Monday, September 26, 2011

Good Weekend

We spent Saturday with Beccy and Donna. They invited us to go with them to Leisure Time RV to look at a few fifth wheels. They plan to become full-timers in a few years and have been looking at the Keystone Montana fifth wheel. It was fun to walk thru the fifth wheels and see all the new updates. Dawn and I fell in love with one we could see ourselves living in.

After checking out all the fifth wheels, we went for burger. We had lunch at Irma’s Burger Shack. It was a very good burger and the fries were good too.
After filling our bellies with a really filling lunch we to the movies. We all wanted to the see the movie “The Help”. This is an excellent movie.  
For dinner Donna and Beccy grilled steaks. They also served baked potatoes and salad. Dinner was wonderful.

Did I mention that Dawn is suffering with cluster headaches again? She is now in the second week. They seem to be seasonal. She has them in the spring and again in the fall.
 Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Oklahoma State Fair

Wednesday was fair day for us. Beccy and Donna were kind enough to take an evening out of their week and accompanied us to the Oklahoma State Fair. We couldn’t have asked for better weather. It was a nice cool evening. We first thing on the agenda was pig races. It was a lot of fun watching the little pig’s race around the track to get to the finish for the grand prize of an Oreo cookie. These racer included Kevin Bacon, Lindsey Loham and Brad Pig.


We also watched Swifty the Swimming pig dive in and swim.

It was so funny to watch. Dawn and I have never attended pig races before.

We than walked thru the maze of food venders. They had every kind of fair food you could imagine and some you would have never thought of.  

We started off with the roasted corn. Man, that was good!


We then had an Indian taco. The Indian taco’s was outstanding.

After getting our fill for dinner we then walked through the fairgrounds looking at all the site. We walked through the auto building and also through a vendors building.  Dawn bought a t-shirt and I bought a sock monkey cap.
We then had a cinnamon roll. Donna and Beccy had warned us that they are the best cinnamon rolls made. They were right! They were the largest cinnamon rolls I have seen and they just melted in your mouth.

We left around nine o’clock. We were tired from all the walking but we had a really great time.
Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

What a Week

Sunday morning we received a call that one of our large dogs back home had broken out of the fence earlier in the day and was hit and killed by a car. It was a terrible blow. Rocky was a real sweet heart. He weighed in around 100 pounds but thought he was a lap dog. He was Great Pyrenees and German Shepherd mix. He was a gentle giant. We really will miss him.

A few hours later we found out that a good friend had suffered a stroke. He is only forty-seven years old. It has evidently affected one side of his body. We are sending prayers his way.
We are still enjoying our time in Oklahoma City. We invited our Oklahoma City friends over for dinner Sunday night. Dawn prepared pot roast, potatoes, carrots, salad and hot rolls. For dessert we had strawberry cake. Dinner was great. We all enjoyed Dawns cooking and we all over ate.

After dinner Donna and Beccy drove us downtown to the Oklahoma Memorial so that we could see it at night. Thanks Donna and Beccy for taking us down there at night. We would have never found it by ourselves. 

It looks totally different at night and each chair is lit with a soft light below it. I cannot describe what a peaceful place it is even though it is located in the heart of downtown.


Monday morning Dawn did the laundry and I defrosted the refrigerator. We’ve been smelling a horrible sewer smell and I emptied and flushed the black tank. Our fiver is equipped with a black tank flush system.   
The tank water was almost clear but we could still smell the horrible smell. Dawn walked around the fiver and said she could smell it coming from the front area. She decided we had a broken pipe and I explained to her we didn’t have any plumbing in the front of the fiver. I opened the basement door and the smell almost knocked us down. I removed everything from the basement and crawled into the basement and removed a section of the basement wall in order to access the plumbing.

