Walk with Kevelyn -- Sun., Mar. 17

Are you wearin' the green? Happy St. Patty's Day to you.

This morning, we drove to Kerrville, Texas, for our pre-arranged 10K Volksmarch with Evelyn and Kevin. Evelyn made a good brunch casserole with eggs, potatoes, chicken and cheese and served it with cantaloupe and orange juice. We brought some grapes and had those as well.

Nicely fortified, we set off on the Kerrville "Bridges" Volksmarch. It's interesting that they named the walk that, but I'll explain further down in the blog. The start point was close to their RV park, we only had to drive a mile or two to get there.

We started at Elm Creek Park. We chose to do the 0.83 mi. loop around the perimeter of the park at the beginning of our walk. (We could have chosen to do it at the end of the walk instead.)

Elm Creek Park where we started our "bridges" walk.

Perimeter trail around Elm Creek Park.

Our walk lead us through a residential neighborhood. We crossed TX Hwy 27 and crossed our first real bridge over the Guadalupe River. The only other "bridges" we crossed on this walk were two little wooden bridges in Elm Creek Park. We thought the walk would cross more bridges over the Guadalupe River and maybe the bridges would have interesting history. Nope, not this walk, which was actually pretty boring and hot.

The temperature today reached 87 degrees and there was very little shade. On a slight hill, we had a refreshing breeze.

Here are more pics from the walk today. Only one wildlife sighting.

Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas. Notice the fishermen in boats?

The red slider turtle pictured below doesn't have any frame of reference for how big he is. For all you can tell from looking at this photo, he could be the size of a pet baby turtle in a small plastic tub in your home. Actually, this is a medium-sized turtle. I'd say he's about 10" across. There are lots of turtles in the Guadalupe River. They come up, take a breath and dive down out of sight. Poof. One minute they're there, a few seconds later they're gone.

Red slider turtle in the Guadalupe River.

Beautiful clouds today.

The main bridge we crossed in our "bridges" walk.

First time I've ever seen a street named Susan.

The streets in one neighborhood were all named after women. The street we walked on the most was called Lois St. Bob couldn't understand why they didn't name it Lois Lane. And here I didn't think he was a Superman fan. I guess really he's not, he's a Lois Lane fan.

Methodist Church in Kerrville.

By the end of our walk, we were hot, tired, hungry and in need of air conditioning. For supper we went to Mamacita's Mexican Restaurant in Kerrville. Inside their large building, in addition to the restaurant seating area, were a Starbucks, Cheesecake Factory sales display case, game arcade, and Dreyer's Ice Cream outlet.

The menu had excellent options, some I hadn't seen on a Mexican restaurant menu before. I had Pescado del Mar which was filet of red snapper with a lime/honey butter sauce, la charra beans, rice, Caesar salad, and tortillas. It was very good. No photos of food this time.

Mamacita's Restaurant photos:

Mamacita's Kerrville entry chandelier, stained glass,
and tile work on the ceiling.

Kevin and Evelyn

Interior decor of Mamacita's. Our host walking through.

Evelyn and Kevin at our table.

We did not have Cheesecake Factory cheesecake for dessert. There was a sampler of cheesecake back at Kevin and Evelyn's 5er and we had much smaller pieces of cheesecake. It was very good and just the right size after a big meal.

Then it was time for us to head back to San Antonio. Kevin and Evelyn are heading up to Blanco, TX in the morning.

Once again we had a good time walking and talking and eating. That reminds me, I used to have a Volksmarch shirt that said, "Walk, walk, talk; walk, walk, eat." I don't know where it is. It's brand new and I haven't seen it since we've been on the road. Maybe it's in a box in Mom's attic!

Have safe travels Evelyn and Kevin. We look forward to the next time we see you. I hope Wisconsin is warm and dry by the time you return!

Travel Bug out.

"X" Revisited plus Update on Rally -- Sun., Apr. 29

Fort Worth, Texas:

Zipper, a great invention that replaced hooks and eyes and, in some instances, buttons and buttonholes. Instead of individually fastening hooks and eyes, you do one zip and you are securely in your clothes!

The other Zipper that I love is a ride at a fair. You are locked into a cage with a lap bar. Before the ride starts, you can rock your cage and get it going around 360 degrees. My sister and I love this ride. When your cage is spinning at the beginning and the ride starts you spin around and around with great centrifugal force. We scream and scream, but love every minute of it! And no, we don't get motion sickness.

ZZZZZZ's equal Bob's head hitting the pillow after a day of driving, hiking, anytime he watches sports or starts to read a book, or when I'm driving and he's a passenger.

The A-to-Z Blogging Challenge for the month of April is finished. Now I've done my ABCs, tell me what you think of me.

Update on our status: I could not do laundry last night as we didn't have quarters. Bob went into town but apparently no one would sell him quarters. (Must have been a busy laundry night somewhere!) I did laundry this morning and had the laundry room to myself.

Bob had the pick up truck weighed on Friday, and the truck/5th wheel combination weighed this morning. Howard and Linda of RV-Dreams weigh each wheel of the tow combination independently. They want us to make sure we're towing a safe weight for our pick up's towing capacity. Our tow combination passed with flying colors. We were about 1,500 pounds underweight. Now we can stock up for gate guarding and not worry about overloading. They suggested we might lower our tire pressure a bit.

This morning, we moved our RV back to Armadillo Junction RV Park in Ingram. We have reservations for two nights.

My Escape pod started making scary noises today. When I shift from park to drive, then turn the steering wheel, it makes a loud clunking noise. I hope nothing is wrong with my steering or suspension. This evening, the air bag light came on after a couple of loud clunks. Uh-oh.

Driving around Texas, I've made a few observations about how Texas is different from Oregon.

1. In certain areas there are long frontage roads next to freeways. You need to know ahead of time what exit you need because you may have to go a mile on a frontage road to get to your destination. If you miss your exit, it may be three or more miles to turn around and get back to where you wanted to be.
2. Many, many goats being raised. In one town the headline on the local paper was "Goat Cook-Off." I don't think they meant old goats cooking.
3. Texas has Mesquite trees, cotton and pecan orchards, Oregon does not.
4. Texas is huge...it takes a long time to drive across it from west to east or vice versa. You can drive across Oregon in one day.
5. There are exotic animal ranches. These ranches are helping repopulate some of the endangered species from Africa, India, Pakistan. They allow controlled hunting on most ranches.
6. The speed limits are 75-80 mph on unpopulated stretches of freeway, 65-70 mph on US and state highways (lower speed limits through cities).
7. There are nice picnic areas along interstates, US, state, county, farm-to-market roads, etc.
8. Scads of historic markers; it seems like a third of them tell about cemeteries.
9. Gas is cheaper. We saw gas for $3.49/gallon today.
10. They use "ma'am" as a sign of respect.

We are in the South, y'all.

That's all I can think of for now. Travel Bug out.