Update: Sunday December 5

Wow! Time goes by so fast.  Here it is Sunday night, and we are in American Campground and RV Park in Del Rio Texas!  So we better get caught up before we get too far behind.

Wednesday December 1:  Another busy and long day for Ann working for Thursday deadlines.  Not so busy for me; the usual looking for places to go and places to see, and mapping routes and looking for places to get gas along the way.

Ann wanted to see the new Harry Potter movie, so Wednesday after she finished work, we went to Chilli's and had a nice dinner, and a couple couple cocktails.  We then went to the theater, and because we were quite early, we found a nice place close by and had a cocktail while killing time before the movie started.  Once at the theater, I was surprised to see this huge fourteen screen theater, with hardly any cars in the parking lot.  We had bought tickets online, thinking that the lines would be long, but not a problem at all.  The theater had one person who sold tickets, and one person selling popcorn and such.  The ticket seller was also the ticket taker.  Very efficient!

The movie was about what I expected.  Since I knew very little about the Harry Potter series, it was not all that exciting to me, however, Ann enjoyed the movie quite a bit, and it was good for her to get her mind off her work for a while.

It seems we are still on Eastern Standard Time from when we were on the cruise.  By 9:00 at night we are ready for bed, but wide awake at 6:00 in the morning.  So by time we got home from the movie, it was time to call it a night.

Thursday December 2:  Ann had deadlines today, so she was up early and hitting work pretty hard.  Her Toyota needed the oil changed, so I made an appointment at the local Toyota dealer for the afternoon.  I used mapquest to find the location, and the best way to get there.  Here in Texas many of the busiest freeways have surface roads running parallel that are one way, and sometimes getting on and off at the right place is a little different.  I made it to the Toyota dealer and back without incident, and on the way found the FlyingJ where we could fill up with gas and propane on our way out of town on Friday.

As we were paid up through Thursday night, and wanted to move on, we needed to decide where to go next.  We had wanted to go to Del Rio Texas to a campground managed by the parents of a fried of ours from back home, but after looking Verizon wireless' coverage area for that part of the state we discovered they had no coverage in that part of Texas for data, and we have a Verizon Mi-Fi 2200 to connect to the internet.  That was a problem!  So we decided that we couldnt go there, and that Lubbock might be a nice place to spend a few days, and we could see the Buddy Holly Museum while we were there.  We contacted Mesa Verde RV Park in Lubbock, and told them we would stay there a week.  There, plans were set for a week, but remember all plans are in jello.

Friday December 3:  Friday morning Ann continued working, as I readied the motorhome for departure, I looked at the route on mapquest, and checked weather for the up coming week in Lubbock.  The route looked pretty easy, but the weather for the week didnt look all that good.  Lows in the 20s, and highs in the 40s, or low 50s;  not good enough for people with a house on wheels!  So we decided to spend just one day in Lubbock, and then head south to San Antonio, and warmer weather.

We left the park about noon, headed to the Flying J for gas and propane.  The Flying J was well laid out for RVs; even had separate pumps for RVs, propane fill, and RV dump station.  Before filling with gas, I went in to get an RV "Real Value" card which gave us a 2 cent discount on gas.  Gas had jumped to $2.69 a gallon from $2.48 a gallon we had seen only two days before.  Propane was $2.49 per gallon.  About 12:30 PM we were on the road heading west toward Lubbock.  The trip was farely uneventful, except for the 30 mph headwind, which kept the transmission in fourth gear and the tack around 3500 rpm most of the way to maintain 65 mph.  Probably didnt get too great mileage on that trip!

There was lots of construction on the north side of Lubbock, and combine that with the Microsoft Streets and Trips that is new to us, and finding the RV park was quite and adventure.  When we arrived we were met with a very friendly, helpful, and some what disappointed manager when we told we changed our minds and only staying one night, instead of  a week.  She was still very pleasant and helpful.

After getting settled in and hooked up, we decided it was time for dinner.  With the help of mapquest, and driving down a street filled with restaurants, we found "CrawDaddies", a cajun style Texas restaurant. It was a very good dinner; Ann had a skillet of cajun favorites, I had crab cakes, red beans and rice, and fries. 

By time we got back to the park, it was time for bed.  Another great day in the life of a couple of Iowa snowbirds!  Everyday we are so great full for the opportunity we have to be able to do this!


Saturday December 4:  The plan today was to go and see the Buddy Holly Museum, maybe look at a couple other things then head south to San Antonio.  Before going to the Museum, which opened at 10:00AM, I spent my usual down time cruising the internet including  RV Forum, where I had read that Virgin Mobile had Broadband2Go, where for $40.00 per month you had unlimited data usage with a USB modem, or a Mi-Fi, and no contract!  Upon further research, I discovered that Virgin Mobile had coverage in Del Rio Texas.  So armed with this knowledge, we planned on getting one after our tour of the Buddy Holly Museum.