Well, there is no sign of a leak and I couldn’t smell the horrible smell. I do have terrible allergies and it does affect my sense of smell. Dawn said she could still smell it but it wasn’t as strong. I told her it might be coming from the neighbor’s trailer and just collected around our trailer. She wasn’t buying that and we walked back around the trailer. She opened the door to the propane tanks and was sniffing around. She told me that she could smell it a little around that area. I had already turned off the propane earlier in the day. I sniffed around the area and agreed it was in that general area. I stepped around the corner under the tongue of the trailer and got a good whiff of the horrible smell. I suddenly realized the smell was coming from the battery vent. We opened the front basement doors and removed the battery cover.

BINGO! The battery was hot. It was boiling and putting off a terrible sulfur smell. I went over to the shore power pedestal and turned off the power to the fiver. O.K, now I need to disconnect the cables from the battery. I just panicked and was not thinking straight. We have a battery disconnect switch and it never occurred to me just to turn the switch off.  I‘m terrified of batteries. I don’t know why. I just am.
Dawn drove to the store and bought a gallon of distilled water. When she returned with the distilled water, I called my son and asked him which cable should be removed first. He told me to put him of speaker phone and he gave me step by step instructions on how to disconnect the cables and add the water. It was getting dark out so Dawn held the flash light so I could see what I was doing. The battery was almost dry.

I hate to admit this, but I have neglected to check the battery. We bought the fiver in 2007 and I have never added water to it. I don’t know why I even had the battery switch on. It’s one of those out of sight, out of mind things.
Needless to say, the battery is fried. With all the cables disconnected the smell disappeared. This is one of those lessons I will not forget. The battery will be checked on a monthly basis from now on!

That is one really good battery to have lasted four neglected years, even with this terribly hot summer!
Tonight we met with Donna and Beccy for dinner at the Big Truck Taco restaurant. It is a small kind of hole in the wall place. The food was outstanding.

After dinner, we came home to kick back and relax.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Touring Oklahoma City with Friends

Yesterday was a great day. We met our friends Beccy and Donna for breakfast. Afterwards we rode with them to a Kayak store. They’ve been looking at kayaks and found one that they are very interested in. This store will take the kayak to the river and let you test drive it. We looked over a few kayaks and the salesman loaded it up and we followed him to the river for a test drive. First of all he gave us a short course in proper paddling and steering.

Donna and Beccy took turns test driving the kayak. It was very windy out but I suppose that is a good time to check one out.
After the kayak test drive the girls took us on a tour of Oklahoma City. We drove to a local lake (Lake Hefner). We checked out the lake and watched the kite boarders. They were having a great time playing with the wind. It was a lot of fun watching them too.
We left there and drove to Camping World. We walked through the store and looked at all the latest gadgets.

Donna drove us to the Oklahoma Memorial. I’ve been so looking forward to this visit. The memorial is beautiful and the feeling is peaceful. I took tons of pictures and we walked around the site for quite a while.





From the Memorial we drove through Brick town. Brick town is a very neat area loaded with old buildings that have been refurbished and house lots of restaurants, comedy clubs, bars and stores. They have a river walk with water taxis.

We stopped into a Mexican food restaurant  (Chelino's) for dinner. What a great dinner we had. The waitress brought out a big bowl of chips with fresh salsa and cheese dip. We all ordered fajitas. What a great meal. The food was really good and we all stuffed ourselves. But wait! The waitress returned with hot sopapillas for everyone. I had to waddle out when it was time to leave.
We had a great day and are so thankful to our friends Beccy and Donna for taking time out to chauffer us around Oklahoma City.

Thanks Beccy and Donna for a really wonderful day.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

A Round Barn!

Yesterday was a busy day for us. We started the day off busy around the fiver. Dawn made cinnamon muffins for breakfast. While she was preparing the muffins, I was outside hosing off our interior door entry rug. When I finished cleaning it, I hung it on the tailgate to dry. I just laid it across the tailgate when Dawn called me in for breakfast. The muffins were delicious.


After breakfast we decided to run a few errands. We ran by the post office and stopped off at Target. I noticed the tailgate was down when we were getting out of the truck, Oh No, the rug is gone! I forgot all about the rug!!!! We’ve just driven all over town. There is not much telling where that rug blew off. Dawn just shook her head laughed.
While in Target, Dawn found a great deal on a light weight full size blanket for $3.49. We found the clearance section! We love a great deal!!!!


