Made it to Texas!

This will be a fairly long entry ‘cause it covers two days. So, get a soda or cup of coffee or tea, sit back and enjoy! I tried to upload several pictures to this entry so it wouldn't be so boring, but for some reason, they wouldn't load. I'll try again at another time. So, if you can't stand to read without pictures - have at it. If not, you can wait for the next posting!

Wednesday morning, we got on the road around 9:05 am - amazing! Of course, it’s a whole lot easier to “break camp” when all you have to do is put your clothes in the RV, hook up the truck and go. :)

We can’t say enough how wonderful it was to spend the past week and a half with Dan & Debbie. Their hospitality is unmatched, I’m sure. They made us feel so comfortable and at-home (probably TOO comfortable!) that it was hard to leave.

We arrived at Lake Lincoln State Park around 3pm. It was a fairly easy trip, until we got about an hour and a half away from the park. Word of caution - GPS is not perfect!! The GPS directions would have gotten us here, but it sure took us on the scenic route!

We were following the directions and bore left onto a road that had a sign “End State Maintenance.” We knew we could be in trouble. The next six miles were butt-clenching, to say the least. Actually, it really wasn’t that bad, but at the time we just weren’t sure what was around the next bend. The road itself was only half again as wide as the RV. When we’d meet other cars, both of us would have to move to the right to be sure we’d not touch. And the condition of the road was atrocious - there certainly wasn’t any sign of ANY maintenance, much less state maintenance!

As we came to another turn we were to take, God took pity on us and a local guy was coming to the intersection at the same time. Randy jumped out and asked him if we really wanted to take this road. Needless to say, we didn’t. This nice guy, I’ll just call him “Bubba,” gave us different directions that took on us much better roads. And we were only five miles from the park. We did arrive without incident and the park staff told us the road we had taken was called the “roller coaster road” by the locals. Grrrrrrreat!

The park is very nice. Wouldn’t have expected a state park to be this nice. I guess I expected it to be more primitive. The sites have full hook-up (water, electric, sewer) and are level, concrete pads. That makes for such easy set-up. It’s definitely a park we will come back to, if in the area.

We did have one little hitch during set up. Randy found a leak in the water system and when we ran water inside, water literally ran inside! UGH! It wasn’t a flood but it was still a pain. And, it was back to the bath house for us! Brought back memories from the pop-up. Guess we’ll appreciate “indoor plumbing” even more once it’s fixed.

Once again we were able to get on the road around 9am. It’s a six hour trip to Livingston, so we’ll be there mid to late afternoon. Six hours driving is always at least seven hours actual. Unfortunately, GPS seemed to want to take us around the barn, so we made a few adjustments which added about a half hour to our trip. But that was just the beginning!! I’m not sure if it was the GPS or the navigator, but we had a few “oh, no” situations on this leg of the trip. One could have really been a problem if we had not been watching the signs. The route was to take us down a road that either had a tunnel or bridge that was too short for us to go through. Thank goodness we had an atlas in the truck and found an alternate route. That added about an hour to the trip. Nothing like a good old-fashioned map to pull you through!

We crossed the Mississippi river as we entered Louisiana. It is an impressive sight. Took a picture of it with a barge sailing down the middle - just like you'd expect. Hopefully, I'll be able to get that picture up later.

We finally arrived in Livingston around 5pm. We must have made up some time because that was actually only about an hour later than expected. I have found that I am not a good traveler when things don’t go as expected. Aren’t you shocked! I feel very responsible for ensuring that we are on the right track and hate it when I either misread the GPS or we find ourselves on a road that isn’t the best for the RV. Needless to say it was a bit tense a couple of times. But, gratefully, Randy is so easy going that we just drive ‘til we find a good turn-around spot and then retrace our route. And we got here in one piece, so all’s good!

Then we topped the evening off by having Blackie's food stolen!! Yes, you read it right. Randy had taken the bin of food out of the storage compartment to fill the container we use inside and then he got distracted. Next thing we were going out for a walk and Randy remembered he'd never filled the food container. He looked for the bin and it was gone!! He thought he'd lost his mind - he knew where he had left it, but looked all over the site (which isn't very big) and it was nowhere to be seen. We were flabbergasted - we have NEVER had anything stolen from a campsite in all the years we've camped. And to have dog food stolen - what the heck is that about???!!! Anyway, it seemed like a logical end to our day. We are praying this doesn't set the pace for the rest of our time here. Oh, well. It's only dog food.

This park is the national headquarters for Escapees Club, an RV club to which we belong. We are looking forward to getting a tour of the place - it’s pretty big. They have a mail center, a Care Center (for older RVers), and lots of activities every day.
Randy is going to get the leak fixed today. That will go a long way to making life easier. Then we’ll get some groceries, fuel and come back and get settled. We have limited internet access here - WiFi is only accessible in certain areas of the park and of course, our site is not in those areas! So, we'll be checking e-mail every other day. We may try to get our satellite up. If that happens, you'll know!

Love to all. Talk to you soon!