We're On the Road Again!

After 54 days of sitting idle in the Panhandle of Oklahoma, the motorhome is finally rolling down the highway once again.  With a half-day of temperatures in the 40's, the ice on the driveway and the county road melted enough that we could leave the grips of cold weather to head south.  It was sad to say good-bye to family in Oklahoma, but we are headed towards family in Texas.

Our first stop was an over-night with our dear friends Connie and Steven near Blair, Oklahoma.  Since the motorhome is still winterized and the temperatures dipped into the 20's overnight, it's great to have friends that will welcome us into their home to spend our first night on the road.

The next morning we were up early, driving through the fog and cold to points south.  Temperatures stayed in the 30's most of the day, but we are heading in the right direction towards warmer weather as we crossed the Texas state line.

Our second night brought us to Lake Brownwood, where our niece and nephew, Jennifer and James, own a trailer on the lake.  Their jobs kept them working that day, but we enjoyed seeing their lake on this cold December day.

We got some much-needed exercise as we walked around the lake and surrounding residential areas.  We wished we would have kept count of the multitude of white-tail deer we saw on our 6-mile hike this afternoon.

Like so many lakes in the west, Lake Brownwood has been in serious need of rain for the last several years.  2015 brought bountiful rains that filled the lake once again.  We appreciated the sign in front of the local church.

We also appreciated some of the wall-hangings in Jennifer and Jame's lake house.  We didn't quite get everything done on this "to-do list" but we certainly gave it a try.

We also liked this pillow's philosophical view of life on the lake.

Because of the cold weather, we decided to continue our march south to get to our final destination in Mission, Texas.  We made a third stop in Pleasanton, Texas, for another single night stop.  The good news is that we discovered a great barbecue place inside the local HEB grocery store for dinner that evening.  The bad news is that we also discovered that a mouse had moved into our motorhome while it was setting empty for those 54 days.  So we spent the entire evening cleaning and washing bedding. 

So we are making our trip from Oklahoma to South Texas in 4 days with 3 one-night stops along the way.  When we made this same trip south last January right after we retired, we spent 13 days and Denisa got a root canal on the way.  This trip was obviously much shorter and less painful!