It’s finally that time of the year, when we put up the outside lights, hang stockings on the electric fireplace, and wrap hugely expensive and exquisite presents that we’ve bought for our wives. Of course, nothing portrays the festive spirit of the season like a beautifully decorated leg lamp, and ours took center stage in our window complete with ornaments and a stocking cap. I am, as you can imagine, the envy of all of the men in the park. The women, not so much. Brenda’s been busy baking cookies, cakes, and cheesecakes, while I’ve been doing my part by sampling and offering important suggestions (more chocolate!). It’s a fun time,and we’ve been kept busy as we share some of our favorite places with our next-door friends Rollie and Carol. We took them on a shopping trip to Seguin to visit the Pape Pecan House, where you can buy any of six varieties of pecans (that’s pee-cans here in Texas), along with all types of nuts, spices, and jams. From there, we headed for Buc-ees’s, a beehive of activity along I-10 where we could load up on some delicious Kolache, filled with poppyseed, (my favorite), cream cheese, and various fruits. Buc-ee’s is a phenomenon, always packed with people, and with the most palatial bathrooms you’ll ever find at a roadside convenience store. Read about it here.
We decided a road trip North was in order, so off we went – first stop Blanco, where we had lunch at the bowling alley cafe that serves great burgers, fresh-cut fries, and best of all, pies with 6” of meringue. Don’t believe me? See here. 
Mightily fortified, we continued on to the LBJ Ranch, the “Western White House” during the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. An interesting place to visit, the ranch is now open to self-guided tours instead of the former bus tours, and you can now tour some of the rooms in the house itself. It’s a beautiful home, striking in the fact that it’s not at all pretentious, just a very comfortable and warm home. 
Outside, it was a little disturbing to see where Rudolph ended up during last year’s Christmas Eve deliveries – judging by his position on the tree he must have been going pretty fast when he overshot the roof and punched through this large oak. Don’t bring the kids here.
We always stop at Luckenbach when we’re in the area, and this time the little, very little, town was jumping in anticipation of the evening’s Cowboy Ball. It’s such an interesting place, and this time we watched as an informal sing-along began next to a warming fire. 
Brenda surprised us all by volunteering to ride a local longhorn steer (it’s real, folks!), and by the look on it’s face it seems to be thinking “how much pie did this woman eat, anyway?”.
We continued on for a quick shopping visit to Fredericksburg, then headed back towards home, stopping at Johnson City to experience the lights in the local park. It’s an amazing scene, every tree is covered with thousands of lights, and they claim over a million lights total. Walking through the park is a magical experience we’ll remember for a long time.
Back home in the park, we also put on a light show, although on a much smaller scale. Brenda and I hope your Christmas lived up to all your dreams and that your new year starts on a positive and happy note. We’ll see you next year!
The Christmas season is upon us, and we’ve been taking advantage of the shopping, dining, and entertainment available in the area. Here in New
Braunfels, we visited
the Wassailfest, an annual event held in the city square. It was a beautiful, warm night, and the Christmas lighting and decorations, especially at the courthouse and gazebo on the square, were magical.
We checked into the Wassailfest booth, where we picked up a map of the many Wassail-dispensing tables. Provided by merchants and organizations, each Wassail was given a score and then tallied to determine the festival’s best. We had fun wandering around with the crowds, sampling Wassail and checking out the stores. 
For those who haven’t tried it, Wassail (at this festival), is hot spiced cider, and each of the 40 or so booths offered a different variation. After a while, it became difficult to assign points on the voting sheet since they all began to taste the same – but then came #38, with the usual spices plus RUM! It quickly became our number one favorite; too bad they dolled it out in little 2-ounce cups. All in all, it was a great night with friends, festival food, and wassail – just the right start to the holidays!
In a world of chain restaurants with walls full of fake memorabilia, we’re always in search of a unique dining experience. We certainly found one this weekend, when with our friends Rollie and Carol, we visited Casbeer’s at the Church for their once-monthly Gospel Brunch. Casbeer’s is housed in a 100-year old former Methodist church, complete with pressed tin ceilings and European-style Tiffany stained glass. The downstairs is now the restaurant and bar, and the sanctuary, complete with original pews, is now the music area. We first visited Casbeer’s on Thanksgiving, where we had a great buffet followed by dessert while sitting in a pew and watching the movie “Alice’s Restaurant”. What could be more fitting for a Thanksgiving afternoon? And afterward,we didn’t even have to take out the garbage! (you have to remember the song or movie to understand this).
This visit, we were treated to a buffet brunch, with all of the standard items plus chorizo and eggs, carne asada, and enchiladas. 
