Travels with Gunther and Kara

We gotta give props to the Monument Cafe in Georgetown; the food was quite good and both the server and manager who came out to talk to us were extremely pleasant and friendly. We would go back there again anytime.

Tuesday morning we got up early and Neil went on a bike ride; then we dumped/flushed our tanks, finished up the remaining departure items and headed out. Neil stopped at the front of the campground to torque the wheel that got swapped out after our flat the other day while Connie went on ahead to buy gas for the car. We met up on the freeway and proceeded the 208 miles up to Denton where we’re parked in site 108 at the Destiny Dallas RV Resort. We barely squeezed into the site around a tree at the back inside corner of the pull through. Once parked; Connie cleaned and did the inside stuff while Neil did all the outside stuff; it was 92 degrees and humid and they were both wiped by the time they were done. So after a quick shower we headed off to the Texas Land and Cattle Steak House about 2 miles down the highway. Sat at the bar and had a couple of Shiner Bock drafts…never had one of these before but it’s a quite tasty darker ale. Along with it we had a couple of steaks then came home and pretty much zoned out for the evening.

Yesterday Connie worked pretty much all day; internet service is pretty dismal here (it’s Tengo Internet as a provider and they don’t get good reviews as a source). Afterwards we headed off to the Elks Lodge about 8 or so miles north. They were quite welcoming and gave us a free pitcher of beer since we were visitors. They only had light beer on draft though so we settled for it along with a couple of burgers and a second pitcher that we paid for. Not a bad dinner for 18 bucks.

After some hot, fresh baked cookies we headed off to bed and were awakened at 0330 or so by a tremendous downpour; it continued raining off and on until about 1100 when Neil went out for a run. It was windy but had stopped raining…but it’s still overcast and pretty much a yucky day. Connie’s working again and Neil is giving serious consideration to afternoon siesta.

Here’s a picture of our site…we had to put the tarp over our leaky window again since it was going to rain. Good thing we’re going to Junction City for warranty work soon; Connie is tired of looking like we’re homeless with a tarp over it. We’ve got no satellite visibility here; the tree at our right rear prevents the antenna from coming up and it would have to look directly through the tree to see them anyway…so we raised the bat wing antenna you can see above our door and are getting over the air TV. When we leave we have to come out of the site and then turn immediately right onto the road you can see; luckily there’s not much on the left so we can swing fairly wide and should be able to get around it just fine.

We might head off and do something later on this afternoon; it really depends on whether the weather clears up any or not. With the overcast and damp breeze is isn’t much of a day for being outside but if the sun puts in an appearance as scheduled (doubtful as it’s already 1400 and it shows no signs of it so far) Connie has a couple of ideas but given the slow internet connectivity here most likely we’ll just stay home. Dinner is going to be a ham steak we bought the other day and Neil is thinking of making a baked potato and onion slices dish with cheese; sort of like scalloped potatoes but with more onions and not as creamy. 

Cyas.

We’ve had a pretty easy weekend. Yesterday we went on a drive around some of the neighborhoods in Roundrock directly south of Georgetown as well as some of those in Georgetown itself. We found a bunch of pretty good neighborhoods with some decent houses. We aren’t any where close to settling down but figured that this area was one of our prime options since we are close to Fort Hood and therefore can get back on Tricare Prime for medical purposes. What we would be looking for is 1000-1200 square feet probably with an open floor plan for kitchen/dining area/living area. Neil would prefer a townhouse over a regular house since he doesn’t’ want grass or leaves or snow but he’s willing to just pay a neighborhood kid to do that if he has to.

Afterwards Neil made some chicken enchiladas for dinner; chopped up the leftover chicken from the other night and rolled it up in some tortillas with pepper jack cheese. He made a sauce of onions, flour, and half and half. Piled some jalapeño slices on top of the tortillas in a pan, covered with sauce, and topped with a mixture of cheddar and smoked gouda (hey, it was leftover and this was a whatever is in the fridge kind of dinner) and baked it for 20 minutes to make it all bubbly. Quite tasty. We split them with a beer.

This morning we went to Mass at Saint Helen’s again and had a whole ‘nuther interpretation of the Mass order; the priest must have flipped two pages instead of one during the Eucharistic prayer and we spent the next 10 minutes fumbling around a bit. That was after his harangue about tithing to the parish for 15 minutes and then your regularly scheduled 20 minute sermon.

