in Aransas Pass. We did find a couple of fish mongers with fresh seafood from the gulf. We stopped for lunch at the Bakery Cafe on the recommendation of a woman at one fish market.

The Bakery Cafe is a historic diner. It first opened in 1929. A short video of this small-town Texas diner can be found here. Donna and I both ordered the fried whitefish. I had mine with fries making it a fish and chips plate while Donna had a baked potato and salad with hers. The batter was fried to a nice crispy outer coating with moist, tender fish inside. It was a good choice for lunch.

After dining, we headed back to Rockport. We needed to do a little grocery shopping at HEB and I wanted to be back at the RV park by 2pm. The weather forecast called for thundershowers around that time. On the way back, we stopped at a little community on Aransas Bay on the east side of the highway south of Rockport. This community reminded me of Florida. The houses next to the bay are elevated on stilts. The rows of houses on roads perpendicular to the waterfront are separated by canals. Each home has its own boat dock in back on the canal. Some of the homes are large and obviously very expensive.

Aransas Bay near Estes Cove

House on stilts next to the bay

Canals separate the streets

It was an interesting neighborhood. I think some of the houses are seasonal second homes while others are occupied year-round.

We made it back to the park around 2pm. I covered the scooter and by 2:30pm we had raindrops. It wasn’t anything too big, just a passing shower. By 5pm, the skies were only partly cloudy, but we knew a big storm was coming. We originally planned to grill a pork tenderloin, but with the iffy weather, Donna put it in the slow cooker with salsa earlier in the day and made a taco casserole with it.

We watched a few episodes of Homeland before we called it a night. We’re almost through season one and we are both really enjoying this Showtime series. At 2am, the storm woke me up. There was so much lightning that it was light outside with flashes of darkness. The rain was pouring down, mixed with hail for a while. The wind rocked our coach. I got up and looked everything over. It was a big storm but we were secure and dry.

Weather radar app with alerts and warnings

This morning the rain has stopped, but there’s a lot of standing water in the area. Donna’s friend, Kathy Palmer, and her husband were in an RV park in San Marcos, Texas – between San Antonio and Austin. Late last night, they were told to prepare for evacuation and ended up having to leave around midnight because the river was expected to flood their park. They were relocated to a Walmart parking lot along with about 50 other RVs. This morning, the Walmart lot is flooded and rigs are stranded there with water up to the axles.

The forecast says we’ll stay dry until the early afternoon today. If it pans out, we might head over to Fulton for a crawfish boil. We had a great time when we went to the crawfish festival in Heber City, Utah on Memorial Day weekend last year. We don’t know what this one will be like, but if it’s anything like Heber City, it will be fun.

Family Picnic

Donna took her bike out to battle the wind, heat and humidity on Wednesday. In the end, the 89-degree temperature with humidity over 70% nearly did her in. She wasn’t feeling well after an hour on the bike and called it quits after 15 miles.

I kicked back and read a book. Later, I scootered into town to pick up a couple of things. First, I wanted to see if I could find a bottle of wine – Tavel wine. Tavel is a rosé from the southern Rhone region of France. I enjoyed it on summer afternoons when I traveled through south France in 2004. After I met Donna in Arizona, I introduced her to Tavel. Served chilled, it’s a refreshing drink on a hot afternoon. Donna had a hankering for Tavel so I went in search of a bottle.

No luck finding Tavel in Rockport, Texas. I checked the grocery store on Tuesday and yesterday, I tried Spanky’s Liquor. The clerk asked me what I was looking for, then she entered it into her computer which was linked to 11 liquor stores. None of them stocked Tavel. I’ll keep an eye out for it as we travel.

I stopped at HEB and bought a watermelon and some ice cream. Donna was cooking all afternoon. She prepared smoky baked beans (a new recipe she wanted to try), coleslaw, cornbread and a cucumber, tomato and feta salad. She also made a big batch of guacamole and cut up some jicama for fresh fries. We were having guests over for dinner.

My middle daughter Jamie lives in Robstown – about 50 miles south of Rockport. She drove up with her significant other, Francisco and his four children – Jennalee, Trey, Rayleen, and Ariana. They arrived around 5pm. After a tour of the coach, we walked down to the pavilion by the dock and had appetizers.

Snacks at the picnic pavillion by the bay

Snacks at the picnic pavilion by the bay

Another view of our group at the pavillion

Another view of our group at the pavilion

Trey and Ariana cooled off with a dip in the pool. It was our first time meeting Francisco and the kids and we enjoyed getting to know each other. We just saw Jamie a few weeks ago in San Diego, but it was good to see her again with her family.

After a while, Donna and Jamie walked back to our site and brought our picnic dinner fixings back to the pavilion. We sat and talked for a while before heading back to our site to have some watermelon and ice cream at the picnic table there. That’s when the mosquitos started eating me alive. There are large black mosquitos here that have a stinging bite. My ankles and arms are covered with mosquito bites. We were so spoiled in San Diego – I didn’t see any mosquitos or biting insects there. No bugs in Arizona either!

