From the desert to the bayou.......
For the first five days of April, we were still at the Palm Creek Golf and RV Resort in Casa Grande, AZ.  Many of the winter residents had departed and there were lots of open spaces.  We got in a few last games of tennis and bridge, and enjoyed some perfect weather on the golf course.  The Saturday night dance was free and although we didn't go to dance, we sat and enjoyed the music for a while, a group playing songs we remember from the 50s and 60s.   On Sunday evening a good number of the remaining tennis players gathered at the site of the McConnells for one last social hour...lots of tasty food and good company.

We departed Palm Creek on Wednesday morning, April 5 and headed east on I-10.  Our plan was to have the front tires on the coach rotated at the "Speedco"  tire service center near the park.  However, when we pulled into the service bay it was discovered that the center did not have a wrench the correct size to remove the wheel covers.  So, we were back on the road again in short order.  Continuing our travel east we were "pushed" by some pretty heavy winds.  As we approached the New Mexico border, the overhead highway message boards told us that the Interstate was closed at the state border.  Luckily, we were able to get the last official parking space in a rest area as we neared the border.  The highway patrol would not let traffic back up and all those vehicles still on the roadway and not in an official parking spot needed to go to the next exit, get off and then return to the Interstate heading west.  The CB was busy with disgruntled drivers, to say the least.  The closure was caused by high winds, blowing dust and a minor accident on the New Mexico side of the border.  Traffic started moving again after about two hours.  Since it was about 4:00 when we stopped, we decided it was time for a rest and we waited three hours till the roads were clear before moving on to Lordsburg, NM for the night.

Las Cruces, NM was our next destination...arriving there on Thursday, April 6.  We spent four nights in the driveway at Mary's cousin's home.  Geoff and Bethann have a great house in a gorgeous setting near the Organ Mountains.  We had visited them last year about this same time, and once again thoroughly enjoyed our stay.  We spent some time with them touring various new developments in the Las Cruces area just to compare them to other places we've looked.  And, we did some shopping and were able to purchase a wrench to fit our wheel covers.  On Saturday we went to the Ft. Selden State Monument for their Frontier Days celebration.  We toured exhibits of life in the late 1800s at the fort and listened to a presentation about the "Buffalo Soldiers" who were the negro soldiers sent to distant outposts during and after the Civil War.  Geoff spent some time one evening showing us some old home movies taken by his and Mary's grandfather...great fun to see!

On Monday, April 10 we headed east again...stopping first at the Camping World and American RV in Anthony, TX.  (We're happy to say that we didn't spend a dime in either place!) They have a huge campground at their complex and we were able to fill our fresh water tank and use one of their many dump stations.  On the other side of El Paso we found another "Speedco" and in just a short time our front tires were rotated by a technician very happy to see that we had the proper tool to remove the wheel covers.  (We rotated the tires because Tom felt the rig was "pulling to the right" as he drove and our tires were showing a bit of uneven wear.)  Continuing on our way east, we reached the Thousand Trails Preserve Medina Lake northwest of San Antonio on Wednesday.  There sure isn't much to see going across I-10 in that part of the country!
 
 

Mary, her cousin Geoff Close and his wife Bethann in Las Cruces, NM

Ft. Selden, a barren place for an Army fort near Las Cruces.

Some of the many deer wandering the Medina Lake Thousand Trails Preserve northwest of San Antonio.

Mary and the Easter Bunny  ready to hunt for eggs at Medina Lake.

We had visited the Medina Lake Preserve several years ago.  It is one of Thousand Trails more popular Preserves and being there over the Easter holiday weekend proved it.  As we remembered, even the many people and vehicles moving around did not frighten the hundreds of deer who wander the park.  They are almost tame.  We participated in some of the Easter weekend activities at the park and Mary won first place in the Adult Moonlight Easter Egg Hunt.  Between the two of us we found almost two dozen eggs...egg salad, anyone??  In spite of temperatures hovering around 100* during our stay, we also used the mini-golf course several times, allowing Mary some practice time with her new putter.

