A Trip Down Memory Lane at Abilene State Park

 After two days at Copper Breaks State Park, we headed another 2.5 hours south. This drive had two stops. One in Knox City to get our annual motor home inspection. Texas residents like us must have their vehicles safety inspected every year before they can renew their registration. So every year as we head south, we must find an inspection center that has room for a sizable motorhome and its towed vehicle to park. The motor home passed the inspection, and we checked that job off our list of things to do! Our second stop was in the city of Abilene to do some major grocery shopping. Our pantry and refrigerator are bare after being away for so long. We had a long list of things to buy! We finally arrived at our next camping destination at Abilene State Park.

Exactly seven years ago, we took off on this full-time traveling journey, and Abilene State Park was the very first place that we camped. In fact, the site in the picture below was the first campsite of this adventure. We figured that out from looking at those first blog pictures. So we took this picture of site 58, looking across the road at our current campsite. Seven years ago we didn't keep track of our specific campsite numbers. Now Mark has a detailed spread sheet of all our campsites, including their cost, any discounts, the number of days we stayed, types of utility hook-ups, cell phone signal (with and without our booster), number of over-the-air television channels, and the site number where we camped. We were rookies seven years ago, but we are obviously seasoned professional travelers now.

This was a little trip down memory lane, as we remembered those first days of full-time RVing for us. This is a CCC camp, filled with nice rock work built in the 1930s. Seven years ago we took a picture of this rock and wood tower beside the swimming pool area inside the park. Today we took a similar picture just for old time's sake.

Just like seven years ago, we rode our bikes all over the park's trails and roads. We wore out those old bikes, and we both have new ones since then.

This time, Mark started his AllTrails app and kept track of where we had ridden in the park. That kept us from back-tracking, and also shows the different connector trails and roads available. At the end of the day's ride, we knew that we had ridden 5.6 miles. Seven years ago we didn't know about AllTrails and the great resource it is for full-time travelers.

Seven years ago, we drove one mile outside of the park to do some hiking at Abilene Lake. Then we were surprised to see the entire lake bed dry, and we actually walked across the dry ground where the lake was supposed to be. This year the lake area is closed for water fowl hunting. But we drove into the entrance to see that the lake has recovered and now actually has a surprising amount of water.

The campgrounds are almost empty of campers this time of year. But they are quite full of birds. We had a big flock of white-winged dove that congregated in the trees around us.

They are puffed up in the cold this week, and Denisa loved taking pictures of them.

Some times she enjoys the background as much as the bird. These old trees are covered with colorful lichen, and interesting twigs.

We've seen several of the birds enjoying the tasty nuts from the pecan harvest in the park. The nuts are small, but the meat inside is tasty. The dove land on the road, where passing cars have cracked open the nuts making them easier to eat.

We also watched as blue jays used their beaks to drill open the pecans. The picture below isn't great of either bird, but it shows that we had a colorful bird display when the blue jay and red cardinal were hanging out in the same tree.

Denisa followed the hammering sounds we could hear from our site to find this woodpecker working on a nearby tree. Yep, Denisa is easily entertained when she goes into state park mode.

She also took a picture of this squirrel doing a tight-rope act out on the flimsiest twigs on the end of the branch. We have seen a tremendous change in weather during our stay at Abilene State Park. It was a balmy 70 degrees when we arrived, and we had a low temperature of 12 degrees the morning we left.

We had only planned to stay two days at Abilene State Park. But when an Arctic cold front ushered into Texas, we decided to stay an extra day. That's mainly because the forecast called for snow further south at our next destination, while it stayed clear here in Abilene. So we had more time for Denisa to take more bird pictures. We have a better camera than we had seven years ago. So it's easier to get pictures of tiny birds like this chickadee,

and this dainty Titmouse.

A lot has changed in the last seven years. We have different bikes, different camera, different pickup, different computers, different apps. But some things are the same. We still are traveling in the same motor home, enjoying wandering God's wonders like we have done for the past seven years.

