Christmas eve 2020

The entire clan has descended upon Seth & Courtney's house in Tega Cay. That's 6 adults, 6 kids and 3 dogs. This will, hopefully, be our first, last and only pandemic Christmas. Courtney's tradition is to put out the gifts on Christmas Eve night. They are currently stashed all over the house. Some assembly will be required. 

Scenes from Thanksgiving 2020.

The mob gathered in Mt Pleasant at Lindsay's and Jamie's house. Jenny and I parked the MP 2 in their driveway, in violation of the neighborhood covenants. 

Home

Our original plan was to spend 2 nights at a park in SC before driving into Mt. Pleasant so that we could participate in Austin's birthday. We literally haven't seen the sun in 3 days and rain was a 100% possibility at the park and, we were only 300 miles from home. So, here we are. We will drive to the birthday bash and stay with lindsay & Jamie instead of the KOA. For those of you who have been dying to know, the pic is my corn garden. As you can see, It's not looking too good. The blog is going to take a break for awhile.

F.D. Roosevelt SP Georgia

The state park is a short, scenic, drive from Roosevelt's Little White House. There are some warm springs near here that he claimed gave him some relief from his polio. He was elected as president 4 times. The great depression and WW 2 both occurred during his terms as president. He smoked 3 packs of unfiltered Camel cigarettes for years before he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in this house during a sitting for a portrait. The chair he was sitting in when this occurred is on display and the partially completed portrait is here. Our visit to the property was brief because we got a late start but is was interesting and educational nonetheless. The weather is forecast to deteriorate tonight so our plans might be modified.

Lake Lurleen SP Coker Alabama

Out trip East is continuing. There is indeed a lake here. There are also bike trails. I got a flat on one of my bike tires yesterday afternoon so I had to fix that before I could ride. With the recent time change it gets dark early so that was also a factor. This is a 1 night stop so we'll have to come back if we want to do some exploring. We have another one night stand tomorrow in Georgia. 

Natchez city tour

Our morning started with a 1 hour narrated city tour with Sally, in her 6 seater golf cart. She was raised in Natchez and we even stopped in front of the house where she was raised. We did a house/mansion tour after that, then lunch at a restaurant on the river, then another house/mansion tour. Our last touristy thing was a visit to the Catholic cathedral (Sally's church). Our untouristy event was a visit to the local Walmart. The picture of me standing by the river was taken at the exact spot I pulled over for a fresh water fill up during my river trip.

Natchez State Park Mississippi

Natchez is on the Mississippi river. I pulled over here on my river trip to fill up my water bottles and grab a meal at a riverboat casino that is no longer here.

There is a lot if history here. At one time Natchez had 1/2 of the millionaires in the country. Their income came from slavery and cotton. We are here tomorrow and have a tour scheduled in the morning. Today,  Joe Biden was confirmed as president elect. I drank to that.

Bayou Teche Brewery

This is another free campsite associated with Harvest Host. We are in Arnaudville La. This is a small brewery sort of out in the middle of rural Louisiana. They brew a lot of different beers and also make pizza. We sampled both. We are headed home and will be in Mississippi tomorrow. 

Lake Livingston day 2

We explored the park today on foot. Jenny has been occupied with her father for the last few days and needed to get out. Here are some Lake Livingston facts. The Trinity river is the main source of the lakes water. The Trinity River Authority paid for the dam in 1971 to supply water for Houston. It remains the main source of Houston's water. It is the the 2nd largest lake entirely inside the borders of Texas. Sam Rayburn is the largest. The lake is 55 miles long and averages 23 feet deep. It covers 83,000 acres. Study this post, there will be questions later. We move tomorrow. 

Lake Livingston SP Texas

Got on the road this morning and saw that the route we were taking to Lake Livingston was through College Station. Jerry & Diane, the couple missing from our Galveston reunion, live in College Station. We stopped by their house and got a free lunch. Jerry has had recent eye surgery and can't see very well. He hasn't shaved for awhile and he can put his uncut hair in a bun so not seeing well might be a benefit. We are here for only 2 nights.

