Made it home

Here's a pic of our well travled seedlings 

Beaver Run RV Park Ga.

This park is near Metter Ga. We needed to stop at a commercial place before we put the old girl into storage for 2 reasons. There are full hookups at the campsite so that I can give the holding tanks a good flush and they have propane. We have used most of the full tank we left home with. This is a typical commercial park except for one unique feature. It has what we have decided to call a "Dumb ass" Disc Golf course. There are 9 tires bolted to pine trees with numbers painted on them. 1-9. Being a enthusiastic dumass, I played the 9. It was harder than it looks. Habersham tomorrow. 

Frank Jackson SP Alabama

We are near the Alabama town of Opp. Really. Not kidding. We were all backroads today. That really beats the interstate. This park requires that you stay for 2 nights at a minimum. When I was looking at availability, the site we are in only had today available. Someone checked out today and someone else will check in tomorrow. I called the park and they were able to fool the reservation system and get us in for one night. I knew the reservation system was frustrating but I had no idea it could be fooled. Jenny and I stretched our legs after we arrived by hiking the Nature Trail.

Natchez day 2

It always amazes me that we can wake up with no agenda and then spend the entire day being busy. The last time we were here we toured a few of the historic homes and did a city tour. Didn't need to do that again. We ate lunch at a restaurant just above the river. It was overcast, wet, windy and generally miserable so our motivation to hang too long outside was low. There were some street signs directing drivers to a place called "Four Corners". Turns out it was an old Slave market. There w9e0re some historical markers explaining that spot and the Slave trade in general. Natchez was a big Slave trading center. It was sickening. 63% of the current population is black. After that we drove for a few miles on The Natchez Trace Parkway. The Natchez Trace was an ancient indian path about 400 miles long that started here and worked its way up into what is now Tennessee. The trail goes right by a huge Indian mound called "Emerald Mound". It's 8 acres, which makes it the 2nd largest Indian mound in the country. It took 300 years to build starting in 1200. It's hard to grasp how much dirt had to be moved to build it. A basket of dirt at a time. When humans get motivated the results are frequently spectacular. We move tomorrow. We have 2 one night stands on the schedule. 

Natchez SP Mississippi

We both had a case of Deja Vu when we started driving around this place after we got set up. Turns out we've been here before. We both knew we'd been to Natchez before but we didn't think we had stayed in this park. We have. Another senior moment. The park covers 3600 acres. It has a lake and a disc golf course. I remember the last time we were here we didn't play disc golf because the course was overgrown, not maintained and hard to find. Nothing has changed. We asked the ranger about it and he seemed a little stumped. We asked about hiking trails and he said there was one but there were a lot of downed trees. There is a big squirrel hunt this weekend and he recommended we stay out of the woods on those days. Thankfully, hunting is not allowed in the campground. We've got 2 more stops before we get back to Beaufort. The pic is Jenny trying to find a place for us to stop on our last night which will be the 27th. We are here 2 nights.

Mission Tejas day 2

The warm weather is gone. We haven't done much cold weather hiking lately. We did some today. I rode some first,

to get a feel for the trails. This park has a lot of history. Early Spanish and French colonies and, of course,  the native Cato Indians. We head further East tomorrow. 

Mission Tejas State Park

We headed north out of San Antonio and turned East at San Marcos. That avoided Houston and Austin. We are in the piney woods of East Texas between Crockett and Nacogdoches. The earliest church in Texas was built here in the 1600s by the Spanish. Some of the local natives got sick and died. They blamed the Spaniards, which was probably warranted, so that was the end of that. The original mission church is long gone. The pic is a replica. The park is only 800 acres and it has a lot of trails. If the weather is descent we'll do some hiking tomorrow.

Government Canyon State Natural Area

Drove out to Helotes to do some riding. The trails are gruesome. Rocks and more rocks. I'm sort of proud of the fact that I returned home with no visible blood. Sweet. 

