Monday April 7, 2014-Moving day-Coffee Creek RV Park to Choctaw KOA, Durant OK

Yesterday, Sunday, was a very drab, cold and rainy day all day long. The only thing we did was to go down to the rally hall for coffee and cop food (donuts). We said goodbye to some of our friends that had to leave to go back home for work, but there were several that stayed, many planning to go to the next rally in Durant Oklahoma. We mostly stayed indoors for the rest of the day because of the bad weather. I think if I continue to complain about the weather it will stay but if I ignore it, it will just simply go away.

This morning, we were up and working on getting packed up to leave for Durant. We decided to follow our friends Dan and Karen and we both pulled out about 9. Pretty good for little or no prep the night before. Rather than take the freeways as we normally would have, we went on some back roads to avoid a huge traffic jam at the Texas World Speedway near Ft. Worth where they are running a race that was postponed from yesterday because of the rain.

We made very good time and only made one stop for a potty break on the side of the road somewhere. We pulled into the beautiful Choctaw Casino KOA RV Park a little after 12. It wasn't long before we were all set up and the a/c on, cooling the trailer off.

Several more of our Heartland friends arrived from Santo and we had a small gathering at our trailer with coffee and fire crackers later in the afternoon. Later we decided to go into Durant for some pizza at a Pizza Hut but it was closed for everything but take out. We ended up at Chili's which was all right but nothing spectacular. 

We came on back home and some went to the casino to gamble but Stella and I came home to rest after the travel day. We will be looking forward to more of our friends arriving soon and the rally begins on Thursday.

So long.

Saturday April 6, 2014-Coffee Creek RV Park, Santo TX

Another cool morning here in Santo. Not quite as cold as yesterday but still cool. Jim B. has planned to fix a big breakfast for everyone and I was asked to open the hall and start the coffee pot. I was up already, so it was no trouble at all to go over and plug in the coffee pots and it wasn't long until folks started showing up. Jim, Buddy, Larry, Bob and Dan as well as others made pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon and other assorted breakfast food and they were DELICIOUS! 

We sat around chatting after breakfast and went back home for some rest. Please remember that some of us were up, playing dominoes until almost midnight! I worked some on the Regional rally that is being held in Amana IA between naps, so it was a good day.

We all met outside the rally hall for a group photo that Bobcat took for us. We had some fun, cutting up during the taking of the picture. We then went inside and had a delicious potluck dinner. The club bought barbecue and we brought sides, and as usual, the food was great.

Everyone sat around visiting until we took short breaks to go back home and let our pets outside, returning for some more dominoes. Of course, I lost but they rigged the game. Thats my story and I'm sticking to it! Another midnight game too.

So long.

Friday April 4, 2014-Coffee Creek RV Park, Santo TX

We had a nice day today, although it was cold this morning, about 45 degrees. I guess that winter really is never going to leave! Our friends Dan and Karen who live in the upper peninsula of Michigan just heard that they will have 18" of snow today in their area. 

I went over to have coffee with Dan and Karen and they invited me, and Stella when she finally woke up, to have breakfast with them. Karen did a good job making bacon and eggs for us and we had a nice time talking and visiting with them.

We didn't do too much during the day today but hang out with our friends and visited. We made the rounds through the campground and saw old and new friends, including a couple named Jerry and Diane who are in the final process of selling everything to go full time. There seems to be more and more people that are living full time in their trailers.

This evening we all loaded up and went to the Brazos River Catfish Cafe for supper.

 Everyone getting ready for a catfish feast!

The waitress is hard at work, taking orders. 

After a great meal, we returned to the park for our initial meet and greet. There were a few that were a little late in arriving, including one new couple that had just arrived. Nancy, the north Texas chapter leader, made a few announcements and then had everyone introduce themselves. It was nice to put names to the new faces.

We separated into groups to play some dominoes and played until almost midnight! Good fun...

Great first day of the rally.

So long.

Thursday April 3, 2014-Coffee Creek RV Park, Santo TX

We sat outside for a while last night, visiting with our Heartland friends that we haven't seen in some time. It's so good to be back on the rally trail!

We had a meeting with Jim and Dan & Karen to make plans for the upcoming Regional rally in Amana Iowa in October. Since Dan and Karen are new to leadership with the club, a lot of time was spent going over things with them, and over all, it was a very good meeting. We will all be going to the Oklahoma rally so we'll have another meeting while we are there.

Our meeting ran through the traditional lunch time and we decided to go to David's Stove Shop in Weatherford. This is a very cool place to shop for everything from antiques to old style appliances that are brand new.

This is one of those old-looking stoves that is brand new. It would be very nice to build a new house and use these appliances.

A brand new Heartland brand (no relation to the RV company) double oven. One thing to remember, old-looking stuff is EXPENSIVE!! This oven is $2,375... 

 I don't have a clue what this thing is. It resembles a large harp but it definitely doesn't make beautiful music.

Stella trying out a new outdoor chair, made of a plastic resin material. This one sits up higher and has a nice footrest built in. Very nice; now if we only had some place to use it.

This is not really dynamite, it's actually fire starter. I'll bet you'd get some excitement in an RV park if you brought this box out!

We had lunch at a small restaurant inside the store called The Shed at David's Stove Shop. This is another good find. We came here last year when we were here for the No. Texas rally, so we brought our friends to try it this year. They serve huge sandwiches and home made soup and we had something called Cowboy Pie which was a mixture of several ingredients and boy! was it delicious. We all waddled out of this place. If you're ever in this area, about 20 miles outside of Fort Worth, you need to stop in for lunch. Take exit 415 and you'll find it.

