June 6-12 Picked Up our New Trailer

We picked up our new trailer Tuesday. The folks at Fun Town in Conroe did a really good job of walking us thru everything and we checked all the systems out before we left. They installed the stabilizer hitch on the truck and trailer.  It pulled fine on the way home. We didn't get home untill about 5:30 that evening. We were tired so I just left trailer hooked up overnight.  Wednesday morning I set it up beside the old Cardinal to start transferring items. Since I only have one rv plug i put the generator on our new trailer to run AC.  I"m keeping the Cardinal for my deer lease trailer so we only had to move the things we needed.  Its a little thing but having two doors make it much easier to load items.  We don"t have the storage we had before but it seems to have enough.  We leave Sunday for Lake Waco. That will be a nice test run.  The trailer is set up for cable and air tv. I will have to install a port for satellite tv as it will not work with existing cable because of the splitters and amplifier.  You would think that all trailers now would be satellite ready. So far no other surprises.

Made it home

Time to transfer items to new trailer

Front Kitchen

Living Room

Stocking the kitchen

Living room ready

Bedroom ready

May 24- June 6 Its getting Better for Us

We have a lull before our next trip.  We continue to do projects around the house and Susan has also been teaching some sewing classes at a quilt shop. I checked my deer cam in the pasture , not as many deer coming now but the does that are coming all have little ones with them. I did go to the deer lease one day with Kevin. We moved our old trailers to the new camp area. Our plans are to tear them down and build little cabins on the frame. We also moved one deer stand, it is easy when you have forks on your bucket. We would have done more but the tractor developed a hydraulic leak. When I got home I was able to tighten it up a little and stopped the leak. Sometime in the near future I need to change hydraulic filter and fluid.  I put the brush hog on and mowed all the pasture in between rainstorms. We had one really intense storm with 2.5 inches in 20 minutes with tornado warnings.  While it was was wet I made about 10 lbs of deer sausage.  I also bought a new generator for the house since hurricane season is close. It will run my Rv and the house freezers and refrigerator.  It also has a 220 outlet so I can run my water well, you just can"t do 110v and 220V at the same time.  Its too heavy for me to use when traveling so I will need to get something smaller for boondocking. I finally decided to clean the roof on the RV. I put my pressure washers and hose in front end loader and lifted it as high as it goes. I climbed the ladder on roof and was able to reach hose and to work I went. It needed it bad and I found a few places that I need to patch.  I"m getting old and may have to hire this out in the future but not yet. That evening we were talking about downsizing again so I got on the internet and went shopping,  I found 4 trailers I liked and wanted to go look at.  On Saturday we went to Fun Town RV in Conroe as they had 3 of the ones I liked in inventory.  We ruled one of the three out pretty quick after walking thru them.  Our salesman said he had another trailer similar to what we were looking for. It was a front V shaped trailer. We had never looked at them before and we really like it. I wanted to downsize to a bumper pull for several reasons. We both no longer wanted stairs from living room to bathroom and to bedroom.  I wanted to reduce the weight and height I pulled, also I wanted the bed of my truck back (no fifth wheel hitch when traveling). We need a nice open floor plan so Susan could create her sewing area.  Its always a compromise when trying to get what you want with two folks. We went back and forth over two good floor plans and Susan finally picked the V nose.  All our boxes were checked , bumper pull (no inside stairs), my dry weight went from 11,500 lbs to 7100 lbs.  My height went from 12 ft 7 in to 11 fr 1 in.  Susan has a booth dinette to set up her sewing area and will be out of the way.  Our length is 34 ft so its actually a foot longer than our fifth wheel. While I will miss the pulling ease of the Fifth wheel we don"t travel near the hours in a day anymore so the other benefits greatly outweigh that.  Anyway we pick it up on Tuesday and leave Sunday for Lake Waco. That should be a nice little trip to find the bugs . We actually have several short trips this summer before taking a month long trip in September.

This guy crossed 563 in front of me.

May 14-23 Blanco State Park

I waited till Friday before moving the trailer up by the house.  I just wanted to be sure we were not going to be cancelled. We are only going to be gone a week so we didn"t need to load a lot. We finally got on the road Monday about 8:00.  We drove thru Houston and the traffic was still fairly light. We stopped for brunch in Shulenburg. Normally we would eat at Franks but it closed its doors last year so we were sad as it was good food and had parking for trucks and trailers. This time we ate at Oakridge Smokehouse. They have just opened back up for business. We were able to find a spot for our truck and trailer to park and there was a Stripes gas station on our way out to fill up. We arrived at Blanco State Park about 1:00 pm.  We checked in and the Lady Rangers said we were the first campers to arrive since they reopened.  We got to our site and set up.  The only issue I had was getting a satellite signal for our tv, finally had to put our tailgater on the rv roof.  We just chilled the rest of the day. Tuesday morning we ran a few errands and drove a couple of back roads, We floated in the river and it was nice because it had warmed up to about 96.   This evening while were sitting out the park hosts came by and visiited. They are from Wisconsin and have been here for the winter. They have the rest of the month and are headed back for the summer.  Wednesday morning we went to my favorite breakfast place, The Chess Club. It was a nice morning so we ate outside. We had planned to visit some winerys but they are all still closed to tasting. They are supposed to start opening up Friday. We decided to drive River Road to Gruene.  the Guadalupe is a little low but so pretty. We came back home and just chilled. Susan"s allergies were bad so we didn"t do much else. Two more trailers came in today so we now have 4 campers now.  For supper we just picked up a pizza from the Blanco Pizza Co. Thursday morning I cooked a little breakfast outside. We decided to take a little drive thru the countryside. They have had enough rain so the countryside is green. There have been several trailers pulling in to the park today. Its suppossed to be full this weekend.  We sat with two of our neighbors this evening and just visited. One couple was from Houston and the other from Waco.  It was a really nice evening. We have caught great weather all week. Tomorrow we will head home. Friday morning we pulled out about 8:30.  I took 290 home. The traffic was light and it was an easy drive. We stopped in Chappel Hill and had a bbq sandwich for an early lunch. We arrived home about 1:00 pm. We both took a little nap and then unloaded a few things from the trailer.  I mowed the front and back yard and will finish the rest tomorrow. Our next trip is in June to Lake Waco.

