It was certainly a winner . We spent Friday taking care of chores here at the house (I love it that I can clean this place in about 2 yours! Top to bottom!). Lara arrived in time for us to check out a local BBQ-Catfish joint – Loco Coyote. Everything was delicious and we had enough left over for lunch today! Saturday we got an early start and headed north to Dallas. Gary wanted to check out the Cabelas and Bass Pro Shops up there plus we were going to be able to have dinner with some friends that had moved to Dallas about 13 years ago. (Of course, they had recently moved to New Jersey, but happened to be in Dallas to wrap things up with the sale of their house. I love it when a plan comes together ) We did check out the little town of Grapevine – a quaint little town right next to the Dallas airport! It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the local craft fair plus all of the interesting shops. It was wonderful to catch up with our friends – and so glad that their brief return to Dallas coincided with our expedition there!
Sunday was worship and naps and leftovers. Lara hung around until about 7 – long enough to see the Cowboys lose. (That was actually a good thing at our house but don’t tell any of our Texan neighbors!). **contented sigh** Such a good weekend.

Thursday we leave for Waco. We’ll be camping on Waco Lake, but spending most of our time helping out at Lara’s house. Here are some pics she posted earlier of the house. We think it’s pretty darn cute!

Hope your weekend was also a good one. I understand my friends in the East were blessed with some great weather and the trees are beginning to show their Fall color. Guess I’ll have to get out some of my Fall pictures to reminisce about the leaves…..

There. I feel a little better now!

What a couple of GORGEOUS days we have just been blessed with!!! Monday night brought some crazy wild weather (no tornado warnings, but plenty of wind, rain, thunder and lightening!). But on the heels of that wild night came a day as crisp as sheets hung in the spring breeze! Or the fall breeze? Well, you know – low humidity, bright bright sunshine, temps in the 70′s. Today was just about the same, except maybe a smidge warmer. Gary and I took a walk down to the river yesterday -

And looking the other way…..

The retreat center is located on a hill (bluff?) above the river – here is a shot taken from the center’s grounds.

Tomorrow is the last day of our second week here at Riverbend, and they’ve been keeping us busy! Gary and I started out together, working on a remodeling of a building that had housed summer staff into a two bedroom house. We (well, he mostly) tore out a wall, built closets, removed wall A/C units (and filled the holes), took down the wall paper (that was me! I also worked on taking the nails out of the trim so they could use it again.Yep, don’t know what they’d do without me!) Now he’s moved on the hanging kitchen cabinets, installing a bathroom cabinet/sink and building in a bathtub. And from there he will probably move to tiling the floor in the kitchen and baths. And I’ve moved on to

the laundry. Something I have a little bit of experience with!
Fold On!

And that means we spent Saturday geocaching! Of the roughly 46 geocaches within a 10 mile radius of town, we managed to hunt down about a dozen. I know I have said before that this hobby helps us really explore an area – and I can guarantee you that we never would have found some of these roads (and interesting sights) if we hadn’t been on this treasure hunt.
So , from the top –
Cemetery One –

This was our first cache in while, and for a bit we were afraid we would have to log a DNF (did not find). However, we took one final look at the tree that we felt sure held the treasure – and there it was!

(And since it is there in this picture, I’m sure you can feel our pain!)
Two more cemeteries right in a row –

And one very interesting hiding place –

From the cemetery bonanza we headed to the town square to locate an historic log post office and a dinosaur footprint (apparently this area has all kinds of dinosaur footprints and fossils!). This was a “virtual” geocache so we had to gather information and then send it in. It was a pretty interesting building, and right next door was the town museum, so we took a break and checked out the local “stuff”.

After our little town square adventure we followed the GPS to Heritage Park. It was a great little park on the Paluxy River where several historic buildings had been relocated.

This was a “multi” cache, so we had to follow clues through the park to find the final treasure. And even though we followed all the clues and all the directions, we never did find the final stage. But then again, it was a 35 mm film canister hidden somewhere in this wall –

Yep, a DNF – but according to the log, the last 5 visitors were also DNF. Misery does love company!
On to another great local park – Big Rocks Park.

Gary worked on this one since it was way back in the woods while I stayed back and took close ups of the local flora –

But I digress……
Back on the track to a local Soccer field – and another walk into the woods.

