Thursday, July 9, 2009

Tuesday Morning Kids Day

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This is our new site at Bardwell Lake COE Park just outside of Ennis Texas

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The Lake is right out the back door. Sherri is taking the kids down to feed the ducks.

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Kris and Sarah did not find any ducks at the lake ant were disappointed. Can you tell

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They did find some Birds

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Mawmaw founds some Poison Ivy and made sure everyone was aware of it’s location.

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This is the lake from the back of the RV with the sun setting in the West.

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We had to get Kris some transportation so he could keep up with us….How are we going to keep up with him???

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With all the help I have each morning it is not easy to post or chat with you…I think you know what I mean

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This will be home until Friday when we leave for Louisiana.

Kris Sarah and I would like to say so long for a while and we will see you…

Somewhere in Time

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Am I Behind

This was the extent of our 4th of July celebration….

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The Fourth of July went out with a bang…Here it is Tuesday and we have moved to Lake Bardwell near Ennis Texas. We have two house guest and things are hoping around here during the day. It is constant entertainment going on and you would think that these two have never been fed three squares a day.

Sherri is up early to get ready for work. She is working in Mabank Texas today and Kemp tomorrow. It is a 50 minute drive to each of these locations from out home base here at Waxahachie Creek COE Park. I went a head and got on up to get her some coffee made. We did have about 10 minutes to set and visit before she had to get up and take her shower get dressed and pull out for work.

I will be in charge today of the food and entertainment which I mentioned was non stop. Sarah has a scooter and Kris has his 4 wheel we bought him at Wally World. He loves it but does not have the peddles down yet. He just scoots along with his feet on the ground?? What is that all about? As long as he is happy who cares.

I can’t believe it has been this long without me posting on the journal. I guess with all the work at the lot and the kids visiting here I have lost all track of time. We spend most of the day in doors due to the extreme heat we are having but I will have to say the last few days have been overcast and the temps have been down in the 80’s.

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I did have the opportunity to take the kids out in the boat and we had a real good time. We went all around the cove behind the camp sight and saw many wonderful things. They were happy to get back on land, however, so they could run and play.

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They are very active and setting in a boat restricted like that is not their thing. When we can fish out of the boat maybe they will be better….NOT.

Sorry I have been so lax on posting and I will try to correct this. We have a decent signal here so maybe I can get on chat too and visit with you. Until then this is the Activity Director signing out….

Somewhere in Time
 

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Our House Guest

I was brought out of my sleep this morning by the sound of rustling in the kitchen. Sherri was already up and fixing coffee. Soon I could smell the aroma of the brew filling the bedroom and I had to get up.

We have a house guest this week. Sarah our grandchild is staying with us for the month. She will be traveling with us all this month and helping me catch fish. She has even said that she will be my second mate on the boat when I take it out.

After picking Sarah up we had to purchase her a new fishing pole and a life jacket. She let us know that the ones that she had would not work on this trip. You know I put up a fight but lost this one. Why do I even try…women always get their way.

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This is an entry by Sarah:

I had a whole bunch of fun You wouldn’t believe it.

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Sarah and I put the lines out and waited…and waited…and waited

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Before we headed to the lake to fish Sarah fixed us a good dinner of hot dogs and chips. She is quite the homemaker!

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This is the trail down to the lake from our porch. Sherri told us we had to go first so if there was any snakes she would know before she stepped on them.

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We had this small opening to cast out through. Not a lot of room but I guess we can make it work.

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Just some more shots of the area down by the lake.

Well I called the electric company to get my electric hooked up but they told me that they would not hook it up without a cover on my meter box. Someone stole my meter box cover so I have to get a new one. Oh Boy! that gives me something else to do this week!

More on this story tomorrow. Please forgive me while I go and bang my head against something ….

Somewhere in Time.

 

 

 

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Headed to Tawakoni

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Our Site at Tawakoni State Park

Today is Monday…a day that use to be dreaded by Sherri and I both…well maybe still for Sherri some times but me it is just another day. This Monday, however, is a move day so it is a little different but we have an adventure today and being Monday does not matter.

