Day 19, It's Getting Hot

We've been having some really nice weather here in Texas, but now the temperatures are heating up. We will make limited trips outside today. Last night, Mama made the Ham, Caramelized Onions and Cheese Panini for dinner. She said it was really good. She made a sauce of Dijon mustard, horseradish and honey for the ham. The bread was buttered and then heated in a skillet until it was golden brown and the Swiss cheese melted on the ham. Mama had never caramelized onions before, but that is the nice thing about Emeals because they give instructions on how to do things. She has learned a lot of cooking techniques since she started using them. She used to not know how to make gravy, if you can believe that. Sometimes the meals take a while to prepare and would be hard for people working outside the home, but Mama has the time to cook and she likes it. Tonight, we are having a Mexican casserole for dinner. Mama loves Mexican food, so she is looking forward to it.

Mama met the neighbor who lives next to us. She has a three-legged Irish Setter named Gus. Gus shattered his front leg about a year ago when he jumped from their fifth wheel instead of taking the steps. He is 8. His Mom decided to amputate his leg instead of putting him to sleep. He gets around well, but his stamina still needs improvement. It looks exhausting watching him hop around. They have been here for 6 months and will probably be a year more.  She is a nurse and works nearby. Mama asked the neighbor if she minded if we hung our hummingbird feeder from a tree that is more on her property than on ours. She said that was fine with her. We can now view it from inside our RV, so that's nice.

We sat outside this morning. Scout even joined us. We took a quick walk around the lake and then we headed into the air conditioning. Here are a few photos from this morning.

Come on, let's do something.  I'm bored.

A squirrel!

Ducks!

Scout says "Okay, I'm done, let's go back inside."

Posing next to the Texas star.

Have a great day!

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Keeping Cool Inside Today

Day 18 - Cleaning Day

Mama says we need to clean today.  We have to sweep and vacuum.  We hate cleaning day.  It will probably take 15 minutes, but still.

Last night, Mama fixed the chicken and ham casserole.  She will fix the panini tonight. The casserole was quite a task in our small kitchen. The recipe called for cooking the chicken, fixing a gravy and boiling noodles.  She ended up fixing the chicken first and refrigerating that. Later, she boiled the noodles and fixed the gravy.  She also had to cut up celery as well as a cantaloupe for dessert.  It doesn't sound like much until you are doing it in a very small space.   She said it was a challenge, but she did it and it was a good meal.   The casserole had chicken, ham, celery, noodles, a gravy and cheese.  It is baked after being assembled.  The oven seems to be working fine.  It doesn't tell you when it ready to use though, so Mama is just guessing that it has reached the temperature that she has it set at.  It is lighting easily, so that is good.  She has to light the pilot light when she uses it.  She thought of leaving it lit, but then it stays warm when it not in use, so she is just lighting it when she uses it.

It rained most of yesterday.  A lot of the men that live here came back to the campground early.  They must work outside.  A few of them stood in the rain and fished.

We had ducks waddle past our RV yesterday.

We haven't seen any hummingbirds yet.  There are several feeders around besides ours.  We only have one kind in Missouri, but there are several that are in this area.  We hope to see them.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Hates The Broom and Vacuum

Day 17, A Walk Around Our Park

We are having a very cool morning here in Texas.  We are having some light showers. The rain may get heavier later on in the day.

Mama and I took a walk around the park and took some photos. Scout stayed at home.  Last night, she didn't want to walk with us, but the folks made her.  She stayed inside most of the day and she was told she had to come out while the weather was cool. She would take about five steps and look back at the RV.  She was not happy.  Once we reached the end of the dog walk, we turned around and she was fine.  She just wanted to get back to bed. She's silly.

We think these are Black-bellied Whistling Ducks.  They are very pretty.

My travel collar is off and I am wearing my bandana collar.  It seems appropriate for Texas.

The entrance to the campground.

The small lake as you enter the park.  No dogs are allowed here.

Another view of the small lake.

The Office.

The laundry room.  They only charge $1 for a wash and a $1 for a dry.  That's the cheapest we have see.

Small flower garden near the office.

Another view of the lake that we have a view of from our site.

The dinner last night was good.  The oven worked well.  Mama is either going to make Ham, Caramelized Onion & Cheese Panini or Ham and Chicken Casserole for dinner.  It's probably going to be the sandwiches. 