We arrived at the museum a few minutes before it opened and waited in the empty parking lot till shortly after 10:00 when they unlocked the gate and let us in.  We paid our admission; it was $5.00 for Ann and $3.00 for me with the Senior Discount.  The museum is not all that big; a mock up Holly's bedroom with original furniture, lots of memorabilia, and several panels that told the story of short life, and tragic death, with Buddy's music playing in the background.  One of the things I found most interesting was that they said the plane crashed in a wheat field in Iowa.  I have lived in Iowa since 1956, and I dont recall ever seeing a wheat field in Iowa.  I cant imagine how they got that fact wrong, at least I think it is wrong.  Photography  was not allowed in the museum, so no pics from there, and we even forgot to take a pic of the sign outside of the building.

We finished touring the museum about noon, by them it was time to get some lunch at check out the Virgin Mobile deal, so we went to a Wal*Mart that had a Subway, and sold Virgin Mobile stuff.  We had a quick sandwich, picked up a few things, and checked out the Virgin Mobile display.  They had the USB modem, and we checked the coverage map, but was not detailed enough to tell if they had coverage in Del Rio, so we decided to wait on purchasing the modem, and double-check the coverage map on the computer back at the rig.  Once back there we verified that indeed Virgin Mobile had good coverage in Del Rio.

We prepared to leave the RV park, and stop at Wal*Mart on the way out of town and pick up the modem.  Things went well and we headed east toward Highway 87 which we would take south towad Del Rio, but the Streets and Trips GPS software wanted us to go the wrong way, so we ignored it, and followed the signs to Highway 87 South.  Before long we were back in cotton country with cotton fields and huge truck loads of cotton as far as the eye could see.  When we stopped for gas, Ann got out and picked up some cotton that was blowing around like snow in an Iowa winter.  We drove to San Angelo where we arrived at the Wal*Mart a little after 6:00PM, and decided to stay there for the night.

Sunday December 5:  We must have had a long day Saturday, as we both slept in until 7:40 this morning.  After getting a cup of coffee at the McDonalds in the Wal*Mart we were off to drive the 156 miles to Del Rio.  Again the Streets and Trips was not cooperating, but we managed to get on the right roads, and after an easy three hour drive to ever changing scenery; from cotton fields, to sandstone mesas with little vegetation to, to trees, to scrub brush and weeds, we arrived at the RV park about 11:00 AM.

The lady at the park immediately recognized us from Ann's pics on Facebook, as she is a friend of Ann's on Facebook games.  We visited a bit, then Dan took us around the park, so we could pick out a site.  Eventually we settled on Site 28.  After getting set up, hooked up, and leveled, we went back to the office for another good visit.  The managers know people that we know, and lived around the Panora, Ia area quite some time before moving to Texas three years ago.  They are really nice, friendly, and accommodating people.

After returning to the motorhome our next project was to get the new Virgin Moblie USB modem to work with our Craddlepoint MBR 1000 router.  On Friday night we had installed the software on my laptop, and the modem worked fine, but getting it to work with the router was not such an easy task, even though the fix was quite easy.  We spent a couple hours trying different configurations with it attached to my computer before "shared" my connection with other computers, and we finally succeeded, but we still wanted to be able to use it plugged in to the router, instead of my computer, and have to hardwire my computer Ann's computer.  I called Virgin Mobile's tech support, and the tech assured me that the only way this modem would work is plugged into a computer, and would not work plugged into a wireless router.  Not one to take no for an answer, I posted my question on the Escapees Discussion Forum, and it about fifteen minutes, I had the answer.  All I needed to do was update the firmware for the router, and it should work.  I did, and it did!  Eureka!  We are in business!

We(I) watched some football, and before long the sun was going down, and I wanted to get a picture of it, so I climbed on top of the motorhome and got a couple of decent pics of our first sunset in Del Rio, Texas.

While on the roof of the motorhome, another snowbird came by, and introduced himself as an Iowan from south of Davenport.  Iowa sure is a good place to be from in the winter time. :)  We spent a few minutes chatting and Ann came out and introduced herself.  The three of us had a nice chat about Iowa and snowbirding.  As it started to cool off, I am guessing it was about 60, we decided to go back inside and have some dinner.  Ann made a great dinner of steaks, baked potatoes, and Iowa sweet corn, that we had frozen this summer.  Not we are just kicking back, I am updating the blog, and Ann is playing Facebook games and watching a Harry Potter marathon on tv.

Well, hopefully this brings us up to date on our blog, and hopefully, I will update it more often in the future.

Till next time.

Paul