Category Archives: Retirement

The weirdness continues…

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We left Brady in the AM.  Roxie had a hard time sleeping since it was a public park and there were people driving around late into the night.  A local PD even pulled one over in the park.  Me? I slept hard as ever.  Before we left we had to figure out where we were going.  That was a hard task.  How long were we going to stay and where?  We finally found a park on the outskirts of Austin and had them hold a spot.

Roxie continued to research and found a place that was getting 5 stars on all reviews and was not in Austin.  Actually about 50 miles away in the hill country.  It sounded really nice so we called.  They said they had 3 spots available.  The thing about this park is that they are monthly only.  We discussed it and thought we might as well stay for at least one month.  We have to register the trailer, truck, get driver’s licenses, get connected with doctors and the such.  We went to take a look.  It is the Coldwater Creek RV park.

We met in the office, got a map and looked at the three spots.  The park is not lush but this is Texas.  The park is decent and we found a spot that would work.  We took it and signed up for a month.  So we are here for at least a month.  Maybe more if I decide to go ahead with my shoulder surgery.  Here are some pictures:

The monthly rate is very reasonable but we have to pay our electric usage.

Austin’s motto is “Keep Austin weird”.  We haven’t even made it to Austin and things are weird already for us.  I got used to years of living in a house, used to traveling in the Airstream and many trips.  Now, this is a very new part and weird.  Living in the Airstream for an extended time.  This is the weird part.  Something I have not done since I was 11 and my parents purchased the KOA in Redding.  We lived (3 of us) in our 25′ Airstream for 6 months.

It just feels weird right now because we have not done it before.  But that means when we decided to do it somewhere else in the future it will feel normal.  Maybe some of the Austin weirdness has just rubbed off on us a bit early.

Freeloading across 3 states

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When we last left the story we were leaving Arizona or trying to.  We traveled down 101loop to I10, taking I17 to skirt Phoenix as much as we could.  We took off on US60 to the east of Phoenix and up into the hills.  We were trying to avoid the 100+ degree heat we had in Sun City West.  Our departure day was very cool and temperate.  The plan was to make it just past Safford AZ and stay at the Hackle/Haekel/Haeckel BLM site.  On the way, we passed through some very interesting roads, terrain and numerous mines.  We ended up here for the night:

It was windy, cool, rain burst, big ants, spiders with reflective eyes, no one else and AT&T had 3 bars of LTE!  Who could ask for more?

Back to the road, hoping for Alamogordo, NM.  Yes, a new state!

We did make it to Alamogordo that night but the time changes really are messing with us.  Here are two perspectives of our spot at WalMart:

Can’t stay still right now, we still have mileage to cover.  Leaving Alamogordo we are heading for yet another state, Texas!  We were able to head into the hills outside of Alamogordo where you have a climb from 4000 feet to 8500 in 16 miles.  Truck did great.  The downslope into eastern New Mexico was nice and gradual but extremely windy.  Shortly outside of Hobbs, NM, here it was:

A few more hours of Texas driving to our destination for the night, Lamesa TX.  The city has a spot for visitors in RVs that have electric and water and a dump station.  No charge for the first 4 nights!  Score!

 

Later that evening there was another rig that pulled up which makes Roxie feel safer.  We talked to them the next AM and made some new friends of Bruce and Lori.  We mentioned our trip next summer to Alaska so maybe we planted a seed there.  We would love to have about 5 rigs going up together.  With ANOTHER time change and our driving schedule, we didn’t get out until around 11:30!  That’s OK.  We made it to Brady TX around 5 pm and found another city park with RV spots.  This one was $20/night however.

Tomorrow is Austin.  We don’t know where we are going to stay, however.  Time to figure that out.

Over 10 nights of camping we have averaged $10.91/night.