Sunday 1-30-11 Lake Casa Blanco State Park..Laredo TX

It's very hard to believe it's the last days of January. Wow !! We've been on the road since Oct 1st and every mile has been enjoyable. Right now we're camped at Lake Casa Blanco State Park in Laredo TX, the site has a fire ring and a little gazebo to shade the sun..got a view of the Lake and can see the city lights across the lake at night but it's very quiet in the park. Laredo has a winter festival this week called "Jamboozie". Lot's of people around to participate. It's been going on for years..Kinda like Tip-Up-Town without winter or Polar Bear dips..:-).. We tried our luck at fishing yesterday but got skunked..Been able to get a few bike rides in but it's a challenge here due to the hills..but it's fun going downhill..weeeeeee!!! (Should we be having this much fun???)  Another keen observation is that beer at 5PM tastes just as good in Texas as in Michigan.. It almost hit 80F today and we cooked a couple steaks on the grill. Running into town tomorrow to pick up our mail... One of the wierd things about Texas is they hide the liquor stores and cigarette stores, you have to ask the locals for the places to find them. We were listening to a local radio station and the disc jockey said they only play the music our parents hated and now our kids hate it too.!!! We loved his choices.. We pull outa here on Wed AM and head to Del Rio TX and our next great adventure..REMEMBER..LIVE YOUR DREAMS AS TIME GOES BY QUICKLY..Charlie & Heather

1-26-11 Laredo TX Casa Blanco State Park

We pulled into Casa Blanco State Park in Laredo TX about 3PM..Only had to drive about 2 1/2 hrs. We were suprised how close to town it is. Stopped at Wally World to stock up for the week. Most of the campground loops and sites have a water view..Going to be here for 7 nights so we even bought some campfire wood. Had to get another inner tube for one of our bikes as the dang sand burrs down here keep giving us flats so we got a tube that self seals and is supposed to take care of that problem..quite popular down here..took a hike down by the lake and scrounged up some small wood to get the fire going..had a simple smoked brats cookout and watched the sun set...I got the satellite dish zero'd in and set up today and I'm glad to have it as the rabbit ears only get 10 stations and most are Mexican. We even found a station last night that was in English but all the commercials were in Mexican, go figure !!..This is probably our last stop in the valley and Texas..maybe one more?? Hope  everyone is happy and REMEMBER..LIVE YOUR DREAMS AS TIME GOES BY QUICKLY..Charlie & Heather

1-22-11 PM Falcon Lake State Park

Wow, what a great day..sunny and warm..had a great bicycle ride and a few hikes..tomorrow the park host are haveing a football party at the clubhouse..Last night we had a cookout with a friend of ours and a bonfire. While we all sitting around the fire, at sunset, we saw a few deer approaching and then Heather saw another shadow behind them..Wild Pigs!!..with babies, not more than 50' fron our chairs. We all felt a tingle of danger but they weren't worried about us, they had some tree seed pods to chow on and could have cared less about us homo sapiens nearby!!.It finally got cool enought to call it a night and I had to look up how dangerous wild feral pigs are..NOT GOOD..but another adventure under our belts..I have a feeling that as we travel Northwest to New Mexico we will get more and more into "the wilds" judgeing by the amount of available roads and campgrounds available..time will tell..the rangers here told us about 2 bobcats spotted in the park recently and one of the campers caught a rattlesnake yesterday. No winter hibernation in this area..We're here for a couple more days and head out on Tues AM..Hope everyone stays safe and warm..REMEMBER..LIVE YOUR DREAMS AS TIME GOES BY QUICKLY..Charlie & Heather

1-19-11 Falcon Lake State Park, TX

We left Anglers Den Park and then spent 2 days at Chimney Park RV in Mission TX, right on the Rio Grande River with Mexico in sight just a few 100 yards across the river. The Border Patrol presence in the area was everywhere. Today we arrived at Falcon Lake State Park in Falcon Heights TX. The resevoir was a Mexican-American effort to build a dam and lake for power and irrigation. The lake is huge. The Park is very nice and kinda empty..this is where an American guy got shot while jetskiing with his wife last October..I wonder if that's why...we'll be here for a week. We did some shopping enroute and bought some new loungers and groceries. I even put up the satellite dish as there isn't much on standard VHF except Mexican language programs..the deeper into Texas we go the less English we hear..we even stopped at a store the other day where no one spoke English...makes ya wish for the option "Press 1 for English"  LOL   Local weather is calling for sun and 80's thru Friday so it sounds like we will be comfortable. Hope everyone is safe and warm..Until next post REMEMBER, LIVE YOUR DREAMS AS TIME GOES BY QUICKLY..Heather & Charlie