Texas sized mosquito

About the time the mosquitos were were starting to drive me mad, our guests were ready to hit the road and head home.

Donna and I capped the night off by watching a new to us series called Homeland. The first episode was interesting and we plan to watch the entire series – we have four seasons on the hard drive that Joel Myaer loaded with video for us.

Jamie and Francisco may come back today. If so, we’ll go into town and poke around – maybe go to the aquarium.

The Road to Copano

I mentioned in my last post that we had a plan to back the coach out of our tight site and hook up the trailer. The plan worked perfectly and Donna had me lined up exactly where I wanted to be to connect the trailer to the coach. Pre-planning maneuvers like this is a good idea. Communication is important. Donna understood what I wanted to do and was able to direct me into position with a handheld Cobra CB radio.

I had programmed our GPS to route us from north Houston to Rockport and avoid tolls. I didn’t want to repeat the situation in Austin where we were on a toll road that didn’t have toll booths. You needed a TxTag pass or know how to pay via mail on that road.

The slog through Houston wasn’t much fun, but at least the rain had stopped. Large urban areas are never fun to drive through in a big rig. Houston is the fourth largest city in the USA and has the traffic to prove it. After about an hour, we we were on US59 and heading out of the city. From there it became rural and we rolled along on Texas highways. The traffic was light. The speed limits are a little over the top on some of these two-lane Texas highways. A 70mph speed limit with gas station and restaurant driveways and no slow down lane to exit the highway or acceleration lane to enter the highway doesn’t seem too good to me.

Unlike west Texas, the highways have few rest areas or roadside tables to stop at in this area. I drove for more than two hours before pulling over in the town of Palacios for a comfort break. That’s the nice thing about motorhome travel – if you need a restroom break, just pull over and walk back to the restroom!

We made our way 200 miles to the Copano Bay RV Resort and pulled in. The entrance is poorly marked without any directional signs telling you which way to go to stop and check-in. There are two roads into the park, one to the right of the entrance and one to the left with a building in the middle. I saw the office to the right and cranked the wheel hard right at the entrance, but there was a stone planter in front of the building in the center that made it too tight to complete the turn. I started to back up but was mindful of the trailer jack-knifing and also needed to know if the road was clear.

A man and a woman came out of the office and signaled us to go to the left. Donna got out of the coach to check if the trailer was in danger of jack-knifing against the right rear corner of the coach. The man told Donna he would direct me, so Donna didn’t signal me. The man also didn’t give me any signal, so I didn’t move. The guy looked irritated by my lack of movement. Donna could see this wasn’t working, so she came back inside and picked up her handheld CB radio. Aha – communication. She told me to back up slowly and stopped me when the trailer was close to touching the corner of the coach. At that point I had enough room to crank a hard left and enter the park on the left side of the building.

We walked to the office to check in and the lady asked if I would like to be moved into a long pull-through site instead of the back-in site that was reserved for us. I said that would be perfect. She set us up in what is essentially two back-to-back sites on a continuous concrete pad. She told us both sites were ours for the next two weeks and no one would move-in behind us. Nice!

Our double pull-through site

It was nearly 90 degrees out with high humidity. I hooked up our power so Donna could start the air conditioners and we were set up in no time. Later we took a walk to the west end of the park where there’s a small (very small) swimming pool and a fishing pier. We saw a number of jellyfish in the Salt Lake, which is really a cove off Copano Bay.

On Tuesday morning, it was time to remove 1,500 miles worth of grime from the coach. Traveling in rainy weather left a real mess on the coach, not to mention all the bugs on the front cap. I went to the office and paid $10 for the privilege of washing my own coach. I can understand RV parks not wanting everyone to pull in and wash their coach – it takes a lot of water. But I don’t think it takes $10 worth of water. I think they charge that much to discourage people from washing in the park. We really needed a wash though. Donna went for a 5-mile walk and then hit the exercise room to do strength training while I worked on the coach.

I spent the next 135 minutes hand washing the coach with car wash soap and water. It looks much better but the hard water left spots. I’ll go over it again in a few days with a waterless product. I use a product from Super Seal called The Solution. It works really well – it will remove the water spots and leave a nice shine. With the coach clean, I installed the front window shades and tire covers.

Donna made a salad for lunch and served it with a soup she made Monday night. The soup is a carrot-ginger soup with dollop of coconut cream. It was delicious – you wouldn’t know it was carrot-based. It tasted like something you would get in a Thai restaurant. She got the recipe from her mother.