Tonight (well, this afternoon actually) we’re having a Dark and Stormy and then are headed off to Monument Cafe for dinner. This is a place that Guy Fieri from Diners, Drive-ins and Dives featured. Tomorrow we’re going to Dos Salsas for dinner; it’s supposedly the best Mexican in town

Tomorrow’s another work day for Connie…Neil is going to do laundry (funny how that stuff doesn’t just go away) and break down all the campsite stuff except for dumping tanks. Air up the tires, take down the flagpole, take down the slide topper support, take the tire covers off…the usual stuff. 

Tuesday we’re off to Denton TX right outside of Dallas (well, Plano actually) for a week.

Cyas.

It’s been a  busy couple of days. First though; Connie wants to plug the beauty salon she went to Wednesday…Beauty Escape Salon in Georgetown and Lisa did her hair; quite a nice job. Yesterday Connie worked some in the morning then we drove up to Fort Hood to visit the commissary…we were going to check out some neighborhoods since we may live in this area eventually but time ran out and it got to be rush hour in Killeen outside of the Fort so we left that to another day. While she was working in the morning Neil went on a bike ride. After heading through Southwestern University he ended up on some back roads, then ducked into a park named San Gabriel Park, ended up down by the South San Gabriel River and rode up a pretty nice river side park. Here’s a shot of one of the lagoon areas in the river; it mostly doesn’t flow continuously in the dry season and has a lot of dikes and small dams in the riverbed to hold the water.

He also took a panoramic picture with his iPhone; 

it looks a little lopsided due to the wide angle but this is a view of 180 degrees of the river. Downtown Georgetown is immediately past the bridge you can see on the far right.

After our shopping trip it was home for dinner which was Chili Rellenos for dinner…he made them out of some Pablano Peppers they got the other day. After putting them over the gas burner on a cake rack to char the outside for about 15 minutes total so they’re all black you put them in a paper bag for 20 minutes or so and then the charred outer skin (which is normally tough on a pepper) slides right off and you just pull the top and seeds off. Stuffed them with a combo of cheddar and smoked Gouda cheeses and some roast beef lunchmeat. Dip them in a beaten egg, roll in yellow corn meal, and fry in a bit of oil until golden brown and delicious as Alton Brown would say. We had them with some rice and black beans. All was good except we forgot to put the onions and chopped green chiles in the rice mixture so they were a bit bland.

Today we got up early and had coffee and breakfast then headed off on our second hike at Balcones NWR. Our destination for the day was the Doeskin Ranch area where we combined 4 trails (Rim Rock, Shin Oak, Indian Grass, andCreek Trails) into a total hike of about 4.5 miles.

We patched the four trails above together into a single hike.  Here’s a picture of our route. Starting in the upper left at the green arrow we went straight down to the left hand large loop on the Rim Rock Trail (this part was steeply uphill on some switchbacks) and then right counterclockwise around the left of the two big loops on the Shin Oak Trail. We were headed for the Indian Grass Trail which is the right loop. Unfortunately we missed the first runoff and ended up going ahead to the split then continuing around this trail clockwise until it hit the Shin Oak again then retracing part of our path turning left back onto the Rim Rock Trail, counterclockwise around the left large loop then counterclockwise around the small Creek Trail at the upper left back to our starting point. As it turned out…our error was fortuitous as the initial part of the Indian Grass Trail through the wooded area was steeply downhill into the ravine and the climb back up to the Shin Oak was much more gradual through the bottom half of that loop in the non wooded area. If we had gone as originally planned we would have had to go up the steep switchback section so it all worked for the best. We stopped for lunch at a bench about halfway through the wooded section on the Indian Grass Trail and again on the section of Rim Rock as it goes through the wooded area; we had a nice view from there and needed a rest anyway.

While we were stopped for lunch Kara snuck out of Connie’s waist pack and tried to get into her Doritos she was having for lunch.

The wooded section on the Indian Grass Trail is supposed to be full of Golden Cheeked Warblers; and endangered species that lives there. Unfortunately we didn’t see them although we could hear them…here’s what the photo would have looked like if we had seen one.

What we did see was a White Throated Sparrow in a tree overhead; we originally thought he was a Golden Cheeked but it wasn’t.

Once we got out into the grassland area on Indian Grass we spotted another White Throated Sparrow

as well as some nice views of the trail

Neil spotted this and took what our friend Howard from RV-Dreams would call a dead tree photo; it’s actually a cairn to mark the trail constructed of juniper or mesquite branches…we couldn’t decide which it was.

Connie also was intrigued by this depression in the valley floor.

