Some time in North Texas

Connie and I left Copano Bay RV Resort last Friday the 28th of March.  Our friend Karen had come down and she rode with up to San Antonio with us.  We stayed at the Stone Creek RV Park.

Friday night we saw the Alamo and walked the Riverwalk.  Always enjoyable, especially when its good and warm!

Saturday morning I took Karen to SAT for an early morning flight, then Connie and I went to the Valero Texas Open.

Got an itsy bitty bit of TV time behind Matt Kuchar on 16th green.  (That's me in the red hat!)

Texas State Capitol

Governor's Mansion

On Sunday, we rolled on to Austin, TX and stayed at Oak Forest River RV Park. We spent the day going to the State Capitol, the Governor's Mansion, Franklin's BBQ (it was closed), SoCo and 6th Street.  Austin's an incredibly different town.  They've passed a law making it illegal for stores to use throw away bags, regardless of paper or plastic.  Horrible for me.  Went to the store twice, forgot to take bags twice.  Ugh.

Our site at Oak Forest River

Wednesday, we made the rather uneventful trip to Santo, TX and Coffee Creek Resort for the North Texas Heartland Owner's Club rally.  Knew many of the people, met some more great owners.

Went out Wednesday night to the Natty Flat Smokehouse, that also had the largest rocking chair in Texas.

 Thursday, I went out with a couple of guys for some golf, then just hung around the rig.  Friday, the official opening day of the Rally, we went out to dinner at a Catfish Diner.

Saturday was the beginning of splitsville.  Opened the morning by helping cook bacon for the Rally's breakfast.  Around 10:30a, I took Connie to Dallas Love Field for her afternoon flight back to Ohio.  When I returned, we had a potluck dinner and I returned to the rig to watch the Final Four.

Our daughter, Bethany, was working at AT&T Stadium for the Final Four, and Sunday was her day off.  I drove back over to Arlington, and we had an enjoyable afternoon seeing some sights of Dallas (Texas Book Depository, downtown, etc.), then went to the NCAA's Fan Fest called "Bracket Town.".  Had lunch at a rather eclectic little diner, then headed back to the rig after dropping her back at the hotel.

Today (Monday) was getaway day from Santo and on to Sanger, TX and the Wagon Master RV Park. <link>  Pretty short ride, but I held off leaving to miss the traffic from the Texas Motor Speedway who had their race delayed.  Never touched the brakes the whole time.  Looked like there were PLENTY of good seats still available.

Was my first solo tear down, drive and set up.  Things went very well, and I felt very prepared.

Till next time!

Great day in Indy!

We've been to Indy a few times, so we're looking for a couple of things to go see and get us out of the rig on these hot days.  We chose to go to the Canal and White River State Park.

We started with the USS Indianapolis Memorial.  The USS Indianapolis was the ship to transported the Atomic Bomb during WWII.  It was so secretive, that when it was torpedoed on July 30, 1945 by the Japanese, it wasn't missed.  Of 1,196 men on board, approximately 300 went down with the ship. The remainder, about 900 men, were left floating in shark-infested waters with no lifeboats and most with no food or water. The ship was never missed, and by the time the survivors were spotted by accident four days later only 316 men were still alive.

Indy has done a terrific job of upgrading their downtown living around the canal.  Beautiful condos overlooking the walk.  Has to bring a ton of people downtown.

Got to see a stadium!  We toured Lucas Oil Stadium (home of next year's Super Bowl and the Big Ten Championship) last year.  Here is the home of the AAA affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Indianapolis Indians.

This has been a bit of a AAA tour.  Starting with Tucson (AAA home of the Padres), we've been to Albuquerque (AAA home of the Dodgers), Oklahoma City (AAA home of the Astros) and now Indianapolis.

The canal walk featured great views of downtown

 We also saw the home of the NCAA and Hall of Champions.  I believe this is where the Tournament Committee meets to decide the March Tournament.

And finally, we saw Conseco Fieldhouse, NBA home of the Pacers and home to the Big Ten Tournament on a number of occasions.

So we bought a grill a month back for a few reasons:  it had two burners, a built in thermometer and would fit in the truck when we load up and roll to the next stop.  Did my first smoking attempt on this grill tonight and it was delish!  Had a half rack of ribs left over from a while back.  Connie put a rub consisting of brown sugar, garlic salt and paprika on them, I put my smoker box with apple chips on the opposite burner and smoked those babies with indirect heat for almost five hours.  Put BBQ sauce in our pot for the fourth hour, then started applying the sauce a half hour later.  Put a couple of baked potatoes on in the second hour and moved them over direct heat on the warming rack for the last two hours.