You gotta wonder just how badly the recycling pickup guys dread the first pick up after Christmas. The boys really like trucks and everyone knows it. The trucks arrived in elaborate recyclable packaging. This house is going to need a parking garage soon. We had standing rib roasted for our Christmas meal. Yummy!
Aubrey has been rehearsing for her part in this ballet for several months. Her performance is the reason we are here. The production was very well done and our Granddaughter hit all of her marks. No photography was allowed during the show but here are a couple of shots I got at the hotel a few hours before the curtain rose.
The girls are: Elsa, Dorothy and Clara from the Nutcracker. The boys are Spider-Man and Iron - man.
This has been a busy week. Jenny's dad visited us in Beaufort for a few days, Lindsay and the boys were there also. We are now in Charleston prepping for Halloween. Jamie is in Scotland on a business trip so I carved what I think might be my 30th jack-o-lantern. I did have some help.
I leave tomorrow. I rode today on some property owned by a resort located in Lajitas. I would guess there are many square miles of property. There is an airport, a golf course an equestrian center and an RV park, in addition to the actual resort. I rode for 15 miles so it's a big place. Jenny is now in Sedona with her dad and a couple of brothers. Some recent rains washed out some of the trails I rode today but caused the wildflowers to bloom.
Went to a different trailhead in the state part today. I feel like I've seen a pretty good chunk of the southern part of the park. There is one more trailhead but it's a 2 1/2 hour drive on a dirt road. This is a big park. Here are a couple of examples of park trails.
Today I drove across BBNP and rode 25 miles of the dirt road that parallels the Rio Grande. After yesterday's technical ride this was a ride in the park. I did have an encounter with a park ranger. He was driving by and saw my car parked at the beginning of the dirt road. He saw my empty bike rack, and one track leading off into the outback so he decided to check on me. I thought that was pretty cool. I was out there by myself and if I had bike trouble I would have had a long hike. Here are a couple of pics I took today.
Terlingua is about 15 miles from the first entrance into the State Park. I got my permit ($3) and headed into the unknown. It took a while to get into the swing of things. There is some pretty focused attention that has to be given to the trail 10 feet in front of the bike. A lapse will frequently end badly. I did have one face plant. Luckily it was into some loose gravel so my face was spared. I came upon an old ranch building near a spring. Here's a pic. Tomorrow I think I'll ride in the National Park.
As occurs frequently, Jenny and I have split up. I drove 7 hours west and I'm now in Terlingua Tx. That's a few miles west of Big Bend NP. I made that drive so that I could ride my mountain bike in the mountains. There is nothing remotely approaching a mountain anywhere near Beaufort. I am now a mountain biker so I figured that maybe I should "just do it." Jenny is about to fly to Phoenix with her dad and 2 brothers for their yearly trip to Sedona. I will be here for 6 days. Big Bend Ranch State Park (370,000 acres) is just down the road. I will begin this adventure there. I rode a little on a dirt road across from the hotel this afternoon. Here's a pic.
It was Douglas MacArthur class of '70 and A & M class of '74. Hal Vagtborg, a friend from high school, who has been MIA for 40 years is in the 1st pic. The second pic was taken at the A & M reunion. These are some of my Corp unit buddies and their wives.
We are already several days into an extended visit to SA. We have several reasons for being here. First are 2 reunions. Our 45th high school and 40th Texas A & M. It's a bazaar coincidence but they are the same weekend. Jenny also has her annual trip with her dad and a couple of brothers to Sedona later in the month. I need to retrieve 2 kayaks that are in Seth's backyard so we drove. On the way we spent the first night in New Orleans. We left there and went to Avery island. The home of Tabasco sauce, it's someplace I've always wanted to visit. We did the tour.
Jamie and I portaged the kayaks over to the boat ramp (7 minutes) and paddled up Habersham Creek. At the head of the creek the channel was only a few feet wide. Jamie is in the channel, I'm taking a short - cut.
We are obviously in northern Florida. All of us are familiar with the Suwannee River from the Stephen Foster song "Way down upon the Suwannee River". He never saw the river or set foot in Florida. He was a song writer living in Pennsylvania and he was looking for a southern river with a 2 syllable name. He had settled on the Pee Dee river when a friend suggested the Suwannee. This park has 2 big springs that flow into the river. I'm sure my friends & relatives in Texas would love to have this on their property.
This place has to be in Louisiana with a name like that. It's a swamp. We arrived here right in the middle of a God awful thunderstorm. We had to put on our rainsuits to get set up. The lightning knocked out the parks power so we are on generator at the moment. We drove 515 miles today. I think that's a record for the MP. We should be in Florida tomorrow.
This is an obvious case of kayak overload and a rare sighting of the creature from the dark lagoon.
This park is on Hwy 90. We much prefer Hwy 90 over I 10. The traffic is much less and the scenery is much more. I like this park because there are pretty good hiking/biking trails. Today was pretty much an outdoor oven. I rode anyway. By the time I returned to the MP most of the life had been sucked out of me. Every place seems to have plusses and minuses. I didn't have to carry bear repellent today. A plus? There is no data here. I'll post this tomorrow as we drive through Del Rio.
We've been here many times but since it's one of my favorite places we're here again. The RV campground is a parking lot. No hook-ups. I walked up a hill above the parking lot to stretch my legs and take a few pics. Jenny and I were going to hike a trail but a ugly look'n rain storm appeared and Jenny applied something she calls "good judgment". We are not sure about our stop point tomorrow. We should be in S.A. on Saturday 16 August.
We started the day with a dusty round of disk golf. The course can only be described as a desert wasteland. Every disk golf course is unique. This one was no exception. I was out of bounds occasionally. After golf we went to a tamale factory/take out restaurant. We bought 2 dozen tamales. Don't fret, we are going to share. Tomorrow should be Guadalupe Mts. NP. In west Texas.
Today's highlight was the fantastic Mexican meal we had in Old Town Albuquerque after we got set up. Here are a couple of pics that show a rather stark contrast. Jenny took the first one today as we drove through the Navajo res.
Today was spent hiking all the overlook trails in the 'Islands in the sky' district of Canyonlands NP. There were 3 of them and it took all day. When we turned around after taking that last picture we both came to the realization that this epic motor home marathon in coming to a close. We will be seriously headed home from here on out. The pics below are some of the many we took. The possibilities for spectacular pictures from the trails we hiked today were endless.