Government Canyon State Natural Area

Last week I did some hiking at this park. Today I rode my bike. It was pretty gruesome. I would estimate 10% dirt and 90% rocks. My bike took a beating and so did I. I'm not sure if I'll ever go back but I'm glad I rode the trails because walking  them would have taken all day. We are planning our return trip. Should be starting home on Wednesday. 

Headed out

We all departed at about the same time. John and Jean had the furthest to go. I'm assuming everyone made it home. This reunion was well planned (twice). Thank you Donna. We were well fed. Thank you ladies. The Aggies won, which was a plus. The only negative was the missing couple. We all talked to Jerry last night and I would describe his demeanor as adequate or possibly, as good as can be expected. His Dr. Is optimistic so that was good news. We are in Larson's driveway for 3 more nights and then the plan is to head north to the Texas Panhandle. The pic is the parting shot right before we mounted up for the ride home. That's how they talk out here.

Reunion day 3

Today was the best weather of the trip. Shorts and t-shirts. Nothing particularly blogworthery happened except for this one thing. Alan and I teamed up against John and Jenny in a ferocious game of Corn Hole. Alan went 10 or so rounds without keeping one on the board and things were looking pretty bleak for Sq. 16. Jenny & John were only a few points away from total victory when Alan came alive. 3 corn holes and 9 unanswered points. Game over. A humiliating defeat, probably never to be lived down, maybe life changing for John. Tomorrow we have to be outahere by 10:00. So, if we can survive the drive through Houston we should be in S.A. 

Moody Gardens

We went to this attraction this morning. There is an aquarium and a rain forest pavilion. There was some bike riding and, of course, eating and drinking. We don't really have an agenda, it's a play it by ear sort of deal. Tomorrow is the Aggie football game.

Galveston Island Tx.

The crew, such as it is, made it to our VRBO in Galveston. We are just a few hundred feet from the water. There was a hurricane churning in the Gulf, East of here, when we arrived and the surf was enormous. The drinking and eating commenced immediately and will probably continue for the duration. We are missing Jerry & Diane but we are keeping them abreast of our activities as per their request. 

Government Canyon State Natural Area

 I have known that this place existed for several years but I have never been motivated to drive out there and visit it. It's 12,000 acres of undedeveloped land just outside of San Antonio. That fact is startling. There is so much land that I don't see how you could visit the far reaches of it on foot in the limited time it is open. They do allow mountain bikes on most of the trails so if I have a return visit that's probably what I'll do. This is the hill country, rocky limestone trails with thick juniper and oak woodlands. I was out for nearly 5 hours and did about 10 miles.  I barely scratched the surface of the hiking available. 

Larson Everett Fan Club

We made it to S.A. without incident. On Wednesday we will head to Galveston for our annual Aggie get together. Sadly,  Jerry & Diane had to cancel at the last minute. That will be one less person to harass Alan. Tomorrow I'm going to do some hiking in Government Canyon near Helotes. You have to have Reservations to hike there and it's only open four days a week. I'll take some pics. 

Anahuac TX. Frascone Winery

This place is on a bay across from Galveston. Fishing drives the economy. Wine not so much. We did do a tasting and said thank you. We left with 2 bottles of olive oil. The wine was "unusual". We drove through Lake Charles this morning. It is a frigging mess. The 2 hurricanes that blew over it this summer left a disaster of biblical proportions. After the ?wine? tasting Jenny and I ate at one of the 2 restaurants in town. The meal was remarkably good. Fresh fish. We will be in Larson's driveway tomorrow. 

Lafayette La.

