Rain showers woke me up a few times and I felt tired when I woke up Monday morning. I’m not used to hearing rain after the great weather we’ve experienced over the winter. We had intermittent showers and mist in the morning with a stiff wind from the northwest. The weather radar looked like heavier rainfall would arrive in the afternoon, so Donna decided to brave the wind and go for a walk before lunch.
I thought it was a good day to lie low and read a book. I went up on the deck while Donna was out, but the wind chased me back indoors. Donna took several snapshots on her hike – here are a few of them.
More wildflowers along the lake
She spied a turtle crossing the path
The turtle takes a defensive posture
This nice home had a boat ramp to the lake – when the lake was full of water
Now the boat ramp leads to a trail down to the lake
Donna really enjoyed her hikes and loves this area. She said it reminds her of Cape Cod minus the dunes. We want to come back some time and have a longer stay – hopefully at a time when Dave can join us at his beach house. I’d like to talk to him more about his time here in Texas. He was involved in the music and club scene in the ’80s and has stories and photos of Stevie Ray and Jimmy Vaughn from back in the day hung up in his beach house.
When Donna returned, I took a container of leftovers into the house and reheated it in the microwave for lunch. Although we’re parked at Dave’s beach house, we still sleep and play on our computers in our coach – it’s our home after all. But I didn’t want to turn on the generator just to reheat leftovers in the microwave.
After lunch, I was sitting at my laptop looking for information on the turtle Donna photographed. I couldn’t come up with a positive identification. Maybe a reader can help? While I was sitting there, a house finch flew up and perched on the living room window sill. He appeared to be peeping through the window. I realized the solar coatings on our windows effectively make them mirrors from the outside and the bird was studying his own reflection.
We’ve seen a variety of birds here in Texas – from bobwhite quail to red-tailed hawks. One of the most interesting birds we’ve seen is the scissor-tailed flycatcher. We saw them at San Angelo State Park (another place we’d like to visit again) and also at Buchanan Dam. On the way to Buchanan Dam, we saw a hawk flying across the road in front of us with a live snake in its talons.
Something else I saw that don’t recall seeing before is armadillo road kill. I saw two dead armadillos on the side of the road.
On Monday evening, Donna made lemon chicken with broccoli on the side for dinner.
Lemon chicken and broccoli
After dinner, for a change of pace, we went into the Dave’s beach house and watched a classic movie, Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly on Dave’s big screen TV.
On Tuesday morning, we went about business as usual. Donna is working on two exercise challenges – a 30-day upper body challenge and a five-day squat challenge. After completing her daily challenges, she prepared omelets for breakfast and then we started preparing to relocate to Austin. We hit the road at about 11am.
The 80-mile drive to Austin was mostly on scenic two-lane highways. As we got closer to the city, traffic volumes started building. Rain and construction didn’t help matters much and the short drive took more energy than I imagined. We found our way to the Austin Lone Star Carefree RV Resort by 1pm. At the entrance, a park attendant asked our name, checked his list and said, “Follow me,” as he climbed into a golf cart. He led us to our site and went over the hook-ups and trash collection procedures. Then he told us we would have until 4:30pm to go to the office to complete our check-in. It was a very efficient way to arrive and set up at an RV park in my opinion.
Austin traffic in the rain through a construction zone
So we’re back in a full hook-up RV park. We’ve been able to average our RV park costs down over the six nights since we left San Diego by boondocking and taking advantage of courtesy parking. Our average cost per overnight site is $11 at this point. This helps to offset the fuel costs we’ve incurred while covering 1,200+ miles in a week. Here at the Austin Lone Star Carefree RV Resort, our Passport America rate gave us two nights for $45.
Our nightly site costs will go up over the next 18 days as we’ll be in RV parks, but our fuel costs will diminish. This is one of the beauties of the RV lifestyle – we can adjust our variable costs as we choose. Stay in a nice place and pay for it while not burning fuel or travel and burn fuel while keeping overnight rates low.
We like mixing it up like this – it’s what will probably keep us on the road for a long time. We know people who boondock almost exclusively and we also know people who rarely if ever boondock. There’s no right or wrong way – you just go with the flow and do what works for you.
Donna had pork tenderloin and salsa verde in the slow cooker all afternoon. She fixed a southern style dinner with pulled pork, kale sauteed with onions and dried chorizo and fried cornmeal mush. Delicious!
Southern style dinner plate
The sky is overcast this morning, but it isn’t raining at the moment. The forecast calls for rain and thunderstorms. We’ll take our chances and take a cab ride into town later. We’re here and dang it, we want to see Austin.