The food was delicious, but the intriguing thing about this restaurant is that everyone is amazingly friendly, and you’d think it was a reunion the way that complete strangers start talking to one another – maybe it’s the “spiritual” environment. 
We had a leisurely meal, with a second trip (the one for dessert doesn’t count), and then settled back for the “Gospel” part of the brunch, provided by Miss Neesie and the Earfood Gospel Orchestra. 
What a surprise – not just a couple of performers, but a truly professional group – three horns, two guitars, an accordion, drummer, and of course, Miss Neesie, who amazed us with her wonderfully bluesy, throaty voice. 
We sang along, clapped, and generally just had a great time – after all, how can you beat a great meal, great friends, and outstanding music? Sure beats a visit to Applebee’s.
Brenda and I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a truly happy and memorable Christmas season! May you have good health, great fun, and a tailwind in your travels!
Leaving Texarkana, we decided to take the long route to our winter home in the San Antonio area, heading West between Austin and Dallas towards the West Texas town of Fort Davis. Our trip took us through some interesting and very pretty areas; at this time of year the trees still had multi-colored leaves and the weather was cool at night but pleasant during the day. 
We stopped at Pittsburg, a small town of less than 5000 with an interesting museum that we found on the Roadside America web site. While the museum houses a lot of interesting displays of the area’s history, our interest w
as in seeing the Ezekiel Airship, which area residents claim flew two years before the Wright brothers airplane. It’s an extremely well-done exhibit, with a recreation of the airship and a professional video that documents how the Reverend Cannon, a Baptist minister, somehow interpreted the biblical book of Ezekiel into a method of building an airplane. Although it’s possible that it actually flew, we’ll never really know, which is just as well, since we don’t need another state arguing with Ohio (“Birthplace of Aviation”) and North Carolina (“First in Flight”).
From Pittsburg, we traveled to Gun Barrel City, where we spent the night purely because of the really cool name, which was a good thing, because there wasn’t anything really interesting here. Although some references say that the name comes from Gun Barrel Lane, a place where gangsters hung out, it’s more likely that it was named because Gun Barrel Lane was a straight road that acted as a shortcut between the two major towns in the area. Some day we’ll have to visit Cut and Shoot, a town which has a more colorful explanation for it’s name.
Our next stop was San Angelo, where we stayed at the Goodfellow AFB recreation area. Goodfellow is a strange Air Force Base; there’s no runway or aircraft, just a training center. But the recreation area had a great campground, and San Angelo is a nice town, although it’s fairly isolated and far from any other large population center.
Our next stop was a five-day stay at Davis Mountains State Park, outside Fort Davis. We’ve visited here before, and this summer, after telling a neighboring RVer how much we enjoyed the area, we decided to make another visit. Davis Mountains SP is one of our favorites, set in a rocky canyon with beautiful 
scenery, wildlife, and great facilities. We enjoyed watching the deer wander through the campground, the coyotes howling in the distance, and were even treated to a javelina meandering around. Fort Davis is a small, intriguing town with an historic hotel, the Limpia, built in 1912 and beautifully restored. We enjoyed revisiting Nel’s Coffee Shop, a local gathering place with great food that we 
highlighted on our last visit in March 2009, and which now has this amusing sign out front.
The Fort Davis National Historic Site is always worth a visit; it’s an extensive restoration of a frontier Calvary post and always has something new to see.
The mountains here remind us of New Mexico or Arizona, and there’s a loop drive that takes you through the mountains and past the McDonald Observatory, a great place to visit or just have lunch at the StarDate Café and enjoy the view. There are self-guided tours, formal tours, and evening “star parties”, all of which are fun and educational; but wear a sweater, the observatory is at 6000’ and it gets very cool at night.
We always make a visit to Alpine, the shopping and dining hub of the area. During our visit, the town was hosting the annual “Art Walk”, with all of the 20+ galleries open and vendors set up on the street corners. It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed strolling the sidewalks and window shopping.
No visit to the area would be complete without a visit to Marfa and an attempt to view the “Mystery Lights”. The town has 
built a nice viewing area, and Brenda and I settled in after sunset with our lawn chairs and binoculars in hope of seeing these mysterious lights, first reported in the 1800s. We gave it a couple of hours, but alas, the mystery lights remain a mystery to us, but we enjoyed the night sky and listening to people excitedly identifying distant car lights as they appeared over the far horizon as the “mystery” lights. 
Marfa is also home to a truly great liquor store – the “El Cheapo” store. There’s a certain kind of Texas sophistication about accompanying a dinner of chicken fried steak with a bottle of fine wine purchased at “El Cheapo”.
