Balmorhea, TX

Good news, we put 290 miles on the truck today going up and down some nice hills without a problem, I think she's fixed. We left the beautiful Texas hill country at 10am and 200 miles west it is now the dead, flat, boring west Texas. This state is big. The hill country turned into small buttes then flat land and we now see some nice hills in front of us called the Saddleback Mountains. We are spending the night in an inexpensive CG beside the expressway. We passed lots of windmills generating electricity, they are beside the expressway for what must be over 5 miles. If you look close you can see some in the pic or click on it to enlarge. As you can see, not all our campsites are in secnic locations!

Some Texas observations: two lane roads are 70mph, the expressway is 80mph (good news for Margaret!), there are lots of working windmills to water animals, mistletoe is growing in select trees, the Texas hill country is beautiful and we'll be back, the Rio Grande Valley has lots of Mexicans and ya hear a LOT of Spanish, Texas is big, Texas is very friendly to "winter Texans", there are as many deer here as in Michigan.

Ingram, TX

Today we visited Fredericksburg and the National Museum of the Pacific War and Admiral Nimitz Museum. We spent several hours in the museums and the outside grounds. One picture is of Judy beside a set of torpedo tubes, the round cabin of the top is where sailors controlled them, in the other pic she's standing in a small flower garden at the museum. There was a History Channel premier showing of the documentary USS Enterprise CV-6 which was good but there were 5 WWII vets there that served on the Enterprise during WWII! You can just see them standing in the back of the last picture. Two of them were pilots, one fighter and one torpedo bomber. The second pilot actually was in the Battle of Midway and attacked and help sink two Japanese aircraft carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor! He was 92, all of them spent time telling of their experiences and answering questions.

You just had to love todays weather, 80 and all sun! Fredricksburg is a German tourist town so we had a great jager schnitzel dinner before returning home for the night.

Ingram, TX Friday 2/1

If we had to break down this was the place. I really like this CG, Johnson Creek RV Resort. It's a bit expensive but a great location beside a pecan grove in the Texas hill country. We stayed put without any wheels and walked aroung the CG and immediate vicinity The Ford dealer called early in the afternoon and said the engine was repaired (replaced two hose clamps on the turbo hose and reprogrammed the computer) and was going to look at the low speed towing vibration broblem. They picked us up before 5pm and took us back to the dealership so we could get back on the road. They felt the vibration was due to the drive shafts carrier bearing bracket being too long. They didn't have one so I'll look into this at a later time as they thought this isn't causing any damage. I'm still considering rear air bags to level the truck when towing.

Ingram, TX

The pictures tell how we spent our day. The truck is at the Ford dealer and we, and our home, are at a nice RV park in the middle of a pecan grove. Judy and I struggled but we managed to pull the RV here without the truck, luckely it wasn't too hilly.

Hondo, TX Wednesday

We left our friends at La Feria this morning at 10 and had an enjoyable & uneventful 290 mile drive to an Escapee co-op park in Hondo. After dropping off the trailer we went to town for fuel, groceries and supper. We ended up at a BBQ joint that convinced Judy that we aren't eating at any more Texas BBQs. We had no Sprint signal so didn't make any calls or get on the internet. The park was only OK, no grass and all peebles at the site.

La Feria, TX

Monday......Well, the weather is great and we still have a few things to do so we are staying two more days. Monday we did laundry and some running around. We returned as Bill and Judye returned from birding so we gathered with them and Ron & Lois for some cool adult beverages and worked a few world problems. Judy made German tater salad and cukes and onions. The other also contributed and we did some pork on the grill for supper. After that we played Mexican Train until 11pm. It was real windy all day and it kept up most of the night, we could tell our home was rocking a little when we went to bed.
Tuesday......an unbelievable day......sun, mild breeze, low 80s.....just like summer. Bill and I went to Harlingen to open a checking account for Haulin' HitchHikers. Being together this last week allowed us to ironed out all the details and now have our NuWa HitchHiker RV chapter open. We are advertising in the HitchHiker Thumbs Up mag and the online user forum.
Judy twisted her knee again yesterday so she's relaxing out in the sun....eat you heart our Margaret! We are planning on the six of us getting together this afternoon for happy hour (maybe two) and pizza. This has been one of the most beautiful days I've seen in a few months. Might be too hot!

La Feria, TX

Howdy partner, today we said good bye to Susan & Jeff, they are going to met up with several others for a 30 day tour into central Mexico. They have already been up and down the east and west coasts in Mexico. Bill and Judye were going to South Padre Island to meet some friends and do some bird watching. We went with Ron & Lois to a LARGE flea market several miles west of here, they were there yesterday and went back with some measurements for a sun screen for their rear window. We purchased a 6x9 mat for our front entrance as we are headed for some sandy sites out west. On the way back we swung through Mexico again as Randy was in dire need of a sombrero and Ron was seeking some low cost vodka. The Federalies were out in force today compared to yesterday, they were all over thye place. The armored personnel carriers had the machine guns manned and ready. They were doing some serious vehicle searches on the Mexican side but nothing we saw on the American side. I think our boarder patrol either had the weekend off or were very well concealed.