We made a trip into San Antonio one day to find a Verizon store and see if we could discover why Tom was having so much trouble with his cell phone.  They told us that our almost six-year-old phones had outlived their usefulness, were out of date technology, and beyond repair.  How could they say that??  So, we both now have new phones, and since they have improved the plans offered, we have a new plan giving us far more airtime for about the same monthly charge.   The cell phone internet hookup seems to be faster than what we experienced in the past, too. (although at Medina Lake we also had free WiFi in the lodge).  Bandera, TX calls itself the "Cowboy Capital of the World" so we drove to check that out.  What we found was a two block long Main Street full of restaurants, antique shops souvenir stores and honky-tonk bars (one claiming to be an old hangout for Willie Nelson - so now we've seen old haunts of both "Waylon and Willie"), and several blocks away, the second-oldest Polish Catholic parish in the US.  Some of the wares looked quite nice, but we were able to pass them by.  Another stop was the town of Boerne...this a German settlement...and more of the same type commercial establishments , and since it is a bigger town, all the usual chain places.  The Visitor Center in both places didn't have much information to offer even when asked.

It was on to Columbus, Texas on Wednesday, April 19, with a stop for fuel at the Flying J in San Antonio along the way.  As you all know, fuel prices are rising, and our low fuel light had come on, so we had no choice but to fill up....$339 to fill our tank.  OUCH!   In Columbus we found our way to the Colorado River Thousand Trails Preserve.  (Did we read the map correctly?  The Colorado River in Columbus???)  This is one of the smallest Thousand Trails Preserves, but in our opinion, one of the cleanest, neatest and nicest.  There were very few rigs here and the park was getting ready to close for the summer.  Apparently they have quite a few snowbirds come for the winter, but for some reason they feel that not enough people come in the summer.  The park is about an hour from Houston and has a nice activity center, pool, mini-golf course and a river for fishing and boating.  We enjoyed the mini-golf!  For day trips in the area, we drove first to the town of Brenham to tour the Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory.  It was an interesting and tasty tour.  Heading back home we came across a sign for a golf resort out in the middle of nowhere.  So, we drove back in to see what was there and found a very nice golf course with homes and rental cottages and a hotel.  There was also a nice driving range, so we got out some clubs and hit some balls. (We had stuck a few in the car trunk when we left Arizona for just such occasions).  Tom enjoyed trying out the new driver he had bought the day we left Palm Creek.    The town of Columbus has done a tremendous job of organizing its historic and restored buildings into a driving tour, complete with a radio dialogue, which we drove on Friday.   On Saturday night we attended the Columbus Oprey.  It had won some awards in the past, but on this night, their 11th anniversary show, we don't think they lived up to the reputation.  The theater is owned by one of the members of the house band and could use some repairs.  There were five visiting performances and the show lasted about 3 hours.  It wasn't bad, but a little long!
 
 

The "Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor" where we enjoyed a taste of Blue Bell Ice Cream in Brenham, Texas

Saturday night at the "Columbus Oprey" in Columbus, Texas

Tom standing in front of the "Second Largest Live Oak Tree      in Texas."  It has steel posts supporting the lower branches.  Its circumference is over 329 inches and it is estimated to be 500 years old.

On Sunday, April 23 we hit the road early to drive through the city of Houston to League City....about half way between Houston and Galveston.  The Safari RV Park is in a mobile home park, but is a "Passport America" discount park and we planned to stay just two nights so it was quite adequate.  Each of the sites were "pull-through" and had a small covered "ramada".  Unfortunately, we discovered that the 50amp electric service was not 50amps, so had to resort to using the 30amp and putting the water heater and refrigerator on propane in order to run the air-conditioning.  The office was closed for the weekend, but we did visit with several other RVers who said they were having the same problems.  These other RVers turned out to have some interesting stories.  One, had been driving to the park in Friday's rush hour Houston traffic when his tow car came loose from the RV.  Luckily his safety chains held well and with a lot of guts, he was able to get from the fifth lane over to the second before traffic refused to let him "in" any further.  So, he and his wife got out and disconnected the car in the middle of the freeway and drove on.  Glad it wasn't us!!!    The other couple have been fulltiming since last September because their condo-home and storage unit were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.  They had heeded the warning to evacuate and left in their RV two days before the storm hit near Beloxi, MS.  Their daughter's family in New Orleans also lost their home and have relocated to Baton Rouge.  Gene and Rhonda shared photos of their former home and surrounding areas....hard to imagine how high the water had been and how much damage was done.
 