Here’s a geocaching tip – always check under the rock in the tree!

From there we found one under a rock on an overlook, checked out a small local rest area and found one under a bench, and found one on an abandoned property. There was this VERY interesting building along the road near one of the caches –

What do you suppose it was? The front part looks like it might have been a (drive through?) porch of some kind, and there were places for lights over the arches. And the construction was amazing – stone, quartz, petrified wood, mortar and brick.

There are other building in the town with that interesting brick work combined with stone, but I have never seen anything quite like this. Guess I’ll have to ask around!

We finished the day with one more cemetery (there are actually 30 cemeteries in this county!), another overlook and then a quick trip to Granbury for the weekly Home Depot/Lowes/Wal-Mart run.

All in all – a very good day! Only 1 DNF – and even that took us to a lovely park with lots of interesting buildings and local information. If this has been WAY too much geocaching info – sorry! And if it has whetted your appetite for this crazy hobby – check out www.geocaching.com and see what all the fun is about!
And I quote Gary’s favorite T-shirt (thank-you, Lara) –

I use billion-dollar satellites to find Tupperware in the woods.
What’s your hobby?

P.S. – the whole set of Glen Rose Geocaching pictures is HERE if you’d like to see those overlooks (remember, we’re in Texas), that other cemetery and a couple of other miscellaneous pictures!

I have been so busy rambling on about Pike’s Peak, Shelf Roads, Garden of the Gods, volcanos and camels in the fields of Texas, I have been remiss about posting updates and pictures of my beautiful granddaughters! Why didn’t anyone speak up?

Ellie has started Kindergarten!!!!

When did that happen?????

Not only were Mom and Dad trying to adjust to this new phase in their lives – but little sister Hayley was having a hard time watching her go….

Me too, me too. I want to go too!!!!!
But there were some changes in store for little Hayley too-
Remember this? –

Well, she has a new look these days -

Quite a change!

And the littlest one? She’s going to be one in a month. ONE!!!! Toby says Maddie is doing new things everyday – walking along the furniture, walking behind her little walk-behind thing (what are they called?), and generally being delightful.

Yes, I can see the delightful!

And a final picture of the three of them –

Ah, sisters!!!!

Oh, how we miss them!

Yes, yes, yes. (No, no, no you might be thinking!). Remember, the name of this blog is RV There Yet – hence the focus (when at all possible) on the adventure of actually getting somewhere. And as many of you know there have been many stops and starts along the way (more stops that starts if often seems). So the fact that we are actually moving from place to place, and are also moving on totally new (to us) roads and into never before seen territory (for us) – yes, you will have to suffer through more pictures taken through the windshield or side windows of our house. Or, you can just surf over to another site, and come back again later. For those of you who wish to remain –
Gentlemen, start your engines!
So, we left Colorado Springs on Tuesday morning. We left Pike’s Peak behind and I thought we were headed into some lower territory. Wrong. It continued to amaze me how the terrain can be so very flat and just have those towering mountains so close at hand –

And look at those cool mountains up ahead! We were headed to Raton Pass – elevation 7834 ft. (and also a 1951 Western movie) – and New Mexico. Whohooo!

Heading down the other side…..

Now, I’ve never ever been to New Mexico – and I have to tell you that the little corner that we drove through had some amazing terrain -
We stopped at the Capulin Volcano. (Did you know there were volcano’s in NM? Am I the only one surprised (or did I sleep through that in 4th grade?)

Looking down into to (extinct) crater –

And looking out for the view –

Quite a landscape, eh?
Once we got back on our way, we passed this little lonely house. Don’t know why, but I really like this picture!

We passed many herds of pronghorn antelopes – they were pretty oblivious to the traffic whizzing by them-

I already went over the windmills and the fields of cattle and the CAMELS – did I mention this huge abandoned hotel in the little town of Mineral Wells, TX? Here is the Baker Hotel – all 14 floors and 450 rooms. It has been empty since 1960, but in the late 1920’s it was quite the place to be!

Although traveling on interstates is most often the quickest way to get from point A to point B, we always enjoy the non-interstate routes. This trip was mostly traveled on good local roads – and we thoroughly enjoyed the highways and byways on our way to Glen Rose (and Waco) Texas!
If you’d like to see the whole set of these On The Road shots – you can go HERE!
Have a great trip!