Carrot-ginger soup

After a shower and lunch, I rode the scooter into town for a look around. I bought a case of water at Walmart. Later, Donna and I took another scooter ride and checked out the funky downtown area and waterfront in Rockport. We stopped for groceries at HEB and found it to be a nicely stocked, large store. Much nicer than the HEB in Austin. Donna bought New York strip steaks that I grilled for dinner.

New York strips hot off the grill

Donna served it smothered in sauteed mushrooms and onions, a baked potato with crumbled bacon on top and steamed asparagus on the side.

There’s a steak under those mushrooms and onions

We’ve had mostly cloudy skies with 70% humidity and temperatures in the mid 80s. The skies are supposed to clear up this afternoon but there’s always a chance of a thundershower around here. Since I just washed the coach, I’m guessing we’ll see a thundershower soon.

Texas Ironman

Although there was a threat of thundershowers in the afternoon, I unloaded the scooter yesterday. Donna and I took our chances and rode up to The Woodlands to watch the Ironman competition. Our friend Allen Hutchinson was competing in the triathlon.

We rode west to the IH-45 service road and stayed on it all the way up to The Woodlands Parkway. In Texas cities, most interstate freeways have frontage roads that parallel the freeway. These frontage roads are generally one-way roads on each side of the interstate. On-ramps and off-ramps to and from the freeway are found at intervals along the frontage. The speed limit on IH-45 is 45mph, but Texas drivers don’t pay much attention to that. We were blasting along at 60mph+ at times to keep from being run over by speeding traffic.

As you can imagine, traffic was heavy at The Woodlands. We made our way to Lake Robbins Drive and parked the scooter near the finish line of the race. The scooter is handy for these situations – we can easily find parking where cars cannot fit.

We walked past the finish area on a bridge overlooking the canal. There were some spectators setting up along the canal. Later, this area would be crowded with spectators.

View from the bridge – only a few spectators along the canal

We walked down to the canal and followed it west past the pavilion to the transition area. We expected Allen to ride into the transition area soon and wanted to see him. On the east end of the transition area, we saw red plastic bags lined up. Each bag was identified with a racer’s number. The bag contained the items they would need to transition from a bicyclist to a runner. They had running shoes and whatnot in their bags.

Running gear in bags at the west end of the transition area

Running gear in bags at the east end of the transition area

As we walked along the transition area, we saw competitors coming in. They would hand off their bikes to a race staff member who would take their bikes to the assigned bike rack for them. Having left their cycling shoes clipped into the pedals of their bikes, the racers would jog barefoot across the muddy grass and retrieve their bag of running gear. I hope the bags contained something to clean their feet – the area was very muddy.

We found a spot to stand where the racers were required to stop and dismount from their bikes. At that point, they had to walk their bikes to the hand-off area. After 112 miles of hard riding some of the competitors struggled to get off their bikes. We saw several people suffering from leg cramps as they tried to dismount. A few riders nearly crashed.

When Allen arrived, he was so focused on stopping and getting off his bike, I don’t think he saw or heard us even though we were only a few feet away from him. He was moving so quickly, I could only snap a quick shot of the back of his head.

Allen getting off his bike

We retraced our steps past the transition area and found Allen’s wife Crystal and his sister Aleshia. We tried to figure out how long it would be before Allen would run by. We decided to cross the canal on a walking bridge and wait for him on the south side of the canal. As we crossed, a guy gave us cow bells to ring as we encouraged competitors coming by.

We found a small grassy area where we could see up the course. The runners would approach our spot where they had to round a curve past us. We learned that this was the five-mile mark of the run. The temperature was 86 degrees and the humidity was unbearable. We were soaked in perspiration just standing there. The competitors had to be suffering and probably would have welcomed rain. We had a couple of false sightings before we saw the real Allen running toward us.

Allen at the five-mile point of the 26.2 mile run

After Allen passed our position, we walked back over the bridge and started following the canal back to the east. The competitors ran east on the north side of the canal before crossing over and coming back west on the south side of the canal. By heading east, we would see Allen coming toward us again sooner than if we held our spot.

We stopped at the Marriott hotel and went inside for a restroom break and to sit for a few minutes in the air-conditioned lobby. We went back outside and found the course was quite crowded with spectators. We found a place to sit on a low block wall and cheered on the runners. Allen came past and slapped hands with us. He was looking good.

We went up the street by the finish line and had lunch at the Baker Street Pub and Grill. I forgot to mention that Allen generously bought our lunch the day before at The Olive Garden. I reciprocated by buying lunch for Crystal and Aleshia. A cold Guinness with the meal was just what I needed – Donna enjoyed one too.

After lunch, we saw Allen go by on the other side of the canal. We knew it would be a while before he came by our position, so we retreated to the Marriott again to cool off. I had another cold one at the bar. The bar area was hopping with spectators who had the same idea.

