14-19 Feb 2021 Texas Freeze

 Last week we were in Fort Worth for some business meetings and doctors appointments. The morning we headed back to Spring, we were in an ice storm with the bridges mostly iced over. Arriving back in Spring we started hearing the warnings of a series of three winter storms that were going to make it all the way down to Spring with historically low temperatures. The RV Park management warned us that they would be turning the park water off at 11AM on Sunday. So we filled up our fresh water tank on Friday to give it a chance to get warm. We also topped off the propane tanks and bought plenty of food. Cynthia and Felix came over for Valentines day dinner (Gil and April’s Beef Wellington recipe). At that point we were working off our fresh water tank and we probably used more water cleaning up than we should have. But we only expected the water to be off for a couple of days. Our temperature on Tuesday morning was 7 degrees. Definitely lower than we have ever had the Wanderer endure. But it did great and we had no issues with frozen water pipes. We were nice and warm and cozy. Power went out Tuesday night, so we ran off batteries with no issues. Wednesday there was no sun, so the batteries did not get a significant change off the solar panels. But the power came back on Wednesday night. So our only concern was the water level. Thursday morning, we were down to 18% left in the fresh water tank. So David took a bucket down to the lake to get water for flushing the toilet. We also had to switch over to the backup propane tank on Thursday. We went through 10 gallons of propane over five days. But never had any issues. The RV Park tried to bring the water system back up on Thursday but had so many leaks from 

frozen water pipes in the buildings and frozen faucets at the RV sites, they had to turn the water back off. They also had big issues with the well pump system. Friday they got the water system turned back on at the RV Sites for 5 hours before having to turn it off for more freezing temperatures overnight. But it gave us time to fill up our fresh water tank, do a load of laundry, dishwasher cycle of dishes and grab David’s first shower in 6 days. But the water cut off just as Leslie got wet in the shower, so we switched back over to our tank and she finished her hot shower with glee. Saturday the water system was finally turned back on full time and things slowly got back to normal. The Wanderer lived up to its guarantee for temperatures down to -10F. 

Beef Wellington Valentines Dinner

Texas Freeze

Etta staying warm

Spring Planning

 Hi folks,

Just a quick update to let you know we are still healthy and happy in Spring Texas. We have been enjoying our visits with our family and getting prepared for a very busy year. We hit the road on 1 March. We are headed for the middle west area including Northwestern New Mexico, Southwestern Colorado, Southern Utah and Northern Arizona before heading for Nevada. We plan to visit 9 National Parks, 24 National Monuments, 5 state parks, 15 various other sites and trails this travel year. Its going to be a busy one and we look forward to posting pictures and tales as we go. We hope you re all well. Tune in after 1 March to see our progress. Take care. 

13 December 2020 Burro Schmidt Tunnel

 When David picked up his rental car at the airport, he was surprised to see that they had foolishly assigned him a new Ford Ranger four wheel drive pickup truck! So of course he had to take it off pavement to see how it would perform. So on his second day off for the weekend, he went exploring the dirt roads north of Mojave. One of the folks at work had recommended the trail to Burro Schmidt’s Tunnel as something the Ranger could handle. So he took the southern route to the tunnel. The Ranger was not a great off pavement vehicle, mostly because the tires that were on it were not the best off road tires, but it handled the back roads just fine. He never really had to drop it into four wheel drive but did a few times just to see how it handled. As he arrived at Burro Schmidt’s tunnel, he was surprised to see the tunnel was actually open to the public and there were people coming out. One of them in a wheel chair! After asking them about the tunnel, he decided to do a little exploring. The tunnel was cut by William “Burro” Schmidt from 1900 to 1938 by hand. It goes a half mile through solid rock. Burro stated he started the tunnel to create a short cut, from his house to the smelter in town rather than taking “treacherous” trail over the mountain. Rumor is that he was following a vein of gold. By 1920 there was a road around the mountain but Burro kept on digging. The tunnel is on BLM land but there is a disputed mining claim that is open for the tunnel. David decided to go in to the tunnel as far as his cell phone flashlight would allow. Turns out he went all the way to the other side and only hit his head three times. About halfway through, he remembered that this area of California had experienced a lot of earthquakes in the last year. The thought of being in that tunnel during an earthquake was not reassuring. When he came out on the other end of the tunnel, there was a nice view out over the valley. He also found a trail he could take over the mountain rather than go back through it. Back at the truck, he decided to take the northern route out through Red Rock Canyon State Park. The road brought him out on CA14, but just in from the highway, there are a series of camping areas that are accessible for RV to boon dock. The road look easily passable when it is dry for our fiver. So he noted the coordinates of where the road interests CA14 in case we are in that area anytime in the future. 

