September,October, 2016 Mack Creek 50th Anniversery

I haven't posted any blogs since we got home. For Labor Day we went to Riverside at the lake and spent four days. When we left there I took the trailer and set it up at the deer lease. It was hot most of Sept and Oct. I split time between the deer lease and home. Mackenna made the Jr high volleyball team and we spent Thursday nights watching her along with  a couple of weekend tournaments. We also spent a weekend at Toledo Bend with John and Jennifer. We kept the twins while they fished in a couples tournament. The next week Susan gave  a combo party, birthday for Lavonna & Ladonna , retirement for Rick Gollnisch.  The next weekend we had a Mack Creek 50th Anniversary Party. My Dad started our deer lease 50 years ago in 1966. We had lots of folks come out. Eddie and David Bird cooked some pulled pork and we had a feast. We had four generations represented on the Taylor/Malone side. We are sure hoping for some rain and cooler weather. Susan has been sewing everyday, she does miss her sewing room when we are gone all  summer.

Chilling at the Lake

Riverside

Mackenna's volleyball game

John Callahan, Barbra Taylor, Naomi Taylor, Myrtle Taylor, Kenneth Taylor, Jo Ann Malone

Mack Creek 50 Th Anniversary

Barbra,Jennifer,Susan, Mom

Luke in back, Holli and Peyton in front

Ashley, Luke, Peyton, Mackenna, Sammi

John

Holli, A new hairdo

The twins at Toledo Bend

Party time

Party time

Peyton Holli

August 20, 2016 Home Again

We got an early start this morning. I wasn't in any hurry but when Maggie and I took our morning walk it started misting on us. I looked at the radar and we had some thunderstorm's headed toward us.  I woke Susan up and we finished hooking up and were on the road by 7:30 am. We had an easy drive and stopped to eat some breakfast in Columbus. We made it home a little after noon. The traffic thru Houston was a lot heavier than I expected but really wasn't bad. I just haven't been in much traffic for 3 months. Everything was certainly green when we got home.  The good thing about a trailer is you don't have to unload everything when you get home. You can space it out so it doesn't seem so much.  Over all, we had a good trip this summer but it does feel good to be home. We did 3 states Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico. We tried to stay 7 days at each stop and then move only about 4 hrs to a new location. We did a lot of dispersed camping and USFS camping. We did 5 straight weeks of living off of our generator and having to conserve water. I find it hard to stay in rv parks anymore We put about 7700 miles on our truck this trip which is the least amount we have done in 5 years. We are trying to stay longer in one location and not move quite as much. Now that we are home my blog will be very sporadic.

  

August 19, 2016 A Drag of a Day

Today was a lot like yesterday. We got up and went to eat breakfast at the Blanco Bowling & Café. Its a bowling alley and a café together. They have good food and you can bowl if you want. Neither one of us felt real good so went back to the trailer and rested all day. Maggie and I took a couple of walks. For supper I called in an order of BBQ at "The Old 300". It has great BBQ and should be on your list of places to eat around here. We decided to head on home tomorrow. We hope all our ailments will heal  quickly.

August 18, 2016 Blanco State Park

I must have really been tired because I slept till 7:00 am. That's almost unheard of. One other thing is that with the cloud cover it was still pretty dark. I have been used to it being daylight between 5:30 and 6:00 up in the mountains. I guess being farther north and the time zone makes a big difference. Anyway it did feel kind of nice not to have to put long pants and a jacket on 
to take Maggie for our morning walk. Susan slept till 8 and we just lounged around. We decided to get cleaned up and go to our favorite breakfast place in Blanco, it's called "The Chess Club".  Its an old house which has been converted to a café for breakfast and lunch.  They have very reasonable prices and should not be passed up. After breakfast I dropped Susan off at a quilt shop and I went home. When she was finished she called me and I picked her up. We then decided to drive up to Inks Lake State Park and look around, We have never camped there before, Its a huge park and we found several lakeside sites we would stay in. I bet weekends there would be overflowing with folks. We stopped and had lunch in Burnet and headed back home. We did get a little misting rain but it quit. I cooked a pot of chili outside and we were able to sit out for awhile. With the cloud cover the temp only got to about 86 so with a slight breeze it was ok. We saw a few deer feeding along the fence line near us.  I had a good day with no pain but Susan had allergies or maybe coming down with a cold. I guess we will know tomorrow,

