2010 Fall Map of our trip

Home and getting ready for Christmas

We had a very good flight back from Orlando to Manchester - only just over 7 hours - and were only a half hour late arriving 8am. The delay was due to a couple who didn't board the plane in time and their luggage was taken off.

We were amazed to see the amount of snow and ice lying on the ground - they had had over two feet of snow which is very unusual - especially in November in the UK. Fortunately, the main roads were clear and we had a good run over the highest motorway in England, getting home around lunch time. Our street was lethal - like a skating rink with very deep snow and ice, so Terry was very careful in negotiating the front so we could unload our luggage and then taking the car round the back alley to put it in the garage. It has been very cold too, but the temperature has eased up the last couple of days and most of the snow has melted. There are still patches of ice on the side roads and the pavements and walking out is treacherous . We have seen a lot of damage to roofs and gutters as the weight of the ice was quite considerable. We seem to be OK. The cold weather is due back later this week, so we may yet get a White Christmas.

We have been busy doing last minute shopping and posting cards and all the usual hoy palloy in the run up to Christmas. We are off to Derby for Christmas and then Terry and I are flying to Guernsey for New Year. Cannot wait to see all the grandchildren.

Terry has already booked our flights for the next visit to the USA - flying into Orlando on the 8th March ( we WILL be at Jim and Connie's Party - whoo hoo) and then onto Dallas on the 14th March to pick up the trailer. We will return directly from Los Angeles on the 24th May as this time as we really are heading west.

Looking back over this last trip, we have had another amazing time. We have travelled a total of 3,700 miles in the truck, 1815 miles with the trailer in tow and flown approximately 11,00 miles. We have met up and spent quality time with some of our friends and met and made some new friends. Our address book is getting quite full. We have sampled and enjoyed Cajun food, - gumbo, jambalaya, etoufee, boudin - Mexican food and Texan steaks. We have eaten lots of shrimp and Terry learnt how to prepare and cook shrimp from our expert friends. We have learnt about Cajun, Arcadian, Mexican and Texan cultures and music. We visited two State Capitol buildings and learnt about politics in Louisiana and Texas. We have seen the country changing from the wetlands and sand of Florida through the swamps and prairie lands of Louisiana, the beautiful coastal area of southern Texas to the drier hill area further north in Texas. All beautiful in their own way. We have seen fossilised dinosaur tracks, Spanish Missions, the Alamo, beautiful plantation houses, lovely rivers, sweeping plains and rolling hills, lively cities like New Orleans, Austin, Baton Rouge, San Antonio and Dallas and enjoyed some wild country in the depths of Louisiana and Texas. We have seen coyotes, snakes, raccoons, deer, opossum, armadillos, and myriads of birds from pelicans to cardinals, from hawks to eagles.

Our love of America and American people just grows with each venture into the New World.

Homeward Bound

Well, we are sitting in Orlando airport waiting to catch our flight back to the UK. We flew from Dallas Fort Worth airport to Orlando this morning after putting the trailer and truck into storage yesterday. We spent a night in a motel near the airport so we could catch the early flight to leave us plenty of time in Orlando. There is a big freeze on here in the USA, so we were glad to find out that all our flights have not been affected and we should be OK to get back to the UK. What we'll find when we get home us another thing - been freezing there for the last week. Will our car start, will the roads be clear - fingers crossed!!
The last 5 days have been taken up with slowly getting our rig ready for storage. Washing everything in sight, cleaning all within an inch of it's life, draining water systems, packing all linens in vacuum bags etc. etc. It's also been very cold, so we have been unable to wash and dry things which will not go in the tumble drier - will have to do them when we next get back. Anyway - we managed to get everything done and leave for Dallas at the time we wanted.
We have had such a great time here and cannot wait to get back again. We plan to return in March - fingers crossed. Sally

Ray Roberts Lake

Today we have moved on to our last campground for this trip. It is a State Park beside a huge reservoir – they say it is 30000 acres, which is 46 sq. miles. A large part of the 118 mile journey was spent in going round the outside of Fort Worth, which is a large conurbation. We decided to stop en route for lunch, rather than making a packed lunch and then cooking in the evening. Since we did not know the area when we thought it was about time for lunch we just pulled off into a town area and looked. We saw a sign which said Café, great, so we pulled up and went in, only to find that it was a Mexican Restaurant. What the hang, we had never eatn proper Mexican, as Sally was bothered that everything would be too spicey, also that everything seemed to have wheat or corn in it (fajita, burrito, enchilada, tortilla, etc.), however we were pleasantly surprised that we were able to find some great food there.

We arrived at Ray Roberts Lake and have a great campsite almost beside the lake and this evening we sat and watched a massive red sunset as the sun went down over the lake. It was very beautiful.