We decided on this trip to take a drive to Presidio, a small town on the border. When we thought of the name “Presidio”, our minds conjured up the image of white-stucco houses, palm trees, green grass….kind of like the California Presidio. Whoops. Think instead of a tired looking, dusty town and a Dollar General store, with a gravel parking lot filled with decades old cars and pickup trucks. Sadly, Presidio turned out to be rather, well, sad. 
But, down the road a bit we discovered Fort Leaton, a restored fort that was actually a fortified home, complete with an interesting history of violence, murder
, betrayal, and other interesting stuff. It’s an impressive place, with restored rooms, large courtyards, and this huge cart (Brenda wants one for her shopping trips to Kohls). The drive along river road is interesting; you can literally throw a rock across the border at many points, and the bright green vegetation along the river is stark contrast to the dry hills surrounding the area. On the way back to Fort Davis, we stopped at the ghost town of Shafter, once a thriving silver mining town but now an area of ruins, a few homes, and an interesting cemetery. 
Back at Fort Davis, we were reminded to be careful when hiking the area’s trails when we came across this good-sized rattlesnake in the overlook parking lot. Kind of spooky just how well he blends into the parking lot surface, which is similar to the color of the surrounding rocks. It was neat seeing this large snake, although as a result I’m getting a bit weary having to carry Brenda from the car to the coach now that she refuses to walk on the ground.
We’ll be in New Braunfels, our winter home, for the next few months, but stay tuned, we plan on visiting new places and we’ll let you know what we find. We hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving and are meeting all of your shopping goals for Christmas!
As we continued our journey towards Texas, we decided to make a detour and visit the Robinsonville/Tunica Mississippi area, an area we haven’t visited, and one 
Brenda especially was eager to visit. It’s not like we envisioned; instead of one area of casinos, they’re arranged in clusters, or in some cases, by themselves, in an area of flat cotton fields along the Mississippi River. Most of the casinos are owned by the same big names that you’d see in Las Vegas, and we decided to stay at the Sam’s Town RV Casino RV Park (you can click on our review on the left), which turned out to be a very nice park for a reasonable price. Once we were set up, it was time for Brenda to work her magic on the slot machines while I thumbed through catalogs for custom-built Marathon Motor Coaches, anticipating her call to bring the car and help load up all of the money she’d won. Alas, the call never came.
Although we didn’t win at the casinos, we did manage to score a lot of free meals. Between “senior day” coupons, player points, and Brenda’s call to Harrah’s, we grazed for hours at the variety of buffets offered by each casino. Our favorite by far was Paula Deen’s seafood buffet at Harrah’s. Brenda managed to score us a two-for-one coupon, which made the price a bargain. Although I’m not a fan of Paula’s (how many times can you stand the word “Y’all” in one sentence?), many of her famous recipes were available, and we tried to sample them all. For me, I had trouble getting past the “Uncle Bubba’s” seafood bar with all of the oysters, shrimp, and crab, but managed to sample other items and still leave room for the dessert bar and the best blueberry pie I’ve ever had. Strangely, there was an area called the “salad bar” with beautifully stacked healthy stuff – untouched and without anyone coming within 10 feet. Who’d want salad with all of this butter-drenched, fried good stuff available? Not us, for sure.
All in all, the casinos were interesting. Much like the ones in Las Vegas, but a bit smaller, and because of the time of year and economy, much less crowded. The Harrah’s complex is particularly impressive, with it’s extensive facilities that include a convention center, event center, RV park, golf course, pools, children’s arcade, and more. But aside from the casinos, this is a largely rural area, and the nearest shopping is over 30 miles away in the Memphis suburbs.
We did manage a bit of culture on our visit when we stopped at the Tunica Riverpark and Mississippi River Museum. 
We expected the usual small-town type of museum, and were surprised by the beauty of the buildings and the extensive museum collection. Besides the exhibits, there were aquariums, videos, and exceptional art work to view, and we even watched a riverboat make it’s 
way upstream. This was a place where not only the exhibits, but the facility itself were enjoyable to tour. If you’re in the area, do yourself a favor and drop by.
Leaving Mississippi, we traveled to Little Rock AFB, Arkansas to spend a day stocking up at the base commissary and to visit friends that we hadn’t seen since 1978. We had a great time reminiscing about our time together at England AFB, LA and catching up on each other’s lives since. From there, we headed toward Texarkana intending to stay at a state park just inside Texas. Unfortunately, as we approached Texarkana, red lights and alarms in the coach indicated a severe engine overheat condition, and since we were near 
an exit with an RV Park, we pulled in for the night. The next day we watched as our “home” was towed off to the local Freightliner service facility where after three days of labor and a new fan hub, we were able to hit the road again. I sensed that the cost was going to be bad when, while standing at the service counter, the cashier looked at my bill, opened up the AED (Automated External Defibrillator), and began reviewing the cardiac arrest procedures. It’s a good thing he did, and the good news is that the burn marks on my chest are healing nicely.