Plaque outside the Tunnel

Burro Schmidts Tunnel entrance

Inside the Tunnel

The other end of the tunnel

View from the exit of the tunnel

View from the exit of the tunnel

Joshua Tree off the road

Coordinates for where the dirt road to the boon docking campsites intersect CA14

12 December 2020 Pacific Crest Trail

 David was on a business trip to Palmdale California for 11 days including a weekend. So he took advantage of the opportunity to get out on the weekend to do some fun things away from people. The Pacific Crest Trail runs along the mountain tops from the Mexico Border to the Canadian Border along the crest of the mountain ranges. Part of the trail pass not to far from Palmdale so he decided to hike a portion of it for some exercise. He drove to where the trail crosses Lake Hughes road and parked. The weather was cool and the clouds were hanging low on the mountains with occasional drizzle. The wind was blowing pretty hard in the valley but the segment of trail he chose was sheltered from the wind. He hiked in 2.5 miles before turning around with a 1200 foot elevation gain in the first 2 miles. Along the way he was surprised to find a couple of dens along the trail and a flowing spring. Not know what would be in the dens, he did not get to close! When he topped out on the crest, the wind was blowing hard and it began to rain. So it was cold and wet, a good time to head back. As soon as he dropped down a couple hundred of feet, the rain stopped and the wind died for a pleasant trip back down. The views from the top over the valley were pretty. The area had experienced a fire a couple of years prior and there was a lot of burn damage. In fact there was a sign at the base of the trail saying it was closed due to fire danger, but from the numerous foot prints in the dirt, it was clear other hikers were using the trail. It was a pleasant way to burn 2086 calories and get some fresh air after wearing a mask all day for 6 straight days! On the way back, he swung by Bill and Pam’s to say a socially distanced hello from the car. 

Hills above Lake Hughes

Animal Den #1

Animal Den #2

Pacific Crest Trail running through Burnt Out area

Burnt Out Trees

View into the Valley from the top

View from the top looking towards Lake Hughes

13-15 November 2020 Houston Music and Art Festival

 Leslie found a festival close to our winter home back in September and signed us up for it. It was a chance to get all our Boot Jazz stuff out and hopefully sell some merchandise.  It is the first festival in the area that was not canceled at the last minute although the dates and venue had apparently changed multiple times over the summer. It’s an outdoor festival that was held at Town Green park. This was the first time this park had hosted this festival. On Friday we were able to load in. Friday morning we sorted through the Boot Jazz boxes and loaded the truck up with the items for setting up Leslie’s Boot Jazz booth. Although set up was not supposed to start until noon and sites were first come first serve, when we arrived at 12:30 (got held up due to traffic), most of the sites had already been claimed and many folks were close to finishing up! Lessoned learned, times set out by the host mean nothing. Luckily we found a good site near a power plug. It took us three hours to get the booth setup. Along the way we met some of the neighboring vendors. We somehow ended up next to the Dominoes pizza vendor, but luckily they were not doing any cooking (thoughts of kettle corn were running through our head) but bringing the pizzas in from off site. We finished up our set up and headed back for home. Saturday morning we were on site by 10am to finish our setup with Leslie’s boot bracelets and necklaces, along with her real necklaces. Then we sat and waited for festival goers! And we waited. And we waited. Saturday was pretty disappointing. Probably less than 400 people came through and we sold nothing. The other vendors around us sold nothing either. There was one vendor near us selling brightly colored Tutu’s and another was selling puppets that drew the families in and they had some sales. Cynthia, Felix, Lauren, Olivia and Avery stopped by to visit. Olivia showed off her new tutu for us! 