The Lost World of Dinosaur Valley

Wednesday we set out bright and early to take the road to another world. The Lost World of The Dinosaurs. Yes we were going to stay at Dinosuar Valley State Park.

We had a good journey, using mostly back roads, which though only two lane were very straight and fast. We travelled through the Hill Country to the north of Austin. Worth mentioning is that when we passed through Hamilton we passed a cemetery and Sally had to do a double take as she saw a sign over a gravestone which said ‘Billy the Kid is Buried Here’. Sure enough this is where Billy the Kid is buried, but we didn’t get a picture of it.

We arrived at Dinosaur Valley State Park and were set up by 3.00, so set out to investigate what the place was about. The Paluxy river is a small (15m across) river that flows in a deep gully through the park. Along the banks on either side a hard layer of limestone is exposed, providing a flat shelf of rock, in which we should be able to find dinosaur footprints. We climbed down into the gully and used giant stepping stones to cross the river. There we found our first footprints, we could see them in the bottom of a small pool of water, clearly an elongated foot with three toes. We moved on and there, under the lee of the wall of the gully was a large flat area of rock, covered with footprints. The three toed clawed feet were the easiest to see, but then we picked out big round impressions in the rock. As we moved round we could see other tracks, clearly there were four impressions showing that the animals had been walking. The footprints are huge and of two different dinosaurs. One is a large, plant eating monster, with feet shaped like an elephant’s feet, but larger, these are the footprints of a sauropod, most likely the Paluxysaurus Jonesi.

The other footprints are of a 3 toed carnivore. We could see it was a carnivore as each toe ended in a huge curved claw, leaving marks in the rock 4 inches long. The footprint impressions were made some 110 million years ago, when what is now hard limestone was a hard, shelly clay, a bit like playdo. Most likely it formed the bottom of a shallow lake or estuary as once the mud had been stepped in it was never disturbed again, but covered over by more layers of shells and mud. Over millions of years the lime/clay became hard, but the layers above stayed soft and shaley. When the river eroded down to the soft shale it was easily washed away, leaving the hard limestone exposed, complete with its fabulous footprints.

Finding these dinosaur footprints was amazing. It was something I read about as a child. The whole afternoon had a air of Jurassic Park about it. To be actually treading here dinosaurs walked was very exciting. To be doing it in this beautiful river setting made it even more of an adventure.

Tourists in Austin TX

So today we were tourists, we took the tour bus round Austin. The bus took us out into ‘The Hill Country, which is a very pretty area of limestone hills, with some great views of Austin, then a quick shuffle around the town showing some of its best bits. It was a very entertaining couple of hours. After this we were ready for lunch, so decided to go back up to the Hill Country to a BBQ place we had passed call ‘The County Line – Lake Side Place’, this as one will realise is beside Lady Bird Lake. I had combo ribs, pork and beef, Sally had combo of beef rib, brisket and sausage. I really enjoyed the ribs, but could only eat half of them, the rest we brought home in a box.

Lady Bird Lake is artificial and is a recreational area in the centre of Austin. It is named Lady Bird Lake after President Lyndon Johnson’s wife Lady Bird Johnson. They were local to Austin and there is an awful lot of stuff named after them as they were well thought of. They have several museums about them and a library (every President has a library which holds, among other things, every public speech, every bill, book and paper made or published by that President, which is pretty well everything that was done during and after their term of office. The library, I think, is always in the capital of the home state of that president).

After our meal we returned to Mount Bonnell, on the West side Hill Country, to visit the small park right on the top of the highest point in the area, with its great views of the Texas Colorado River and Austin. This unfortunately left us on the other side of Austin at 5.00, drive time (as they call rush hour in U.S.A.) is horrendous here, so a twenty minute drive turned into nearly an hour of crawling. Even so we really enjoyed our day today.

McKinney Falls State Park

We have set ourselves up in McKinney Falls State Park, we have had a quick look at Austin, which is less than 10 miles away and also had a wander round the park. It is a very plwasant park, there is lots of space betrween sites. the hard standing is now quite old and often uneven. No Foraging for wood is allowed and the logs are very expensive: $1.00 PER LOG!!!

Moving On From San Antonio

Saturday. We said more goodbyes to our new Canadian friends Clint and Joan as we left Travelers World today. We wish them safe and happy journeys as they move Eastward along the Gulf to Florida.

We drove on the interstate through San Antonio and struck North towards Austin. As we travelled we could see a change in the countryside. It became drier, with yellow grass, with rolling hills. A number of quarries making cement indicated that the bedrock is limestone, which explains its dry appearance. We stopped for lunch in a strip mall car park and made it to McKinney Falls State Park by mid-afternoon. A short cruise around the park found us in a very nice campsite (#44) with about 50 yards of woodland either side before the neighbours could be seen.