A Quiet Morning along the river

The Chess Club

Our shady campsite

August 16,17 2016 Heading to Blanco State Park

We pulled out at 7:00 am heading back to Texas. We stopped in Clayton NM and ate breakfast. Our next stop was in Amarillo to fuel back up. We ate lunch in Plainview Tx. We finally stopped in  Sweetwater for the night. We made a little over 500 miles for the day.  I really don't like to drive that far in one day anymore  but there is not a lot to see in between.  We just had sandwiches as we didn't  want to go anywhere, watched tv and went to bed.....                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      About 2:15 am I woke up with a kidney stone attack.   Its the first one I have had in almost 5 years. it lasted till about 5 and I went back to sleep. Woke up about 5:45 and we both got up. We got on the road about 7.  We fueled up and I got a pump that I thought had kidney stones. It took almost 15 minutes to fill my tank. We ran into a heavy fog for the first 30 miles. We ate breakfast in Mason Tx. We made it to Blanco State Park and got set up by 12:30. I didn't have much pain but had nausea at times. We have been surprised  with the low temperatures in Texas. Lots of rain all around with clouds so we have been in the low 80's.  We stayed at camp and I took a long nap.  For supper I cooked some pork ribs and asparagus on my little smoker. It drizzled and rained most of evening. We decided to  go to DQ and get some ice cream.

.I told Susan if I have to suffer with kidney stones then I need a treat.   We will decide tomorrow if we stay or go on home... ...     

                                                                            Blanco State Park  

August 15 2016 A Cold Morning and a Rainy Evening

It was a cold morning with the temperature at 39 and feeling like 36. We sure had the furnace running when I got up. Maggie and I went for a walk and the lake was fogged in. We had 4 mule deer feeding by our trailer. About 10 we left and took another day trip. The first road we took turned into a very rough bumpy narrow road. It was 10 miles over the pass I and could only manage 6 miles per hour. After about a mile we turned around and went a different way. We stopped at Coyote State park and looked around. Its not a place we would ever stay. We headed back to the trailer for the evening. It started raining early and the wind blowed so we couldn't sit outside. The forecast for the rest of the week was rain ever day. We talked it over and decided to head back to Texas. We are going to Blanco State Park for a few days. We don't know where we will stop tomorrow night.

August 14, 2016 Our Last Move and the Rio Grande Gorge

We got up this morning and rain was over but it was pretty cool around 43. We got the trailer ready to move one more time. I did't think we could get into our site before we headed out for the day but we drove by and checked. Nope they were still there.  We headed out for a short day trip. We drove thru Red River and on to Questa. We were looking for the Wild Waters Recreation Area. Its northwest of Questa and the Rio Gorge runs thru it. They have 5 small campgrounds along the rim and we found a couple of sites we liked.  There are several trails which lead to the river. Only problem I see are no elevators back up . We headed back to camp. I decided to go ahead and hook up the trailer and move as it was looking like rain.  It was about 1:30 , of course the folks on our site were still there and had made no move to start packing up. They had till 2:00 which is checkout time. I stopped and talked to them to make sure they knew that,  We went back to the parking lot and had lunch. We pulled around at 2 as they were headed out. I got the trailer set up and now I don't have to move for 7 days when we start heading back to Texas. Our new neighbors are from Hunt, Texas and we talked with them for awhile. We had a really nice evening. It m isted for just a little while and then we had a double rainbow. The wind layed and we stayed out till about 9:30 pm.