I mentioned in my last post how The Woodlands is an upscale neighborhood. We saw several interesting cars on the roads – Porsches, Ferraris and such. Outside the Marriott, I snapped a photo of an Aston Martin convertible in the valet parking area. Apparently the owner wasn’t too worried about a thundershower – he left the top down.

Aston Martin at the Marriott

This being Texas, I think more people were impressed by the big four-wheel drive pickup truck next to it. As it turned out, we only had a few stray rain drops all day, so the Aston Martin interior was safe.

We returned to the course to find the sidewalk along the canal filled with people. At times, the competitors had to thread their way through the crowd as they ran past. We saw Allen come by on his last lap of the canal. We figured it would be about 80 minutes before he would get to the finish line.

After another pit stop at the Marriott, we went to the finish line. We watched the competitors come down Waterway Avenue where they had to make a 180-degree turn and run back up Waterway Avenue to the finish line. The first stretch on Waterway was slightly downhill with a tail wind. After the turnaround, the last 200 yards was slightly uphill into the wind. It seemed like a cruel way to finish a 140.6-mile race.

Some of the competitors were clearly struggling to make the finish line. Others were smiling and jumping for joy. We saw a few make an all-out sprint to the finish. After waiting about 40 minutes, we saw Allen come by. He hit the red carpet and the finish line with a total race time of just under 12 hours.

Allen checking his watch 100 yards from the finish

He hits the red carpet and finishes under 12 hours

Allen’s first words to me when I found him after the finish was, “Man, it’s hot out there.” After congratulating Allen and saying our goodbyes, we hopped on the scooter and got out of town. It was nearly 7pm by then and had been a long day. I was feeling tired and sore from spectating – imagine how the competitors must have felt.

We stopped at HEB on the way back and picked up a few things including a pizza for dinner. Today, we have rain in the forecast again. We want to do a little fishing in the lake. Then, I plan to kick back and watch the Moto GP race from Le Mans, France. Tomorrow we’ll relocate about 200 miles away to Rockport on the gulf coast.

The Woodlands

Our plan Friday was to go to The Woodlands and meet Allen and Crystal Hutchinson for lunch at the Olive Garden. Allen is here to compete in the Ironman Texas triathlon. Ironman triathlons are grueling endurance contests. The total distance raced is 140.6 miles – 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles bicycling and a marathon distance 26.2-mile run.

We thought about taking the scooter, but the weather forecast called for a thunderstorm. I could see severe weather to the west of us on the weather radar. It looked like it would hit the area around 2pm. We decided to take an Uber ride 12 miles up the highway to The Woodlands.

The Woodlands is an upscale master planned community 28 miles north of downtown Houston on I-45. It’s heavily forested and its subdivisions and shopping areas are mostly hidden from the main roads by trees. It has an area of about 44 square miles, most of which is land. There’s a lake (Woodlands Lake) and a canal connecting the lake with a smaller body of water called The Woodlands Waterway.

The Uber car dropped us off at the Olive Garden at 12:35pm – we were a few minutes late. I had texted Allen and thought they were in the restaurant waiting for us. Donna and I walked through the restaurant searching for them but didn’t find them. We came back to the lobby and wondered if there was more than one Olive Garden in the area. I sent another message to Allen just as he and Crystal walked in the door. Since I told him we were running late, they had decided to go fill up at a nearby gas station.

We ordered our lunch and talked for over an hour while we dined. Allen eats a very controlled diet before the race. He ordered spaghetti with tomato marinara – he avoids meat the day before a race. This will be his fifth Ironman event. We saw him compete in his first Ironman triathlon in Lake Placid, then we saw him last summer in Couer d’Alene. He also competed in Florida and Louisville.

After lunch, we all rode in Allen’s VW Tiguan as he gave us a tour of the area. There are many high-end shops in The Woodlands – it’s all very upscale. The neighborhoods are home base for many professional athletes from the NFL, MLB and the PGA.

We stopped at the Northshore Park where the Ironman event will start. They begin the 2.4-mile swim heading south along the west side of the lake for nearly a mile. Then they turn around and come back along the east side of the lake.

View of the lake from the starting area – yellow buoys mark the first leg

After they turn around and come back, they enter the canal and continue swimming to the transition area where they switch to bicycles. The canal is lined with shops and restaurants and has walking paths alongside, much like the Riverwalk in San Antonio.

Orange buoys mark the return course up the lake, the yellow boat is at the canal entrance

The bicycle course is one lap and doesn’t offer much opportunity for spectators to cheer on their favorite competitors.

The running portion goes along the canal paths and makes three loops. This will be the best place to see the competitors. The canal is lower than the surrounding terrain and is lined with buildings. There isn’t likely to be much air circulation. The humidity along the canal will be stifling. At that point of the competition, I think Allen will already have nearly seven hours of exertion behind him. The 26- mile run will be brutal.