Hey, we’re back in Texas and have plans to visit some interesting places, so in the words of Paula Deen, “Y’all come back so Y’all can see where we’ve been without Y’all, OK Y’all?”
As we traveled down I-65, we decided to take a break and spend a day visiting the Mammoth Cave area and Mammoth Cave National Park. We stayed in the town appropriately named Cave City, which is surrounded by caves. Besides Mammoth, there’s Cave Spring Caverns, Cub Run Cave, Diamond Cave, Kentucky 
Down Under, and others. This part of the state is riddled with limestone caves, and for every cave there’s at least 20 souvenir stands and one miniature golf course. While this is a busy place in the summer, it was quiet during our visit, and most of the tourist spots were closed for the winter. We started our visit at the Mammoth Cave National Park visitor center, a modern, well-staffed facility where we pondered over which tour (there are many different types) to take. 
We settled on the discovery tour, which seemed to be a good compromise between what we’d see and the amount of time (1/12 hours). We queued up behind our tour guide Ranger, and started down the path to the cave. We entered the cave through the “natural” entrance, the one discovered when a hunter followed a wounded bear into a large hole in the ground. History doesn’t tell us what was going through this hunter’s mind, but we can assume that following a large, wounded animal with big teeth into a dark hole was not undertaken by the area’s sharpest tack. 
It was a long walk down the stairs and down to the first stop at the “rotunda”, where we stopped to look at the remains of a saltpeter mining operation that dated back to the War of 1812. This area of the cave system is not particularly colorful; there are no rock formations or stalactites or stalagmites, just lots of grey rock – but it is huge! The cave roof soars overhead, and the corridors are easily big enough in most places to drive our motor home through. The Ranger was interesting to listen to, and gave us just enough information to keep us interested without boring the children in the crowd. 
From the rotunda, we toured other corridors and rooms, ending up in a large room that was once used as a hospital. A doctor bought the cave in 1839 and touted the room as a place where the “vapors” would cure tuberculosis, which was at the time was a widespread epidemic. Not surprisingly, the idea didn’t work, and was scrapped when the doctor died of….you guessed it – tuberculosis. 
The cave tour ended with a long climb back up those stairs, then a hike up the hill back to the visitor center. Overall, it was an interesting tour that gave us an appreciation for the size (over 350 miles of caves mapped), and the history of the caves and the area.
After leaving the visitor center, we decided to tour the rest of the park. We came around a corner and 
unexpectedly ran into a river without a bridge….but it had a neat little free ferry. We had to wonder how much money it must take to run a ferry across such a small river as opposed to just building a bridge, but heck, it was fun to ride across.
It’s a large National Park, and we enjoyed the beautiful scenery as we drove the back roads, especially a gravel road we found that followed a winding creek through the woods. 
This is a nice place to spend a few days or even a week if you’re interested in exploring caves – you can even go on tours that require you to crawl on hands and knees through small passages while wearing a caver’s hard hat…..not our idea of fun. Besides, all we could think of while we were underground was hoping we wouldn’t become the U.S. version of the Chilean mine disaster!
We’re headed for Mississippi casino country, and I’m already reviewing colors for our new Prevost motorhome that I’m sure Brenda will win enough money for. So come back and see how she’s done!
We’ve been in Ohio for nearly five months, and we’re finally getting ready to head South for warmer territory. We’ve been staying at Wright-Patterson AFB, where 
we started our full timing experience almost five years ago, visiting old friends and revisiting some of the places we enjoyed when we lived here. One such place, not to be missed if you’re visiting the area, is the National Museum of the United States Air Force, a sprawling, exhibit-packed facility that’s one of the best bargains around – it’s free! The main museum is located on the edge of the base and is open to the public, and while there you can sign up for a bus trip on base to visit the Presidential and Research hangers. 
Having visited before, we limited our visit to the areas we’ve enjoyed in the past, because if you visit every exhibit and read every storyboard, you’ll be here for more than a day. Our first stop was to view the “First Flight” Mural. At first glance, it looks like a large painting, but when you look close, you’ll see that it’s made up of small ceramic pictures of different views of the Wright Flyer – 163,000 of them!