After climbing back up the ridge you can see in the distance (we eventually hiked up the spine of that ridge into the trees where we rejoined the Shin Oak), continuing down the Shin Oak and then turning left onto the Rim Rock Trail we stopped for a water and afternoon snack break and got a couple of photos. Here is a panorama of the view from our bench; this is about a 150 degree or so view.

The parking area is just to the right of the open area in the center of the photo and behind the greenery from this viewpoint…it was about another mile or so down to the parking area from here. After our rest we trekked down another steeply switchbacked section, around the Creek Trail and back to the car. We originally were going to do this entire hike in the reverse order but again got a little off reading the map and shortly after starting turned right when we should have continued another 100 yards and turn left so we ended up going the way we did. Again, fortuitously we lucked out and the steepest section we ended up going down instead of up. We still did all the elevation climbing, about 400 feet or so of vertical climb but we got to do it in a more gradual manner which we were thankful for.

After rehydrating at the car we stopped by the Shin Oak Observation Deck to see (hopefully) some Black Capped Vireos, another endangered species. Didn’t see them either though so we headed home.

After showers and beer o’clock Neil cooked up some sautéed chicken breasts with Mexican seasoning on them to go with our leftover rice and beans. We were startled halfway through dinner by a Great Tailed Grackel when it crashed into our window. He got up and flew off so we guess he was OK…although it did scare Connie since she didn’t see it coming.

Another great day…it was about time we had some sunshine and warm weather. Tomorrow I have no idea what Connie has planned.

Cyas.

Well, we been doing a whole lot of nuthin the past coupla days. We’ve been less than impressed by the weather here in Texas so far…after a week here we’ve had maybe 6 hours of sunshine and almost no time with less than 20 knots of wind. Today Neil was out running and it was 43 degrees and 25-30 knots of wind; he had on shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt and really wished he had his gloves on the way back. Connie’s been working the past couple of days…she’s got a few more issues with this class that she’s working through.

Dinner last night was a couple of Angus Burgers (pre-made) from WalMart; our friends Howard and Linda Payne recommended these and they were pretty good. Not quite as good as made from scratch but with the addition of some sautéed onions and mashed taters they were pretty good and we had some leftover taters to have with a fried egg over them for breakfast.

Neil got a haircut and Connie is off getting a dye job and nails done this afternoon…it’s cold and windy today (the high was 70 or so at midnight and it’s down to 49 now (actually I guess that’s up from the 43 it was earlier but the sun did come out a little to warm things up)…so I think he’s going to make some Italian Sausage and Corn Chowdah for dinner; toss some cheese on top and a little sour cream and I’m thinking it will be a great dinner for a cool day.

We ended up ordering a SnapOn torque wrench from Amazon yesterday afternoon; Sears didn’t have any Craftsman brand that had the 250 ft lb capacity we need and we aren’t interested in any more cheap ones after the previous failure. He hated to spend $175 on it; but it’s something you just gotta have to properly torque the rig wheels.

We got our new wide angle zoom lens for our Nikon D7000…it has a much wider field of view than our other lenses and will really be useful for landscape photos as we get into the western part of the country. Here are a couple of comparison shots between the new 10-20 mm lens and our standard 18-200 zoom that we use for 90% of our pictures. Maximum field of view on the 18-200 is 76 degrees and max on the 10-20 is 101 degrees so it gets 1/3 more of the view in a single frame. Being a wide angle; it’s also a lot easier to take a series of overlapping shots and then stitch them together with Photoshop into a single wider frame; with a little work Neil can get a 180 degree photo this way.

The 18-200 will still remain our primary lens; it’s just about perfect for everything in the middle 3/4 of our picture taking range…wide enough for decent but not perfect landscape shots of canyons or mountains and long enough to get decent shots of birds. The 10-20 will shine in landscapes and the much larger and heavier 50-500 is for longer range shots of birds and the mountain goats and bears he’s looking forward to seeing as we get further into the west.

The first pair of shots was taken of the front of the rig about 30 feet across the road. First is the 18-200 and then the 10-20. The second pair is of a house across the field a couple hundred yards away. In both pairs you can easily see the much wider field of view the 10-20 provides.

The overcast skies you see in the shots above is close to the best weather we’ve had as I talked about above. It’s supposed to be nice on Friday and we’re planning another series of hikes out at Balcones NWR. He’ll probably take all three lenses on the hike to get a little practice with the new one.