Our campsite

At 16 1/2  Maggie is content to just watch

Susan is sewing and watching Fox news

Blanco river inside park

Low water crossing to campsites

Blanco river inside park

Breakfast at the Chess Club

The chickens came for breakfast

Cooking breakfast

Usually see a lot of deer but only one or two this year from our site

Made it home

May 1-14 A Better Month So Far

A few business"s have been allowed to open up and finally the State Parks are open for camping starting on the 18 IF you already had reservations, which we have.  This virus is going to be around, hope for a vaccine but otherwise we just have to deal with it.  Susan got a notice that her Quilt retreat in late July has been cancelled.  COE parks have not reopened and we have trips planned in June and July.  Hoping they realize its just as safe to camp as it is to get a tattoo or go to a liquor store.  We had a big outing the first of May as I carried Susan to Hobby Lobby in Beaumont. She also has been able to go to a few quilt shops that have opened. One of them has set her up to teach a few classes.  Susan also got tested for covid.  It took 7 days to get the results which were negative.  One day I went with Little John to help him put up a deer stand on his second deer lease. It went pretty well using the tractor.  This last weekend Kevin rented a skid steer and I took it to the deer lease. He cleared out a camp area, made a new creek crossing, and worked on some roads and trails. He did throw a track off but we got it back on, good thing he was there cause i would have never figured out how to do that. We got a lot of work done and it was great weather.  Yesterday I ran back up there and brought my Ranger home .  I got the yard mowed because they are predicting a lot of rain. I need to move trailer up to the house so we can load as we leave Monday for at least 5 days. We also went to Kristi"s for supper one evening.  Since there are no school award ceremonies , Teachers were making home visits to hand out awards.  Ashley got the "Student Athlete of the Year" for the 8th Grade. We are very proud of her and she worked hard to achieve this. She will be a freshman next year.

Ashley

10 ft base

Little John 

my part done

New Pry Bar

Cleaning it up

New Camp area

Lots of thinking going on

New Creek Crossing

April 2020 A Long Month

All of our reservations got cancelled for camping.   It seems you somehow put other people at risk when your camping, places you go to get away from crowds. You are much safer to go to liquor stores , wally world and other big box stores.  While there are places which have issues, where I live and where I was headed don"t.   As of today in Liberty County  Population 80,000  Total cases 39  Deaths 1 .  Where I was headed  Comal County  Population 156,000  Total cases 54  Deaths 1  ,  San Patrico County  Population  67,000   Total cases 13  Deaths 0.   Take all the rhetoric away and do the math.  These numbers came from the Texas Health and Human Services.  We thought about going to some of our favorite boondocking places in Wyoming or Colorado but its still too dang cold up there.  Enough of that cause I can"t change it.   On a brighter note I was able to lease the 738 acres from our deer lease that was not sold.  We did lose our main camp area so we will have to make a new camp and will not have electricity nor water. Also I had to reduce our membership down. I just went by seniority to fill the spots.  Its going to be different but Mack Creek Hunting Club still exists on a much smaller scale.                                                                                                                                                                               We hope May is a better month. Susan has had a quilt retreat cancelled the first week of May. At this time our reservations at Blanco State Park starting the 17 have not been cancelled. We will just see.

March 15-March 31 I'm Glad March is Over

March was not a good month for me, I had to buy a new phone, truck and a mower. Then the covid-19 showed up and things turned crazy.  It has not really affected us much except all my camping reservations for COE parks have been cancelled thru May.  So far the Texas State Parks are still open for camping. They have closed group faciltiles, visitor centers and the headquarters.  You have to make your reservations online and they are not taking payments at the gate.  We have rearranged our trips to state parks.  Typically even in normal times we have very little contact with people at our destinations, You have to pre-register online and then print your Car Pass for your vehicle, that way you have no contact coming in thru the gate.    Anyway as I said before I had to get a new mower. I cratered my deck on my John Deere lawn tractor as I hit a pipe .  I went and bought a Kubota zero turn mower.  I never thought I would pay so much for a machine just to cut grass, but I love it.  It is so much more comfortable and faster. I can mow everything at one time and my back doesn't hurt.  Its finally drying out and greening up here. Susan has started sanding and painting bathroom cabinets. She also is making masks for the nursing home in Liberty, they loved the ones she made for them.  I got the trailer washed and doing some small repairs, I had to get new bed rails in my truck for the fifth wheel hitch so we are just about ready to roll. I check my camera on my pasture deer feeder about every two weeks. I guess with all the new growth coming in the deer have slowed down coming to feed. The coons still make it every night.

These guys are getting fat

Washing the trailer

A nice ride

Painting cabinets