We got a chance to talk with our neighbors a lot and many were very interested in, even envious of, our RV lifestyle. Most were staying in hotels for the festival. We made several new friendships amongst the vendors and helped each other with some set up issues and even with covering each other’s booth while they went out to get some food or the bathroom. Many of the folks we met depend on the festival circuit for their living and with all the festivals being closed due to COVID restrictions, they were desperate for some income.  

 

Sunday was not much better. We arrived to find our booth had sustained damage from the winds when the storm blew through last night,. But it was not too bad and we had things back in order in a hour or so. A few more people came through and we were able to sell three boot bracelets. Two jewelry vendor’s near us that Leslie became friends with, Alena (from Santa Fe) and Suzanna, both made enough sales to cover their costs, but not much in the way of profit. David became friends with Wayne, the husband of the Tutu vendor, since he was dabbling in wood working product sales and they were from near Fort Worth. So it was not a lonely day. At 5PM all the vendors started tearing down. Trying to finish before it got really dark and it was a mad house. People dragging stuff to the edges of the park to try to load up since at first they would not let us bring our vehicles back into the park. By the time we had gotten tore down and our stuff dragged to the nearby library parking lot, they started letting people in with their vehicles. It was not a very well run festival. After we loaded up, we went back and helped Suzanna load up her booth since she was by herself. All in all, we lost money on the festival, but it was good to get back in the swing of things. We think a combination of lack of advertising and the dramatically increasing COVID cases in the area resulted in so low of an attendance.

If your interested in Leslie's Jewelry: BootJazz.com

Boot Jazz booth

Our Vendor row

1 November 2020 Fredericksburg to Spring, TX

 Well, it was time to head for our winter layover. We took US290 across the south side of Austin to TX71 down to I-10. That avoided the construction on I-10 and dealing with downtown San Antonio. We are staying at Rayford Crossing RV resort just like the last two winters. We stopped at a roadside park on TX71 for a lunch break where a fort had once been built in the early 1800s to thwart Indian raids. It was not well marked and poorly maintained but an interesting find along the drive.  Otherwise the drive was uneventful.  

So this ends our travel year. If we do anything fun or exciting we will post something. Otherwise we expect to hit the road next March and will begin regal postings again then. Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year. Lets hope next year is more fun than this year has been!

Home Sweet Home for the next four months

31 October 2020 Fat Ass and Garage Wine!

 With only one day left, we wanted to try a winery with an interesting name. We had passed it a couple of times, Fat Ass Ranch Winery. With a name like that, we had to check it out. As we walked up from the parking lot, we noticed they had a live band playing rock n roll. We had to wait our turn to get a tasting. When we told the host we preferred dry reds, she shook her head. They specialize to fruity and sweet wines. They only had one dry red. Definitely not worth paying for a tasting. She recommended we go next door to the Wine Garage winery, which she said had several good reds. But we really wanted to listen to the band for a while, so we bought a couple of glasses their lone red wine and found a table to sit at to listen to the band. We could not remember the last time we had heard a live rock band. After finishing our wines, we drove over to the Wine Garage. We were very surprised by the Wine Garage. The decor was great and the red wines were very good! The interior has the look of a garage with antique cars parked around. One wall has murals of some of the most epic car movies. We had fun trying to identify them. We left with several bottles of red wines and a desire to return in the future. 

Howard Huge at the Wine Garage

They'll Get Ya Lubed!