We're on the road again, heading south!

We just automatically start humming the song "On the Road Again" when we start packing the motor home and preparing for another departure. We left the panhandle of Oklahoma on January 19, 2023. Our departure date was determined because we had to wait until after Denisa's appointment with the oral surgeon, but we needed to be gone before the snow that was predicted two days later. Just a few miles south of the ranch, we passed the Texas state line. We're glad to be heading for warmer points south.

It was a three-hour drive to the fairgrounds campground in Childress, Texas. The motor home is still winterized, so we brought jugs of water for tonight. It was cold overnight in Childress, dipping well below freezing! The next morning, Mark found a place to get the pickup inspected. Texas requires that your vehicles pass an inspection at an authorized station within a few days after residents return to this state. Since we are Texas residents, we must have both our vehicles inspected before we can get their tags renewed. The pickup inspection went well, and Mark saw that they had a nice big level spot for the motor home as well. So on the way out of Childress, we got the motor home inspected as well. We can put a check mark beside that big job that has to be done every year!

We drove another three hours to our next stop at Country Living Resort, a full-hook-up campground just south of Mineral Wells, Texas. This is another Passport America campground that offers half-price camping for us. We are now far enough south, and the weather forecast indicates that we will stay above freezing, so we can de-winterize the plumbing system. Last October Mark cleared all the water out of the lines and filled them with pink anti-freeze. The reverse process of flushing all the anti-freeze out and replacing it with fresh water must be done today.

Eight years ago, Mark did all the research of what steps needed to be done to properly winterize a motor home like ours. You have to remember to get that pink antifreeze in the lines that go to the washing machine, the outside shower, the kitchen sink, the water heater, the bathroom sink, the shower, and the ice maker in the freezer. He typed all the steps, and has re-used that tattered check list every winter. He also has the typed list of steps to follow in the spring to de-winterize.

We chose Mineral Wells for our second stop so that we could see our niece and her husband. They live above Possum Kingdom Lake in a resort community correctly named, "The Cliffs."  They took us for a four-mile walk around the cliffs, where we wound our way around the golf course at the heart of the resort. We found some awesome views of the lake on this hike. But most of all, we just enjoyed spending time with the two of them.

Their house sits on one of the cliffs high above the lake. They bought the two lots next door, and they are just starting the engineering phase of building a larger home. We can't even imagine the kind of retaining wall that must be built to support a new home hanging off this cliff.

Our wildlife picture of the day includes the deer that show up at their house for their daily dose of corn. They are so gentle that they can be hand-fed. No zoom lens was needed, and you know that they are close when you get a good picture with a cell phone.

We spent a night in their home, and then returned to the motor home about 40 miles away. We spent a little time exploring the town of Mineral Wells. We've been here several times before, and we were interested to see if the old grand hotel in the center of town was open yet. Last year we noted that they had started a complete remodel to bring this abandoned old hotel back to its original grandeur. The tall chain link fence is still around it, and we see that the broken windows have been replaced. It is scheduled to finally re-open within a year. We heard that it is already booked up for the reopening.

Instead of staying in grand old hotels, we still prefer our grand old motor home, which is sitting in the campground just south of town. After our first three nights, we're glad to be on the road again!