17-20 June 2025 First stakes in the ground

 We met with Kelby and the “Dirt Guy” on the property the 17th and laid out the first stakes for the foundation pads. These were just rough positions so the excavator could decide if he would need to bring in dirt or if he could scrape enough off the property. Fortunately for us, he believes he can us what’s on the property saving us cost. This allowed Kingdom Homes to finalize the pricing. They asked us to get the lot mowed to make the excavation cleaner and we hired Kelby’s friend Cole to come out and mow the 2 acres. The final build price came in a little bit higher than the original estimate due to the flooring/tile selections and added height on the work shop to accommodate the Wanderer the way we wanted it (off to one side instead of down the middle), but within our expectations. We signed the final contract on the 20^th. They expect to start moving dirt next week. Final completion will be before 16 January 2026. A month later than we were hoping due to the HOA review delays. 

13 June 2025 Final Approval

 While in California, David began calling the HOA management company and pestering them about out approval to build. They came back and denied the black pipe no-climb fence we were planning to install in the back yard to keep Kiera in. They said that according to the HOA rules, all fencing had to be made out of brick, mason, or wood or approved by the Architectural Board (Who is just the developer at this point). It did not mater to them that Black Pipe fence is common in higher end ranch properties in Texas (they are in Florida). Rather than drag out the process, we deleted the fence from our plans and will see how things develop over the next several months. We got our final build approval dated 11 June and we got the copy on the Friday the13th.  

2-13 June 2025 Working in California

 David traveled out to California again to support more testing. These two weeks are the same type of tests he spent supporting over the summer in 2021 in Las Vegas. Fortunately, it was not nearly as hot for these tests! The tests went extremely well and he was able to travel home sooner than expected. While he was there, he had dinner with our friends Pam and Bill multiple nights, went to the Leona Valley Cherry Festival to see them be the Grand Marshalls of the parade, explored Red Rock Canyon State Park and visited with our friends Scott and Terry in their home in Ridgecrest. A very busy two weeks! But he was very grateful to get home early!

Dinner with Pam, Bill and Alan

Start of the Leona Valley Cherry Festival Parade

Grand Marshalls, Bill and Pam

Red Rock Canyon State Park

Red Rock Canyon State Park

28 May 2025 Picking Finishes

 We met with Kelby, our build supervisor, to pick out the exterior brick and rock for our future home. After going over the brick colors and rock colors, we finally selected Binsa Smoky King Size Brick and Austin Cream Stone for the lower rock accent. Leslie also made a trip out to the flooring store and picked out the floor tile (no carpet in our house) and wall tiles for the house. That wrapped up the required selections to allow Kingdom to draw up the final contract. 

23-26 May 2025 Memorial Day in the Woodlands

 We were getting the itch to get back on the road. So, we loaded up Kiera and drove down to the Woodlands to spend the Memorial Day Holiday with Cynthia, Felix and the rest of the family. We went to the Deep Roots vineyard to enjoy a local wine tasting, 1980s music and a fun fireworks show. Otherwise, we hung out with the family, saw our niece and adorable grandnieces and enjoyed being out of the Wanderer for a few days.

19 May 2025 Down Select

 Today we signed our preliminary contract with Kingdom Builders to build our new estate. They came in at the best price and were eager to work with us. So much so they even contacted our real-estate agent to get her to reduce her fee so they could get the price down almost to where we were wanting it subject to completing the HOA review, and making some selections to help define the final price. It’s really happening!

10 May 2025 Fun in Meridian

 We drove over to the smalltown of Meridian, which is about halfway to Waco. We met our friends John and Cheryl there for lunch at the Cactus Café.  After lunch we went out to the Red Caboose winery where we did a wine tasting and sat around and talked until 5pm. The wines were good and all estate grown. Interestingly, they were unfiltered. A first for us.  They also have a RV park of the property, but the trees are hanging too low to get our big rig in. It was great to catch up with John and Cheryl and we all agreed this was so easy to arrange that we would need to do it again in the near future. 

