April 13 2019...

Observation Tower in the Hot Springs NP

That's Hot Springs down below

It was really windy up there. and it was Really high!

view from the top of the Observation tower

Found a neat bar/grill. Oldest running bar in Hot Springs. Hosted many old mafia folks along with famous musicans.

Tom making his wish with Zoltar. Is he wishing for youth or old age????

Beautiful buildings!

Downtown Hot Springs Ar.

Inside of the Ohio Club bar

One of the Bathhouses. Only one remains an operating bathhouse at this time.

A stained glass window on the ceiling of the mens bathouse in the Fordyce building

Checking off another NP!

Our beautiful campsite at Stephens Park campground. A COE campground. $15 with our NP senior card.

Look who we ran into at an Arkansas rest stop. Our Canadian besties John and Laurie!

John and Tom with our buddy Marlon.

Oldest operating dance hall in Tx.

Downtown Gruene.

Gruene dance hall bar.

The dance hall is huge with old wood floors.

April 13th 2019
 Its been a busy two weeks. We left Palmdale on April 3rd. So sad to say goodbye to our good friends Beth and Todd and John, Laurie and their dog Marlon. I am going to miss our daily contact and  laughs. Till November in Gulf Shores my friends. Enjoy your summer. We headed to San Antonio to Braunigs Rv resort. We had site #F17 for $27 a night. Very tight spot. Fortunately, the folks that pulled in next door were very nice and we spent some enjoyable evenings chatting.Spent 4 nights there.  While in SA we visited the Alamo, River Walk and the village of Gruene. (pronounced Green). We left there and stopped in Bryan tx for the night at the Galloping Snail $22 pull thru. Old campground with large spots. We had just missed a bad storm that had passed thru the area so things were quite damp. From there we headed towards Texarkana and spent the night at Texarkana RV resort. site #A3 $24 for the night. While setting up we had trouble with the auto level jack d/t the unlevel site and spent 2 hours on the phone with a tech support guy who helped us finally get things fixed. Whew! Ok campground, just off of hwy 59. All of these campgrounds were with Passport America. From Texarkana tx. we headed to Hot Springs Arkansas. While driving down the hwy who should pass us but John and Laurie!!! I was so excited and hoped that a rest stop would appear so that they would stop and we could visit a bit. The rest stop appeared they stopped and I was so happy to see them!!!  They had started traveling back to Canada 3 days after us but hadn't stopped anywhere for more than an overnight. I was shocked at how much their dog Marlon had declined in just 6 days...our poor buddy. John and Laurie are just hoping he makes it all the way back home. Old age sucks for people and our fur babies!
Upon arriving in Hot Springs NP at 12:20 pm we found out that we couldn't get into their campsites at Gulfa Gorge because they were full...Dang really wanted to stay there too. They are a first come first serve campground. So the nice park host sent us to a COE campground called Stephens Park a nine site campground, first come first served. She did fail to mention that it was on a twisty/narrow road. But it was paved... We finally got there without damage to the camper but I was an anxious wreck driving it there. Well, I wasn't driving but still anxious!  We got a spot that was amazing!! Water on 2 sides, and level with full hookups. But no tv, wifi, cable, radio and we found out our dvd player didn't work! I could manage but Tom. Mister I can't live without tv....well, the beauty of the site convinced him to stay the night and we ended up staying 3! We met the nicest couples while there and spent the evenings around a fire talking as if we had been friends for years. We burned up all the wood we had left in the truck so we will be finishing up the trip a lot lighter! We loved Arkansas. Lots of hills, trees, good roads and lots of friendly folks.
From there we headed to Branson MO. Staying at the Ozark Country Rv park site #A5 $44 for fri/sat nights and then $22 for the next 2. We stayed here 2 yrs ago and PA was valid all week long but new owners have come in and changed things. Campground is mostly park models now. We have both been feeling lazy since arriving and haven't even researched on what to do while here.
They received a bunch more snow in Chippewa Falls in the last few days so there is no rush to get home. We are hoping to get to Kevins on April 19th which is Good Friday. It will be fun to spend Easter with the grandgirls.

Ozark Country campground. A5

Our campsite from the other side of the river at Stephens Park. Just below Blakely Dam

Hiking the Mountain Top trail in Hot Springs NP

Spring has sprung everywhere

Braunigs Rv resort. Verry close sites

River walk San Antonio. Even the homeless need a place to sleep. Sad...

We took the River boat cruise on the River Walk. Fun and informative.

Stopped at the Bier Garten. Super fun. Big beers and a free appetizer of Kraut Balls. 

Tom and his new best friend Lexi

Dam those kraut balls were good!

I think this is our favorite place. We were there twice!

Walls around the Alamo

medical equipment used during the Alamo time. Surprisingly, many things are still in use today with just an updated version.