We stopped by the post office and by that time it was lunch. We noticed a Souper Salad.  We had a great lunch and then drove out to Arcadia to see the historic “Round Barn”.  Our Oklahoma City friends had recommended we take time to drive out and take a look at it.
We are so glad we drove out there. The historic Round Barn is beautiful.  It’s located in Arcadia, OK on Route 66. 


The first floor houses a gift shop and plenty of historic information on the barn.

The upstairs area is the where the real beauty of the round barn is. The ceiling looks like a giant basket that has turned upside down over your head. Pictures don’t do this ceiling justice. I have never seen anything so beautiful and so very interesting.

We also stopped by Pops. This is also a Route 66 landmark. It’s a gas station, cafĂ© and store all in one. That’s not what makes them so interesting. The interesting part is they sell over 500 different flavors of bottles sodas.  

You can mix and match cardboard soda holders. It is a different kind of place. They have a 66 foot tall LED pop bottle in front of the store.

We met our friend Beccy for a Taco Bueno. That happens to be Beccy’s favorite. We had a good visit and Dawn and I made it home about dark-thirty.
Guess What? I found the rug on side of the road. Thats right! it was laying on the side of the road just outside the entrance of the RV Park. I had to re-wash it.


Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Good Food and Good Friends

We have been exploring Oklahoma City. On Friday we took the fur kids to a different dog park. They were so busy running the fence barking and checking out the large dogs that they didn’t really pay any attention to the only other small dog (a pug) that was in the small dog area with them.

They had a great time and it didn’t take long to wear them out. After about forty-five minutes we loaded them up and took them home for a nap.
Once we got fur kids home, Dawn and I decided to drive around and see what we could find to get into. We found the Dollar Tree and stopped in to pick up a few things we needed. We found a Chinese buffet restaurant that had the largest buffet we have ever seen. We stuffed ourselves like hungry pigs at slopping time. We decided after lunch we needed to return to the fiver and get in some recliner time before our next meal!!!!

Yesterday we spent most of the just holding down our recliners. Our friends that live here in OK City invited us for dinner. Well, here we go again, we bellied up to their table and enjoyed boiled shrimp, baked potato and salad. We were so stuff we could hardly move. After dinner we sat out on their patio and had a great visit.  The dinner was really good and the company was even better.  They surprised Dawn with a bag of roasted hatched chilies they found at a local grocery store yesterday. Dawn loves her some hatched chilies. She was so excited she can hardly wait to cook something with them.

This morning we decided we would get out early and go the grocery store. Well, we didn’t get out too early and we passed a restaurant called Jimmy’s Egg that another friend had recommended. We made a last minute decision to stop in for some breakfast. Boy, I’m glad we did! The food was great and the price very reasonable.

Seems as though we are headed down a destructive path. We like to eat and there are lots of good restaurants here to tempt the taste buds.

This afternoon we were surprised by a visit from our friends that fixed the really great dinner for us last night. They stopped by for a visit.  They were out riding their scooters and decided to stop in.

Tonight we had dinner at home and Dawn used some of her hatched green chillies.
I am having problems posting comments on other peoples blogs. I'm not sure what the problem is but I'm hoping to get it resolved soon.
Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Crab Legs and Prime Rib

Today was a busy day. We had breakfast and then took the dogs to a dog park. They were so excited to see a dog park. They ran around and visited thru the fence with the large dogs. We hung around the park until the kids looked like they were pooped.

We loaded them up in the truck and took them back home for a nap. They were worn out.
Dawn and I took care of a few house keeping things, made a few phone calls and changed into clean duds. We drove over to Remington Park Casino. Tonight is all you can eat crab legs and prime rib night at the buffet for $16.99. We arrived at the casino about 3:00 and played the penny machines for a few minutes before the 4:00 buffet started. We were eating dinner early because we didn’t have time for lunch today.

