My gosh has this year gone fast, or what? We started the year traveling from Indiana to Harlingen, Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. Park Place RV Resort was our home for two months. Some pure tourist type stuff was of course a requirement in the new to us area. The border with Mexico, those daunting US Border Patrol SUV’s and the fence/wall were eye openers for us. We enjoyed the sights of Port Isabel and the beaches of South Padre Island. That 55+ RV resort living helped us realize that we liked being “Winter Texans”!
Nice concrete patio at our site in Harlingen.
One day we went to the border wall in Brownsville.
The Port Isabel lighthouse
We spent some time in March with family in Austin, then back to Indiana. It took a bit to get back into being in the Midwest again, but there was lots we did over the summer. We try to go to as many musicals as we can at Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre in Indianapolis. An excellent buffet and even better show make for a great evening out. In May we also set up at the US Highway 40 Yard sale in Dunreith, a small town between Greenfield and Richmond, Indiana. For four days folks travel the highway looking for treasures and bargains.
Musical “Hairspray” at Beef and Boards
Our set up for the Highway 40 Yard Sale
Camping with kids and grand kids became a fun past time this summer. We took our RV and our kids brought their tent(s) for themselves and any of the grand kids that could come along. An Ohio State Park, US Forest Service Recreation Area, and a Jellystone Park RV resort served us well. Never a dull moment when camping, especially in West Virginia’s Monongahela National Forest after a toad strangler of a rain which flooded a tent. Yes, we were able to sleep 6 fairly comfortably in our 24′ Class C Four Winds. We had to use an alternate route to leave the area as the main road was washed out.
Spacious campsite in the Monongahela National Forest
West Virginia’s Horseshoe Rec Area
Our campsite, tent is out of site on the left
Entrance to the Ohio State park, lake in the background
Gorgeous end to the day at Ohio’s Kaiser Lake State Park
Another summer highlight was our trip to Niagara Falls. The guided tour was definitely worth the cost. The small Gray Line tour bus picked us up at our RV campground. The tour was all inclusive, including of course the famous Maid of the Mist boat ride taking you into the soaking up close view of the falls. If you have not been to Niagara Falls, go!
Here we are after our Maid of the Mist adventure. That is the American Falls barely visible between us.
Restaurant view of the Horseshoe (Canadian) Falls. The food was good, too.
Sher and I were pretty busy during the summer, including some additional selling at several town festivals. By the time the end of October came around we were ready to head back out on the road and head south once again. We had talked before about visiting the Diamond Mine State Park in Arkansas. The weather had been rather wet, but we decided that it would be a great time to check this place out on our way back to Texas. We went and had a ball. No diamonds found, and the muddy ground was hard to traverse. But, we have a bucket of neat rocks for our rock garden.
Getting ready to head to the muddy field and begin our search for diamonds
Here I am shovel ready to find one of those huge diamonds shown in the picture next to me
On to Texas with a quick stop in Texarkana. There the courthouse is positioned literally on the Arkansas/Texas State line. Interesting to say the least. We stopped at our family’s place in Austin for a couple of days before we went to our spot at the La Hacienda RV Resort in Austin. The La Hacienda is a Sun Resort property, complete with all the expected facilities. We have been here since the first of November. The past two months have given us a chance to explore the Austin area. The Hill Country is filled with wineries, breweries and distilleries. Yep, we have enjoyed more than one of these establishments.
A beautiful Saturday at the Bull Creek Park in Austin
Los Pinos restaurant is only 1/4 mile from our RV Park!
2019 has been quite the adventure for Roadtirement! We can’t list everything, but know that we have had a great year. In figuring up where were have been, we discovered that in 2019 we actually lived 5 out of 12 months as Winter Texans. This could get to be habit forming! We are going to start 2020 by going to Seattle to visit our daughter and her family in January. Stay tuned, we’ll fill you in!
Wishing you and yours and all our friends a safe and prosperous New Years!
Maj and Sher
Our site is very level gravel with a nice concrete patio including a picnic table. We are very close to the swimming pool laundry and all of the facilities.
The Monongahela National Forest is a national forest with over 920,000 acres located in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia. We recently camped at the Horseshoe Recreation Area in the forest. The campground is at the extreme northern end of the Forest, surprisingly close to not only Maryland, but also Pennsylvania as well.
