Lake Powell - 2019

We met my sister Marcia and brother-in-law Mike from Virginia and our friends Kris and Jan from Albuquerque on Friday, September 6^th, at West View RV Resort, a new RV resort just north of Cortez, Colorado. We spent Friday and Saturday night there and the ladies enjoyed a trip to the Cortez farmer’s market on Saturday morning.

We headed out Sunday morning for the 225-mile drive to Page, Arizona and Lake Powell. This was our 10^th anniversary of meeting Kris and Jan at Lake Powell and getting together every year the weekend after Labor Day at southern end of the lake in Page. We started going to Lake Powell in 2001, but back then we always went to the northern end of the lake to Bull Frog, driving there from Colorado Springs.

We got our boat out of storage at Big Water, Utah a few miles north of the Wahweap Campground where we stay on Lake Powell, and brought it back to the camp site.

My sister Janet and her wife Nancy joined us at Wahweap Campground with their RV on Tuesday, for a 5-night stay. We enjoyed lunch in Page on Tuesday at Big John's Texas BBQ.

We took the boat to Antelope Point for lunch with Janet and Nancy on Wednesday, followed by a nice boat ride up lake to Padre Bay.

We celebrated my 71^st birthday on Saturday, September 14^th and Julie made me an awesome Heath Bar cake again this year.

We enjoyed lunch with Kris and Jan on Thursday for the first time at Lake Powell National Golf Course. I don’t play golf, but it looked like a beautiful municipal course to play on. The club house food was really good.  

Last Friday, we all piled in the boat for a trip to Antelope Point for lunch. The wind came up after lunch so it was a little choppy getting back to the boat ramp and getting the boat back onto the boat trailer.

We left Lake Powell with Mike and Marcia on Sunday morning and headed west to Las Vegas for a two-week stay.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Colorado Springs

We arrived at Colorado Springs KOA in Fountain, Colorado on Monday, August 26^th for an overnight stay. On Tuesday morning we took our motorhome to nearby TransWest, the Freightliner dealer in Fountain, for its annual servicing (oil change, filters, chassis lube, etc.). We dropped it off and headed into town for breakfast at one of our old favorites, Western Omelette Restaurant.

We picked up our motorhome from TransWest around noon and headed to Cheyenne Mountain State Park where we had a reservation for nine nights. We really enjoy staying at Cheyenne Mountain because all campsites are full hookup and there’s lots of wild life and hiking trails. The views of the city lights at night are pretty.

We met my daughters Kim and Jen and two granddaughters Audrey and Hannah on Wednesday for dinner and had a really nice visit. 

On Labor Day weekend, we drove down to Westcliffe, Colorado on Sunday to visit our friends Vince and Lisa. The view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains from their home is just plain awesome.

Our time in Colorado Springs is always very busy with our various doctor and dental appointments. We also try to meet old friends to catch up. We had dinner with Rick and Diana, whom we hadn’t seen since last February when they visited Florida. We also enjoyed dinner with Wendy whom we hadn’t seen in a year.

We left Colorado Springs today, headed to South Fork for an overnight, then to Cortez, Colorado for a couple of days. My sister Marcia and brother-in-law Mike from northern Virginia and our friends Kris and Jan from Albuquerque are meeting us in Cortez. From Cortez, we all head together to Lake Powell for our annual two-week stay, beginning the weekend after Labor Day. The weather will be great, the water will be warm, and the crowds will be gone!

Steve & Julie Cornelius

On the Road

We left Kerrville, Texas last Tuesday, August 20^th 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 80^th 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

Central Texas

We left Longview, Texas on Friday, August 9^th 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 13^th, 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

Country Tavern

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

Memphis-Little Rock

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 13^th 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