A thunderstorm hit as Allen was giving us the driving tour. He drove Donna and me back to the Northlake RV Resort and dropped us off. By then the storm had passed, but I was glad we left the scooter in the trailer.

Allen’s wife Crystal posted a few pictures on Facebook this morning. Allen finished the swim a little after 8am after one hour and 16 minutes in the water. I took the liberty of lifting her photos from Facebook.

Allen finishing the swim

Transitioning to the bike

We’ll scooter over to The Woodlands to see Allen finish the bike and transition to run. We plan to hang out until he finishes. I expect a thundershower to pass through at some point, but we’ll manage it.

Rainy Day #5

Rain showers woke me up a few times and I felt tired when I woke up Monday morning. I’m not used to hearing rain after the great weather we’ve experienced over the winter. We had intermittent showers and mist in the morning with a stiff wind from the northwest. The weather radar looked like heavier rainfall would arrive in the afternoon, so Donna decided to brave the wind and go for a walk before lunch.

I thought it was a good day to lie low and read a book. I went up on the deck while Donna was out, but the wind chased me back indoors. Donna took several snapshots on her hike – here are a few of them.

More wildflowers along the lake

She spied a turtle crossing the path

The turtle takes a defensive posture

This nice home had a boat ramp to the lake – when the lake was full of water

Now the boat ramp leads to a trail down to the lake

Donna really enjoyed her hikes and loves this area. She said it reminds her of Cape Cod minus the dunes. We want to come back some time and have a longer stay – hopefully at a time when Dave can join us at his beach house. I’d like to talk to him more about his time here in Texas. He was involved in the music and club scene in the ’80s and has stories and photos of Stevie Ray and Jimmy Vaughn from back in the day hung up in his beach house.

When Donna returned, I took a container of leftovers into the house and reheated it in the microwave for lunch. Although we’re parked at Dave’s beach house, we still sleep and play on our computers in our coach – it’s our home after all. But I didn’t want to turn on the generator just to reheat leftovers in the microwave.

After lunch, I was sitting at my laptop looking for information on the turtle Donna photographed. I couldn’t come up with a positive identification. Maybe a reader can help? While I was sitting there, a house finch flew up and perched on the living room window sill. He appeared to be peeping through the window. I realized the solar coatings on our windows effectively make them mirrors from the outside and the bird was studying his own reflection.

We’ve seen a variety of birds here in Texas – from bobwhite quail to red-tailed hawks. One of the most interesting birds we’ve seen is the scissor-tailed flycatcher. We saw them at San Angelo State Park (another place we’d like to visit again) and also at Buchanan Dam. On the way to Buchanan Dam, we saw a hawk flying across the road in front of us with a live snake in its talons.

Something else I saw that don’t recall seeing before is armadillo road kill. I saw two dead armadillos on the side of the road.

On Monday evening, Donna made lemon chicken with broccoli on the side for dinner.

Lemon chicken and broccoli

After dinner, for a change of pace, we went into the Dave’s beach house and watched a classic movie, Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly on Dave’s big screen TV.

On Tuesday morning, we went about business as usual. Donna is working on two exercise challenges – a 30-day upper body challenge and a five-day squat challenge. After completing her daily challenges, she prepared omelets for breakfast and then we started preparing to relocate to Austin. We hit the road at about 11am.

The 80-mile drive to Austin was mostly on scenic two-lane highways. As we got closer to the city, traffic volumes started building. Rain and construction didn’t help matters much and the short drive took more energy than I imagined. We found our way to the Austin Lone Star Carefree RV Resort by 1pm. At the entrance, a park attendant asked our name, checked his list and said, “Follow me,” as he climbed into a golf cart. He led us to our site and went over the hook-ups and trash collection procedures. Then he told us we would have until 4:30pm to go to the office to complete our check-in. It was a very efficient way to arrive and set up at an RV park in my opinion.

Austin traffic in the rain through a construction zone

So we’re back in a full hook-up RV park. We’ve been able to average our RV park costs down over the six nights since we left San Diego by boondocking and taking advantage of courtesy parking. Our average cost per overnight site is $11 at this point. This helps to offset the fuel costs we’ve incurred while covering 1,200+ miles in a week. Here at the Austin Lone Star Carefree RV Resort, our Passport America rate gave us two nights for $45.

Our nightly site costs will go up over the next 18 days as we’ll be in RV parks, but our fuel costs will diminish. This is one of the beauties of the RV lifestyle – we can adjust our variable costs as we choose. Stay in a nice place and pay for it while not burning fuel or travel and burn fuel while keeping overnight rates low.

We like mixing it up like this – it’s what will probably keep us on the road for a long time. We know people who boondock almost exclusively and we also know people who rarely if ever boondock. There’s no right or wrong way – you just go with the flow and do what works for you.

Donna had pork tenderloin and salsa verde in the slow cooker all afternoon. She fixed a southern style dinner with pulled pork, kale sauteed with onions and dried chorizo and fried cornmeal mush. Delicious!