From our spot in League City we toured the Johnson Space Center and visited "Mission Control" where they monitored the first moon walk and many other space missions.  According to the guide, my laptop has 300 times the power as one of their computers that are the size of a small house.  We've come a long way since the 60s!  We also watched several films about the International Space Station and various other space activities.  We'd heard about the sea-wall in Galveston and how it protects the city from high water during storms, so we drove down to see it for ourselves.  The wall runs along the beach for most of the length of the city on the island.  It didn't appear to us that it was all that high (about 10 feet) and all the buildings are across the road which runs along the shore, but apparently it has done its job in recent years.  We drove through the city and the large university medical center that is there.  Two other places we visited near the RV park were the town of Kemah, which has some beautifully shore type homes and a boardwalk of restaurants and amusements which must be pretty lively on weekends, and a commercial complex called "Big League Dreams."  This is a group of ball-fields built to look like some of the major league ballparks around the US.  The fields are used by local leagues and teams as well as some of the big amateur tournament organizations.  The complex also has batting cages, practice facilities, indoor soccer and football and some volleyball courts.  Quite a place!
 

"Mission Control" from the Visitors Gallery at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas

The replica of Chicago's Wrigley Field at the Big League Dreams Sports Park in League City, Texas

The only way "out" of League City was to come back through the city of Houston.  Boy, do they have a lot of freeways and bridge ramps!  We navigated our return on Tuesday morning and did it without major stress...making our next stop in Nacogdoches, TX...another "Passport America" park, Piney Woods, which was nothing more than a field with hookups....but it had great 50amp electrical and cable TV...proving that each place has its own "pros" and "cons."  It was just an overnight stop, but we took advantage of the hookups and caught up on laundry.  During the night a cold front came through, we got some rain, and on Wednesday morning we got up to temperatures in the 50s....its been a while since we've had such weather.  From Nacogdoches we headed north and east into Louisiana.  As we approached Shreveport, we stopped at another Flying J and topped off our fuel tank...only took $140 this time!  The billboards along I-20 were advertising a free buffet lunch for seniors at Harrah's Casino in Shreveport.  Pass up a free buffet at a casino??  Not us!!  The parking lot at Harrah's Louisiana Downs is huge and very easily accessible for large rigs making it even better for us.  We enjoyed the buffet but found that this casino had only slot machines and horse racing (off-track at the moment).  Not being in any hurry to travel on, we took advantage of the free shuttle and went to the Horseshoe Casino a few miles away where there were many active table games.   This was a very profitable decision.  We continued to enjoy Harrah's hospitality by spending the night with many other travelers in the lot and by taking advantage of the free buffet again on Thursday before heading on across Louisiana.  On the way we passed through lots of "bayou country"....pretty soggy looking ground and lots of catfish ponds!  But we also enjoyed seeing green fields of corn and beans - more like home.  Turning north, we passed through the corner of Arkansas and crossed the "Mighty Mississippi" on a narrow old bridge into the state of Mississippi.  Passing through Greenville, MS we checked out their casinos, but the parking lots very definitely were not RV friendly.

Traveling on, our next stop was Tunica, Mississippi.  We must be creating a pattern here as we parked for the night in the "Sam's Town Casino and Gambling Hall" parking lot and on Friday morning, checked into their RV park.  The RV park is great!  We got a 70' long pull-through site on cement with 50amp service, free cable TV and land-line phone.  We decided to finish out the month of April right there with excellent hookups and some bad weather passing through. Over the weekend we got a lot of wind and some rain.   (We broke down and put on long pants - yuk!)  The casinos in Tunica are quite spread out so we took a shuttle tour of the circuit, which took just over an hour.  These casinos also don't offer much in the way of incentives unless you play the games for quite a while, but we did manage to earn a free Sunday buffet dinner and still come out ahead.   We also visited the outlet mall so Mary could hunt for bargains.  In the "small world" department  we noticed a car driving slowly through the RV park at Sam's Town and recognized some Dutch Star owners we have parked next to several times during our summer visits to the Toledo area.  They're on their way back from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.  We'll be leaving Tunica most likely on May 1 and heading across the Mississippi River a couple more times as we wind our way to northern Illinois to visit our daughter and family in their new home.