Sunday, December 30, 2007 (DAY 3) After a good night’s rest, we awoke and readied ourselves for church at 9:00 AM. Several couples from our church in Mountain Home began a church in the Pine to Palm Resort Park about 6 years ago. It is held in the meeting center, and has grown to about 200. We enjoyed the non-denominational service, which lasted for only an hour, followed by a fellowship period with coffee and donuts. Both the music and message were good. Jerry and Doris Hart, who live in Branson, MO, April through October, conducted the service; Doris is the younger sister of Carolyn King, and Jerry is her husband. Following the fellowship, we were invited out to eat with Vickie and Larry and their friends at Luby’s. Both Kay and I had a vegetable plate, and it was so good after all the sandwiches, etc. After lunch, we went to the flea market and fruit and vegetable market. The fruit is sweet and tasty. We bought a pineapple and oranges. We returned to Dunn Gone at Pine to Palm for what we thought was the end of the day, and rested and relaxed. We then found out about a Jam Session (see photo) at one of Vickie and Larry’s friends and neighbors, beginning at 6:30 PM, and took our lawn chairs to listen. After a few songs, Kay was summoned to the microphone, where she sang a beautiful song, blowing everyone away with her great singing voice. After a few more songs, Kay and I were both were summoned to the microphones to sing, except that I didn’t know any songs. After blundering through a few old southern gospel tunes, we returned to our seats to just listen. The “band” consisted of 3 keyboards, 2 accordions, 1 trombone, 1 trumpet, 1 saxophone, and 1 guitar, and the musicians were pretty good. After an hour and a half, we walked back to Dunn Gone, and went to bed early.

Saturday, December 29, 2007 (DAY 2) “Camping” in Texas last night allowed us to fill in another state on our RVing map. The tight quarters, without slides extended, and the knee brace, and the lack of my CPAP machine kept me from sleeping soundly. Apparently, receptacles aren’t wired into the inverter. We’ll have to work on this before our next long trip. Kay seemed to sleep OK except for my tossing and turning. I arose about 5:00 AM and turned on the heater—again, another opportunity to try the house batteries and inverter; all worked great. Next, we each hit the Wal-Mart for some pastry and a rest stop. We departed Palestine at 6:30 AM, traveling south on US Hwy 59. We both are really enjoying “Dunn Gone” and she drives really well. One thing we noticed about Texas highways was the wide shoulders, and slow drivers pulling onto the shoulders to allow faster vehicles to pass. The right knee really bothered me, even with the brace. Taking 3 Tylenol at a time as I did yesterday did not seem to lessen the pain. Finally, after grimacing most of the morning, we stopped at a nice picnic area on the right side of the highway. This picnic area was surrounded by live oaks and was very nice (see photo). I pulled the blasted knee brace off and discovered it had left two large sores where it rubbed the skin off. We traveled further south, and the pain dissipated. We stopped at Victoria, TX, for refueling for both us and Dunn Gone (9.4 MPG). We picked our stop based on seeing a Whataburger, both of us remembering the great one near Arkansas Tech in Russellville. These are not the same, but the ones in Texas still have nice hamburgers. We continued on south, and it seemed like the closer we got, the faster I drove, keeping the cruise control set at 65 MPG; Texas highways are really nice. Garmini said we would arrive about 3:10 PM, so Kay called Larry and Vicky Wortham, our friends from church who snowbird in Weslaco, to let them know. Sure enough, we pulled into Weslaco at 3:10 PM. We entered a Valero gasoline station to fill-up before parking Dunn Gone—tight quarters for Dunn Gone as it was crowded with a number of Mexicans who appeared to have crossed the border, exchanging stuff among 3 or 4 cars. After a lengthy wait, we maneuvered ourselves near a pump, and tried the credit card—it did not work; next, tried the debit card—it did not work; finally, Kay went in and they said, “Yeah, that pump is not working with cards today.” I kept my cool, we filled-up (9.1 MPG), and headed to Pine to Palm Resort Park. Vicky and Larry were waiting for us, and escorted us to our sight among permanent park model trailers (more about that later). We leveled, hooked up electricity and water, extended the slides, and turned the air conditions on! It was warm in south Texas! Larry gave us a quick tour of Pine to Palm Resort Park, pointing out all the key facilities. After settling in, Vicky and Larry treated us to a Tex-Mex dinner in town, with wonderful food, including fresh salsa. We returned to Pine to Palm, relaxed a bit, and went to bed.

Friday, December 28, 2007  Sleep did not come easily last night as the excitement for our first trip to south Texas as snowbirds was upon us. Awakening at 5:00 AM, the finishing steps readying “Dunn Gone” for the trip were completed, as was last minute packing, or rather throwing things in that we thought might be needed. The chassis battery had run down because of the GPS and other toys had been plugged in for several days. It gave us an opportunity to try the house batteries to start the engine, and it started without a hitch. It was cold, hovering near 32 degrees, as we departed about 7:30 AM. The first hour was uneventful, but then we saw a rather large amount of snow on the side of the road south of Mountain View, and noted the temperature was occasionally below freezing; no ice on the road though, thankfully, though we took it slow and easy (see photo). We traveled AR Hwy 5 south to Cabot, then US Hwy 67/167 to North Little Rock, where we stopped at Sam’s Club at 10:30 AM to return a Christmas gift. While Kay was in the store, I filled up with gas, and noted we averaged slightly over 9.0 MPG, even though Dunn Gone had been started several times and the 4000W generator exercised a few times as well. After filling the tank, I met Kay in Sam’s Club where we shared a hot dog and soda. We departed at 11:00 AM taking US Hwy 67/167 to I-30, traveling south to Texarkana. We had intended to spend the night in Texarkana, but it was only 2:30 PM so we headed on down the road, taking US 59 south. By the way, the GPS—Garmini as Kay calls her—is great, and has kept us on the straight and narrow. Kay reprogrammed Garmini to reflect our changed stops. We are learning to write down addresses of our stops for programming purposes. Our next stop was at Palestine, TX, at Wal-Mart where we refueled (9.6 MPG), bought a knee brace, and spent the night dry-camping. It was our first time to dry-camp in a parking lot. I had read on RV.net that it was not polite to extend the slides so needless to say, we were a little cramped in our bed.

We’re from the beautiful Twin Lakes area in northern Arkansas–and are exploring the Lower Rio Grande Valley for the first time. Because we had heard so much about wintering in Texas, we thought we’d give it a try. Besides, fly fishing at home is not too good this time of year. Please join us as we explore the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and the unique sub-culture of resort park living.