18 April – 9 May 2025 Beautiful Spring

 All the trees have leafed out, the grass is growing and we are still waiting on our HOA. They finally got the check from the title company (Sent back on 18 March!) and recognize us as the new owners of lot 80, plot 19 of Cougar Mountain Estates. We sent the check for the review/approval of our house plans back on 24 April but they still haven’t gotten it. They must only check the PO Box once a month! Meantime we have met with three builders to get estimates. We drove around to see houses under construction by all three. Along the way, we stopped at the Revolver Brewery in Granbury for the first time. After sampling their beers, we know we will be back! We got two responses from the builders on Friday (9 May) and both gave David new grey hairs! The third decided not to propose. The two we received are considerably higher than they first lead us to believe. We told them what we are shooting for and asked them to provide us ideas on how we could cut the price down. #1 was move the house closer to the street. So we bought a 300ft long tape ruler and went out to the property on the 9^th and made our best estimate of where the rear patio would be based on the plot. We then walked toward the street until we decided we could go no further without losing too much of our desired view off the back patio. Then measured that estimated location to the street. We could move the house 55ft closer to the street which would reduce the concrete costs for the driveway and landscaping costs for sod and irrigation in the front yard. We also decided to reduce the width of the driveway from 20 ft to 15ft. We notified both builders of our changes. We went up to the pet groomer to pick up Keira and found ourselves right by the house designer’s office, so we stopped by and asked her to update the plot since the builder will need updated SQFT calculations and we will need the updated plot for the HOA review. Hopefully that will get us closer to our budget. 

Keg Riding

17 April 2025 House Design Complete

 Today we wrapped up the house design with our architect, Home Designs by Marcy. Marcy was great to work with and really helped resolve some design change issues. One of the big changes was we pushed the house back on the property to open up the view from the back porch. That of course made the driveway longer which will impact the cost due to the extra concrete. We may have to compromise and shorten the drive to bring the costs down. We will have to see. We have 8 copies of the plans. This coming week we have appointments with three builders to get estimates. They may also request some tweaks to the house design. We have started trying to work with the HOA to get our plans reviewed by the HOA Architecture Committee (HAC) which must approve our plans before we can break ground. But as of today, they still have not gotten the check for the HOA transfer and title transfer papers from the Title Company. The HAC will not look at our plans until the transfer is complete and they get a $650 check from us. Then they need 3 weeks to “review” the plans and submit any change requests. Arrrggg. We had hoped to break ground the beginning of May but it looks like that won’t happen until mid-May. Once they start, we are estimating 5-6 months to complete. So hopefully before Thanksgiving. Meantime, Leslie is getting bored sitting in one place so she has started to apply for jobs in the area. She interviewed for a position at our favorite winery, Lost Oak Winery, which went well. She just needs something to keep her active that is fun as well.

9 April 2025 Texas Land Barrons Again

 We closed on the property in Cougar Mountain Estates today. Most money either of us has every spent in one day! We had pushed up the closing date by a week, which the title company did not take into account when they generated the financials. So when we showed up with the Casher’s Check to close, we did not have the correct sum since they had to adjust the HOA fees and Taxes for the earlier closing. Luckily, Leslie had her check book with and we were able to write a personal check for the additional amount and close out the deal. We are the proud owners of 2.15 acres of Texas land!

18 March – 9 April 2025 Break through on our house hunt!

 When we met with a house builder we liked to get a feel for a house we liked, they mentioned a new development off Old Granbury Road south west of Cresson that they had heard about. The next day we checked out a house in Bear Creek Hills that had a lot of potential and on the way back went and investigated the Cougar Mountain subdivision. As we drove through, we saw most of the properties were already sold but a few were available through real-estate companies. The subdivision was formerly a part of the True Grit ranch and all the streets were named after characters in the movie True Grit. Since John Wayne is Davids favorite actor, it seemed serendipitous that we found several properties that we liked. We had our agent, Laurie, gather information on both areas. The property in Bear Creek Hills did not have a view, but it did have a perfect shop building, big enough to hold the Wanderer and give us plenty of room for David’s wood working. The house had solar install and a nice pool. But the house was 25 years old and was in need of $100K of renovations to the kitchen and bathrooms. We had Donny and Diane come over and tour the house to give us a second opinion. We decided to make an offer but it was well below what they were asking because of the renovations that would be required. We also picked out a property in Cougar Mountain we liked that had a wonderful view out over they Brazos Valley and made an offer on it. After some back and forth with both owners, we decided the house in Bear Creek Hills was not going to be able to come down to a price we were willing to pay. So we signed a contract to buy the lot in Cougar Mountain (Lot 80). We were able to negotiate a good price for the 2.15 acres. We had the property surveyed to make sure we knew where the lot lines were and found out the lot was further west than we thought and there was a dirt road running through the middle of it. After much angst, we were able to verify there was no easement and that it was just an old ranch road. So, we are going forth with the buy of the land this week. We will need to drill a well which should be about $20K to reach the first water layer called the Paluxy Aquifer. We have started working with Home Designs by Marcy based on a model home design of hers we saw that we really liked. We will get the house plans defined, then shop it around to several custom home builders to see what kind of price we can get. 

