Balmorhea State Park Texas

When scoping out our route out west I found this hidden gem in the western part of Texas. Balmorhea is a state park that was constructed during the Great Depression by the CCC Civilian Conservation Corps) It has a spring fed swimming pool - and is it ever huge! And Cool! So our campsite looks like we are in the desert and a short walk away is a clear stream heading to the huge pool - which is up to 25 feet deep on one end and has lots of Diving boards.

When we arrived there were about 20 cars at the side of the road as they had closed the park for the day. They close it when it fills to capacity and just let in a car when a car departs. Luckily I had internet and when tto the site where they said all campers can come in so we didn't have to wait. Checked in and hooked up and walked to the Spring fed pool. What a great cool off!

Tombstone was Monday (Throwback Thursday)

Fun in Tombstone - the site of the Shootout at the OK corral. Still a 'live' town with folks working living there etc.  The first guy was a barfly - The sign at the bar said "a bee flies into a bar and comes out buzzed' I read it aloud and the guy who was sitting outside of the bar said "just call me a bee".

Then the next cowboy was standing there at the road block and I asked him something about if he lived there and how he liked it and he replied "what are you doing, Writing a book?" then Jamie asked if that was a real knife he had and he unsheathed it and slammed it into that wood road block (rather violently I may add).

The swirly shot in the middle is my 'Daliesque' of the local catholic church - I tried to do a Panoramic shot and ended up with Jesus up and down, pretty cool eh?

Leaving Los Angeles for Mammoth Lakes CA Condo

Well we are on the way to the week in Mammoth Lakes - This is the whole reason we set off on this adventure. It's ten am so we hope to get there no later than 3pm. We 'won' the week in Mammoth Lakes in our church auction back in April.

Emily arrived to join us yesterday after her flight came into LA from Seattle. Her and her mom were picked up by Stephanies' old college roommate who lives in Long Beach. Stephanie is going to stay with her friend for only a day and then head back to Seattle as she needs to work.


It was great to see her and nice to have the girls together again. They have been best friends from when they were three years old. this photo is when they were five.

They met at the Downtown library when they were both three yrs old. Emily and Jamie were like whirling dervishes spinning and climbing and hit it off immediately. I talked to Emily's mom Stephanie and we exchanged numbers since the girls seemed to be such fast friends.

A week later, Stephanie tapped my on the shoulder at church - we had just started going back to the local UU Church and they were going there too! A friendship was born. Alas Emily and Stephanie moved to Seattle Washington last June and Jamie has been pining for her best friend.

So the rest of our vacation - 3 more weeks or so, will involve two spirited nine year olds and two more than middle aged parents trying our best to keep up with them.

Forget the Alamo?

We are on the 2nd night of our great RV adventure or Westward Ho! as I like to call it. We got here to San Antonio at 12:45 - a far cry from early in the evening we thought we would arrive.

There was a huge crush of traffic jam on I-10 out of Baton Rouge that took over 2 hours to go approximately 15 miles. For some reason traffic was diverted to only one lane.

Then in Houston THE FREEWAY WAS CLOSED! Yup you heard it right, they just closed down part of the freeway and diverted traffic away from I 10 and didn't tell you where to go! WTH?!

So anyway our 7 hour trip took almost 12. I'm getting very afraid of our 12 hour trip from Balmohea to Tombstone on Monday night! It's not like you can make changes - you have to book ahead so I am not quite sure what we will do - get up at four am? To get there by ten pm?

So tomorrow we may just skip the Alamo. Forget it...But Mike really wants to see it. (He is a History teacher and quite the history major and a huge history buff.  He really should see it. We all should.

Tomorrow Balmorehea is only 5.5 hours away (Or so they say....) We shall see.

1st 2 nights will be Baton Rouge and San Antonio

We were going to try to get coast to coast in four days - it's a 40 hour journey so it's doable. But we sure wouldn't see much doing that...and we may burn ourselves out.

Although our Itinerary Includes Grand Canyon, Lake Havasu, Yosemite, San Francisco and Denver we first have to get to LA and then Mammoth Lakes for a week.

So instead we are stopping more often and taking 5 days to get to the Long Beach/Los Angeles area.

The first stop we are making after 9 hours of driving is to a regional park called Farr Park Equestrian Center and RV campground in Baton Rouge or Red Stick as Mike calls it.

It doesn't really have amenities other than hookups to water and electric and is only $20/night.  It has stables and horseback riding -something I have been promising Jamie for ages AND it's on the banks of the Great Mississippi River!

So Jamie and I will be riding horses that next morning while Mike is packing up the RV to head out to our second stop in San Antonio Texas to a KOA which will take us 7 hours or so. Now I was counting on this one to have pool and all amenities including WIFI but some of the reviews are complaining about the spotty Wifi which will annoy me. I just may send an email ahead stressing we need a strong signal.

After all I will need to be handling my Real estate business while on the road so I need some Wifi probably more often than not. We may just have to invest in some extra phone power somehow.

We are off to the West Coast NEXT FRIDAY!

So we were sitting at our church auction watching the price of the week in Georgia going higher and higher. We had wanted to bid and get a week in a Georgia Mountain cabin we had heard so much about but the bid went up too high.

I shrugged and said to Mike "Maybe nobody will bid on the week in Mammoth Lakes California. The opening bid is $300- should we do it?"

So we did and nobody else bid on it and it was ours! Now to plan...

Airfare was out - it would be about $2100 just for the tickets and then we would need to rent a car. And we wanted to see the country!

So we looked into buyer a pop-up trailer - We found one for $999. It was old but seemed sound except the tires of course as it had sat in a driveway for years. But we discovered our van could barely pull it and us and there would be no room for stuff. And we have lots of stuff.

So we were looking into tent camping. We were going to buy the tent, mattresses and gear needed. We knew it would be tough but more affordable then motels every night. We knew that setting up the tent every night on the way there would be a hassle...

That week we mentioned to a church friend we were going to tent camp to the west coast and back and she said "You need to take our RV!!" Oh boy we weren't expecting that!!

It's a cute Winnebago View that has a bed over the cab, a bed where the slide-out pops out and a bed at the table.

So our week at a California Condo has morphed into a cross-country trip! Westward Ho!