NO BURNBAN!!!! We set up the trailer and immediately started a campfire, as we did not really want to sit out late.

NO MOSQUITOES!!!!!! Pleasant evening as it was too cold for mosquitoes, but only moderately chilly, nothing that a sweatshirt couldn’t take care of.

We sat round the fire watching the sunset through the trees.

Tomorrow we intend to do some food shopping and perhaps a quick tour of Austin.

Christmas lights and The Riverwalk Boat Parade

We hope today will be a special day as we are planning to go into San Antonio in the evening to see the Boat Parade and the Lighting up ceremony for the Riverwalk lights.

But first, I needed to go and visit with Clint and Joan to make sure that they were happy with their new mobile broadband and to finish giving them campground details.

They surprised us by inviting us to have lunch with them at the local Mall. So we set out to see for ourselves the other Thanksgiving tradition that has frown in the U.S.A. –‘Black Friday’ not, as you would think, an evil day! (though some would think that) but the first day of the Christmas Celebrations – Thanksgiving is over, out come the Christmas lights, the canned music and –Christmas Shopping. The shops have sales and everyone is out looking for bargains. We needed to see this first hand (we have always been at the Thanksgiving Bluegrass Festival before), so we set out at about 11.00 to join the traffic jams and the general throng at the Mall. It was busy, but did not seem unusually so, still it was good fun to just get those last bits of Christmas shopping. At 1.00 we met Clint and Joan for lunch at a cafeteria called Luby’s. The food is cheap and was surprisingly good, even that nemisis of American restaurants – the vegetables, we cooked properly (not done to death). After a pleasant lunch we returned to the trailer to get ourselves organised for the evenings entertainment, because the weather forecast had let us know that the temperature was going to plummet down to freezing, so it was two pairs of socks, two pairs of trousers, T-shirt, shirt, sweatshirt and fleece for me, carrying a blanket and a cushion (those folding seats can get very cold). Sally was similarly prepared, just as well because although it was not down to freezing while we were there it was jolly cold and frost appeared on the car the next morning.

The parade would pass where our allotted seats were at about 7.15, so we were advised to get there early – by 5.00!, so being overprepared we decided to get there for 4.30, of course we found a parking space very easily and then had a couple of hours to wander round and look at what was happening. Sally wondered if anything might be happening at the Alamo (a stones throw away form the Riverwalk), as we approached we could hear music, the all lady Mariachi band was playing, there was a massive tree erected in front of the Alamo’ distinctive front wall and crowds of people were standing listening. San Antonions were celebrating the lighting of their City Christmas Tree.

We stood and watched the spectacle as the band played and Santa arrived in front of The Alamo in a white carriage, lit with fairy lights (Not Santa Anna this time) and flags were trooped and the national anthem sung and then the switch was thrown and the Christmas Tree and the whole area was lit up with little lights (which we had been assured were energy friendly LED’s). Oh what fun.

This was the appetizer, we now wandered our way, along with the whole of San Antonio, through the streets and down the elevator to the Riverwalk level and to our allotted seats for the Boat Parade. There we sat by the riverside, across the river the restaurants were serving to those people who were making a night of dining on the Riverwalk (and paying up to $100 a head to do it). At about 7.15 the Riverwalk was suddenly lit up as the lights came on, lots of twinkling coloured lights set in the trees all along the banks, which added to the restaurant and house decorations made a very pretty sight. As we sat the decorated boats came along with lots of music, some of it live, some of it canned. Lots of Santa’s, fairies, elves, a Ronald Macdonald, waved madly at us all, it was another great American Spectacle.

We made friends with a lovely family sat next to us (as well as about a dozen passers by, the volunteer steward, his wife and a security guard), who had come down from Fort Worth for the weekend. So ended another great day as we drove wearily home.

Thanksgiving Day at Travelers World

Today is Thanksgiving day for Americans, a national holiday set aside to celebrate God’s provision for their safety and well being (although of course the U.S.A. has no link between church and state). This year we are celebrating it in Travelers World Campground in San Antonio. The centrepiece of the day is dinner and the management have done us proud, they have generously provided turkey and ham and ‘taters’ I n large quantities, everything else has been brought in the form of ‘cover dishes’, or ‘dishes to pass’ by all those taking part and there was more than enough excellent food to go round. For the rest of the day we relaxed and in the evening we had a pleasant game of Rummikub with a very pleasant couple from near Vancouver in Canada, called Clint and Joan. We have seen them on and off all week, so we spent a quiet evening with them. They are planning to travel East to Florida to meet their family in January, so we bored them by giving them lots of info about campgrounds we know and love. I also helped them get their new Mobile Broadband up and running, so they are now in touch with the rest of the world