Sunset from the new property

8 March 2025 We Almost Learned to Fly

 

We were woken up at 5Am this morning when the whole trailer shuddered and then began bucking wildly in extremely high winds. We have experienced high winds before but nothing like this. For the first time we were worried we might actually flip and were holding on to the sides of the bed for dear life. Poor Keira flew up into our bed for reassurance. Then we got hit by extremely heavy rain and dime size hail that made it impossible to talk over the noise from the roof. We had received no warning this storm was coming, nothing from our weather apps on our phones or from the National Weather Service. We later learned a man had died a few miles north of us near Cresson when his trailer flipped and rolled multiple times. After the sun came up, we went out to inspect the damage. The trailers on either side of us suffered significant damage (Broken sky lights, tail lights, etc). One lady claims she heard the sound of a train believing it was a tornado. We found a few shallow dents in the hood and side of the truck but nothing broken on the Behemoth or Wanderer. A few days later, David got up on the roof and found the cooling fins on both air conditioners had taken a beating and would need work to open them back up for air flow. The rear air conditioner took the brunt of it. The front air conditioner seems to have been sheltered a bit by the TV satellite antenna. The antenna case for the Cellphone amplifier was broken, but we don’t use the system anyways. Otherwise, no damage to our vents, solar panels or sky light. Some of the RVs in the campground suffer over $8,000 damage. David later got on the roof and spent a day straightening the cooling fins and performed the yearly maintenance work on the air conditioners. Overall, we were lucky and the good Lord was watching over us. 

Damaged Cooling Fins on Rear Air Conditioner.

Damaged Cooling Fins on Rear Air Conditioner.

Damaged Cooling Fins on Rear Air Conditioner.

Damaged Antenna

Damaged Cooling Fins on Rear Air Conditioner.with cover off

Fins on rear air conditioner after hours of straightening.

18-21 February 2025 Deep Freeze 2025

 We had four very cold days for Texas. We prepared ahead of time by filling up the fresh water tank and topping off the Propane Tanks on Friday. On Tuesday morning before the rain moved in, we disconnected the water line and put the hoses up. Then dumped the grey and black tanks. The low Wednesday morning was 12F with snow flurries and wind chills below zero. David had to go into the plant Wednesday and Thursday for work. We were initially concerned Wednesday morning that there might be ice on the roads, but fortunately it stopped raining before temperatures dropped below freezing Tuesday and the north winds dried up the roads. Between the electric fire place on the propane heat, we stayed warm and cozy. Thursday morning the temperature dipped down to 8F. When David got up in the morning, he found that no hot water was coming out of the faucets in the bathroom, but cold water was running. When he went downstairs, no water was coming out of the faucet at all and the trailer was chilly. A quick check showed only one furnace was running and the stove burners would barely lite.  After taking Keirra for a quick walk (no she did not want to be out in the cold either), David checked the propane tank and found it was frozen up. The lower half of the tank was covered in ice and the pressure gauge showed a very low level even though the tank was half full. When the temperature of propane tanks is low and the level of liquid propane in the tank is below a half, the propane does not flash into gas as easily, this results in a pressure drop in the tank and can ice up the gas valves. With the pressure low, only one furnace could run. David swapped us over to the backup propane tank and reset the furnaces. We also suspect that the low temperatures in the basement had resulted in the water in the valve tree freezing up and cutting off water. We had learned about these issues from a fellow New Horizon owner that winters over in Missoula Montana. He had told us how his propane tanks had iced up and his valve tree froze. He had to buy special electric tank warmers to keep his propane warm in the below zero weather in Montana. With both our furnaces now running, the trailer quickly warmed up but it took a couple of hours for the water lines to unfreeze and water flow freely. Fortunately, there are no water leaks. Later that night, while trying to close the front door, the lock was very stiff from the cold, David was pulling hard on the door lock handle and it broke off! There was just enough handle left in one corner that we were able to get the door to close and latch. David replaced the lock and handle over the weekend with a better version. We were very happy for the warmer weather to come back for the weekend! Meanwhile, we continue our search for our next home. 

