Author: Keith g Shafer

It was cold with rain and drizzle when we pulled into Leander KOA. We stayed two days and had the opportunity to see our dear friends Hoss and Janet once more before heading West.

The KOA is a nice one and if we ever return to the area one we’d stay at again.

We picked up the Audie Rose at the end of January and headed north from Houston to McKinney, TX.

McKinney is the home to MCD Innovations a company that specializes in roller shades for businesses and RVs. MCD has several electrical hookups in their parking lot which allows us to stay there while our old pleated shades were removed and replaced with the new shades.

While we were there we took advantage of the low-priced movies and even managed to pop into the GW Bush Presidential Library.

Here are a couple of before and after shots of the AR:

BEFORE

AFTER

I think you’ll agree the after photos were worth the trip.

But like all things this past few months we had to contend with some COLD temperatures and we woke up the day before we were to leave with a little surprise on the AR:

All-in-all, it was a good trip but due to the cold weather moving in we decided to head further south to catch Interstate 5 and hopefully warmer weather.

 

Our oldest friends Harvey “Hoss” Barker and his wife Janet offered to let us stay with them during the Audie Rose upgrades. We’re now in Round Rock, TX living in their home and visiting some of the local Texas sites.

According to Wikipedia: Round Rock is a city near Austin, Texas. It’s known for its outdoor activities and historic sites. The Round Rock, a large stone in Brushy Creek, marks the site where wagons made low-water crossings in the 19th century. Nearby, Chisholm Trail Crossing Park has plaques detailing the city’s cattle-driving history.

Keith discovered the Round Rock accidentally when he made a wrong turn coming back from an oil change on our Honda. The area nearby has older homes build of river rock and is quite interesting.

While visiting Waco last week, Ilene and Keith dropped by Magnolia Market. That’s the business owned by Chip and Joanna Gaines of Fixer Upper fame on HGTV. The market is really a large building next to the famous grain bins, a large open area with picnic tables and food trucks, and the bakery next door.

We didn’t go into the bakery for one of their famous cupcakes since the line was around the block. But we did learn that the bakery truck behind the market sells the same cupcakes as the bakery…with no line! OK, the selection isn’t quite as extensive but…

Ilene picked up a tea towel and we had just enough time to drive over to the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum across the highway.

The Hall of Fame offers dioramas about the history of the Texas Rangers, several displays on famous rangers and weapons displays. We started the tour with a 45 minute video on the history of the rangers. We highly recommend watching it if you visit.

The film introduced us to Sam Bass and A.W. Grimes, two roads here in Round Rock. Seems Sam Bass was an outlaw who shot and killed deputy A.W. Grimes in Round Rock. Texas Rangers witnessing the shooting managed to kill several of Sam Bass’ gang and wound him enough so that a couple days later the outlaw perished for his nefarious deeds.

Interestingly, one of the other witnesses to the altercation was con man “Soapy” Smith. Seems Soapy met his demise on the dock in Skagway, AK in 1898. One of our stops on the cruise we took with the Barkers back in 2014. It’s a small world after all!

 

We dropped the Audie Rose off at Best Preowned RV on Thursday morning for our renovations. Over the next few weeks they will:

• Remove carpet and replace with laminate wood floors
• Remove the old love seat and replace with an entertainment seat
• Remove the propane oven and replace with drawers
• Remove the galley table and make the space into a desk
• Mount the new 40″ TV in the lounge
• Replace the RV refrigerator with a residential refrigerator
• Mount our 34″ TV in the bedroom dresser
• Remove the washer/dryer and replace it with storage space
• Additional odds and ends

At the end of the renovation the Audie Rose will look like a new coach and be remodeled for our needs. Needless to say Ilene and I are very excited about the upgrades.

Sitting under a palm tree a cigar and Mai Tai in hand soaking up the tropical sun…now THAT’S what retirement looks like!

That was the scene on the last day of our recent cruise in the Western Caribbean. What originally started as an Eastern Caribbean cruise moved West due to this past year’s hurricanes that slammed the islands we’d originally planned to visit.

We left the Destin/Ft Walton Beach airport…no wait, that didn’t happen. What really happened was on the way to the airport we were notified the flight had been canceled due to weather and we’d been rescheduled for a 4:00 PM flight through Charlotte, NC to Miami.

Keith checked the weather forecast in Charlotte and decided that wasn’t going to happen so he called American Airlines. The very nice people were able to reroute us from Pensacola airport (only about an hour’s drive away) directly to Miami arriving about the same time we’d originally planned.

We arrived in Miami and decided to try Lyft from the airport. We’ve used Uber and have liked it but Lyft was offering $5 off each trip. The pickup was a bit of an affair since Lyft and Uber can only pickup and drop off passengers at the Departure terminal area. Once we found out we were on the wrong floor we were able to hook up with our driver and get a nice ride into downtown Miami.

Overnight accommodations were courtesy of Hilton Honor miles at the Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton Miami Brickell Downtown. Located in the middle of the current financial district of Miami we enjoyed a couple of free drinks and a nice quiet evening preparing for the cruise.

Breakfast was on the Hampton Inn & Suites and we muscled our way into the dining room and found a place to sit before departing for the port. The dining room was packed and by the number of bags and tags most everyone this morning was heading to the docks for cruises as well.

Rain greeted us at the terminal but we quickly dropped off the bags and made it inside without getting too wet. The check-in process was quick and efficient but since they don’t board the ship until after 12 noon, we had to wait about an hour before boarding.

Boarding time arrived but since we couldn’t go to our cabins until 4 PM we took the time to wander the decks and get to know the ship before departure. After a thorough reconnaissance of the Norwegian Escape Ilene and I stopped at the bar and ordered the “drink of the day”. Having the “DOD” is a family tradition on cruises so needless to say we couldn’t break tradition on our first day.

We managed to make it out on deck for the planned departure and waved farewell to Miami for the beginning of our Western Caribbean cruise.

Once at the room we had a chance to go over the day’s schedule and decided on dining at the same bar we’d enjoyed our DODs since they were serving prime rib. After dinner our plans were to attend the opening show at the dinner theater.

The prime rib was cold as was the baked potato that evening. Fortunately the evening entertainment was fun and after a few more drinks we retired to the cabin for a gentle rocking and rolling and a good night’s sleep.

 

Hi and welcome to our new blog! We’ve decided to start this blog so we let all of you, our friends and family, know what’s going on in our lives, where we are, and where we plan to be.

Let’s take a quick tour

First if you look on the left side of the page you’ll see we have a couple of pages. The first is our Blog page.  As we travel Ilene and I will write about the places we visit. We’ll add highs and lows; photos; recommended places to visit, etc.

Calendar page. This is where you can see what we tentatively have planned for our travels. We’ll try to keep up with this so you’ll know when we plan to be somewhere near you!

Finally…well at least for now…we’ve added a maps of our travels so you can see where we’ve traveled each year.

The 2017 map shows you where we traveled beginning in April just after Keith retired. It was a great first year and we covered over 5000 miles in 2017.

2018 promises to be another fun-filled year with travel back to Nevada, up to Washington, a couple of National Parks and maybe even a trip to the Midwest.

Where Are We Now?

Just below our Pages area is a Google Map with our current position and We’ll usually delete that address about a week before we leave so make sure you check it before you send anything to us.

If you’re not sure or there is no address below it send it to our Permanent Las Vegas address just below the map area. It’s a mail forwarding service so we’ll get whatever you send…eventually.

That’s it for now. We hope you enjoy reading about our adventures and if you have any questions or need to reach out to us, make sure you make a comment on our latest blog and we’ll get back to you ASAP!