Bandera, Galveston, Family and Friends, and a New Citizen

Most RVers belong to one or more travel clubs, which have get-togethers, variously known as "musters" or "rallies." And one of the regular activities featured at these is .....eating! This is at a muster in Bandera of SMART, a military travel club. On an "off day" we drove up the road a few miles to Tarpley, and found a small restaurant with great hamburgers. Here's Meg with her Texas "small" burger!

Bandera, Texas, the Cowboy Capital, is the frequent location for rallies and we made it out to one this spring. A popular eatery, the 11th Street Cowboy Bar, hosts "cook your own steak" night every Wednesday. They provide the fires and the setup of utensils, spices, sides dishes, and drinks; you bring your own steak and cook it.
Meg and Lynn Barrett are chatting here together over the "grub."

Mmmm...good! And follow that with a little country music and the Texas Two-Step and you have an evening that's hard to beat!

Meg loves her laptop! I'm not implying that she's addicted to Farmville or WoW, but let's just say that a closed library in a small town is no deterrent when she needs a wi-fi connection. When she says she's going into town to try to get hooked-up, I never worry!

Meg's Dad, Carl, was 98 this past January and we took him and his wife to Galveston for a week at a timeshare. We had a relaxing time there together, visiting some of the sights of the old city, and reviewing the damage of Hurricane Ike and the repairs that have been done. It's actually quite wonderful! A unique development was the reclamation of many dead trees into beautiful sculptures. Check them out.

On the way back home we spent a couple of night's with Meg's Niece Vanessa and her family in Deer Park, Texas. She hosted a big family get-together on Sunday, attended by

her nephew "Little Tommy,

Vanessa with her Granddad Carl,

her Brother Thomas and his wife Melody

cousin Teresa and her parents Dana and Johnnie Means.

This was a great opportunity to have many of Meg's family members together in one place and we all had a ball!

Before finishing our trip we stopped by the home of two dear friends, Kaylon and Dick Fenner, who live near Houston; she was one of Meg's bride's maids. We had lunch and chatted away the afternoon before heading on back to our Hill Country hangout. Good times!

One of our proudest moments as a family was on April 15, 2010 when the USA welcomed its newest citizen, Sunny Bruce! She accepted her new certificate from a local district judge and we celebrated together at a local restaurant. Welcome, Sunny!!!

Quartzsite and Home

What does this electrical outlet have to do with our blog? I'll explain later.

An easy day's drive east from LA on IH10 brings you to Quartzsite, Arizona. "Where and what is that," you might ask. In a nutshell, it's a wide spot in the road that is a small town (pop. 3000) for much of the year, but which becomes an RV mecca in Jan-Feb, at which time the population swells to over 500,000! It hosts several large RV and gem shows during those months. The land around Quartzsite is owned by the Bureau of Land Management (all of us) and allows free, or "dry", camping. We spent two nights here on the way to California and two more on the way back to Texas. We visited the grave of "Hi Jolly" (Hadji Ali) a camel driver who took part in the US Army camel experiment of the last century.
We were able to coordinate a visit with LeRoy and Shirley Davis, two of our oldest friends from missionary days in Kenya. Roger was their doctor in Kenya and delivered their first child there. They have been fulltime RVers as long as we have, and are based in British Columbia, but we hadn't seen them for many years. We met up at the "London Bridge." If that is a surprise to you, I'll explain that the developer of Lake Havasu City, Arizona bought the actual "London Bridge" from England and had it shipped to the US in 1971. (Click the link for the full story.) We enjoyed several good meals together and lots of good chatting time. Renewed friendships is one real bonus of this lifestyle.

Quartzsite contains many interesting sights, among them the Readers' Oasis Bookstore, owned by this gentleman

Paul Winer and, yes, he's a nudist. Here's a link to another blog with more info. This is one of the "must" stops in town. He has a huge selection of books, mostly used, and at great prices.

Here's a nice Rainbird Sprinkler head in a park.
Here are the reasons we were anxious to get back to Texas: Abey, Sunny, Lydia, Christian and the newest grandbaby: Phineas Roger! We've had some neat times with the grands: we spent a day at the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch nearby It's home to many exotic animals, including these cute faces at our car window

Another day we spent at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, followed by burgers and milkshakes at Cheesy Janes a great little local eatery. The kids always want to go geocaching, too, so we stopped to find one on the way home. Which brings us full-circle: why post pictures of an electrical outlet and a Rainbird sprinkler? Mainly because all is not as it seems in the world of geocaching:

Here's the "sprinkler": actually a cache container.

And here's that "electric box": not connected to anything and
revealing a cache container inside. This is the kind of sneaky stuff that makes this such a fun hobby. Try it sometime!

We're here in the Heart of Texas for a few months, trying to stay warm! Thanks for taking time to keep up with us.