Los Indios TX Anglers Den RV Park 1-12-11

We got out of Kenwood Resort and headed South of Brownsville. We took a quick tour of S. Padre Island and walked the ocean beach then ate  and settled into Cactus RV Park for the night. It was okay for a night but not much of a park so we pulled out early A.M. and drove NW along the Texas coast. We found a park that looked interesting on the internet called Anglers Nest in Los Indios TX...we found ourselves driving alongside the Security Fence we've all seen on TV..It went on for many miles..it's about 20' high and sturdy. Every once in awhile there was a border crossing with a ton of security.  We found the park without any problems and set up about 2PM.. got invited to a dinner the park was putting on so we didn't have to cook. They had 3 kinds of homemade soups and it was really good. Of course after that we were done for the night. Today was overcast and cool but Heather managed to get the laundry done and we cleaned up the rig too..It's a friendly park so we may stay a couple days and wait out this cool spell. We hope everyone is well and snug. REMEMBER...LIVE YOUR DREAMS AS TIME GOES BY QUICKLY..Charlie&Heather

Sunday 1-9-11 Brownsville Tx Honeydale RV Park

We were up early and moved S.E. to Brownsville Tx, Honeydale RV Park..just a plain Jane park so instead of staying 2 days as planned we only will do 1 day and move again tomorrow. Gonna tour the end of the Rio Grande River and move to another Brownsville Park for a day. We really have the hitchitch after being in 1 place for 3 weeks so we don't mind bounceing around for awhile. How else ya gonna see the USA ?? Maybe when we get "old" we'll sit still ( yah right!!) Our neighbor asked us if we knew the difference between the N Valley & the S Valley and we didn't.....he said " about 10 degrees warmer South !!! and it is!! We ran the AC all afternoon.. I hope Tip-Up-Town goes well in Houghton Lake..seems funny not to be part of the "Largest Winter Festival" in the USA after attending it for 30+ years.  ...BUT---I DON'T MISS WINTER..nosirree..
    Hope everyone has a great week..REMEMBER..LIVE YOUR DREAMS AS TIME GOES BY QUICKLY..Love y'all..Charlie & Heather

Thurs 01-06-11 La Feria, TX Kenwood RV Resort

Heather & I have both been running a day behind  . We both thought it was Wednesday on Thursday, and it really doesn't matter. Nice thing about retirement. Got caught up with " domestics " (laundry, vaccuuming, dishes, etc) and took a bike ride into town where we met up with a friend of ours at the American Legion. Talk centered around plans for the next few weeks and where we could all meet up. Soaked in the hot tub before calling it a night.Really laid back day. Gonna be on the road Sunday and see the Rio Grande River and slide West  up the southern border of Texas. I tried to plan next week so we're somewhere near a laundry in a week. (such priorities!!) The Falcon State Park is on our agenda, it's touted as a great place to stop at.
We analyzed our time factor and we decided we could go slow for a month or two. You'll see us staying  a little longer than usual at our campsites thru Jan and Feb, maybe March.  Hope all our Northern Friends are safe and happy.  REMEMBER..LIVE YOUR DREAMS AS TIME GOES BY QUICKLY..Charlie&Heather

La Feria, Texas 01-01-11 Kenwood Resort

Happy New Year y'all..We're still here & enjoying every minute of it.Very relaxing at this place. The weather has been agreeable and the residents friendly. The great pool & hot tub help too. We attended the Christmas & New Years get togethers and Happy Houred every day. Shopping & a nice American Legion are within bicycle distance and the motorhome hasn't moved in 2 weeks. How good is that? All the amenities ,TV(rabbit ears&dish),Cell Phones, Internet are performing great. I think we'll stay another week!! We'll probably eventually go and tour something or maybe shop somewhere else but...... who knows. I'm sure the cats think something is wrong because they haven't had their house move in weeks...LOL. If we get anymore sun we'll have to start using sun lotion to slow down the tans. (I'm sure our "northern" friends are rolling their eyes right now :) ) I'm willing to bet we'll come back to this area in the future. We're thinking of trying to put a group together next summer & travel the western U.P. probably in July or August. It's an unusual area of Michigan that most never see. (contact us if interested) I broke down and rejoined Facebook (Charlie McCarthy) after a 3 month absence. Let's see if it ticks me off again. Having spoken of Happy Hour-----REMEMBER..LIVE YOUR DREAMS AS TIME GOES BY QUICKLY....Charlie&Heather