Outside of the Alamo

Inside the Alamo walls. Beautiful park setting

Alamo is much smaller than one would think.

March 29 2019
 Our time here at Palmdale rv park is running short. We are leaving April 3rd and going to Braunigs rv park in San Antonio tx for a few days. We had to change some plans due to extreme flooding around Kanas City/St Joseph area from the Missouri river. So no Big Bend or Guadalupe National Parks for us this year. Maybe next year...We just didn't want to get caught being someplace we had no business being in. Nebraska is horribly flooded also. So we are going to head towards north east texas  and then try and get into the Hot Springs National park in Arkansas and maybe even do some diamond hunting at the nearby state park there and then work our way towards Branson Mo. . We will probably have enough time to stop at Kevins for a few days before heading to Pine Harbor. We just hope to have good weather and no flooding on the roads. Todd and Beth, John and Laurie will all be leaving a couple of days after we leave. Our time together will soon be over and we will surely miss them. Somehow, we have not managed to run out of things to talk about.. Tom and Todd went out into the bay fishing on a charter. Tom had sea sick issues for some of the charter ride due to rolling water and no fish were brought home this time so tonight we are all off to Kellys Irish Pub for a fish dinner! Us ladies have been spending a fair amount of time in the pool due to the weather being much warmer recently than it has been all winter.

Mel's Honky Tonk dance hall and pub. My kind of place. Hanging diamond saddle used as a chandler. 

Todd, server, tom and john  at Palm St restaurant. she labeled them 1-2-3. too funny. nice place on the water

Block party beauties!

John belting out the tunes at the block party

Beth being serenating by a ""singer at Louies BBQ

Tom and Todd on one of our pub crawls

Its spring break time. "Hey springbreakers where are you?"

Well, we got one campfire in while down in TX.

March 9 2019
Happy birthday to Wade yesterday. 15 already! We have had extreme weather here of late. 90's last weekend, cold front came in then 38/50 and 60 for a few days. now 90 again today! Very windy too! went  back to south padre island yesterday. spring breakers have started to arrive so a bit busier. our goal was to find new bars on the beach and we did. Went to tom and jerry's, wanna wanna, boomerang billys, louies and finally Kelly's irish pub for dinner. it was delious! nice day on the island. gulf very choppy.  There was a block party here at the campground on thurs. Campground provided the hamburgers and everyone brought a dish to pass. lots of food and people and the food ran out! We helped out, tom grilled and I helped with set up and clean up. we went to the street fair again in Harlingen, fun music and crafts.

choppy gulf of mexico! spring breakers were hiding!

cold enough for a fire one evening. 

March 1st 2019
 Oopps,  here it is march and I haven't posted for a long time. Feb. was fun, we managed to find our way to the island a couple of times and mexico once. I spent much of the month in the water for water exercise class most mornings for an hour and a half. We all did as a group some driving around searching for a new campground for next year and settled on Winter Haven in Brownsville. They had  a nice  spot for all 3 of us so we booked it. Seems like a nice campground and appear  to have a ton of activities to keep us busy. Also, close to the Island and we all love the Island. We found a new place to hang out there, Longboards. Fun, on the water and great food and music.

Claytons on the Beach, fun place and music. and right on the Gulf!

Gulf of Mexico

Damn wind always blows!

New friends Jo and Dave from Mn. and Jan and Phil from Tn. Fun day playing Giant Jenga at John and Lauries. We should all be meeting up again in Nov. in Gulf Shores. 

Flowers everywhere at Palmdale Rv park

Mexico here we come!

Excellent meal for Beth and I at Red Snapper in Progreso Mexico. Tom not so much, red snapper was quite spicy!

Feb 4th 2019
 Weather is starting to improve a bit. Still windy a lot but the last few days have been blissfully calm. We have been traveling around a bit looking at different campgrounds for next year. The guys have been a bit bored at this campground. Not much for them to do. We went to Mission to check out 3 campgrounds but didn't like any of them.  Yesterday we went to Port Isabel and looked at some spots at Park Central. Kinda trashy looking in the beginning but at the upper end of the park the spots are wide and overlooking the canal to which we would have access to fish and kayak. Plus, there are many more biking options in Port Isabel. It is closer to the gulf so it may be quite windy. We have gone to various places to eat. Longboards in Padre Island was a neat place along with Claytons on the Beach. Also, have went to a few craft/flea markets and picked up some odds and ends.

Drink up ladies

fun place. no  dolphins today tho

Kite festival on the island. Pretty muddy

dropped my phone out the truck window while trying to take a pic of the kites. nice picture of the sand/mud. luckily no damage to phone

At Longboards after the craft fair. Right on the water

Nice place

Poor Beth she's always cold

Gusts up to 50mph that day. wow the camper was a rockin!

Another happy hour

Pier 19. Good food!

Water and birds everywhere!