So far, it seems to have been a fast and furious life. I remember my first kiss, my paper route, my first crush, there were many of those, my first job, getting my driver’s license-now that was a big day. A marriage, 3 kids, another marriage followed by two more kids. And a blur of people, places and events in between them all.

I now have 8 great kids. Four I fathered and the four they chose.  Two grand kids, maybe  3 by the time you read this, and a wife of almost 30 years.  I have the whole package, including (and this is a big one too)  my health.I’m fairly fortunate in the lifestyle department too. We get to bump around North America sharing the odd tall tale with neat people we meet. We stay where we want, travel when we want and when we get tired of all that we go back and visit our awsome family.

I understand they are planning a surprise party for me tomorrow. We’ve hurried back 3,000 miles from Mexico to be in Toronto April 3 at noon for apparently “no particular reason.”

I’ve heard “What do you want for your birthday?” more than once in the last while. I’m always good with another hug. If you don’t feel that’s enough (even though I do) 20 more good years would be excellent, 30 more would be even better. There is a lot of things I haven’t got done yet and quite frankly, everything else, ….that’s all just stuff.

Did I mention my friends? I have many. Unlike Facebook I’ve never counted, but I certainly have more than I deserve. And if there really is a big guy up there looking after us all I especially owe him a great big thankyou. I admit, he’s been through a lot with me. I haven’t been easy to look after, but I think even he has to admit that when I finally dogrow up I’m going to turn out “all right”.

What a ride it’s been. And I just can’t wait to see the rest.

This may not be the nicest RV park we have have been in or the biggest lot we have ever had but it feels great to be back near home turf. For the last couple of days we were able to find a small spot on Sicard’s over flowing lot with just enough room for our coach. As you can see, this lot is full!

We had three reasons to be be home by the end of March. Number one of course was the birth of  our kids first child (Marilyns first grandchild), ETA April 6. The other two were my Drivers license and Health Care card both expire tomorrow, not good things to be without when you are thousands of miles from home.

The license and the health care card are now looked after, yesterday afternoon we visited with the kids. We have done all WE can do except wait for that list to be complete.

We are both pretty excited this morning, this afternoon we move back to our site at 50 Point where we will be until we head out in the fall.

We have other long lists of things we need to do over the next few weeks and months including selling our townhouse.

You may recall when we moved into our coach and rented our townhouse out in July of 2008 it was on a “two year trial”. While we were in Mexico we had a big chat about our future and Marilyn was able to convince me that it was time to sell the “stick house” and commit to the full time lifestyle ( I’m joking, I’m joking). Conicedentally, our tenants are  moving on later this month. As soon as they leave there will be a “For Sale” sign in the front lawn.

I am even easing into “back to work”. It looks like I am going to have another busy year.

This afternoon when we get settled back in site 11 it may be time to pull out the lawnchairs, and lean back and relax for  bit.

It’s been a busy last 5 months!

We are all excited as we roll up to the Canadian border and receive a huge welcome from a Canadian customs officer and suddenly there, off in the distance, almost a mireage, we see it.

What could be more Canadian then Tim Hortons! We truly are Home! We carried on to London, Ontario and Flying J where we crashed for the night. We are now about 3 hours from home.

I gotta tell you that I couldn’t have completed this long drive without the help of Buster. Bumping across the highways of  Texas and Oklahoma there were some great opportunities for him to practise his driving skills. He still has a bit of a problem with the fuel and the brake pedals but we’re working on that.

The only thing Buster likes to do better than driving is to mark his territory and he’s done a lot of that over the past 5 months. He has left his mark in 4 Canadian provinces, at least 15 American and a half dozen Mexican states. He has spattered his yellow gold over more than 9,000 miles and remarkably, he is not a bit dehydrated. Now I understand why he thinks he is a Superdog.

He, like the rest of us are resting up to do it again in another 7 months. In the interim we will enjoy our family and friends and believe it or not, I am really looking forward to getting back to work for the season.

Stick around, there’s lots of stories left in this old keyboard.

It’s really quite amazing how they built this area on the top , side and bottom of the Ozark Mountains and by the unfinished development you see around it’s obvious that building here has only just begun. There  are miles and miles of empty land with finished streets winding up and down all the local hills.

We were first attracted by the billboards 100 miles away on I-44. We had some extra time and have heard about Branson, so why not? The closer you get, the more billboards you see. When you finally reach your destination the entire town is “total billboard pollution”. It’s like they visited Vegas and other US tourist centers and asked themselves “what can we do worse?” They’ve done a fine job.

I need to point out that I don’t like tourist traps, that I look for small unique towns with character. Obviously I am in the minority, this place  is busy.