Copper Breaks State Park - Quanah, Texas

 After our shaky start, the motor home ran well on our 218-mile trip to our first destination of 2022. That is an unusually long drive for us, as it took close to four hours. We much prefer drives of half that length. But there isn't a lot to see in west Texas, and we had never stayed at Copper Breaks State Park before. Because we got a late start, the sun was already low in the sky by the time we got situated into our first camping spot of the year. Like most Texas state parks, our site was long and level and had plenty space between us and our neighbors.

Copper Breaks gets its name from the streaks of copper found in these rust-color canyons and hills. At the museum inside the visitor center we learned that they have tried to mine the copper here. But there isn't enough water to wash it from the clay, and smelting only bakes the clay around it. They know that because both methods have been tried here. So the copper still remains in Copper Breaks.

We were blessed with really nice weather for northern Texas in January. So we took the top-reviewed trail in the park the next morning. This is one of the views from the Rocky Ledges Trail. You can see Mark on one of the ledges, on the right hand side of the picture below. On the left we could see the Pease River zig-zagging through the valley.

As we looked toward the river, we saw some tiny dots that were moving close to the water. Were there other hikers out this morning?

No, it is a sounder! (New word of the day:  "sounder" is the word for a group of wild hogs). The long line of hogs included more than a dozen babies toward the back of the line. They are obviously reproducing and thriving here at Copper Breaks.

The cactus are also plentiful on these Texas plains. We were surprised at the bright purple color of the cactus pads, contrasted against the rust-colored soil where they grow.

No photo-shop was needed to make this usually-green succulent look purple. We learned that a prickly cactus turns purple when it is too dry and too cold. Considering that we are having night-time temperatures in the 20s and they have had no rain for months, they are experiencing both of these bad conditions. These plants are obviously under a lot of stress this January.

We hiked a 5-mile loop today. That's not bad for a "first-after-Covid" hike. We took it slow, and the elevation gain was minimal. This loop brought us to view points above the lake here in the state park. With the drought conditions, the water levels are way down this year.

At one time this entire area was under water. The Permian Sea once covered all of Copper Breaks. When we hiked the Juniper Ridge Nature Trail, we found fossilized sandstone that has frozen the tide ripples from under the Permian Sea long ago.

We hiked or drove to all the crannies of the park. We thought that "The Big Pond," with its tall red cliffs, was actually prettier than the lake.

At the park museum we learned that this land was once covered by bison, hunted by the Comanche Indians that roamed this area. When settlers began building homes, the Indians often raided their farms and took hostages. One hostage was nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker, who lived with the Comanche tribe until she was rescued at the age of 24. Her son was the famous Comanche leader, Quanah Parker, who was an honorary guest at President Theodore Roosevelt's inauguration in 1905. We are only 15 miles from the town of Quanah, Texas, named after this well-respected Comanche leader. Now we know that his mother had a harrowing childhood on the plains of Texas near here.

Now instead of bison, we only see hogs and deer in this state park. We are lucky to get to stay at Cedar Breaks, as they will be closed this weekend for hunting. We find that often when making reservations at Texas state parks. The other animals we had hoped to see were the Texas longhorn herd that lives close to the visitor center. Even though we drove by several times, we never spotted a single longhorn.

Cedar Break's other claim to fame is that it is recognized as an "international dark sky park." People come here to get some of the clearest views of the stars and planets because there is little light pollution at this remote location on the Texas plains. During our visit, however, the sky was anything but dark. We were here for the first full moon of the year--also called "The Wolf Moon." That name was started because it is more common to hear the wolves howl at the moon this time of year. As that perfectly round orb rose through the branches of the mesquite, we could hear the very close howling of the coyotes. So this is our best picture of "The Coyote Moon" here at Copper Breaks.

We got a picture of that full moon just balanced on the big rear view mirror of our motor home this evening. It makes us smile to be back on the road again. We're learning things about purple cactus, sounders of hogs, ripple fossils from the Permian Sea, Indian hostages, the wolf moon, and failed attempts to mine copper. But mostly we're smiling because we're on the road again--wandering God's wonders for a couple days in Copper Breaks State Park.

We're on the road again!--or not?!?

After much delay, we made our final plans to be on the road again. Now the count is up to 4 months, 1 week, 2 days, and 16 hours since we parked the motor home here at the ranch in the panhandle of Oklahoma. It is snuggled between the satellite dish and the safe shed, right beside the horse pasture. You can see the horses in the corral behind it, and the pickup is attached and ready to roll on this blue sky morning.

