Lake Conroe, TX

Here we are at the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails Preserve in Willis, TX. We had a short 120 mile drive over here from Columbus, TX. Of course the first thing we did after we got leveled up was to go to Sam's Club. Since our old back-up laptop is finally dying, we bought a Bluetooth keyboard for the iPad so that Kathy can continue writing for our book project. All these three week stays in TX are so we can do the writing and get the book published before the end of the year. We were fortunate to get a 50 amp site but we had to use almost our whole lumber yard to get level. The Verizon service here is intermittent with numerous dropped connections and the park WiFi is slow, but we are able to communicate, so I can't complain too much. I'll get the cellular amplifier installed later in the week and hopefully that will improve the internet connectivity. The park is in pretty good shape and the pool here is great! We might even use it. More later in the week.

The Painted Churches around Schulenburg, TX

17 miles west of Columbus is the town of Schulenburg. This area of Texas was settled by Czech and German immigrants in the 1860's and 1870's. The Painted Churches are a group of mostly Catholic Churches built during that time and still in use today. We had a lot of fun touring this area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colorado Preserve

We always enjoy our stays at the Colorado River Thousand Trails Preserve. It is among the smallest in the system with about 110 campsites, but it is located about 80 miles from San Antonio, Houston, and Austin.


We are in the upper part of the preserve with many large oak trees shading the sites.

This old wagon is decorated with lites at Christmas in this view looking towards the office and clubhouse.

Last nite and most of toda, we have had thunderstorms and heavy rain, sorely needed in this part of Texas. I think the low pressure helped along dome deer births. Mother and fawn are about 100 yards away.

There's the little critter. No more than a day old.

 

Rain and more rain

Well, here it is Friday and more rain predicted this afternoon after a full day of continuous rain yesterday. Tomorrow's forecast is also for more rain. At least we can get some writing done for the book. I hope I can get out and take pictures soon. This is a beautiful piece of property with lots of wide open spaces and where there are campsites, they are separated by at least 30 feet or so. More tomorrow.

Colorado River Thousand Trails Preserve

We did a wet and miserable 170 miles yesterday from Hondo to Columbus, TX and the Colorado River TT park. We've stayed here before and we love this park. We found a long and level 50A site in a circle of 9 other campsites. The sites here are spread out. Three circles and then a lot of sites down by the Colorado River. Not much water now, but it is still beautiful. We'll be here 3 weeks and we will be doing a lot of writing for our book. There are a lot of deer here but feeding them is against park rules (Good!) and they won't let people get too close. We see them feeding in the tall grass morning and evening. There is a nice pool and hot-tub here and we will be sampling them in a few days after the rain slows down. I'll try to get out and take some pictures a little later.

Yesterday we received our new Wilson Electronics Cellular amplifier. After a few false starts, I got it up and running. Hoo-ray!!! Now we don;t have to go to town to make calls or go to the clubhouse to surf the 'net. We took a trip to Bandera today. Bandera is known locally as the cowboy capital of Texas. Lots of touristy shops and stuff, but we had a good time anyway.I didn't even think to bring a camera. Oops

Lone Star Corral

We're having a great and relaxing time here. We planned this 1 week stop to see if we really want to become lease holders here. We do! Lots of friendly folks and the park is only 40 miles from San Antonio. Hopefully we will have a lot late this year or early next year. Among the maintenance items I have to take care of is the replacement of our 4 6 volt house batteries. I'm quite disappointed they only lasted 3 years, and I do battery maintenance every month. We got the new ones at Sam's Club in San Antonio and as a bonus, we had lunch at Taco Cabana, our all time favorite Taco place. It didn't disappoint. Next up is a trip to Banderra, about 30 miles north to sightsee and to get some things from a RV repair and parts store. The electric part of our hot water heater is not working and I will get a new heating element. I believe the hard water in Benson caused it to go south. The weather has been hot and humid but we're handling it.
We also had to acquire a cellular phone amplifier so we might have phone and internet at our rig. Thank you Amazon.com.

Lonestar Corrall, Hondo, TX

We broke our own rule for travel distance and did 310 miles to get to Hondo without another night on the road. US 83 south was just fine until a road construction job had 1 lane traffic over packed gravel for 3 miles. Of course there was a water truck spreading water to keep down the dust, and to make mud on our rig and car. Then we turned onto Texas 127 to bypass Uvalde and save 25 miles and 20 miles down that road came...you guessed it, another 1 lane packed gravel road construction job with a 3 mile run through just watered dust. What a mess!! We arrived at the Escapee park in Hondo and found out they have a water shortage, so no rig or car washing. Oh great! On top of that, there is no Verizon service here. It looks like there will be a Cellular booster amplifier in our future. The park is very nice, though, and we are considering becoming leaseholders here. We'll see. We had a steady rain most of the night and I hope the dust washed off the roof because it just streaked down the side. We'll leave here in a week and hopefully we'll find a Blue Beacon Truck wash. Hopefully the sun will come out and I'll take some pictures of the park today.