The positive in the whole visit would be our stay at America’s Best Campground. It’s a large, clean, well laid out park close to town.

It is not quite spring in this area. I bet when when spring actually appears the few small natural areas they missed will be gorgeous.

Branson: Been there, done that, didn’t buy the T-shirt.

This tale takes place in Miami, Oklahoma, home of a dozen casinos and the pupose of our visit, the home of Newell Coach.

Last year on our way home we  stopped in Red Bay Alabama to visit Tiffin Motor Homes. Both Tiffin and Newell are in the same business except where Tiffin’s product starts at about $150,000 when you look at Newell you need to add a zero. Yes they really do start at $1,500,000.

And they go up from there. They build up to 45′ long, with 4 slides and they are truly one-of-a-kind travelling luxury homes. 

 No, we didn’t buy one. They are absolutely gorgeous, but not at all our style, even if we did have have a few million laying around. I just can’t see us sitting at Tres Amigos RV Park in a Newell.

Just to put the money in perspective a new travel trailer starts at about $20,000, a new motorhome starts at about $100,000. The most expensive RV I have ever sold went for $750,000. These are  double that, plus more.

Anyway, it was fun looking and I learned a lot. Let me know if you want one, I’ll hook you up.

I’m guessing some where down the road, maybe sooner than later, we too will be members of the Escapees RV Club. They offer a lot of benefits for some one comitted to the RV lifestyle. And after close to two years of  fulltime RV living we are definetly comitted to the lifestyle for the forseeable future.

 

So then, we are off to Livingston Lake State Park to catch a walk in the sun. We could come back here to enjoy the RV park but we would need more than a couple days.

Here’s a shot of the forest side of this park. As you can see we are into the “Piney Woods” area of Texas

Today, we move North.

If you are coming to Magnolia Lake RV Park you want to know you won’t need to bring your boat. Especially your power boat. But it is pretty, you can see the fish jumping and it certainly is scenic.

We are in Magnolia Lake RV Park just outside of Goodrich Texas, about an hour north of Houston on Highway 59. The original plan was that we would be here one night but as so often happens in our travels we have decided to make it two. The place is so quiet and relaxing you just have to slow down and smell the flowers.

Our next door neighbors are a young family from Spain on a 3 month RV tour of the US. They have basically just arrived and are blown away by the size of Texas, the US and North America. Their original plans were to see it all (North America) in one trip, they are now focusing on one small corner of the US for this time. They are swapping 3 months  use of their RV in Europe with a US family for their 3 month RV trip here.

Goodrich is right next door to Livingston, the home of the well known Escapees RV Club.  Today, after a couple of laps around the lake, we will visit the Escapees. Yes  Linda & Sonny, we’re thinking of you.

We are out on a Sunday afternoon drive with Tom & Lois in Goliad Texas. You are looking at the county courthouse and that tree on the left really was used, if necessary, as a Hangin Tree. If you were found guilty in Goliad and the sentence was death by hanging, they would just take you out front, throw a rope over a limb and get the job done.

Speaking of hanging, you’d be advised to pay attention to the signs at the courthouse entrance.

Now I haven’t been to a rodeo in 50 years, probably 40 years  for Mar, but it’s the weekend of the Goliad County Fair and PRCA Rodeo. So off we go. We joined a few thousand locals for a great afternoon in the sun. We saw calf roping, bare back riding, bull riding and of course the saddle bronc riding.

I”ve probably showed you this picture before. That’s the Pacific Ocean, looking west from Stone Island.

The next one is the Gulf Of Mexico at Rockport Texas:

Still beautiful but very different.

We got a new tire on the truck yesterday, the wheel is beat up but still holding air and going round. We’ll do the body work on the truck when we get back to Grimsby.

We hooked up with Tom & Lois here in Rockport yesterday and they took us for a drive around town. They took us to a graveyard to see the flowers.

The good news is we were all able to see the colors. I understand it’s  just all pretty brown from the other side.

We are rolling down 44 East heading towards Corpus Christi on our way to Rockport yesterday when we are waved over by a passing truck. Must be something wrong we think, so we stop to have a look. Good thing we did.

I’m guessing the guys in the truck watched the tire blow, thank goodness they were there.

The problem is that we have no idea what’s happening to the truck when we are booting down the highway at 60 mph. You can see it in the motorhome’s rear view monitor so you know it’s still there but we didn’t feel or hear the tire blow. Just before the truck waved us over I thought I felt a bit of a loss of power but I put that down to a headwind.

Before we left last fall we talked about adding a Pressure Pro Tire Monitoring System but just never quite got around to it. I’ll bet you we “get around to it” before we head out this fall.

It’s spring in Texas too. Look at the spring flowers along the side of the highways.