Our next stop was at the “Fifty Years of Hope”, the Bob Hope exhibit. For all of us military veterans, Bob Hope was a special kind of hero, and the exhibit does a great job of depicting his long history of entertaining the troops from WWII to Desert Storm.
But the museum is really about airplanes – lots and lots of airplanes. And not just Air Force, there are Army, Navy, and even Russian aircraft on display. We're always struck by the huge cold war bombers. The B-36 pictured here is amazing; it’s huge wingspan and six radial and four jet engines dwarf the aircraft around it – what a great RV it would make! Look close at the picture and you’ll see one of the original wheels that were changed in favor of a number of smaller ones. Six of those would look really great on our coach….
One area that we hadn’t seen was the relatively new Presidential and Research & Development hangers. 
We especially wanted to visit this area since it’s now the location of the XB-70, the amazingly beautiful and HUGE aircraft that incorporated then-unheard of technology to attain speeds in excess of three times the speed of sound (Mach 3). And remember this was 46 years ago! Only two XB-70s were built, and the other aircraft was lost in a midair collision while testing. You can read about it and see the amazing pictures here. Unfortunately, it’s too large, and the hanger was too small, to adequately show more than about 1/3 of this beautiful aircraft.
Next door was the Presidential Aircraft hanger, with aircraft ranging from the first, the C-54 “Sacred Cow” to the VC-137, with the famous tail number of AF 26000, used by Presidents from Kennedy to Clinton. All of the aircraft are open to view, although the Plexiglas walls make it a little tight to maneuver through the cabin areas. I couldn’t resist taking a picture of my personal “First Lady” as she exited the aircraft – kinda neat, being able to stand in the same spot as JFK, Reagan, and others.
We came across this sign while driving around; after all, this is Ohio State University football country. I’ve always considered OSU’s math education suspect (question – how many schools in the Big 10? answer - 11!) Now I have to wonder - was the sign made by an OSU graduate? And what would this say about OSU’s English program? Or maybe OSU is playing the Perdue Chicken employees?
Finally, after five years and almost 200 campground stops, we’ve added a link to our new campground review site, where we rate parks as good, bad, or really ugly. We’ll continue to add to it as we continue our explorations. We’re planning on stopping at some interesting places on our trip back to Texas, so Y’all come back!
It’s finally that time of the year, when we put up the outside lights, hang stockings on the electric fireplace, and wrap hugely expensive and exquisite presents that we’ve bought for our wives. Of course, nothing portrays the festive spirit of the season like a beautifully decorated leg lamp, and ours took center stage in our window complete with ornaments and a stocking cap. I am, as you can imagine, the envy of all of the men in the park. The women, not so much. Brenda’s been busy baking cookies, cakes, and cheesecakes, while I’ve been doing my part by sampling and offering important suggestions (more chocolate!). It’s a fun time,and we’ve been kept busy as we share some of our favorite places with our next-door friends Rollie and Carol. We took them on a shopping trip to Seguin to visit the Pape Pecan House, where you can buy any of six varieties of pecans (that’s pee-cans here in Texas), along with all types of nuts, spices, and jams. From there, we headed for Buc-ees’s, a beehive of activity along I-10 where we could load up on some delicious Kolache, filled with poppyseed, (my favorite), cream cheese, and various fruits. Buc-ee’s is a phenomenon, always packed with people, and with the most palatial bathrooms you’ll ever find at a roadside convenience store. Read about it here. 
Mightily fortified, we continued on to the LBJ Ranch, the “Western White House” during the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. An interesting place to visit, the ranch is now open to self-guided tours instead of the former bus tours, and you can now tour some of the rooms in the house itself. It’s a beautiful home, striking in the fact that it’s not at all pretentious, just a very comfortable and warm home. 
Outside, it was a little disturbing to see where Rudolph ended up during last year’s Christmas Eve deliveries – judging by his position on the tree he must have been going pretty fast when he overshot the roof and punched through this large oak. Don’t bring the kids here. 
We always stop at Luckenbach when we’re in the area, and this time the little, very little, town was jumping in anticipation of the evening’s Cowboy Ball. It’s such an interesting place, and this time we watched as an informal sing-along began next to a warming fire. 
We continued on for a quick shopping visit to Fredericksburg, then headed back towards home, stopping at Johnson City to experience the lights in the local park. It’s an amazing scene, every tree is covered with thousands of lights, and they claim over a million lights total. Walking through the park is a magical experience we’ll remember for a long time. 
Back home in the park, we also put on a light show, although on a much smaller scale. Brenda and I hope your Christmas lived up to all your dreams and that your new year starts on a positive and happy note. We’ll see you next year!