Southern style dinner plate

The sky is overcast this morning, but it isn’t raining at the moment. The forecast calls for rain and thunderstorms. We’ll take our chances and take a cab ride into town later. We’re here and dang it, we want to see Austin.

Beach House Boondocking

Once we made the decision to pull out of San Angelo State Park, we were packed and ready to hit the road in short order. We pulled out at 10:30am. Our destination was Buchanan Dam where my friend Dave Glynn has a vacation home and property on the lake.

Our route took us along US87 to Brady. On the way there, Donna monitored the weather with the Radar Express app on my phone. She was tracking a storm cell as it hit Brady. We stopped at a rest area west of Brady and stretched our legs for 10 minutes to give the storm time to pass northeast of our travel route. This worked perfectly as we only found wet roads and light rainfall on the route.

From Brady we hit TX71, a lightly used route that took us through the hill country. San Angelo is located in high desert terrain. The landscape changed as we traveled east. The Texas hill country is wooded with meadows full of poppies and other wildflowers, of course, it’s hilly. Donna shot a few photos through her window as we drove along the highway.

Donna’s window view of poppies

We found our way to Dave’s driveway. There was a low tree branch Dave told me about that was blocking us from pulling in past the house. I removed the branch (Dave told me I’d be doing him a favor). Getting the coach turned around and lined up next to the house was really tricky. We had obstacles such as trees, flower beds and bushes to maneuver around.

It took a full 30 minutes of jockeying the coach back and forth a few feet at a time to get it lined up right. The Allison automatic transmission didn’t like all the maneuvering at idle speed. The transmission fluid temperature rose to 220 degrees – that’s the highest I’ve ever seen it. I finally had the coach parked on the east side of the house with our door lined up with a walkway to the patio. The house should offer us some protection against the wind as severe storms are in the forecast.

Coach position next to Dave's beach house

Coach positioned next to Dave’s beach house

The house should offer protection from the storms

Donna and I sat on the deck overlooking the lake and sipped cold beer. Donna phoned her parents and wished her mom a happy Mother’s Day. While she was on the phone, I took a walk down to a pier a few hundred feet from Dave’s property.

There’s been a long period of drought in Texas (like most of the southwest). At San Angelo State Park, the lake no longer exists. Here at Buchanan Lake, the water level has dropped considerably. The pier sits high and dry a few hundred yards from the current shoreline.

Fishing pier

End of the pier well short of the shoreline

The pier is at the foot of a small community park, which I believe is common property owned by a homeowners’ association. Some of the homes here had private docks which are no longer in the lake. The receding lake has left many of the lakefront properties up to a quarter mile away from the lake. That has reset the property values to a much lower level. This coupled with the financial crisis during the last decade left many homeowners here in a bind.

Sunday was the last day of our data plan cycle. I had a few gigabytes to spare so I downloaded the European coverage of the Formula One race from Spain. While I was watching the race, Donna hiked on the trails along the lake. She snapped a few interesting photos on her walk.

Inlet off the lake west of Dave’s place

More wildflowers near the lake

Unmanned fishing poles

We watched a recorded program before we went to bed. I was tired and fell asleep quickly. I woke up around midnight as another storm came through. It wasn’t too severe – a few flashes of lightning and raindrops falling on the roof.

This morning, another storm cell is passing through as I type this – lightning struck close by on the lake. The flash of lightning was immediately followed by a loud clap of thunder. The storm is moving quickly to the northeast. It looks like a few more storm cells are lined up to head our way today.

Stormy Night

We pulled out of Fort Stockton RV Park shortly before their 11am checkout time yesterday. We drove back east on I-10 five miles to the Flying J travel center and topped up our tank with 44 gallons of diesel fuel at the truck fueling pumps. Our route for the day took us westbound on I-10 to US67 through the towns of McCamey and Big Lake. It’s about 140 miles to San Angelo from Fort Stockton.

We stopped at a roadside picnic table west of Big Lake. Donna made a salad for herself and I had a 6″ Subway sandwich that Donna had bought for me at the Flying J travel center. The weather was nice with the temperature in the morning in the lower 70s and steadily climbing as we traveled. US67 is a two-lane highway without much traffic. We had a tailwind and it was an easy drive to San Angelo State Park.

There are more than 60 RV sites in the park. We’re in a long pull-through site with great separation between us and our neighbors. The site has 50 amp service and fresh water but no sewer hook-up.

San Angelo State Park site 2

Their website advertises the site for $20/night. That seems fair enough but you have add a $4 park entrance fee. When we got here, we were informed the $4 fee is per person, so make that $8 for a total cost of $28/night.

