Rio Grande Valley - The Winds Blow In

Yesterday the valley saw record high temperatures. In Mercedes the temperature hit 94 degrees while McAllen and Mission hit 96. It really didn't seem that warm because there was a 10-15 mph wind almost all day.

What a difference a day makes. Today the temperature topped out at 72, but the 20-25 mph winds made it feel quite cool. We started the day by participating in a beginner Spanish class. Unfortunately the class was in its 6th week. It was still interesting, we learned to tell time in Spanish as well as a number of useful phrases.


This afternoon I worked in the woodshop on my table. I assembled the leg supports I made yesterday and glued the top together using a technique call biscuit joining. Now I have to let the glue harden overnight before I run it throught the 15in. planer. I'll try to remember to take some photos tomorrow.

Kathy spent almost 2 hours with her new fitness instructor, Bill, learning to use the fitness machines. Bill is from Philadelphia and is a licensed physical fitness trainer. Like Kathy, he has a bad back so they had a lot to talk about during her visit.

Rio Grande Valley - 08 - Woodworking Shop

I headed over to the woodworking shop this morning to see if it was a good as had been advertised in the resort brochure. Last fall I posted on RV.net my interest in finding a campground in the valley with a good woodworking shop. Unanimously the response was Llano Grande Resort. I have not been disappointed, this shop is awesome. The campground owner spent over $90,000 on the equipment that includes multiple wood lathes, 15in. planers, 24in drum sander, 8in. jointer, drill press, a large Delta table saw, spindle sanders, dovetail jigs, tons of clamps, etc., etc. And, many of the guys that use the shop are about as experienced as they come, their work is beautiful. Double click on the picture below.

While in Des Moines I drew up some plans for a compact folding coffee table to be used in the motorhome. It will be about 38in. long and 17in. wide. The ends will flip down and the end supports will fold under the center. When not in use it will fold down to 6in. by 17in. I imagine this is hard to picture so I'll take a couple photos as it begins to come together. I got started right away.

Kathy spent the morning visiting the different facilities here at the resort. She reports they have a wonderful fitness facility and she met a number of guests at the tennis courts who encouraged her join them in the future. By afternoon it was back to the pool to swim laps and take in the sun.

Rio Grande Valley - 08 - Sunday at the Flea Market

When we got up this morning the sky was a bit overcast, but the temperature was a pleasant 70 degrees. Following breakfast we attended mass at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church in Mercedes. It's a small Hispanic church probably 70-80 years old. There was a good number of winter Texans in attendance.

After mass we decided to take in the Hispanic flea market down the street. It was quite an event. There were probably well over 100 booths with lots of food, used everything from clothes to tools to video tapes and a great Mexican band with lots of dancing. Next we headed down to the "gringo" flea market. Here again there was lots of used everything and a lot of crafts etc. We did find a booth that makes awnings and carries parts for existing awnings. We discovered on our trip down that a something was broken on our slideout awning and the awning would not retract properly if pulled out. I'll check out ours tomorrow to see what is broken.


Kathy headed for the pool as usual when we returned. This new pool is one of four on the property. It was just completed last month. There are a number of cabanas for getting out of the sun when you start to burn. And, the restrooms are as nice as any I have seen, beautiful tiled floors, walls and classy fixtures.

Rio Grande Valley 08 - Mercedes Texas

We made the decision this morning to leave the Corpus Christi coastal area and head on down to Mercedes, our final destination. Kathy has picked up a cold along the way and the temperatures here on the coast are 10 degrees cooler than inland. She wants to bask in the 80 degree temperatures of the Rio Grande Valley. It's about a 150 mile drive to the south.






Along the way we stopped for lunch at, you guessed it "Whataburger". Kathy thought it would be funny to have my picture taken under their sign, since that what she says about me, Whataburger.


We arrived in Mercedes around 1:30 this afternoon. We were extremely pleased with our selection of LLano Grande RV Resort. This place is is absolutely incredible. The sites are huge compared to any other RV resort we have been to. There has to be close to 1000 sites here with 4 swimming pools, tennis courts, recreation hall that seats over 500, and a golf course to mention a few of the amenities. Oh, and I forgot to mention that they have a complete 3000sq ft. woodworking shop.

Kathy headed for the pool to lay out and soak up some rays shortly after we arrived. I spent some time getting everything shipshape. The incoming water valve seems to be allowing water to flow into the water tank even though it's set on city. I also wanted to get out the grill and lounge chairs and air up the tires on the bicycles.

For Randy's sake our location is N 26 07.926, W 097 56.672

Rio Grande Valley - Corpus Christi

This morning we headed for Corpus Christi. While inroute we called a number of campgrounds. We had several first choices but unfortunately they were all full. We ended up going to a county campground just accross the bay from Corpus. The facility itself is a not 5 star campground but its access to the beach is great. We are parked right next to the sand dunes with the beach 200 ft away.

