What a whirlwind the last week has been. When we last left you we had dropped off the RV at
McClain's RV. We headed off the the timeshare condo for the week, hoping for some good news by Friday.
Our condo at
Silverleaf Resort's The Villages was very nice. Two bedrooms, two kitchen setups, large living & dining area, washer/dryer and a great porch where we could enjoy our morning coffee and evening wine. We did snap a couple sunset shots but for the most part it was obstructed by the trees. One morning we discovered a huge moth out by the elevator..you can see it next to Stu's boot as well as the close-up. Later he was gone so I was glad we used the iPhone to grab a couple shots.
We spent our week doing as much riding as we could....we both really liked the local area and enjoyed visiting the surrounding towns. We ate three times in
Frankston, at two different restaurants. We visited
Tyler more than we wanted, the traffic & congestion turned us off as well as a poor customer service experience at the Harley dealer.
Longview had a totally different feel to it, the Harley dealer a completely different experience.
Kilgore was, well, Kilgore....if you've visited one energy town you know what I mean.
Then we discovered
Edom...a small town with attitude! We had pie & ice cream at
The Shed Cafe and then took a quick tour around downtown. Loved the atmosphere and the local gathering spot for afternoon chatter. You can see all the photos at
SmugMug.
The biggest outing of the week was on Saturday when we rode over to Rusk to take the
Texas State Railroad steam engine train ride to Palestine and back. What a treat! I loved hearing the whistle...managed to catch a little of it on one of the short
videos I snapped. On another I tried to capture the car in front of us bobbling around and another was to just get the sounds of the train ride. You can see them all at
SmugMug, I won't post them here.
We took a TON of photos, all on another album at
SmugMug but here are a few to whet your appetite.
So, Friday came and went and there was no update on when our new axle would arrive. For whatever reason we thought we'd move into an extended stay hotel in the Dallas area, getting us closer to where the RV was situated. This meant packing up everything again and moving, including all the refrigerator and freezer stuff. It ALSO meant figuring out how to move two vehicles and the BRAT. We ended up renting a trailer for Big Red and loading BRAT onto the back of Freddie. Phew!
We got everything packed and loaded into Freddie and headed to Dallas where we unloaded and unpacked everything into the extended stay room. It was bare minimum but we thought it would suffice...that is until about 1am when an infestation changed our minds. We loaded up all our clothes and personal items and headed out to a Best Western for the night. By morning we were dragging and had decided to go pickup up KaZy and move to a campground till the parts arrived. This meant going back to the extended stay hotel, getting a refund, packing up & loading all the food again. Then driving to McClain's to pick up KaZy and get set up at the KOA in Caddo Mills, just down the road. Once again, we unloaded Freddie and unpacked everything back into KaZy.
Way too much activity on Sunday and Monday....WAAAAYYY too much. Tuesday we went to breakfast at the Cracker Barrel a few exits away, picked up some groceries at Wal-Mart (the last move I found myself tossing everything that would be dangerous after 6 hours out of the frig, minimum). We drove around town and then came back and vegged.
Now the rain and cold have set in...looks like we won't be doing much except relaxing. One day we might head into Dallas, if the rain slows a bit. If not, then maybe next week...but we are REALLY hoping the axle arrives then.
So, blogs will be infrequent for a bit....but I'm still reading
yours!
Till next time - keep on rollin',
Donna & Stu