Broken Lock Handle

13 January 2025 Conroe to Granbury, TX

 Today we left our adopted southern home, Leisure Lane RV resort for Granbury. We ended up getting a late start when it took almost an hour to air up the trailer tires to the required pressure due to the cold temperatures. The Leisure Lane staff was sorry to see us leave since we have been a winter fixture there for the last five years. We are staying at Bennett’s RV Ranch ($500 per month plus electric) until we find a home to move into. The drive was uneventful and we pulled into Bennett’s just before sundown. We have a long term back in site near the entrance. We chose Granbury since it is central to the area we are looking for a home. The RV Park is close to everything in Granbury and only 30 minutes to Fort Worth, but it is a long drive (1.5 to 2 hours) over to Dallas to see Leslie’s Mom. Leslie plans to try and get over to her Mom’s at least once per week. It has helped us figure out we may want to be more to the east in the Godly area to reduce that drive when we find our home. 

11 January 2025 Happy Birthday Leslie

 To celebrate Leslie’s latest Birthday we had two parties. One on 10 January at Cynthia’s and Felix’s House with the Family, including Lauren, Bryan and the Grand Nieces. Avery picked out some flowers and insisted that there had to be a Birthday Cake! Everyone had a fun evening that ended when Avery stuck herself in her eye with a plastic straw that she was playing with. Luckily, no serious damage was done. On Saturday night, David treated her, Cynthia and Felix to dinner at Schilleci’s New Orleans Kitchen for some wonderful Cajun cuisine. On Sunday we went to church and said goodbye to our adopted church family. 

3 January 2025 Trip to Dallas

 Leslie and Cynthia took the opportunity to drive up to Dallas and visit with their mother, Diane, for the afternoon (before driving back). The took her out to lunch at Nordstrom’s and spent time catching up. Not to mention the 6 hours in the vehicle to catch up with each other. 

1 January 2025 Happy New Years 2025

 We spent our New Years enjoying a fire in our fire pit in the RV Park. The neighborhoods around us set off plenty of fireworks in celebration we did not feel like we missed out. Poor Keira does not like fireworks and spent the evening hiding in her kennel. We tried to bring her out by the fire, but the fireworks were too much for her.

2024 Summary

It has been an eventful year. We knocked off three bucket list destinations (New Zealand, Australia, and American Samoa), revisited past destinations, visited with family and friends and found several out of the way surprises.  We can summarize this year’s travels with:

1. Drove over 18,000 Miles in the Behemoth (Our F-350), 2349

miles in our New Zealand Caravan and another 1200 miles in our rental car in Australia.

2. Visited the National Park of America Samoa (total so far of 57

out of 63 American National Parks).

3. Visited 9 National Parks in New Zealand (out of 13)

4. Visited 8 National Parks in Australia (out of 726)

5. Visited 29 other interesting and historic places in the USA.

6. Visited with friends and family along the way.

7. Posted over 140 entries to our Blog.

8. Tasted wine in an additional 5 states (28 out of 50).

 

Our quest is not over yet! But after 7 years of living in our wonderful Wanderer, we are ready for something bigger and less bouncy. So, we will spend the next few months looking for our forever home in central Texas. We still plan to travel but are going to establish a home base to come back too. 

31 December 2024 Hello 2025

 Most of Leslie’s injuries from her face plant have fully healed except for her ribs. The ribs are no longer popping when she moves and her range of motion is much better. We spent New Years Eve like we have the past several years. We hung around the RV park, enjoyed a fire in our firepit and watched the neighborhood fireworks shoot off around us, much to Keira’s chagrin.  It has been an extremely memorable year and we have been very blessed to enjoy it! 

1-30 December 2024 Happy Holidays!