I got up at 6:30…yes a little later than usual but we stayed up last night and watched a movie we had recorded. Getting to be a little later keeps us in bed longer in the morning. When our 6 hours rolls around we are up and going without fail. That is another thing when I was working I could be in bed for 6 hours and dread getting up for work…but now no problem.

Sherri got up shortly after me and we sat down to drink coffee and discuss the bed purchase. Everyone that has commented on it have loved theirs and we are thinking that this would be the best one to get. I have to have a firm mattress and Sherri likes a soft one. This seems the best solution to that problem but we just want to make sure before we spend that kind of money. I think we will sleep on it and see….now that is funny…sleep on it.

We are going to have to make a run to Super Target to return a trash can that is too big and get some other things done before we go to the lake…where we have nothing for miles around. That is one of the things that I am not too crazy about…you have to drive 12 miles to get to a town and another 20 to get to a Wally World.

Not much more happening this morning… except the move so I will finish this up on our arrival this afternoon. I hope to be at the lake by noon…we will see. 

First stop was Brookshire’s to gather groceries for our five day stay at the State Park. This takes time when you have not bought food supplies in a while. We followed the list item by item until we had everything and then we checked out and headed to the lake.

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Sherri plans out our next few weeks

We arrived there about 2:30….much later than what we had planned on. I got everything set up by 3:00 Then I was off to our lot at the lake. Rodney had his tractor auger so we got all the holes dug for the power pole and our mail box. It was 102 so I will have to say that I was beat by the time I got back to the RV. I did not make the chat room last night I was just too  tired to get on.

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Tomorrow I will call to have everything covered and hooked up. I hope that I can get it all done this week while we are here. Come the 4th of July we hope to be staying on our own land.

Guess I will  be calling it a night now. I will catch many of you on chat tonight and the rest of you I will catch…

Somewhere in Time. 

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Dump Day

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I got up this morning and made some coffee…left my lover in bed…she was sleeping so hard. I sat down at the computer and started to layout my thoughts on today’s journal entry. I do my best thinking in the morning with a cup of coffee in hand. My thoughts went to our budget and how to save money. This got me to thinking about where we stay and how much that cost.

Staying in the State Parks and COE campgrounds is so much cheaper than your private parks…that a poor boy like me just has to take advantage of them. Sherri and I in the past month have stayed strictly at State and COE Parks and have spent very little money on rents in doing so. We did stay at one private park in Louisiana…but it was a Passport America park and we only spent $140 for two weeks there.

Now with that in mind we have decided that our adventures will be centered around these parks and where they are is where we will stay and plan our site seeing trips. You do know that these parks do not offer sewer hook-ups so you have to keep that in mind as you use your facilities from day to day. That is what prompted me to purchase the “Blue Boy”…or in our case the “Grey Boy” so we could relieve our tanks every now and again during our stay.  This was important to us being that we plan on staying the Maximum days (14) and would need to make room for additional shower water and our washing machine water.

Today was the maiden run to the dump site with our grey water. I had to figure out how to dump the tanks into the Tote being that we have the “Drain Master”

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system on our RV and it is not like the drain on most RV and certainly not like the hose on the “Grey Boy”.

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Ok so I had to have Sherri hold the “Drain Master” hose on the “Grey Boy” and I had to pick the hose up and walk the grey water down into the tank. While doing so I got some on Sherri…do I have to tell you what she said?? It was not pretty…but then I could have bet you that I would do something to get me in trouble. I am ordering a fixture that will convert our system over to the standard hose system so I can attach the Tote to the grey water dump on the RV.

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That being said we got the tote hooked to the back of the truck and headed out to the dump….which by the way is just a short distance down the road…thank heavens. All I could see was this tote coming loose and heading the wrong way down the park road and exploding on the bumper of an oncoming truck. Now that would have been a good journal entry…but it did not happen so I will only imagine it every time I head to the dump.

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OK let me see this must be the handle…and what is that down that little hole there?

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Now Sherri all you have to do is hold  this nozzle  like this while I raise the hose up and drain the grey water into the tote.

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OPPS Sorry about that Petunia did I get a little on you there?

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Next thing on our radar screen is a new mattress. What does everyone think about the sleep number bed? I think I will go on the Forum and see what others have said. I will see you all down the highway…we leave here tomorrow. Stay safe and come back…

Somewhere in Time.