We are parked in the parking lot of a living history museum called "Vermilonville". It is named after Bayou Vermilion, which is a small river that flows through it. This is another Harvest Host location. There is a gate at the entrance and it is locked. We are going nowhere until they open up tomorrow. On top of that, we are the only ones here. The sun is going down and Halloween is coming up. Pretty spooky. The pic is a ferry that crosses the creek. I couldn't resist trying it out. Tomorrow we are at a winery near Houston. 

Clarkco SP near Quitman MS.

If you don't know where Quitman is we are not too far from Meridian. Today's bit of excitement concerned our tires. We have a tire pressure monitoring system that gives a real time temperature and pressure on all 10 tires. One of the outboard rear tires was slowly losing air and I was watching it happen. When the difference in pressure reached 10 psi I got real uncomfortable. We ended up pulling over twice to add air. Great fun. I think it's leaking from the valve stem extender and I can't remove it without taking the outboard wheel off. So, that's not gonna happen. It's always something. This place has a little lake and full hookups. We should be in La. tomorrow.

Fall Aggie Reunion trip

We are on the road again, headed for Texas. Our annual get together with my Aggie buddies will be in Galveston this year. There will be some time spent in San Antonio plus quite a bit of dawdling in route. We are in Georgia,  in a parking lot of an orchard. They are part of the Harvest Host organization that allows RVers to stay overnight free. It's really not free cause we bought some stuff. We move tomorrow.

We made it! Trip stats

Jenny thumbed back through her camping journal and came up with these stats. From June 24th to August 26 we visited 19 states, staying in 17 state parks and 1 national park. The MP has 6,360 more miles on it. We stopped 24 times for gas which ranged in price from $1.69 to $2.89. We didn't have too many maintenance issues, however, we did stop in Elkhart at the Phoenix plant to have a minor problem attended to. This trip was different than our other trips in that we ate virtually all of our meals at home. Different states are taking the Covid threat differently. We absolutely couldn't afford to become statistics while we were on the road so we were somewhat paranoid. This trip is in the can. Davejennyjournal is on hiatus. 

Crooked River SP Georgia

This place is right on the GA/Fl border. We have been here many times. The campsites have full hookups so I can flush the holding tanks before we put the MP 2 into storage. We have been out over 2 months now and we are both ready to live in our home without wheels. I had a sweaty bike ride and took these pics. I saw 2 of these tortoises on the ride.

Blackwater River SP Florida

Last night we were camped in the cone of uncertainty for both of the storms churning in the Gulf. We left there pretty early. Baton Rouge was clear and calm. It started to cloud up on I-12 north of New Orleans. It started to blow and rain the other side of Mobile and it rained buckets when we entered Florida.  Jenny & I donned our rain suits for the setup here but things have settled down considerably. We were able to get out and walk around some this afternoon. We've got a pretty good drive tomorrow that will put us in Southern Georgia, a short 3 hours from home. 

The usual suspects

In addition to Larson, Jenny, Jerome, Jeff and Jim & Anne were kind enough to pose for pictures. We are out of San Antonio making a mad dash across the Gulf Coast to avoid getting tangled up with one of the storms headed in this direction. We were going to take it fairly easy but shifted gears after listening to the WX forecast this morning. We still should be home on Wednesday. 

Larson's driveway day 2

There is a park about 5 miles from here via a paved path along the Salado creek that has many miles of dirt single track. I was out there for a couple of hours and brought back some of the dirt.

San Antonio

Just a quick post. We made it to SA around noon and the MP is parked in larson's driveway. Not sure how long we will be here. That's really up to Jenny. I just took this pic in the kitchen. I think they are discussing perpetual motion or something. Larson is 96.

Pecan Valley RV park, Junction TX

The North fork of the Llano river flows through the park. I would have included a pic of the river but I know that there are some people who read this blog that may not understand what is considered a river in Texas. I think it is flowing but it is hard to tell. There are pecan trees. A lot of pecan trees. We are in San Antonio tomorrow. I need to visit a liquor store.