As usual, time seems to accelerate between Thanksgiving and Christmas! David had a lot of work hours as he tried to wrap up his assignments for the year. On 6 December, we packed up the Wanderer to take it to the body shop. As David was putting up hoses and cords, Leslie decided to walk the garbage over to the trash bin. Unfortunately, the boot she was still wearing, for the broken bone in her left foot, got tied up with her other foot and she did a face plant onto the road and trash bag. She bumped her nose and chin painfully on the pavement, jammed both wrists and her left elbow and cracked several ribs on her left side. David did not even know it had happened since he was busy with the Wanderer until she came staggering back to the campsite. Being the trooper that she is, we finished getting the Wanderer buttoned up and towed it down to High Class Body Shop in Spring. We spent an hour getting it turned around in the small parking lot to get it where they needed it parked (their large fork lift had been loaned to the RV sales lot next door). But once in place, we went over what needed to be done with Gerson, the owner. In addition to getting the nose cone repaired from the hitch failure damage, we also asked him to remove the New Horizon decal from the nose cone as it was cracking and peeling after 7 years of exposure to the sun. In addition, they were fixing a crack in the left rear fender they had repaired a couple of years ago and buffing out some branch scratches. David told them not to worry about plugging it in as the refrigerator would run off the batteries and the batteries would get charged by the solar panels while it was outside. We then headed over to Cynthia and Felix’s where we were staying while our home was in the shop. The next day, Leslie decided she really needed to see a doctor about her injuries, so we went to the Doc -in-a-Box we have been to before on SH242. After being poked, prodded, and Ex rayed, the doctor said nothing was broken (she did not tell him about her ribs) and gave her a prescription for anti-inflammatories and told her to take Advil for the pain. We stayed with Cynthia and Felix for two weeks, as it took longer to complete the repairs than originally planned. David flew to Albuquerque for work the first week (and to do some Native American jewelry shopping for Leslie). Leslie and Cynthia stayed up late talking almost every night. We made several dinners for all of us and enjoyed visiting with their friends and the Grand Nieces when they were over. On the 19th they finally called to say the Wanderer was complete. They had been sending us pictures along the way so we could keep track of their progress. We showed up on the 20th to pick our home up, only to find it was not really finished. They had not buffed out the branch scratches we asked them to do and the electrical repairs for the trailer cameras were not done. They had subcontracted out the electrical repairs to the RV Sales lot next door ($300) but they never actually did them. While they worked to correct those issues, we went and got lunch. When we got back, they were still not done, so David got out and helped. We did get the cameras working but it was a jerry-rigged repair. They did a beautiful job on the body work and the paint matches beautifully. We finally got out of there about 4PM and back to Leisure Lane to get set up just before dark. They are planning to send someone to our site to do a better repair of the camera electrical after the holiday’s. Once we got the Wanderer set up, we went inside and discovered it smelled really bad! It seems all the food in the refrigerator and freezer had spoiled. On further investigation, we found both the inverters were off line and showing a E02 fault. The refrigerator was running now that we were back on shore power. We emptied the refrigerator and freezer into trash bags and then began washing everything down. Some of the “juice” had leaked out onto the floor and ran down the floor to the back slideout. We washed down the floor, refrigerator and freezer as best we could. The smell would not leave the refrigerator, even with baking soda and a small room deodorizer in it. Even with a smelly refrigerator, it was good to be back in our own home! After several days of testing and research, David finally figured out our inverter issue. After digging deeper on the internet, David found an entry in a forum that said for the Xantrex PRO XM1800, you have to remove both the battery input power and AC input power for a few seconds to reset the unit. We did that and they both reset. They are now showing the same battery input voltage as the house system and no error codes. Everything seems to be back to normal. What we suspect happened is that when they had the Wanderer in the paint booth, the solar panels were not generating enough power to keep the batteries up and they dropped below 11 volts which shut off the inverters. When they had it rolled it back outside, the solar panels charged the batteries back up but the inverters stayed off line and the refrigerator stayed powered off. On Christmas Eve Eve, we volunteered at the church to be greeters for the Christmas Service. Leslie got to run the camera to take pictures of the families dressed up in their Christmas cloths. The Christmas sermon was wonderful as usual and the candlelight singing of Oh Silent Night made our hearts swell with joy. Leslie decided it was time to take the boot off and go back to regular shoes as her foot has healed enough it does not hurt. On Christmas Eve we went over to Lauren and Bryan’s for the evening. We had a wonderful dinner before exchanging gifts. Olivia and Avery tore through their gifts with gusto! It was fun to watch them tear open a gift, look at what was inside, say thank you to the giver, then throw it over their shoulder onto the pile so they could tear into the next one. We left early so the kids could get to sleep before Santa came and went home where we had our own Christmas gift exchange. A wonderful night! Christmas Day we went back to Lauren and Bryan’s to see what Santa had brought the girls and to have brunch. We then went over to Cynthia’s friends, Rob and Brigit’s for a late dinner and to play some games. It has been a busy but fun month!

Finished Repairs

Loft Church before Christmas Service

Piles of gifts before the chaos

Avery with one of her gifts

Olivia with one of her gifts

Gift openning Chaos

Pre Christmas at Cynthia and Felix's with Rob and Brittany

Adult games at Cynthia and Felix's