I had to edit this and tell you about the most excellent dinner Neil made. Italian Sausage Soup…take a couple of Italian Sausages and thaw about halfway then slice into 1/4 inch or so slices. Brown in a large saucepan until done and set aside, reserving fat. Add a chopped onion and chopped potato to the pot and sauté until the onions are translucent. Add a tablespoon or so of Italian Seasoning and just enough chicken stock to cover the potatoes and cover, Simmer until potatoes are almost done then add a handful or two of cheese stuffed pasta (I used frozen 4 cheese tortellini) and a little more chicken stock if needed to cover the pasta. Simmer covered until done. Add a cup or so of half and half, season with salt and pepper to taste and add a couple dashes of hot sauce (we use Frank’s, it’s way better than Tobasco). Serve in bowls with some shredded cheddar cheese and a tablespoon or so of sour cream (or even better; French Onion Dip which was what we had in the fridge). Best soup we’ve had in many months…and it all disappeared.

Since I don’t have any good photos from the past couple of days to post; here’s a Red Shouldered Hawk close up from when we were in Sarasota last month. Neil really likes the action shot with her screaming and taking off from her perch…she was only about 30 feet or so awry from us when he took this. Hopefully we’ll spot some Harris Hawks or Northern Harriers which are common around these parts on our hike on Friday.

Cyas.

Today was a really excellent day. After coffee and English muffins we headed off for Mason, Texas which is about 100 miles west of our location in Georgetown. The attraction was the county square (pretty cool), the Art Walk (pretty bleak), lunch at the Square Plate Cafe (truly excellent), the Mason Wildflower Drive (again pretty bleak) and the Llano Fiddle Fest competition (surprisingly good actually).

Here’s a picture of the Mason Country courthouse and then a Ford pickup we found parked across the street. I don’t think it’s got enough oomph to replace BAT for pulling the house.

After that we had lunch at the Square Plate Cafe. Connie had avocado stuffed with chicken salad (all homemade) and Neil had a grilled chicken breast sandwich (again, fresh made from a real chicken breast and not one of those frozen, processed, chopped, sliced, pressed things. We also had iced tea and it had no sugar…which means that by Bryan’s (their human kid) definition we are no longer in the South. Neil thinks that Texas really isn’t part of the South anyway…it was part of the Confederacy but definitely not a Southern state. 

After lunch we headed over to Fort Mason; the original settlement here in 1851 to protect the frontier. We got a nice shot from the base of the ridge in front of the fort of the reconstructed officer’s quarters.

Connie took a couple of the inside but they were through plexiglass and a bit distorted so I’m not going to post them here. Heading off on the Wildflower drive we saw these nice pink flowers along with more Texas Bluebonnets.

We also saw some flowers Connie called Indian Paintbrushes but they weren’t where we could park safely to get a picture…so we headed for our final fun stop of the day; the town of Llano to partake of the Llano Fiddle Fest which is an annual fiddle player competition. We grabbed a picture of the Llano Lantex Arts Center where the Festival is held.

Once we got inside we watched and heard the 19-45 year old segment of the competition; there were about 8 or 9 competitors total. Here are some shots we got of the two players that ended up 1st and 3rd place; we thought the local Llano resident was better but obviously the judges had different taste in fiddle playing than we do. The 2nd place guy we didn’t get a picture of but he suffered an injury partway through his set (his first finger cramped and he couldn’t move it on the strings)…but he eventually got it sorted out and came back to finish playing.

With that we headed home with a brief stop at Walmart to pick up a pizza for dinner and a few groceries that we needed. Dinner was a Meat Trio Pizza with some leftover pineapple chunks from last night’s Chicken Quesadilla…along with a couple of Newcastle beers.

Tomorrow is Mass at Saint Helens and I don’t know what else. Monday is another workday in the morning and then I think Connie has some fun stuff for the afternoon.

Cyas.

Thank goodness; it was finally a decently warm day with some sunshine. Connie did a bunch of work in the morning while Neil paid some bills (hey, even though we live pretty much everywhere the normal day to day stuff keeps going on) and then went on a bike ride down to Georgetown and through the campus of Southwestern University. Connie had a braunschweiger sandwich (essentially liver pate; quite revolting stuff actually) while Neil had a hard boiled egg and a piece of cheese. After that we just lazed around in the afternoon although we did get out and take a few pictures around Eastview RV Ranch.

First up was the field behind the park which is full of Texas Bluebonnets; here is both a wide and close up view.

The flowers aren’t very big but are a pretty brilliant shade of Royal Blue. She also got a shot of the cows in the field on the other side of the park

and between the two of them were able to identify the large black birds they’ve been seeing (with the really strange songs) as Great Tailed Grackels. I’ll get Neil to get a picture of them to add later but the one Connie took with her iPhone was just a little black dot.