The northern end of Padre Island is a lot differnt than I thought it would be. There is very little development on the majority of the island, its primarily sand dunes. The beach is accessable from a number of roads and you can pretty much drive a vehicle along its entire length. With a permit from the county you can pitch a tent or set up your camper for an overnight stay.

I think I cleared up the photo download problem. This evening I am going back to my previous posts and add the photos.

Rio Grande Valley 08 - Pleasanton

Here I am at the bull riding ring last night. I was all set to ride but the event was postponed.

Not much to report on for today. We got a late start out of Ft. Worth because I had trouble with the tow bar. It was sticking and would not lock into place. This meant that the jeep we are pulling was not properly attached to the rear motorhome hitch. Not a good thing. The tow bar picks up a lot of grime coming from the MH rear wheels.

The morning drive was pretty good but by afternoon we encountered a lot of traffic going into Austin and all the way to San Antonio. The good thing is the temps rose into the low 80"s. We decided to bypass San Antonio and head towards Corpus Christi. We'll spend a couple of days in San Antonio on our trip home in April.

We found our favorite camping spot, Walmart. This one is in Pleasanton, about 100 miles from Corpus Christi. Tomorrow we head towards the coast and find a real campground so we can spend a couple of days exploring the area.

Rio Grande Valley 08 - Ft. Worth

We arrived in Ft. Worth around 4pm. The temperature is 70 so we decided to make it our overnight stay to soak up the warmth. I also thought it would be fun to take Kathy to Billy Bobs. Billy Bobs Texas Roadhouse is billed as the worlds largest "honky tonk bar". It's at least 2 football fields in size. It has a dozen bars, a full bull riding arena, a couple of stores and restaurant. They have a band every night, country of course and host numerous big name concerts every weekend. Wednesday is ladies night so Kathy got in free. Why is it always the women that get in free?

Here is Kathy with her hands in Mickey Gilley's hand cast.

Tomorrow we head further south because the cold front, from Iowa, is going to reach this far south. I'll let you know where we stop. Maybe San Antinio, or Corpus Christi?

Rio Grande Valley 08 - A Day Late & $1,000 Short

Our original goal was to leave on Monday, but it is Tuesday evening and we finally made it out of Des Moines. The weather has been frigid for the last several days with temperatures in the single digits, last night it got down to 5 below zero. I spent the last three days trying to clear the snow and the ice from our driveway so we could get the RV up to the house, load it and be on our way. Unfortunately, late Saturday afternoon I discovered a jagged crack in the left front tire of the motorhome.



These tires will usually run about 100,000 miles before replacement is necessary. After talking with the tire experts, they said 6-7 years is the most you should expect from these tires because they sit unused for long periods of time. My are 6 years old so they need to be replaced. It took until late Monday morning to locate two suitable replacement tires ($1,000) and they were in Davenport, Iowa (approximately 200 miles from Des Moines).



In order to expedite their delivery, Kathy and I attempted to drive in our SUV to Davenport to pick up the new tires so that they could be installed first thing Tuesday morning. About 80 miles out of Des Moines, we stopped for lunch and heard that the interstate was closed to the east due to drifting and blowing snow across the roadway. So we turned back. We saw at least 100 cars and more than 10 semi trucks that had run off the road into the ditch. The next day, the delivery truck encountered the same poor conditions as we did, but made it to the shop by mid-afternoon. With the two new tires installed, we headed out of Des Moines at 4:00 in the afternoon, determined to drive at least as far as Wichita, Kansas (approximately 400 miles). Another severe cold front was dropping down from Canada into Iowa and northern Kansas by Wednesday, with snow possible. Our goal is to get south of Oklahoma City before the cold front drops that far south.

We made it to Wichita around 1030 this evening and plan to head out early in the morning towards Dallas, Texas.

Colorado - 07 - Home Sweet Home

It's nice to be back home again! We had a great time for 16 days traveling throughout Colorado. We have always enjoyed the mountains. When I graduated from college, Kathy and I took off for a weeks vacation in Colorado. We almost didn't come back. I wonder what our lives would have been like if we had stayed and raised our family in Colorado. To be honest, I don't believe it could be any better than this.

We didn't think about staying in Colorado at the end of this trip. We were anxious to return home to our family, our friends and our home. Kathy is looking forward to spending time in her garden, me in my wood shop, and both of us some time on our boat.

Our next trip? Maybe the Texas Rio Grand Valley late this winter.

Colorado -07 - Heading Home

We departed Laramie around 9am this morning. As you can probably tell from the photo we are parked at one of our more popular sites, Walmart. Most every city of any size has a Walmart where motorhomes are permitted to park for the evening. Tonight we are in Lincoln Nebraska, about 180 miles from Des Moines. Tomorrow we are going to Walnut, Iowa before we arrive home in the evening. Walnut is a great place to shop for antiques. The majority of the town is antique stores. We like to stop here whenever we pass by and have some extra time to spare.