Dad's first day of work was fine.  He said the drive in was easy. The drive home was not as good.  Traffic was bad but he said they had heavy rain, so maybe that was the reason.

It sounds like there is a good chance that we will be here more than a month.  We hope so.  We hope to hear something later this week.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Going To Sleep Through The Rain

Day 16, Dad's 1st Day of Work

Today is Dad's first day of work.  We hope his commute wasn't too bad.  He left here at 6 a.m. and he needed to be there by 8:15 a.m.  It was like a 25 minute drive yesterday, but that was on a Sunday.

Yesterday afternoon we stayed home. The folks did go out for dinner and to do grocery shopping.  There is a Walmart 1.6 miles away.  Mama still says the roads here are confusing. U-turns are a necessity here.  It's just the way the roads are set up.  The GPS is really confused by the outer roads.  We were told about that by the lady we met in Alabama who is traveling on her own.  She said her GPS was worthless in Texas. It's much easier driving a car here than the motor home.  Motor homes can't easily make u-turns.  Oh, we were asked how much gas Goldie holds.  Mama thinks it is about 50 gallons.  It costs us about $200 to fill her up.  Yep, this trip has been quite expensive.  We hope we get to stay put for a few months so that we can save on gas money.  We still don't know if we will be here more than a month, but we hope so.  Our fear is that Dad will be sent to another island and our adventure will stop for awhile.

Last night, the folks ate a Sawgrass Steak House.  Mama had a ribeye and said it was delicious. We wouldn't know because she didn't bring us any.  Daddy had a steak along with barbecued shrimp.  The shrimp was stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon and then barbecued.  He said it was fabulous.  We have never heard him use that word before.

We really like this park.  There are three small fishing lakes.  We have a view of one of them.

This is our view.

Goldie is in the background.

There are lots of ducks.

 There are ducks and turtles.  Two Mallard ducks were after me and Mama yesterday.  We don't know why. We don't think there is a nest because they don't stay at the lake all the time.

Remember I told you that Scout just lays down when she is tired of walking.  Well, here she is in action.

Another shot of our campsite.

Yep, we are in Texas.

Our yard.  Our hummingbird feeder and BBQ grill.  It's a nice, quiet place.

Here I am with Dad.

There is a really nice dog walk.  It goes basically the length of the park and that's pretty long. The owner said we could walk wherever we wanted though.  We have found that the dog walk is the best place though.  If we walk through the campground, we get chased by little dogs.  They are supposed to be on leashes, but most are not.  We are getting used it though as the place we stayed in Pensacola had two dogs that chased us.  They did not listen to their parents when they were called.   All the dogs have been nice, but it still makes Mama nervous, so she prefers to avoid other dogs. 

We noticed that there is a three-legged Irish Setter that lives next to us. Her Mom doesn't walk her on a leash.  I guess she doesn't think she can go fast, but it looked like she was getting around pretty well to us.  There are also two cats living in that RV.  We think the Mom works nights. 

Me being silly.

Sometimes I like my tongue to hang out like this.

Mama did laundry this morning.  We now have clothes drying in the RV.  We are not supposed to let them dry outside. 

Mama is going to fix a real dinner tonight.  It should be interesting.  She will use the oven. She has used it a few times, but can't remember if the cooking time is accurate in it.  She is using recipes from Emeals. The recipe tonight is chicken drizzled with BBQ sauce along with pinto beans and corn on the cob wrapped in foil and baked.  We will let you know tomorrow if it is any good.  She really likes Emeals because it makes shopping and cooking so easy.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Relaxing Today In Texas

Day 13, 14 & 15 We Are In Texas!

We were so tired Friday and Saturday after a full days of traveling, that we did not update the blog.  We actually need to tell you a few things that happened Thursday night.  The folks went out to eat and Mama said it was the best meal she has had yet while on our HUGE adventure.  It was at Beef O Brady. It's a chain restaurant, but we don't have them in our area.  Mama had a Beef Burrito. It had skirt steak, rice, peppers, onions and some cheeses and a sauce.  It also came with tortilla chips and salsa.  Daddy said his food was good, but he wasn't as impressed as Mama was. 

We went for a walk around the lake and we were told there was an alligator in the lake.  We guess he walked from the canal, through the resort and into the lake.  That would have been a sight to see.  We were not impressed as other people were.  We've seen gators and a rattler on this trip, so it's old stuff to us.  LOL

Gator in the lake.

