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.