Party recap

Jerome smoked some ribs, I grilled some chicken (1/2 barbecued & 1/2 Buffaloed) Not sure if Buffaloed is a word but I used buffalo sauce. We had some delicious Kale salad that didn't make it out of the fridge, so consequently we have a lot of left over Kale salad. This was pretty much a family affair. A neighbor, Yogi, is in a pic. Josephina brought her daughter because her daughter is her ride home. Larson's other care giver, Isabel is also in a couple of the pics. Jenny got the cake at HEB. A good time was had by all. There was quite a bit of socializing before and after the meal. That's a little unusual because these parties frequently are eat and run affairs. There is nothing really on the agenda for the next few days. Jenny and I will be here until Tuesday. 

Party Day

I had to post this before the cookies got eaten. Josephina worked most of yesterday on these. They are works of art. She painted them with a toothpick. 

Party prep

We are in San Antonio parked in Larson's driveway. This is beyond doubt the campsite we have visited the most. It's paved, it's level, it has electricity and it's free. The ball is rolling for Larson's 98th birthday party scheduled for day after tomorrow, Saturday. His care givers are singularly focused on the event. Josephina is woring on some personalized desserts. She is very talented. The catering for the big event will be us. Jerome is doing the heavy lifting. He has to get up at 5 to get the ribs on the smoker. Better him than me. More later.

Last day at Brazos Bend

I had a good ride this morning but our afternoon was kind of a bust. There's a place near her called "The George Ranch Historic Site." We drove by it yesterday and it looked interesting. Well, you have to book a tour and 3 weeks ahead of time usually works. So, that didn't pan out. Because that fell through I looked up some info about the Brazos river. Here are some fun facts: It is the 11th longest river in the country. 1280 miles. It drains an area of 45,000 square miles. Here's a real fun one: Its source is Blackwater Draw in New Mexico. That place is near Clovis. The Clovis Point was discovered in Blackwater Draw. For many years that object set the timeline for the earliest known inhabitants of the western hemisphere. 12,500 years ago. New evidence has been found elsewhere the drives that date back substantially further, but the Clovis Point was an earth shattering discovery when it was made and it was just upstream of where we are camped. Did I here a WOW! We are in SA tomorrow. 

Brazos Bend day 2

Today (Valentine's Day) required that we do something special or at least a little different. I'll get into that in just a minute. I mentioned yesterday the many miles of trails that spider web throughout the park. I did some of those this morning. Nothing the least bit challenging but I got some much needed exercise. After 3 days of driving I could feel my arteries starting to clog. This place has an observatory for some reason. It's open to the public by reservation on Saturday nights. After lunch Jenny & I hiked a trail around a marshy lake. It was full of waterfowl and 1 alligator. The pic was taken from an observation tower. The special thing we did today was a seafood lunch at a restaurant in Sugar land. We thought eating a Valentine's day meal in Sugar Land was special. It doesn't take much to cross the threshold from normal to special.

Brazos Bend SP

This park is South of Houston. It's on the Brazos River and I'm assuming there's a bend in the river somewhere around here. To get here we had to drive through some of Houston's insanity. The driving is difficult enough when you know where you're going but it really suks when you don't. The 3 sources of nav information we were getting did not agree. I'm still not sure how we got here. Anyway, we are here for 3 nights. There is hiking and biking. We have had 3 one night stands in a row and we are ready to wind down for awhile. The pics are of the Brazos River. 

Enroute to Larson's 98th

We got the MP back from the shop just 1 day before we needed to leave on this trip. It took 5 weeks to get the part we needed. We really didn't do much planning because we honestly didn't think this was going to happen. Yesterday (Thursday) we got into a comercial campground with no problem. Today was a problem. Jenny was looking pretty hard and getting rejected by every campground. We ended up driving a little further than we needed to and are in Alabama. I am in the process of germinating some seeds: artichokes, Poblano peppers and lettuce. I brought them with us. 

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