We left the resort around 7 a.m. on Friday.  Here Scout is ready for takeoff.  The RV is a lot smaller when it is closed up.

We arrived in Pensacola, FL at 6 p.m.  We gained that hour back that we lost coming down to Florida.   We would have made better time, but we had a few issues getting gas.  You see, getting gas in an RV is not fun.  Mama has an app that she is using that is making things a lot easier.  It tells us where the gas stations are that are better for RVs.  Daddy tells her how many miles before he wants to stop and she checks the app and tells him where to stop.  We stopped at this station at lunch time and it was packed.  Daddy drove through the parking lot and hit a dead end.  When you are towing a car behind you, you can't just back up.  You have to unhook the car, move the car and back up a 35' motor home.  Let's just say that Daddy was not a happy camper.  After we did all that, the guy in font of us at the pump took his sweet time inside the gas station.  He came out, put something in his car and went back in.  We probably waited 10 minutes for him and once he got to his car it took him forever to move it.  People can be very rude to RVers at time.  It takes a good 10-15 minutes at a gas stop.  We probably lost 45 minutes on that stop.  The next stop was better, but a motorcycle pulled in right as we got to our pump and took it.  We had to wait for him.

The love bugs were terrible. They were all over our windshield and front of Goldie.  Mama took a photo with her phone.  She will try and download it later.   We were told to get them off our vehicle within 24 hours or they mess up the paint. Apparently, they show up here twice a year

We were very tired by the time we pulled into our campground.  We stayed at Pensacola RV Park. 
The owner was very nice.  She told us how to clean off the love bugs and was just really sweet.  Scout convinced a lady that she needed to adopt a greyhound.  I think she really is going to check into it.  Mama fixed Sloppy Joe's on Baked Potatoes for dinner with green beans for a veggie.  She didn't care for the Sloppy Joe's.  They were just something you heat in the microwave.  We took a walk around the park and went to bed at 8 p.m.

We left the park around 6 a.m. We passed though Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana on our way to Texas.  Mama's camera skills were not very good and missed some of the border crossing signs, but here are the photos she took.

Heading into a tunnel.

Yikes!  We are in a tunnel!

Missed the Mississippi welcome sign.

Part of the Louisiana welcome sign.

Swamp land.

Swamp land.

Swamp land.

A very tall bridge.

We are in Texas!

The Texas exits are a lot different than what we are use to.  You have to drive down a frontage road to get to places.  We were confused by that at first and missed two gas stations.  Finally, we figured it out and stopped at our last gas station.  It would have been fine but the Jeep drug at the entrance and a wire got messed up on our braking system, so now we don't have brake lights on the Jeep when it is being towed.  We finally arrived at our campground only to find that we could not get into the campsite.  There is a tree growing in the middle of it.  We don't know how anyone can get into it.  The spaces are very tight.  Daddy said he might be able to do it, if the neighbor moved his truck and car.  We called the RV park owner at 5:50 p.m. and left her a voice mail asking if we could take another site.  We started looking online for another place and Mama started getting upset because no one was answering their phone.  Finally, we found a place, but it was about 20 miles away.  Mama drove the car while Dad drove Goldie.  We rode with Mama.  We were all nervous because we didn't have a clue where we were  going.  We finally found the campground and the owners were very nice to us.  They found us a nice site that over looks a small pond that has a fountain in it. We checked in a little before 8 p.m.  We ate dinner, checked out the park and went to bed.  The other RV park owner called us back at 9 p.m. saying she was sorry she missed our call.  It's a good thing we didn't wait around for her.

This morning, we drove the route to Daddy's work.  It's further away now that we are in a different park.  Mama thinks it's too far.  We were told it would take Daddy about 2 hours to get to work because traffic here is terrible.  It took us about 25 minutes to get there today, but it's a Sunday.  We went by another park that was near the first park, but it didn't have any place for us to walk.  It's just motor home after motor home.  It's a very cold looking place.  Daddy decided that we should stay at this park.  There is a lot of places for us to walk and the owners are nice.  It's too bad the first place didn't work out, but even it we could have gotten into our spot, we don't think we would have liked it.  The long term section was pretty nasty looking.  We are paid up for a month, so this is our home.  We will take pictures and post them tomorrow.


The last few days have been stressful, but things should improve since we are parked for a month.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is A Texan For Month or So