motorhome – Page 3 – The Hermits' Rest

Camping Weekend Update

Long time no blog! I could not get anything but brief Facebook updates to upload, so I just spent quality time with nature and Seneca the RV (and yes, of course with Lee).

Pedernales State Park has so many trails! I didn’t get to anywhere near all of them. Plus they have MANY miles of equestrian trails. I went to all the ones I could walk to, though. Actually, our camping spot was right next to the entrance to the Twin Falls trail, so there were no possible excuses to not go there.

It’s a beautiful pool, surrounded by ferns. It’s off limits to people, but there’s a nice viewing area. And the trail is steep and challenging, but gorgeous, with lots of rocks, ferns, and birds. I’m so glad I have the Merlin app! I now know three different vireos but sound. And the ivory billed cuckoo. What a sound! I heard them all on this trail.

The best part of the trail was the bench where I stopped to rest on the way back up. I sat there for about five minutes, then I heard a noise. It was a doe, a large, sleek beauty. I watched as she went about her business, ignoring me completely. What a treat!

I was full of joy and peace after that walk. For some of rest of the day I sat outside a lot and enjoyed the birds. We enjoyed our neighbors, who were a family with two kids who were truly enjoying their visit. Ee kept having to find their lost baseballs.

I got the itch to go out again, so I walked to a place that’s a low-water crossing. It was very peaceful, with only a few other folks around. I had a blast hanging around the cypress trees and finding out what grew along the Pedernales River (pronounced in Texan as “purr-duh-nal-iss”). I got some really cool pictures especially the first one below.

That’s about all I packed into this long and beautiful day. Well, I did do my nails a very patriotic way, for Memorial Day.

I’ll try to write up the rest of the weekend tomorrow. I hope you enjoy some of the things I saw. I put up a LOT of photos on iNaturalist and lots were new to me. I got quite a few birds on my life list!

Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here

After work and the horses getting bodywork done, Lee and I fired up Seneca and took off for another camping expedition, this time to Cedar Breaks Park, one county over near Georgetown, Texas. We’d camped on the other side of the lake from here before, but never at this site, which is a Corps of Engineers park (yay, free entry with my Senior Pass).

I was really excited about it, because I was going to get to see some of my friends from a previous stage of my life when I did lots of stuff with a Unitarian Universalist Church in Cedar Park. One tradition I really enjoyed were the camping trips they’d do a couple of times a year. We went to some pretty places from the time my kids were little until we got our original RV and camper.

My friend Jennifer (who is a regular reader of our chatty little blog here) has done most of the campout planning for years, and I really appreciate the effort she makes to decide on places and get things lined up. Now that we have Seneca, we can camp again, so we decided to go to the next one she scheduled.

So, here we are! It has been raining off and on all day, which is how Apache managed to roll in muddy spots and turn himself into an Appaloosa horse.

It alternated between sun and rain all the way over here. It was sunny when we went into the grocery store to get supplies, then rained hard while we were inside, then was sunny when we came out. Fun weather.

It stayed fun once we arrived, where Lee impressed the folks who’d also arrived today (official start is tomorrow) by backing into our space like a pro. I reminded the folks that he IS a pro, having driven “big rigs” for a living for a few years.

After hugging Jennifer a ridiculously long time, I caught up with other friends I’ve missed from church and toured everyone’s campsites, RVs and trailers. That was great fun. Our Cameron friends Mike and Martha also came along, as I’ve been camping with Martha as long as I have with Jennifer, since all our adult children were young.

Mike inherited a very cool vintage motorhome a while back and has restored it to functioning again. It’s quite funky and very well designed, I’m so glad he got it up and running so they could join us on this long weekend get together.

My dear friends under the very nice cover each site has

Other excitement for me and Jennifer was identifying a summer tanager using the Merlin’s Bird ID or eBird app, then finding it in a tree. I got blurry photos, but you can tell they aren’t a cardinal. This was a first for us, and it was just wonderful to find it with my very first birding friend!

While I was showing Jen Seneca, we realized the temperature had gone way down, really fast. Yep, the real front was coming through. It was also going through Cameron, and we have reports of frightened dogs at home. Lee and I went inside to watch the weather coverage on TV when BLAM! A boom louder than when Sandy the Squirrel hit the transformer rang out, I texted Martha and Jen. Were they ok?

Yes, they were ok, but lightning had struck a tree right behind the cute vintage motorhome. Mike reported that there was a bit of flame, but it went right out. When it stops raining, we’ll check into the damage. They’re pretty sure the power to their campsite also went out, so they are using generator power. Yow!

I tried to take a picture of the weather. I got raindrops, but it looks interesting!

Next it started hailing. Lee is wishing Seneca was back under the cover at the ranch, but we’re here now enjoying the sounds and the light show. There will probably be more rain this weekend, but hey, I’m on a lake, there are birds and flowers, and more friends come tomorrow.

Just before the rains, this immense flock of gulls flew around and landed in the water, very noisily. Lee saw the whole thing, but I at least saw them milling around in the lake. Best photo I could get.

After the craziness of this week, of COURSE lightning struck!

Rolling Home Improvements – No Bull!

My family likes to renovate homes. You may already know that! We’re low on actual homes, so it became time to renovate the rolling home, Seneca the Motorhome. Lee had a plan to make himself a rolling home office.

We hardly ever use the dinette that converts to a bed fit only for children. So, the men of the house got to work. It wasn’t too hard to get anything out except the seat belts. Those were in really well, which was a good thing when I was riding in there.

They unbolted the dining table and put it up the correct height to be a desk. They had to put it next to the couch, because that’s where electrical outlets are. I think it’s a good spot.

I like that you can more easily get to the bathroom when the slide outs are closed. And a person could watch television and work, as long as that person isn’t Lee. He needs to concentrate. He’s ordered a desk chair that will look good, and there will be tie-downs to keep the chair secure when we’re on the road.

I ordered a nice little vacuum cleaner for all the past and no doubt future mouse turds. It didn’t help that dog food was lodged under the dinette! All in all, I’m looking forward to our next outing.

The Bull Part

This started my day off right Sunday. I headed out to feed the chickens and check on the horses and noticed the horses were all near the pens, not out grazing. They do that sometimes, so it wasn’t a big deal. Then I realized something was amiss.

Hmm. Droodles and Apache were in the bull’s pasture and Haggard was relaxing in a horse pen. Interesting.

I was briefly concerned that I wouldn’t be able to set them back to not, but as the photo hints, the horses came back to be petted as soon as they saw me. Then Haggard just got up and sauntered back where he belonged.

Fiona wouldn’t come back, so she was stuck on the other side once I re-shut the gate (which some equine must have opened). By the time I came back to ride horses, she was braying to come back. No bull!

In Conclusion

It was just a nice day yesterday. It ended with a big family dinner including the whole gang, for once. Vlassic enjoyed that we were all outside a lot. It was too nice to stay inside! We Texans treasure pleasant weather whenever it shows up.

Martha and Vlassic had a lot of catching up to do.