Colorado - 07 - Tour through the Mountains

Thursday

Today we headed over the top of the Snowy Mountain Range to check out the areas where we have snowmobiled in past years. This first photo is Libby Flats, the highest pass over this range. It is pretty foggy today with intermittent rain. Snowmobilers know that going across this pass in the snow is always a challenge, especially when the snow is blowing and visibility is minimal.







The second photo is of a hill snowmobilers have called Fiberglass Hill. It is very steep and can be very tough to climb on a snowmobile. Many who have not made it to the top have seen their sled tumble and roll down the hill. Sometimes all that is left is a tangle mess of of fiberglass and aluminum. Others have been lucky and only lost a windshield.

Colorado - 07 - Snowy Mountain Range

Wednesday

Sorry for the delay in posting, we had no Internet service on Wednesday and Thursday.

We departed Steamboat on Wednesday morning. We headed north across the Continental Divide towards Wyoming. I always wanted to visit the Snowy Mountain Range where we have snowmobiled for the past 8 years. We always see the area with snow, so we were curious what it looked like during the summer. We recognized most of the areas but didn't realize how many lakes, ponds and streams are along the trail.

Here in the photo we are camped in the snowmobile parking lot in the little town of Albany. The town has a population of 15 and is at an elevation of about 9,000 feet. While there we checked out two new homes that are for rent to snowmobilers in the winter months.

Colorado -07- Steamboat Springs Garden Tour

We had a nice relaxing day. Kathy went on a guided tour at the Botanical Gardens that I mentioned in yesterdays post. The host and speaker for the day was Cynthia Brian. She is the author of the Chicken Soup books. Kathy purchased her book Chicken Soup for the Gardeners Soul. I drove around town and checked out the prices on some of the homes for sale.

In the afternoon we drove up the canyon towards Hahns Peak. A couple of years ago several of us went snowmobiling up in these mountains. It was interesting to see some of the fire roads that become snowmobile trails in the winter months.

Tomorrow we are heading north into Wyoming. We'll probably dry camp in Albany where we have often gone snowmobiling.

Colorado - 07 Steamboat Gardens

Kathy was in 7th heaven today as our morning bike ride took us by the Yampa River Botanic Park. Of course we had to stop for her to preview the gardens. Coincidentally there is a tour tomorrow by a noted gardening author. We all know Kathy will be in attendance .

Steamboat Springs is a great town. We both commented that we would like have a place here to visit both in the winter and summer. Unfortunately so would alot of other people. The housing market is very high. Our Des Moines house and property would probably be worth $2 million or more.

I had a real treat this evening for supper. Kathy made Cincinnati Chili. As most of you know we love this style of chili.

Colorado - 07 - Grand Junction to Steamboat Springs

The city of Grand Junction is very cosmopolitan. Modern roads, beautifully keep older homes, great shopping areas and loads of restaurants. Their old downtown has been converted into shops, bars and gourmet restaurants. Last night Kathy and I had cocktails at a quaint little restaurant after dinner and listened to a jazz duo play several of our favorite songs.

This morning we made to decision to move on to Steamboat. Grand Junction is great but the temperatures for the next several days are forecasted to be in the mid to high 90's.

The ride east on I-70 through Glenwood Canyon made us marvel at the engineering feat of building this highway. It took 13 years to construct and much of it is two levels as shown in the photo.

We made it to Steamboat Springs about 2 pm. The temps here are 80 daytime and high 50's at
night. We both decided we have been to busy for the last week so we are going to take a couple lay days here. Maybe bike, hike, and take naps.

Colorado - 07- The Black Canyon of Gunnison

Here are a couple of photos of the Black Canyon of Gunnison, near Montrose, Colorado. It is hard to believe this 48 mile long canyon, 2772 feet deep only recently, 1999, became a national park. There are multiple vantage points along the south rim from which to view the canyon. Each view was more impressive than the last, the tall spires, the narrowness, the sheer drop-offs, and the marbling in the walls. This photo doesn't do the canyon justice, no photo could. You have to be there to experience the beauty and magnificence.



The second photo is a shot of the overlook from the visitors center. The overlook is a peninsula jutting out from the edge of the canyon. The short walkway has a fence on each side but it wasn't enough for Kathy to have the confidence to walk out to the end with me.

Tip: Double click on photo to enlarge, click on the back arrow (top left) to return to normal.

We are in Grand Junction tonight and will probably be here on Sunday evening as well.

