VISITING THE SALLEYS!

We went to Georgetown, Texas to visit friends that used to live in Bentonville. We've known them for 20 years or so and the way we met is rather funny. Bob was riding his Harley through Bentonville one afternoon when this woman motioned for him to pull over. She said that her husband had recently gotten a Harley and had no one to ride with! Well, Bob being the introvert that he is, arranged for Sheri and her husband Doug to come over to our house that evening. When Bob came home and told me the story, I wasn't too thrilled. What kind of woman pulls a complete stranger over and arranges for him to meet her husband??? Unbeknowst to us, Sheri was having a similar conversation with Doug and he was as "thrilled" about it as I.

Well, that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship that has endured all these years! Even more interesting, Doug and his brother Randy were instrumental in getting Bob an interview at Walmart and the rest is history.

Sheri and Doug moved to the Austin area about 4 years ago and we had not seen them since. It was great catching up and seeing the kids. Morgan and Mathew are very bright, charming kids but I expected no less considering their parentage! Lucie had a ball with their two dogs, Maggie and Holly. It was a wonderful visit. We laughed a lot just like we used to and the years of separation seemed to melt away.

PORT ARANSAS PHOTOS

ROAD TRIP TO THE COAST

We are really enjoying the RV full-timer's lifestyle now! Recently, we were on our way to Dallas to look at an item for the Harleys. Planned to stay over night and headed out early in the morning. Just before we got on I-35 Northbound, Bob made a call and found that what we wanted was not in stock. No reason to go to Dallas now and since its not one of our favorite places Bob said lets head south on I-35. I looked at a map and noticed we weren't that far away from the shore (about 3 hours) and something printed in a small box near Corpus Christi caught my eye. " 24 Hour Ferry Service-free" I thought sounded intriguing so we headed that way, knowing nothing about where we were going! We hadn't done a spur of the moment road trip in many years, something we did frequently back in the day!

On our way down, we passed miles and miles of windmills for as far as the eye could see. Quite an impressive sight which doesn't show as well in the photo.

The ferry service links the mainland with Port Aransas, Texas. Only way to get over there is the ferry or to come through Corpus and travel through Padre Island, Mustang Island, etc and it takes about an hour or longer to go that way. I questioned why they haven't built a bridge across since it is such a short distance (about a 3 minute ride once you pull away from the dock) and I was told that the ferry is a tradition and that there is not enough land on the Port side to build the approaches for the bridge. Its hard to estimate distance on water but I would say it couldn't be more than a half mile across!

We discovered you can drive your vehicle on the beach, right up to the water's edge if you want to. What a treat that was. We drove for miles along the coast and saw some beautiful scenery. They even have a campground on the beach or you can just pull your rig up wherever you choose and camp for the night. The usual regulations at beaches back east don't apply here! They are very liberal and allow dogs on leashes and campfires at night. It was quite a sight to see the full moon come up over the water on a mostly deserted beach with a few campfires here and there.

We found a place to stay with a deck overlooking the sand dunes and beach and were so taken with the place that we stayed for 3 days! The sunrise was awesome and even Lucie knew we were experiencing something special. She decided to go in the water and body surf. What a riot! She was so energized by it all that she ran in circles, around and around, as far as her leash would allow. She spent many minutes studying the birds, trying to figure out how she could sneak up on them.

We found a bar (I know you all are surprised) named the Salty Dog. One of our favorite bars in Lake of the Ozarks, Mo. had the same name so we thought we would try this one. It was such a upscale pub that they even allowed dogs to come in so Lucie visited her first (and probably only) bar. Of course, we had to wait outside until she came out! ARR, ARR, ARR!

This kind of trip is exactly the reason we chose to go on the road!

And since I cannot, for the life of me figure out how to place images where I want them on my blog, I will publish the rest of the pix on a separate post. Hey, if anyone out there is reading this and knows how to incorporate the images within the text, please let me know!

FRIENDS COME TO VISIT

We have old friends (long term friends, not "old") who live in Granbury, Texas, and they came to visit with Scruffy, their dog. The day that they arrived was pretty much taken up with going to New Braunfels to pick up Bob's truck. It had been at a collision center for 6 days, getting repaired from the damage done to it when it was hit in the bank parking lot! We were sitting in the truck at the time which was lucky since I'm not sure that the young gal that ran into us would have stuck around. Well, I digress.....

Since they are the first to visit, we didn't have the tour down pat but we did manage to go to Gruene, Texas to see the country's oldest music hall still in operation. Did a little shopping there and a lot of looking at the outlet malls in New Braunfels. I have never seen so many stores in one place! They say people fly in to Austin or San Antonio just to shop there. While Larry and Lin were here, we had some vehicle trouble which caused us to change plans several times.



Larry is by nature an early riser, 4-4:30 AM is his usual wake up time. Since there was no computer in their cabin for him to get on, he had several hours to kill before we were to pick them up for breakfast at nine. We had a specific place for breakfast in mind and it takes about 20 minutes to get there. During the ride, Larry claimed that we must be taking them to Austin, it was taking sooooo long to get there. Well, when the car trouble occurred before we even reached the restaurant, Larry was very patient and didn't say a word. We did eventually get to eat breakfast, although it could have been lunch. Larry only complained two or three times after that! Thanks for being patient, Larry.



We did get to sit around the campfire one night. Don and Mary, our co hosts were able to join us, and it was a perfect evening. We discovered that Fox's Pizza delivery will come out here and their pizza was delicious. Who knew you could get any kind of delivery in the boonies?????









Larry Linda and Bob in Gruene (pronounced Green) Linda took a spin on Bob's Harley