It was getting hot out when we arrived here – over 90 degrees. I connected to the 50 amp pedestal and we had both air conditioners running in no time. The sites are fairly level, so getting set up was quick and painless. I rewarded myself with a Left Coast Brewing VooDoo American Stout.

VooDoo American stout

This is a tasty beer. Dark roasted malt gives hints of coffee and chocolate at 8% alcohol by volume.

Donna was outside and told me she saw bison northeast of our site. I walked out through a field (being mindful of the prickly pear cactus) and shot a photo. Later, Donna went for a walk and got closer – close enough to see they were fake silhouettes. How disappointing. There are supposed to be real bison and longhorn cattle in the park. Hans Kohl (Metamorphosis Road) told me there are also javelina here.

Bison silhouettes in the center

I grilled a rack of lamb for dinner. Donna spiced the lamb with fresh herbs and garlic.

Rack of lamb on the grill

Donna served it with a spinach and sweet potato hash.

Lamb with sweet potato spinach hash

It was so good!

My friend, Dave Glynn offered to have us park on his vacation property at Buchanan Dam. I looked at the property on Google Earth and was confused about how to enter the property and park. I phoned Dave while I was looking at the image. After talking with him again, I have a clear idea of what to do now. We’ll move about 160 miles southeast and stay there for a couple of nights.

We kept an eye on the weather all day yesterday. I saw a few thunderheads around us, but we seemed to be in the right spot. There were reports of severe weather to the northeast of us. All was fine when we went to bed.

I woke up at 2am as rain was pelting the roof and the coach was shaking from the wind. The topper over the living room slide was flapping violently. I got up and pulled the living room slide in. Donna and I sat in the front seats and watched the storm. I don’t remember ever seeing lightning like that. It was continuous, flickering light for half an hour. I looked at my cell phone weather radar app and saw we were in the middle of a storm cell. Twenty-five minutes later, I could see that the storm was moving to the east. Here’s a screen shot of the radar I took at 2:25 a.m.

Screenshot from my weather radar app – we’re the blue dot

The heavy rain turned to hail when we went back to bed. The hail drummed on the roof for several minutes, then it was rain again. I finally dozed off around 3am and slept fitfully.

Our original plan was to hang around, do some hiking and get a good look at the park. They have a 2pm check out time. Looking at the forecast, we’ve changed our plan. More severe weather is supposed to move into the area this afternoon. I want to be hunkered down, not out on the road if that happens. So we’re packing up and moving to Dave’s property this morning.

Rest Stop Road Runner

Our dry camping spot at the SKP park in Deming wasn’t anything to write home about. But an interesting point is it was next to a motel that I’d stayed at previously. I stayed at The Quality Inn right next door with my motorcycling buds when we traveled to New Mexico to ride at the Arroyo Seco race track.

I always love it when an interesting coach pulls into a park. The coach that parked into a site near us was definitely interesting. It was an older Foretravel – I’m guessing late ’90s, maybe 2000. Foretravel coaches are built in Texas on a proprietary monocoque chassis and are definitely in the upper class of motorhomes. This one had a cool custom paint job and matching stacker trailer.

Custom paint on a Foretravel coach and trailer

I spoke briefly to the owner. He told me it’s a 42-foot coach although it looks longer. I think the illusion of length is due to the paint scheme and tag axle. I was curious but didn’t find out what was in the stacker trailer. The satellite dish and roof AC covers painted to match the trim along the roof was a nice touch.

Donna prepared pan-seared flank steak on the induction cooktop and served it with asparagus for dinner. The park had an unusual rule restricting generators after 7:30pm, so Donna prepared dinner early, then we switched to battery/inverter power.

Flank steak and asparagus

We watched the final episode of House of Cards, season three before heading to bed.

We lost an hour coming into New Mexico, so even though we felt like we were up early, it was after 8am by the time we got up and had breakfast and coffee. Since we were dry camped, we were able to get things ready for travel quickly and left the park around 8:45am.

Our first stop was only about an hour east on I-10. There’s a rest stop west of Las Cruces that I really like. It has an incredible view of the valley and old downtown Las Cruces and a cool sculpture to boot. The greater roadrunner is the state bird of New Mexico and this rest stop has a huge, beautiful roadrunner sculpture. I really wanted Donna to see the view and sculpture. Too bad it was a little hazy, the haze is more apparent in the photos than what we saw.

View as you approach the facility

Valley view of old Las Cruces

Greater roadrunner sculpture

I used to stop here when I traveled to Las Cruces and El Paso for business. Speaking of EL Paso, what a trial to drive through on I-10. There’s a bypass route but it’s mountainous and I heard there was construction that way. We ran the gauntlet and made our way through. At times, I thought we were were in Juarez, Mexico.