Colorado - 07 - Jeeping & Hot Springs

We decided last night to take our jeep on a trip over one of the many trails. We saw no less than a hundred jeeps in the area, most of them specially setup for rough mountain trails. We stopped at the Visitor Center for advice in selecting a trail. With our stock jeep we did not want anything too tough. We selected Ophir Pass which is considered to be a moderate degree of difficulty trail.

About 18 miles up the mountain highway, we found the turnoff for the Ophir Trail. The beginning was relatively straight forward. The narrow one lane rock trail climbed up the side of the mountain with rocks on the upside and nice big trees on the downside. It was not long till the trail got rougher with large rocks in the road and steeper drop-offs on the side. We continued to climb up the mountain for about 30 minutes and reached the tree line at 10,000 feet. Now all there was around us was rocks and water running across the road at various places. The switchbacks scared us both as we slowly crawled around them in low range 4-wheel drive. We reached the summit (11,789 ft.) in about an hour and decided to take a break. The views on the way up and when we reached the top were incredible.

The drive down the other side was even scarier than the drive up. It was steeper, narrower, if that is possible, and had much larger boulders to contend with. (Remember, this is considered to be of moderate difficulty). About 1/8 mile down, the trail took a sharp right turn (switchback), so sharp we had to backup to complete the turn. Kathy gave me her advice on how far to pull back before we would tumbled over the edge and down a 1000 foot drop-off. An hour later we made it to the town of Ophir, nestled in the Aspen trees at the foot of two mountains. If this was a moderate trail we do not want to experience difficult. Not yet anyway!

Tip: Double click on any of the photos in the blog to enlarge, click on back arrow (top left) to return.

Later that afternoon the hot spring fed pool in Ouray was a great way to take the stiffness out of our muscles after an exhilarating ride on these infamous trails. There were several different temperature pools from which to choose. They ranged from 85-105 degrees. We both like the hot pool. We an excellent dinner at the Outlaw, an old time local bar/restaurant with a honky-tonk piano player.

Colorado - 07 - On to Telluride & Ouray - Thursday

Thursday - posted Saturday due to lack of Internet service.

This morning we headed to Telluride (photo). The shortest route, 100 miles, was out of the question. Our RV and Truckers Guide recommended that all vehicles over 30 feet detour around this route due to the three major mountain passes to Ouray. This route was a narrow two lane road with sharp switchbacks and thousand foot drop-offs. Our new route was 160 miles, but it is also part of the San Juan Scenic Skyway, so the drive was incredibly scenic. There were a couple of passes we had to cross going into and out of Telluride, but the road was considerably better than the shorter route.

Telluride is a quaint and upscale ski town. We stopped for lunch at The Brown Dog Saloon. While seated at the bar, we struck up a conversation with a young guy (owner) that turned out to be a player on the University of Michigan team that won the 2000 National Championship. Following a great pizza we headed to Ouray, considered by many to be the Jeeping Capital of the World.

We set up camp at Ridgway State Park a few miles out of Ouray. As you can see from the photo the mountains are a beautiful backdrop for our camp site.

Colorado - 07 - Durango/Silverton Railroad

The ride on the Durango/Silverton Railroad Line provided us with some magnificent views of the San Juan National Forrest. The line is still using the old coal fired steam locomotives. The one that we were on today was 125 years old. During the 3:45 ride to Silverton we had to stop to take on water twice over the 45 mile route. We also stopped twice to drop off back packers into the forest. The rugged terrain and narrow ledges on which the tracks were laid made the ride quite thrilling. At times we were hundreds of feet directly above the river on a very narrow ledge.

The town of Silverton is pretty much supported by the tourists who arrive on the 3 daily trains. The elevation is 9500 feet and they receive a lot of snow during the winter months. So much snow that the train doesn't run all the way to Durango in the winter. The towns summer population of 3000 shrinks to 500 during the winter.

The road to Silverton is just about as precarious as the train route. It goes over two 10,000 ft. passes and has many twists and drop offs with no guard rails.

We enjoyed the trip a great deal. We purchased a beautiful piece of "Horse Hair" Indian pottery. Tomorrow morning we depart for Telluride and then on to Ouray.

Colorado -07 - Mesa Verde

Sorry for the delay in posting our Tuesday activities. We headed into Durango for the evening and met a couple from St. Louis. They are both bicyclers and may join us next year for Ragbrai. In any case we had our share of drinks and got home fairly late.





We spent the entire day visiting Mesa Verde. It's one of the largest National Park in the U.S. with over 4500 archaeological sites, with 600 cliff dwellings. This photo is of "Cliff Palace" the largest cliff dwelling. In order to access the site we descended over 100 feet into the structure and climbed out over a series of carved sandstone steps and five 8-10 foot tree ladders. The park itself is not in the best of shape. It has suffered three fires over the last 11 years. New growth is coming back in many of the areas but the location of most recent fire in 2000 has minimal growth.