This is also where the motor home was damaged when high winds blew the shingles off Mark's Mother's house. The asphalt shingles hit the side of the motor home with such force that it scratched the paint. It's been winterized since October, when the first freezing temperatures came early to Oklahoma this fall. It has been an interesting fall and winter here! We've picked this day for our departure, and Denisa has been humming the chorus of "On the Road Again!" as she was doing the last of the packing of things that need to go back into the motor home.

We've picked this day for our departure because it is forecast for temperatures near 60, with almost no wind. That's a rare find in January in western Oklahoma! It dipped down to 17 degrees last night, and it was still chilly as we put the last things in the refrigerator. Mark plugged in the engine heater for several hours to get everything warmed up. He fired up that big diesel engine to let it idle for a while, and we went inside to get one more load. When we came back, that diesel engine wasn't running. What?!?

Mark started the diesel engine again. It ran for about thirty seconds . . . and died. We tried it again . . . it died again. Mark opened the back engine compartment (because it is a rear-end diesel), and started looking around.

After waiting so long to finally get back on the road, it looked like we weren't going anywhere today after all! We just wrote a blog about three strikes of bad luck. This sure felt like strike four!

And then Mark figured it out. Remember that we had our motor home worked on in September? We had a Cummins diesel shop in Liberal, Kansas, replace the antifreeze reservoir. It seems that one of the hose connections they did has been leaking ever since then. Now the antifreeze is too low for the motor to run safely. That's why it is shutting itself off!  Mark even caught a picture of another drip of the pink liquid antifreeze escaping out of the poorly sealed tank. It looks like we were charged a thousand dollars for shoddy work.

Mark then made a trip into town to buy a couple gallons of antifreeze. Thank goodness that this small-town grocery store stocks antifreeze! Then there's the tricky job of funneling it in. He started up the engine again, and it continued to run this time! Denisa is sure glad to be married to such a smart guy! If it was up to her, we would have had to be towed back to that same repair shop for more shoddy work!

It caused a three-hour delay, but we finally felt good about being on the road again when the motor home continued to idle well. We know that we will have to deal with that antifreeze leak in the near future, but for now we are on the road again! It was less than 20 miles down the road when we entered into the big state of Texas. That's the last state sign we will picture for a while, as we plan to spend the rest of our winter here.

We're planning to connect the dots between some of Texas's fine state parks as we make our way south. We're finally on the road again--even though a few hours earlier we thought we might be stranded again.

Surviving Covid (Again!)

In our seven years of full-time RVing, we have definitely learned to be flexible. We're going to use that flexibility again as our plans have changed AGAIN. We planned to leave right after the ski trip, but that changed because of Covid. We were exposed to this bothersome virus while we were in Colorado, and several members of our ski group tested positive. We didn't go to the trouble of being tested, since we were positive that Denisa's results would be positive. She had all the classic symptoms--congestion, cough, head ache, sore throat, fatigue, and body aches. As soon as the symptoms appeared she started her quarantine--in the upstairs bedroom at Mark's Mother's house. She didn't want to take any chances of exposing Mark's 93-year-old Mother. While her quarantine quarters are large and have a private bathroom, they don't have any television and only spotty internet and phone signal. That's where Denisa has been hanging out for the last three days.

Mark never had any symptoms, so we're not sure if he was an asymptomatic positive, or he somehow avoided getting Covid this time. Either way, his Mother never got Covid even though they spent lots of time together during those three days. While we usually cook together, Mark and his Mother were in charge of the kitchen. They delivered some great meals to the quarantine room. Because we have no other pictures to post, Denisa took pictures of some of the meals. This one includes farm-raised fried chicken (from the same neighbor that provides the fresh eggs), real mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, home-made bread, home-made sand plum jelly, and a salad. You could say that Denisa was very well fed with meals lovingly prepared during her quarantine. She was glad that she never lost her senses of taste or smell this time, as the meals were tasty!

Mark's phone recorded that he had climbed 17 flights of stairs in one day. That would include checking on Denisa and bringing her food. Even though we had everything packed up, he unpacked the keyboard so she could play the piano to pass some of her solitary confinement. He delivered warm drinks to soothe her sore throat, and yummy meals to tempt her appetite. Thanks to Mark for all his stair climbing and cooking!

