We pulled out of Bear Creek Lake, Indian Paintbrush Campground in Lakewood mid-morning Friday October 27, 2017 and traveled the short distance to Cheyenne Mountain State Park in Colorado Springs. A wonderful park across from a Fort Carson Army Base entrance. Stayed here one night so we could attend Faith’s volleyball games that afternoon. Our site had a fantastic view of the valley.
We left Cheyenne Mountain SP just before sunrise on Saturday and began our trip back to Stephenville, TX to visit sister Alice and family. We stopped overnight at the Canyon, TX Walmart. Canyon is just south of Amarillo. We left early Sunday, making an emergency stop to gather cotton decor while traveling US 84 somewhere between Post and Sweetwater.
After a brief visit with our Stephenville family, which overlapped Halloween (no costumes were needed), we got an early start for our 600 mile trip along I20/I10 across West Texas to a Las Cruces Walmart. A great stopover point. We walked about a mile to the Paisano Cafe for a delicious dinner. A fantastic night for a walk and enjoying the beauty of God’s creation of the Organ Mountains at sunset.
We drove the final 400 miles to our winter home (Twin Palms RV Park) on Thursday November 2, stopping at Blue Beacon for a trailer/truck wash. We were cheerfully greeted by Jenni and Steve with a fruit basket. They were most ready for us to arrive and take some of the park management pressure off.
Since we’ll be here through most of April, we decided having a car, rather than the dually beast, would work much better for tooling around the area. We were originally thinking of just getting a cheap “beater” to get around, but managed to swing this 2013 Rav4 the first week here. Connie Loves it. Ed has only driven it once, riding his bike to Home Depot a lot.
Getting settled in our great little abode.
We attended the blessed wedding of Kevin Sauter and Amanda May on Saturday November 11. Kevin is Brother-in-Law Roger’s son. It was a quickly planned, yet fantastic wedding and reception. Newly certified Roger performed the ceremony. Roger’s wife (Connie’s sister) Carol joins in the celebration and joins in a picture.
Kevin’s son Ryan and daughter Jenna (far right), along with Amanda’s twins Rachel and Maria, and oldest daughter Nina are all one family now. Five children (five 1’s in 11/11/17) plus Kevin and Amanda make 7 (as 111117). How quaint is that?
Roger and Carol are very involved here, including serving as head ushers and Sun Valley Tempe. The natural thing to do after church, of course, is head over to Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row in Gilbert. Connie enjoys her Bloody Mary for breakfast. Oh that girl. The place is quite an adventurous experience, but a little loud for Ed.
Otherwise, we keep quite busy here at Twin Palms. We just re-planted and mulched the bed along the west wall. Ed keeps the pea gravel raked up in the spaces and is busy with general maintenance stuff; Connie cleans restrooms once a week and cares for all the flowers. We both fraternize with the residents here.
A Twin Palms RV Park gate leads directly out to the Consolidated Irrigation Canal and walking path. Low and behold, Ed saw this tortoise along the path. Surely not out of the canal! It turns out that he (she?) got out of his yard and escaped! Animal Control had quite a job getting him off the path.
Really enjoyed catching up on your travels reading your blog. Love what you are doing. However, Nancy has been adamant about maintaining a home base. She had her other hip replaced in Nov, and the recovery has been a little more challenging this time. She is 14 yrs older this time! She had the other hip replaced when we lived in Grand Juntion. Many of your western slope venues are familiar to us. In fact we took our fifth wheel over for the wine festival and stayed a week in Fruita State Park. Had a great time and managed to purchase 2 1/2 cases of wine from various vineyards before we came home. Also we just purchased a new fifth wheel and will pick up Wednesday. Nancy said it’s going to be a long wait until Memorial Day weekend to play with her new home away from home. I told her she has other options. We can go where it’s warmer after the holidays. There is hope. She might not stay as long as I do (she can fly home for a grandkid fix), but think I can talk her into a road trip. Maybe we will see you some time this winter???
Thanks for the update Ron. We’ll look forward to seeing y’all….and your new 5th wheel.
Our new trailer is not the “beast” yours is but it’s big! Mom got her king bed, and I got my hydraulic leveling and a Big-assed tv that comes up out of a cabinet! Might need air bags on my truck. We’ll see.