Neil got out and took a picture of our site 43 here at the park. This was taken with his iPhone using an app called ProHDR which takes those High Dynamic Range photos but instead of having to process them afterwards the iPhone app does all the work for you. He just needed to crop it to the right dimensions and do a slight bit of touchup in Aperture before posting.

These old people pulled in to the left of the rig this afternoon…we could tell right off that they’re the complainer type. They also showed a complete disregard of the hazards of cross contamination as they hooked up their sewer hose and fresh water hose at the same time…no gloves, no Clorox spray to sterilize the water spigot, touching sewer and fresh hose one after the other…yuk. We’ve noticed a lot of RVers have non-specific stomach complaints…after watching the way the vast majority of them hook up their utilities we can easily understand why…what with poop germs getting transferred from the sewer hose to their hands to the fresh water hose and then to food since none of them wash their hands afterwards it’s not surprising.

We practice good hygiene; the fresh water hose gets hooked up first and then the sewer hose…for which Neil wears gloves and Connie handles opening things and spraying with our outside hose. Afterwards; a little hand sanitizer from the bottle we keep out in the utility bay and then we wash our hands when we get back in. Unhooking is the opposite order; fresh water hose first and then the sewer hose. It ain’t rocket science but most people have no clue about cross contamination.

That’s about it for today; we’ve got a trip scheduled tomorrow; about 100 miles west to a place named Mason for an art festival then there’s a wildflower drive on the way back and a stop at Llano, Texas for the Open Fiddle Contest. No admission and we ought to hear some pretty good fiddle players. I’ll be sure to take some photos to put up.

Cyas.

Well, we finally got a day of decent weather here in Georgetown…although this morning it didn’t really look like it would be. We got up and Connie did some work while Neil ran a load of laundry. After that he checked the tire that was low pressure the other day and it was low again; so he called Progressive and they sent a tech out to change the tire. Neil took it to a local dealer named Whitestone Tire and they found a screw in the tire which was causing the leak. They dismounted the tire from the wheel, patched it on the inside, and remounted it. Neil brought it home and left it off for a day or so to verify it’s holding pressure. Once that’s verified he’ll call Progressive to come back out and swap the spare off and the normal tire back on.

By that time the weather had started to clear a bit so we decided to go ahead and drive down to downtown Austin and have a hike around Lady Bird Johnson Lake. By the time we got there the sun had come out and we had a pretty decent urban hike of about 4 miles around the lake. After that it was about 1630 so we went to Fado Irish Pub right near where we parked the car and had dinner and some pints o’ Guinness. We then came home, had a shower and have nothing planned for the rest of the evening.

Wild life on our hike was kinda scarce; lots of runners and bikers. We did spot a few things though…some coots on the lake

and a squirrel up in a tree over the path

Finally, right before the end of the hike we saw these turtles sunning them selves on a rock

and some Texas Bluebonnet flowers…Connie really liked these.

It was still pretty cool through; we had a sweatshirt on and our Scottevests and were alternately cool and too warm depending on whether we were in the sun or not. It’s supposed to stay clear for the next 4 or 5 days and also warm up into the mid 70’s so maybe we’ll have some nice weather to do more fun stuff.

Cyas.

We got up early this morning at 0530, had some coffee; then finished packing up and hit the road before 0800. After a quick stop at Krispy Kreme for some Original Glazed we continued up Highway 59 and hopped on I-10. Twenty minutes later we were through the tunnel at Mobile and we just drove all day.

The scenery was pretty bland; here’s a sample.

We arrived at the Frog City RV Park in Duson, Louisiana about 1445, set up and then headed out to Prejeans for dinner; Connie had a Tuna steak and Neil had crab cakes with crawfish sauce and the blackened shrimp that came with Connie’s Tuna since she can’t eat them.  Here’s a shot of our site 14 at Frog City; we paid $20.17 for the night with our Passport America discount.

Tomorrow we’ll do it all again but should be on the road more quickly; we have left over Orange Cinnamon Rolls from yesterday for breakfast and less breakdown of the campsite. Since this is a pull through site, we stayed hitched up and only hooked up electricity and water and popped the slides out along with putting the jacks down to take the weight off of BAT. We should be out of here 20 minutes after we start breaking camp. We’ve got a longer drive tomorrow by about 50 miles or so but should still arrive in Georgetown, Texas outside of Austin before 1600. Hopefully the road will be better tomorrow…I-10 in Louisiana has been really rough so far although once we got west of Baton Rouge the last 20 miles or so were decent…all of us hope that continues.

Cyas.