Once we cleared El Paso, it was a long drone along I-10. Some of the scenery was interesting, but to be honest, it was a boring drive. I kept myself alert by monitoring engine and transmission temperatures and engine oil pressure. Yeah, exciting stuff. I also kept track of the sparse traffic around me and flashed my headlights to let passing tractor-trailer rigs know when their trailer was clear of our motorhome to move over in front of me. I think this is a courtesy that we should extend as big rig drivers. Most truckers flash their running lights back at me when they move over to acknowledge the courtesy signal. We lost another hour as we entered the Central Time Zone along the way. The road surface was good for the most part until we were about 60 miles west of Fort Stockton. Then it had washboard sections that were ridiculous considering the 80mph speed limit (we kept our speed at 62mph in the right lane).

We finally made it to Fort Stockton. There’s a GPS map glitch that affects this area. We know from online posts that it’s not just our GPS – many are affected by this. It makes sense to me since there are only a few map suppliers for the GPS units. I think Navteq supplies most GPS sellers such as Garmin, Lowrance and others, so it stands to reason that a map error affects all users. I won’t condemn my GPS unit for a map error. I just have to find a reasonable way around it.

We worked around the glitch and found the park Donna scouted online with a Passport America rate of only $11 with full hook-ups. Once we drove there, we changed our minds. We wanted to conserve cash on this run, but we have certain standards. This park was all dirt with no amenities and a thunderstorm was a distinct possibility. We didn’t want to be parked in a mud hole.

We moved on and checked in at the Fort Stockton RV Park east of town. Of the parks in this area, I think this was the best option. With a Good Sam discount we secured a paved 72-foot pull-through, full hook-up site for $31.

Once we settled, in I phoned an old buddy, Dave Glynn. He had contacted me via Facebook the day before and told me to let him know if we would be in the area of Fort Stockton. He’s currently working in an oil field near Fort Stockton. Dave and I go way back – the last time I saw him was in the early 80s. We hung out and had many misadventures together in the 70s.

Dave came out to our site at the RV park and took Donna and me out to dinner. It was fun talking about the old days, reminiscing and catching up. Dave generously picked up the tab and invited – no, insisted – we stay at his vacation place at Buchanan Dam. The house has acreage on the lake and we can park the motorhome there. Thanks, Dave!

We have thunderstorms here and are likely to encounter more as we move through south central Texas to the gulf. Hopefully we’ll avoid hail storms or tornados! Texas weather scares me. We’ll head on to San Angelo for a night then hit Dave’s place at Buchanan Dam.

Continental Divide

I’m typing this after a long day on the road. After I posted to the blog last evening, Donna and I sat up and watched two episodes of House of Cards – season three. When I went to bed, I slept like a rock. Donna was awakened by the sound of a car pulling into our spot at 2am. The car departed shortly after pulling in. She didn’t hear any doors open, just a strange muffled sound. Today we think it was probably law enforcement – a cop or border patrol car. The sound may have been a radio receiver in the vehicle. They probably just did a drive-by to see who or what was in the area.

The boondocking spot we found off AZ85 south of Gila Bend had a ramada and a sign that said “overnight parking permitted, no camping.” We took that to mean “don’t pitch a tent or get in a sleeping bag under the ramada.”

It was a fairly quiet spot and we couldn’t beat the price – free.

Sunset at our boondocking spot in the desert

We were up early this morning. We had breakfast and coffee and had the slides in and jacks up by 8:15am. We changed our plan and decided to go the extra 30 miles and maybe add 45 minutes to our drive by continuing south on AZ85. This would take us through the towns of Ajo and Why before we headed east on AZ86 to Tucson. There was very little traffic and it was more interesting than droning along on I-8 to I-10.

Our boondocking site after sunrise

We eventually hit I-10 at Tucson. We stopped at a rest stop east of Benson and ate lunch, then motored on. Donna was working at her laptop while I drove. After about 300 miles of driving in windy conditions, we crossed the border into New Mexico. I’ll need to update our states visited map. I’ve been to New Mexico many times, but we only count the states we’ve visited since we started full-time RVing.

I don’t know if the sign was messed up or the picture pixilated

After a stop at the Flying J in Lordsburg, where we topped up the tank with 55 gallons of diesel fuel, we crossed the Continental Divide at an elevation of 4,585 feet above sea level. For those of you who don’t remember what the significance of the Continental Divide is – it marks the difference of where watersheds drain. West of the Continental Divide, water flows to the Pacific Ocean. East of the Continental Divide, it flows to the Atlantic (via the Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean Sea in some cases). From there we drove on to Deming. We are currently dry camped at an SKP park here. The day’s total mileage was 377 miles. I usually like to limit my drive to 250-300 miles per day. We’ll push on again in the morning and drive about 340 miles to Fort Stockton, Texas.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Alpine Coach

Aransas Pass

Family Picnic

The Road to Copano

Texas Ironman

The Woodlands

Rainy Day #5

Beach House Boondocking

Stormy Night

Rest Stop Road Runner

Continental Divide

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