We left Kerrville, Texas last Tuesday, August 20th
and headed west on I-10 to Fort Stockton for an overnight stay at Hilltop RV
Park. Fort Stockton has really grown the past several years with all the oil drilling
in the nearby Permian Basis.
On Wednesday we continued driving along I-10 about
280-miles through Van Horn and El Paso to Las Cruces, New Mexico for an
overnight stay. We enjoyed dinner at La Posta de Mesilla which is celebrating
its 80th anniversary.
Last Thursday, we drove north on I-25 to Albuquerque, New
Mexico where we spent three nights at the Kirtland AFB family campground. At
$18/night you can’t beat the price for a full hookup campsite.
We enjoyed dinner Thursday night at our friend’s Kris and
Jan’s house in Albuquerque. We met Kris and Jan 10-years ago out at Lake Powell
in Page, Arizona. We had our Lance truck camper then and Kris and Jan also had
a Lance truck camper. Since meeting them, we’ve spent two-weeks every September
with them and my sister Marcia and brother-in-law Mike at Lake Powell.
The highlight of our stay in Albuquerque was taking the New
Mexico Rail Runner Express train with Kris and Jan from Albuquerque up to Santa
Fe last Friday. It was our first trip on the Rail Runner and we were impressed.
It only cost us $7 per person round-trip for the hour and a half train ride. We
arrived at the train depot in south Santa Fe and had lunch at a nearby
restaurant.
We later took a free shuttle bus to the Plaza area of Santa
Fe where we visited the New Mexico Museum of Art. We especially enjoyed
the special exhibit on Lake Powell.
We drove to Raton, New
Mexico yesterday for an overnight stay and on to Fountain, Colorado today for
another overnight stay. We take our “house” to the nearby Transwest Freightliner
dealer early tomorrow morning for its annual chassis servicing.
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
We left Longview, Texas on Friday, August 9th
and headed cross-country to Waco, Texas for an overnight. The temperatures were
in the upper-90s so once we got settled in at the I-35 RV Park, we headed to
the pool. We used their pool last summer when our son Paul, daughter-in-law
Ying and grandson Connor were traveling with us.
On Saturday we headed down I-35 through Waco, Austin and
San Antonio to Castroville where we stayed at Alsatian RV Resort for three
nights. We’ve stayed there many times and it is convenient to go visit Julie’s
mom in west San Antonio. We enjoyed our visit with Julie’s mom with dinner at
Sky Lounge on Saturday night and its spectacular view of Lackland Air Force
Base. We enjoyed a movie on Monday and dinner afterwards.
We left Castroville on Tuesday, August 13th, and
headed to Kerrville. We had a 9AM appointment to get our AquaHot hydronic
heating system serviced. The technicians finished around noon and we headed to
one of our favorite places to stay, Buck Horn Lake RV Resort for a week-long
stay. It has been very hot, low-100s every day, with humidity around 50% this
past week.
We drive to west-Texas
tomorrow as we head towards Albuquerque.
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
We got to the Fernbrook RV Park in Longview, Texas from
Little Rock around 2:30PM on Wednesday. It gave us a couple of hours to relax
before we headed out for dinner. We headed out about 4:30PM and drove just west
of Kilgore on Texas Highway 31 to the Country Tavern.
The Country Tavern has been in business since 1939 and serves
only beer and wine. It does not have a typical food menu--because it only
serves BBQ with your choice of sides. The Country Tavern is famous for its
award-winning BBQ, especially its pork ribs, that are smoked with oak and
hickory wood.
We’ve been eating Country Tavern baby back ribs for over 20
years and have never eaten better ribs anywhere on the planet. You can have a
small order (3 ribs), medium order (5 ribs) or large order (7 ribs). The ribs
are perfectly cooked: nice layer of bark, moist, very meaty, and not over-cooked
to where the meat falls off the bone. They’re very rich and a medium order of
just 5 ribs is more than enough for me. A sweet but tangy, thick BBQ sauce is warmed in the bottle
and brought out with your ribs. The server brings you small, hot towels to
clean up with after eating.
Okay, we went back to
Country Tavern again last night for dinner. I had talked about ordering brisket
for dinner earlier in the day, but quickly nixed that idea once we got there.
We both ordered the ribs again. Julie got a small order and I got a medium
order. Yum!
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
Last Thursday we left Nashville and headed west on I-40
towards Memphis. We no sooner got on I-40 and realized we had a front
suspension problem on the motorhome. The front end was bouncing every time we
hit a bump in the road. It was especially bad when we crossed bridges on the
Interstate. We pulled over at a rest area and looked but didn’t see anything
wrong. I thought the problem might have been something with our front
suspension air bags.
We decided to head straight to the Memphis Freightliner
dealer to ask them to check out our problem. The Freightliner shop got us in
right away and fixed the problem within an hour. It turned out an air bag
leveling rod was not connected due to defective rubber bushings and neither
front air bag was inflated.
We thoroughly enjoyed camping for three days at Tom Sawyer
RV Park in West Memphis right on the Mississippi River. The park reopened on
July 13th after being closed due to flooding.
The RV park is often closed during the spring and
early-summer due to Mississippi River flooding. We waited to call and make a
reservation until after they reopened, because it is the best place to stay in
the Memphis area. There is an endless stream of Mississippi River barge traffic
which is fun to watch.
We drove into Memphis on Saturday afternoon to Central BBQ,
one of our favorite places to eat in Memphis. This location is right across the
street from the Civil Rights Museum and the Lorraine Motel.
On Sunday we drove to
North Little Rock to stay at the Downtown Riverside RV Park. The RV park is
owned and operated by the City of North Little Rock and is right on the
Arkansas River. It was our first time here, as we normally stay at a Corp of
Engineer park further west of downtown Little Rock.
Yesterday we enjoyed a
short hike across a pedestrian bridge over the Arkansas River, past the William
J. Clinton Presidential Library, to the Little Rock River Market. We enjoyed a
nice Middle Eastern lunch before hiking back, a round-trip total of only 2.5
miles.
There were over 30 fishing
boats tonight on the Arkansas River for some kind of a fishing tournament.
Tomorrow we head to
Longview, Texas for a couple of nights stay and a trip to Country Tavern for
the best BBQ pork ribs on earth!
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