Denisa is sure that this case of Covid's omicron variant is less severe than the case we endured in October 2020. She figures that this bout should boost her immunity without a booster shot. Our daughter-in-law is in the medical profession, and she read that this lighter variant is "nature's vaccine." In our group of 11 people exposed to the virus on our ski trip, only four of us displayed symptoms, but others tested positive as well.

By day three, Denisa was bored and felt good enough to do some packing. We've delayed our departure several days because of the virus, but also because of the weather. We've had 40 mile-per-hour winds (with gusts up to 60) for over 24-hours. So we wouldn't be driving the motor home in that type of weather anyway. Also, our first stop on our departure was to visit friends--that wouldn't be so glad to see us with Covid. So we're testing our patience and using our flexibility to roll out in our motor home when the time, and the weather, is right.

It's been four months, one week, one day, and 19 hours (but who's counting?!?) since we parked the motor home here in Oklahoma. It has really been a pretty busy four months. We've flown to Newfoundland, Canada, and stayed for a couple weeks; we've cheered our son on during his first half-marathon race; we've cared for Denisa's mother after her Covid hospital stay and our son after his foot surgery; we've taken the girl trip to Branson; we've baby-sat in Kansas City (twice); we've driven Denisa's Mother to her winter home in south Texas and stayed for a week; we've celebrated our grandson's first birthday; we got to trick-or-treat at Halloween with our grandchildren; we've celebrated Thanksgiving with both sides of our families; we've had dentist, optometrist, dermatologist, and gynecologist appointments; we've visited all of our siblings and many of our nieces and nephews; we've baked Christmas cookies and soaked in the beauty of Christmas light displays, we've celebrated Christmas with family multiple times; we've stayed up to usher in 2022 at a New Year's Eve party; we've gone snow skiing in Colorado; and now we've survived Covid (again). Now we're ready to be on the road (again)!

Three Strikes of Bad Luck

We just finished up a great family vacation, where we enjoyed some perfect weather and no one got hurt on the ski slopes. What could possibly go wrong now? We did the last minute packing and hugs this morning, and we left before 8:30 a.m. That's easier to do with the help of our grandson, Eli, who gets us up around 5:00 a.m. After  long good-bye hugs, the three vehicles of friends and family took off for their different destinations. We chose the south direction down Highway 9 out of Breckenridge. The Colorado Department of Transportation warned us that this route was icy and perilous four days ago when we were driving to Breckenridge. But there were no travel advisories for Highway 9 on this sunny day as we left Breckenridge.

We could see the tall walls of snow on both sides of the highway in the picture above, and the layer of ice and snow that still remained on the road in the picture below. But it was a smooth drive over Hoosier Pass 

With all this snow and slick roadways, one would guess that our first bad luck strike may have happened here. But no, we all enjoyed the uneventful ride through this white mountain beauty. Our carload agreed that we were glad we chose this route instead of the more-traveled and less-scenic road through Denver.

It wasn't until we were at a lower, less beautiful altitude that "Strike One" happened. We were driving through the town of LaJunta, Colorado, when Mark slowed down because the pickup in front of us was making a right turn. It's too bad that the pickup behind us didn't slow down too. Instead, he plowed right into us. We pulled into the nearest parking lot, and luckily that other driver did too. We have been blessed that we haven't had one of these fender benders before in all our travels. We had to google to see that it was probably a good idea to get a police report. So we waited until the LaJunta police officer arrived and determined that the other driver was at fault. 

The good news is that the damage isn't too bad, and we could still drive home. "Strike One" delayed us around an hour on this long travel day. But we arrived safely to the Oklahoma panhandle just as another beautiful sunset was unveiling across the western sky.

"Strike two" didn't happen until the next day. Our daughter-in-law works as a Physician's Assistant, and she had a routine Covid test before going back to work. She had no symptoms, but she called to let us know that she tested positive. Any time you have a family member with Covid, that would qualify as a "strike."