 

OK What Does This Day Hold

I am up this morning…coffee is made and I am drinking some. Setting here at the computer reading journals that I am so far behind on. I did not realize that I was this far behind in reading. I guess the one week we did not have a good connection and the weeks that we have been exploring got me behind. But this morning I am starting to catch up.

Sherri is still sleeping this morning and I guess I better wake her up. She has not rested real well the last few days. Sleeping in is not our thing…we end up with headaches if we sleep too long. Six hours is about all we ever need and then we feel great the rest of the day.

Also this morning I need to start looking into our trip to Ruston Louisiana. We will be going there week after next. We will stay one week in Ruston and then move North to Heber Springs Arkansas. I think we will spend the week there and then down to Pine Bluff. Sherri has a job in Pine Bluff and we will be staying at Rising Star COE on the Arkansas River. If any one out there has stayed there let me know. It looks nice. The sites all back up the the river and appears I can get my boat in. From Rising Star we will be headed to Kansas via somewhere not sure how all that will work just yet. I will be working on that soon.

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But until then we are going to have us a  mess of pancakes and bacon

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I did the bacon and Sherri did the pancakes. We did them outside so we did not prematurely heat the RV up inside. It has been 103 here for several days and cooking inside is just out of the question.

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The sites here at Hickory Creek have fire rings and BBQ stands.

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Our site #95 has morning shade and then we catch a piece of the afternoon sun…which is not good.

We finished our breakfast cleaned up the dishes put everything away drank us some coffee played on the computers and then started getting ready for the day.

After our showers we decided to strip the bed and get the laundry together. Sherri looked on the Internet and found us a Washateria  in Lewisville and we were off and running. We found it without to much trouble with “Glennie”, our GPS… barking out the directions. We used our new caddie that I bought at “Staples”. Rolled the clothes right on into the place and got to work. Not a problem….and $6.50 later we were done.

Now it was time to check out Cristina’s Mexican food restaurant…being that we were in the general area…HE HE. I love their hot sauce and chips. Under the new budget Sherri and I fill up on chips and hot sauce and take most of the main course home for later. We order water with lemon and put in two Sweet and Lows and bingo you have lemonade WEEE. We are learning how to make the dollars go further fast now that we are on fixed incomes.

Next we crossed the street and got diesel for $2.45 gal. Then it was time to start back to the Park. When we got back here we took a ride around some of the other loops to see it there were any sites that had better shade in the afternoon. It is 102 here today at 3:00 and with no shade on the west side it gets HOT. We found two or three sites that would be better for the summer months in the afternoon. When winter gets here we will be looking for full sun sites…that will be another story…

Somewhere in Time

 

 

 

Friday, June 26, 2009

Sherri’s Day At The Doctor

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Our new site at Hickory Creek Park #95

5:00 am the alarm went off and I was up and going even before I made coffee I was outside unhooking the truck from the RV. I had not done this yesterday due to the extreme heat that is on top of us here. I had extended the legs down to take most of the weight off the truck but left it hooked up until this morning.

I have to take Sherri to the doctor today and sure did not want to pull the trailer down there by mistake….you laugh but I have seen similar things happen in campgrounds in my 30 plus years of RVing. I once even pulled my electrical cord 12 miles still hanging off the back end of my Motorhome. I could not figure out why all the road crews along the side of the road were running into the ditches waving their arms when I went by. I just thought they were all real friendly.

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So I got us detached from out home and I am ready to go before time. I still have to get my Blue Boy out of the truck and see how to use it. I like knowing I don’t  have to be all that conservative with my water usage at the State and COE parks. We have reduced the amount of money we spend on Campgrounds staying in these parks. My original budget was much higher for park stays but if we can keep staying in State and COE parks we should have some extra for Diesel…which by the way is on the rise again.

We got back from the doctors office about 1:30 and I started making some lunch for the two of us. Sherri just ate a baked potato and I had the same with some brisket . HMMM was it good…even in this heat wave we are having. Sure wish I was about 8,000 ft up in Colorado right now. I could use some 4o degree mornings to cool me off. I’m not so I will make the best of this situation. I have to dump tonight now that ought to be something to write about. I know you will all love to hear about that ….and you will tomorrow when I return…

Somewhere in Time