We came on back home and met some of the new folks that had arrived while we were gone and just hung out for the rest of the afternoon. I came home and tried to get in a nap but couldn't get to sleep. I did rest some and we went outside and chatted with friends. A large group went out to eat but we stayed in the park because we were still full from lunch. We sat outside  at Dan and Karen's and they talked Stella and I into splitting a Sloppy Joe sandwich that was delicious. 

It was a very good first day at the North Texas rally.

So long.

Wednesday April 2, 2014-Moving day-Ron Hoover Oasis to Coffee Creek RV Park

We didn't finish up with moving and storing things out of the storage until last night! Finally done though...  We took Tyler and his girlfriend Loren out to eat since we hadn't been able to see very much of him while we were here. We went to the new Hartz Chicken buffet kn Texas City. The food was just so-so but we had a good time with Tyler and Loren.

We took on fuel for the trip to Santo and retired for the night. Then I found that I had left a couple of items here that should have been brought to Kim's house, so we took them over. 

We were up pretty early this morning, packing and getting ready to leave. I was so busy yesterday that I didn't even think about taking the porch down so that was one of the first things I had to do this morning. Everything went well and we pulled out about 9:30. We made good time through Houston and didn't make any stops until we got to the Buccee's store in Madisonville. We got something to eat and for a snack later in the afternoon. We didn't make another stop until we got to a rest stop just before the exit for Hwy. 287. 

I capped a couple of Munzees while we stopped at Buccee's and at the rest area, just to keep in practice. I was so busy for the last couple of weeks that I didn't have time to play Munzees very much. I did deploy some at the new Buccee store in Texas City and capped a few while going over to Manvel for my retired peace officer weapon permit.

We got here to Santo about 4:30 and while getting set up, we learned that plans had been made to go to the Natty Flat Smokehouse for supper. The food was good and we had a fine time talking to many old friends and a few new ones.

We, along with Dan and Karen, were invited to go over to Jim and Nancy's trailer for some Blue Bell and enjoyed our chat with them. Dan just got a new I- Phone and got a lot of hints from Jim. It's so good to be rallying again! I'll keep you posted on everything that goes on.

So long.

Tuesday April 1, 2014-Ron Hoover Oasis RV Park

We finished up our visiting with friends and family yesterday. I took the truck to get it serviced at the Ron Carter Dodge dealership in Dickinson. I like to get this done before we leave for the summer and get the full service with both oil and filter and fuel filter replaced, so the truck is ready to roll!

We found a lot of photos when cleaning out our storage unit and separated them by removing all of our personal photos and brought the old family pictures to my brother Phil. He still has a house and plenty of space to store them, so we went to his house where he is recovering from knee replacement surgery. He is getting around pretty well but it has only been a week or so since he was operated on. We had a nice visit with them and then went out to eat at the Red River Barbecue in League City. Their service was rather slow, but the food was good and we enjoyed ourselves. 

We went to Kim's house to visit them one last time before we leave. Tyler was at his girlfriend's house and Cameron and Kim were having an argument about school, so we didn't stay very long. We still have lots to do to be ready to leave on Wednesday morning, so we came on back home. Beside that, the dogs missed us and we needed to get home to take care of them.

The next time you hear from us, we'll be in a new location and our summer trip will have begun!

So long.

Saturday March 29, 2014-Ron Hoover Oasis RV Park

This has been a good week for me. I worked on cleaning out the storage unit all week and then "got" to pick Cameron up after school to bring him home. We had a good time together and he helped me to move a few things out of storage to their house. 

Thursday evening we met Mike and Patrice and Harry and Judy at Monterrey House in Dickinson where we had a nice meal. It was good to see our friends one more time before we leave. As we started to leave, I saw Judge Lonnie Cox, the judge in the case that I testified in on Tuesday. I got to talk to him for a few minutes, which I really enjoyed. Judge Cox and I had worked together on several cases when he was an Assistant District Attorney and I worked for the Dickinson Police Dept., so it was good to catch up with him. We didn't talk about the case, except for him to say that it could go either way. Hmmm...

Friday morning I got a call from the prosecutor in the case, telling me that final arguments would be this morning in case I wanted to come down. I soon decided to go down, and got to the courtroom just as the Judge began his charge to the jury. I listened with interest to the final words from both the prosecution and defense and came away with a feeling that we would win a guilty verdict. I went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Galveston with several of my old friends from Law Enforcement and we had a good time catching up. 

We returned to the courthouse for the verdict but I vowed to leave by 3 o'clock. Just a few minutes after 3, I told everyone that I knew that the verdict would be returning soon because I was leaving, and sure enough, I had not made it to the elevator when everyone began returning to the courtroom. I had left my phone number with Tommy Hansen who was one of the lead investigators in the case, and he was calling me when I walked back into the courtroom. We then got our hoped-for verdict of Guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter. If you click on the link above, you can see the news report on the trial and a picture of the bad guy.

This morning we went to watch Cameron play baseball. Sadly the team got beat in both games but the second team is two classifications above Cam's team, and only beat them 9-6. A pretty good showing against a much more talented team. This is what I like about this team, they not only train the boys better, they challenge with better opponents.

After the games were over, we went by Harry and Judy's new site at the Galveston Bay RV Resort. They just moved over from a private lot in LaMarque and we stayed here several years ago, so we wanted to see what it looks like now. It's very nice and we'll consider it when we return. I also gave Harry a 5 gallon diesel fuel container for when they start traveling again. I love sharing my unneeded items with friends.

We went over to our storage unit and finished cleaning it out. Well, we did leave one box that we'll go back for tomorrow. FINALLY got it done!! We took a few more boxes to Kim's house to store them but now we're done. 

Told you it has been a good week.

So long.