It was the next morning when Denisa began feeling bad. It wasn't long before we got reports of sickness from others in our group. Jordan's Mother, Eli, and Denisa all had the classic Covid symptoms--head ache, congestion, cough, sore throat, aches. That would be our "Strike Three" for this blog. Our situation is complicated by the fact that we are spending these last two days with Mark's Mother as we load the motor home and prepare to leave. We sure don't want to expose Mark's 93-year-old Mother to Covid. What a bummer as we're dealing with three strikes of bad luck! 

Breckenridge, CO - Day 3 - Sledding and the Gondola

On our last day in Breckenridge, we are all spending the day with our group's youngest generation--our grandkids. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we all acted like kids. We started the morning out with a great home-cooked breakfast, and then started the sled-fest.

We brought one sled with us, but we were glad to see that our rental house was equipped with half a dozen more. That means that everyone could sled as much as they wanted. But for some reason, we took most of the pictures when a child was also on the sled.

We found our best option for sledding was the road in front of our house. It's icy and slick, and seldom-traveled by cars. It's also a very long down-hill run that goes all the way to the stop sign out of sight!

At 14-months of age, this is one of Eli's first snow experiences. Uncle Blake is teaching him about snow balls and the fun he is going to have with this strange cold white stuff.

Just like Carter, Eli had plenty of people that wanted to go sledding with him. We let Dad take him on one of his first trips down the hill.

Eli prefers his Grand-dude to anyone else, so he loved going down the hill with him as well.

The only problem with all these long sled rides down the hill . . .

is that you have to make the long walk back up the road to do it all again. We should have counted the number of times that we all made that walk today!

It's a tough walk for Eli's little legs, so he got to ride on the sled both ways.

That's a back-breaking exercise to walk uphill carefully dragging a sled at the proper angle when your uncle is six feet tall.

Some of our sledders weren't as careful. Our older son liked to run and then throw his body onto the sled for a quick start down the hill.

That's probably why we have the most pictures of him falling off his sled.

We wonder where he gets this unabashed sense of adventure and need for speed?!?

But sled wrecks happen to even the more (ahem) mature sledders that smash into the snow walls on the side of our slick road.

Eli would find that his favorite form of sledding would be going down the snow bank on his belly. He has been practicing this technique for the last three days inside the house, whizzing down the three flights of stairs on his stomach.

We were blessed with another perfect-weather day, and we took way too many pictures in the snow this morning.

Some of us where shedding coats this morning when it warmed up from all the calories being burned while sledding.

After a delicious lunch of leftovers, all twelve of us opted for a walk to downtown Breckenridge. It's a half-mile walk, and we thought that was simpler than loading up into three vehicles and trying to find three parking places in busy Breckenridge.

We soon found out that Carter was only interested in this downtown shopping until she made her purchase of an over-sized cookie at the local bakery.

Then Gram and Grand-dude took her on an adventure. We started at the downtown park, where your trip down the slipper slide now ends in a snow drift.

Then we took her on the gondola that starts in downtown Breckenridge. Called the BreckConnect, it allows passengers to ride effortlessly up the mountain to the base of Peak 7 and Peak 8. This is the same gondola that the skiers have taken the last two mornings to start their ski day. Carter loved it!

The other good news is that this ride is free for everyone, all year long. This is the same free gondola ride that Mark and Denisa took in the summer of 2020. We took the free bus from Frisco to Breckenridge, then this gondola to the top of the mountain, then hiked ten miles down the other side of the mountain to our car back in Frisco. So we are big fans of Breckenridge's BreckConnect any time of the year. But today it had particularly lovely snow views from inside this enclosed gondola--and we had particularly lovely company to share it with!

This trip also allowed us to get off at Peak 7 to see the skiers coming down the mountain. For the last two days Carter has known that all of her relatives were going skiing, but she really didn't know what "skiing" looked like. Her parents are planning on her going to ski school next time, so now she has seen what that means.

We shared our gondola ride down with two groups of skiers finishing up their day on the mountain. Then we made the half-mile walk to our rental for one last dose of sledding. It was a great way to start and end our last day in Breckenridge.

We've been blessed with another day of great weather while we wandered more of God's wonderfully white wonders. He sealed the day with a beautiful sunset that we could watch from our patio balcony beside the snowman family. Life is good!