Planning is key

The picture says it all. It did not even occur to us that there was even a possibility that the campground at the Guadalupe Mountains would be closed. We didn't call or check the web site. The park is so isolated and the campground is so austere that it doesn't make any sense to close it down. Of course, it doesn't have to make sense. We drove another 60 miles to Van Horn and are comfortably ensconced in a commercial campground in sight of I-10. There is a severe thunderstorm overhead at the moment and the MP 2 is a rock'en and a roll'en. 

Last day in Santa Fe

Started the day with a good ride on an extensive trail system that I rode on last year. We then had lunch with Chris & Rick at an outdoor restaurant downtown called the Teahouse. They had excellent tea. Also good food. There were several hours of world problem solving at their house but, sadly we had to depart before all of the current issues could be resolved. Many thanks to them for hosting us. Hopefully we will be able to return eventually and finish up our world peace initiative. We will be in Texas tomorrow. The plan is to stop at Guadalupe Mts. NP for an overnight. That should be of no surprise to anyone because we stop there every year.

Santa Fe

We had a great visit and dinner with Rick & Chris Arkus in their beautiful home in the hills above the city. We will get together again tomorrow. The lower pic is one of Jenny's sunset pics taken from their deck.

Wines of the San Juan winery

We are not too far from Farmington NM. The winery has 4 campsites with water and electric. We could have stayed here for free with no hookups but we opted to pay $10 for the water & electric. Of course after the wine and other assorted stuff this is probably one of the most expensive overnights we have ever had. The wine server had alot of local knowledge and she gave us directions to an interesting hike not too far away that had an old Indian (1700s) watchtower. We did that. The San Juan river comes out of the bottom of the Navajo dam just a few miles from here and the water is 46°. It is stocked with rainbow trout and it is apparently a world class fly fishing destination. Tomorrow we are in Santa Fe.

Bluff Utah

We have been here quite a few times. This is one of the towns I used as a starting point for some of my backpacking trips. The San Juan river flows through town. After we got set up we did a drive up a steep switchback road called the Moki Dugway. We drove some more on dirt to a place with spectacular views into the gorge formed by the river. That was our day. We move into New Mexico tomorrow to a winery that allowes camping. It's part of a network of farms and wineries called "Harvest Hosts" that we joined before this trip began. This will be the first time we have used our membership. 

last day in Moab

Today was pretty chill. Jenny and I split up. She went downtown to find ways to support the economy and I rode my bike around town on some of the bike paths. We move a little bit south tomorrow to a commercial place in Bluff. All of the state parks in New Mexico are closed so we want to get as close to the NM border as possible so that we can make a dash to Sante Fe. We will be visiting with friends there and staying in another commercial campground. Jenny took this sunset pic yesterday. 

Still Moab

Jenny drove me to a trailhead about 10 miles away and I had a long ride on mostly slick rock. The route across the rock is marked with a painted stripe. I rode home when I had had enough.  There is a paved bike path that runs for miles out of town. I was on that for awhile and I crossed the Colorado on a bridge that is part of that trail system. Our highlight this afternoon was an elegant meal at one of Moabs finest eating establishments. It was rated # 5 by Yelp. A food truck is rated # 1. This is Moab so that's to be expected. We are here tomorrow and will prep for our departure. I took a pic of the misters at the restaurant. A lot of outdoor businesses have them to cool things off.

Moab Utah

Short drive today. Less than an hour. We have been here a bunch. This is the mountain biking capital of the known universe. We were at 6000 feet at Dead Horse. Moab is 4000 feet. With the loss in altitude came an increase in temperature. It was 103 this afternoon. The humidity was 7% so that's something positive. We are at a commercial resort just out of town. We have stayed in this exact site several times. No adventure pics today. I could have taken a pic of the laundry facility but I forgot. I'll do a ride tomorrow on some slick rock. It's one of my favorite rides. Here is a pic of our camp.