Welcome to Huntsville, Texas !

OK Hello All !!

It’s Saturday evening, February 5, and we’ve been on the road for one month now !! I’m ready to trade the house for a land yacht and go ’full time’, Anne isn‘t, but I have 3 months and seven thousand more miles to convince her. Anyway, back to reality, let’s see if we can get y’all caught up on our last 2 days.

Waking up at Ajax, LA Friday morning we knew we’d be staying more than just one night. Everything was covered in a sheet of ice. The weather forecast had been bad, and sure enough, we listened to it rain and sleet on the roof all night as we slept. It was below freezing.

Anne made blueberry (blueberries from home) (what a girl) (this little freezer just keeps producing food from back home) pancakes so we enjoyed, and just settled in. This whole area of the country has come to a screeching halt as you can imagine.

In our location it hovered around 31 degrees all day as it showered. 36 degrees was predicted, but that never happened so we just sat and watched the ice grow. We really enjoyed the chance to do nothing. The down side was that the ‘high speed’ internet was slow, and we only had ‘over the air’ TV stations, so no 'Weather Channel' when we needed it most.

Today's (Sat.) forecast came true and the sun shone brightly at 7am. We waited for dripping to start, and when it did we 'made our move'. When Anne pushed the button to retract the ’slide out room’ an inch thick sheet of ice crashed down in pieces from the slide out awning as it rolled up. The sleet and rain had puddled and froze up there. After enough melting had occurred 'up on the roof' I was able to twist the TV antenna to the ‘home’ position and crank it down. Not having cable TV here there was no coax to coil up and put away this time.

We didn’t get moving till well after 11am, then we drove 205 miles to Huntsville, TX. It’s off Highway 45 between Houston and Dallas, much closer to Houston. We passed thru Lufkin Texas and it was a nice sunny drive to the Heartland RV Park. Anne and I split the driving about in half this time. We’ll be here Super Sunday and after, checking out the Mount Zion Church Bar-B-Que, hoping it is everything the Food Channel said it was.

The highlight of the today’s ride was a quick side trip into Natchitoches, LA. The town will be 300 years old in year 2014. It is home to the Northwestern Louisianna State University, and the historic district was blooming all around with yellow and purple flowers, the LSU colors. It resembles a mini New Orleans with wrought iron railings fronting the multi-story buildings which line the main drag, so scenic and nestled along the banks of the Red River. This is where ‘Steel Magnolias’ was filmed, and the famed house where that movie family lived was there on Front Street.

Shortly after arrival in Huntsville tonight we enjoyed a nice dinner that Anne had put together, while she shook rugs and swept floors, and I leveled, stabilized, and hooked up the RV. I cleaned up after dinner. We have the internet, cable TV, maps and reading material so we'll be all set for the Super Bowl weekend and beyond.

I have my friend Phillip in Dallas (Plano) to visit, and we keep trying to figure out how we can do it. Their weather has been awful, 250 miles north of here, and the forecast doesn't promise much improvement. We'll figure something out. Wouldn't be right to skip Dallas, but we don't want to test mother nature.

Seems every day we meet lots of interesting people from all over creation and doing what we're doing, but we miss and love all of you, and we're so grateful that you are following with us, looking at and reading our blog.

What a word ‘blog‘ huh? Who ever came up with that one? Isn’t this better than a doggone ‘blog’? Come on now…