We sat down at a couple of penny slots to play while we waited for the buffet service to begin. We both took twenty dollars to play on. I played the slot machine for a few minutes and then started to hit. Next thing we knew I had won $122.75. WOW! I just couldn’t believe it. Dawn broke even so she was happy.

We left the casino a little after 5:00.  We had $100.00 in our pocket for dinner and penny slots. We left after two hours, played penny slots for thirty minutes and had a wonderful dinner of all you could eat crab legs and prime rib and left the casino with $124.00. That mean dinner was FREE!!!!!!

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

On The Move

On Sunday we decided we would leave Alberta Creek CG Tuesday morning and travel north towards Oklahoma City.

We did have the Alberta Creek campground all to ourselves but the campground didn’t have much to offer. We had fifty amp electric and water. The park is shore side to Texoma Lake but being on the water isn’t all that important to us. The campground is small and the roads and sites are rock.


We pulled out of Alberta Creek Campground this morning a little after 10 and arrived in Oklahoma City a little after 2. We were starving. Once we got set up, we were heading out in search of lunch. We drove for almost half an hour before we found a restaurant. We had lunch at 4 p.m.

We felt so much better after having lunch/dinner. The problem we encountered was we were so busy looking for some place that we didn’t pay much attention to how we got there. That’s right! We were lost!

We found a Wal-Mart as we were driving around trying to find our way back, so we stopped in to grab a few things.  After our short shopping trip, we again returned to the road to find our way home. Luckily, we have friends that live in the area. One phone call and they gave us directions and got us headed in the right direction.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Monday, September 5, 2011

Relaxing with Friends

We’ve been busy visiting with friends and exploring this area of Texoma.

Due to the blue-green algae outbreak we have had the campground to ourselves. There are three trailers here and one motorhome. We make up the three trailers. The motorhome is parked across the park.
To escape the heat, all six of us loaded up in the truck and visited a local casino on Saturday.  We had a great time and a few of us left the casino ahead by a buck or two.
We’ve had a great weekend just lazing around and visiting with friends.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Taking Care of Business

We’ve been so busy that I haven’t really had time to post. We left Daingerfield state park on Saturday morning and drove back to Rockwall to spend a few days in the driveway of our old house. We had some business matters we needed to take care before we returned to the state of Oklahoma.

We thought four days would be enough time to take care of everything we needed to do. The four days was long enough as long as we went full throttle from sun up to sun down, which we did. We did get everything done and left Rockwall Wednesday afternoon.

We met up with my son on the highway in route to Lake Texoma. (He and his girlfriend are moving from California to Maine). They called us when they arrived in our general area and we agreed to meet up so they could follow us to our next location and spend a night with us.

 It was really great to see my son that I haven’t seen in a several months and to finally meet his girlfriend.

We pulled into to campground around four and it was 104 degrees. We had the park to ourselves. Once we got everything setup we went to a local restaurant and grabbed dinner to go and all enjoyed dinner together back at the trailer.

The kids were going to leave on Thursday morning but decided to stay an additional night. We were glad they did. We had a great time visiting with them.

On Thursday afternoon they decided they wanted to prepare dinner for us. We drove into Durant, OK and bought a few groceries. The two of them prepared a wonderful dinner in our little kitchen. The dinner was great and so was the company.  

Friday morning we said our good byes and the kids got back on the road headed for Maine.   It was really great that they were able to meet up with us and stay a couple of nights.  

Several hours after the kids left, a couple of our good friends from Texas arrived with their trailer and a few hours later a couple more friends from Oklahoma City arrived with their trailer.  

There are only four sites being occupied and three of them are us.

The reason the park is nearly empty is due to Blue Green Algae outbreak in the lake, because of the algae, there is no swimming. This has caused a few campers to cancel their reservations and so the park is ours. The alga doesn’t bother any of us because we didn’t plan on swimming anyway.

We’re really glad for the cancellations because this is a small park with thirty-one sites and the sites are very close together. These sites are a lot closer together than we prefer. If the place was full, it might feel a little closter phobic.  

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise