3-28 Roswell

 

Roswell Museum and Art Center Entrance

In the morning Larry and I went on a hike that took us to the Bottomless Lakes Visitor Center. The trail we took was Life on the Buff Trail, it took us from the camping area to the primitive camping area and then to the visitor center. During our hike we saw Devil’s Inkwell and Mirror Lake. Devil’s Inkwell is 32 feet deep and got its name because of the steep sides and dark water. There are primitive campsites that look over Devil’s Inkwell. Mirror Lake is 50 feet deep and got its name because of the beautiful reflection of the surrounding red bluffs. It has two lakes one has fish and the other one doesn’t because it has too much salt in it. As we hiked we stopped occasionally to read about the lakes and the eco system. We were surprised to learn that all the lakes have salt in them. The reason why is because the water sifts through gypsum and limestone. The visitor center is small but gives you a lot of information about Bottomless Lake State Park. The hike was very easy and pretty.

  

Mirror Lake

Bottomless Lakes State Park Visitor Center

We have driven by Roswell a few times during our travels but we never stopped to visit. It is only 14 miles from Bottomless Lakes State Park so we decided to drive to town to walk through the Roswell Museum and Art Center. The museum was very nice with exhibits of art and history of the Southwest. There was a big exhibit about Robert Hutchings Goddard, who was an American engineer, professor, physicist and inventor. His work as both theorist and engineer that made spaceflight possible. The art exhibits were exquisite. The museum was super.

 

An art display by Diane Marsh

A display about Flight Testing in Roswell

Last Emperor by Tim Prythero

3-27 Hello New Mexico

 

Welcome to New Mexico Sign

We drove 166 miles to Bottomless Lakes State Park in New Mexico. While we were driving we saw a coyote and a couple of hawks. This is the first state park in New Mexico. It has eight lakes and the depth in the lakes range from 17 to 90 feet. The illusion of the lakes being bottomless is caused by the algae and other aquatic plants covering the bottom of the lakes. It is a beautiful park. We camped at Lea Lake Recreation Area for a couple of nights. Lea Lake is the biggest and is 90 feet deep. It’s fed by an underground stream so the water is the same temperature year round. Due to the clarity of the water, scuba driving has become popular. This area has a bath house with flush toilets and outside showers for swimmers. There is a beach, playground, volleyball courts, picnic area, hiking and camping area with sites ranging from primitive sites to full hook-ups sites. There is a beautiful stone pavilion and old water tower that was built by the CCC in 1934 and 1935. Today The park was busy due to the kids starting their Spring Break. We spent the day enjoying the park by walking around, talking to people and relaxing in our chairs. Lea Lake is always cold but it didn’t stop Flo or the kids from going swimming.

Camping at Lea Lake Recreation Area

Pavilion and Water Tower

Flo enjoying Lea Lake

Larry and Flo relaxing

Sunset on Lea Lake

3-26 Spring Trip Begins

Bluebonnets

Spring is finely here!!! The other day Larry came in the house and wanted me to come outside, he wouldn’t tell me why but he was excited so I grabbed my camera and joined him outside, guess what, we had bluebonnets in our yard. They were a surprise because the yard is only a year old and we hadn’t planted any bluebonnets.

 

Lamesa City Park

Today we started spring trip. We drove 337 miles from Belton to Lamesa, Tx. where we stayed for the night. Larry let me drive 100 miles or so, he wants me to drive the Minnie every once in awhile so I stay familiar with it. I make him a nervous wreck because I have a tendency of accelerating too fast and I overcorrect when driving. He told me to take my time getting up to speed and not to overcorrect, he wasn’t criticizing my driving he was only trying to help me drive safer. It took me awhile to get use to driving the Minnie but once I settled down and relaxed I did ok. Once in Lamesa it took us a little time to find the city park, it was the first time we were there. The park was a very nice, it has playscapes, swings, bathroom but no showers and free RV sites with power and water.

3-25 Ready To Go

I'm so excited we spent most of today getting the Minnie ready. When we weren't working on the Minnie Larry and I worked on a jig saw puzzle. In the evening we streamed Seth Glier on Concert Windows, he is an American singer-song writer, pianist and guitarist. We enjoyed listening to Seth.

3-24 Spring Fever

Larry and I try to take a Fall Trip for two months and a Spring Trip for six weeks. We spent all day getting the Minnie ready for our trip on Thursday. We needed to go grocery shopping so we loaded Flo up in the Equinox and went to town. Once we got home I started to load up the Minnie with food. While I was doing this Larry check the air in the tires, checked the oil and checked the battery. Then he plugged it in to cool down the refrigerator. The new and last Hobbit DVD, The Battle of the Five Armies was released yesterday so we picked it up and in the eventing we watched it, good movie.
 

 

The Minnie

3-23 What a beautiful day!!

The last two days started out overcast with a little fog but by noon the sun was out. It had been awhile since I've taken Flo for a walk so today I took her to the lake. We walked for an hour and she swam, explored and met a few people. The last couple of days Larry and I have been working on a jig saw puzzle and Monday evening we helped our square dance club with their lessons by being angels.  Sunday we watched a 2009 documentary about FEMA City in Florida, FEMA City was a large temporary mobile home community created after Hurricane Charley. It was quite good, they interviewed people that were living in FEMA City about how they're coping with live after Charley. We also started watching a five hour documentary called Ice Race which is about the Arctic's resources and why its so important for the world.

Swimming feels good

Mom, are you coming

Fishing on the banks of Lake Belton

 

3-21 Concert Windows

Blue Rock Studio in Wimberley Texas

Today was another one of those grey drizzling depressing days, we only left the house for a bit to go to the store and pick up a couple of  Papa Murphy's pizza's. For those that don't know Papa Murphy's is a pizza place where they make you a pizza that you take home and bake in your own oven, they are very good. They have this unadvertised special where you can get a large pepperoni for $5, what a deal. We will buy one, cut it in half and bake only half of it and a day or two later bake the other half. We also experimented with freezing the 2nd half and having it later, found out that works really well so today we bought an extra pizza, cut it in half and froze both half's. Now don't get the idea we do this often, in all honesty the only take out pizza we have bought in probably a decade has been Papa Murphy's and even then we might not buy one for six months, I will admit the $5 special has drawn us in more often, you might want to call and see if it works for you.

 Blue Rock is a recording studio where artist's come to record their music, they also try to have one concert a month and when we lived in Austin we attended a number of their concerts and had been invited to a couple of their birthday parties. Billy and Dodie Crockett own the studio and live on the premises, the concerts are held in one of the rooms of their house. Every year when Blue Rock has its birthday celebration they invite artists to come out and celebrate the event by singing. Today was Blue Rock Studios 9th Birthday and  they streamed the celebration via Concert Windows, we streamed the celebration for five hours and enjoyed listening to nine different groups.

The Accidentals (Idie-Folk)

Javier Chaparro & Salud (Latin)

The Ballroom Thieves (Folk)

Allie Farris (Folk)

After listening to Blue Rock Studio we streamed Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines at The Bugle Boy in La Grange Texas. Terri is a Contemporary Folk and Americana singer and songwriter, she helps keep her performance entertaining by telling stories in between songs.

  

Lloyd Maines

Terri Hendrix

    

3-20 Square Dances

Square Dancing

This week Larry and I went square dancing four times. Monday's our club the Central Texas Lone Stars is giving lessons in Temple, Larry and I along with some others volunteer as angles for the new dancers, we currently have eight students. The other three days were with Shirts 'n' Skirts in Georgetown, the Lone Stars Texas Independence Day Dance and the Killeen Kickers Spring Training Dance. The Lone Stars dance was to celebrate Texas Independence the club provided delicious food; chili, beans, corn chips, cheese, corn bread, muffins and desserts. The Killeen Kickers Spring Training Dance was to welcome in Spring. It was a casual dance where the dancers wore baseball caps, blue jeans and other spring training attire. The club provided hot dogs and all the fixings and delicious desserts.

Line Dancing with the Shirts 'n' Skirts Club

Line Dancing with the Lone Stars I'm in the red and white

Larry enjoying the dance

Larry promenading Barbara

  Texas Independence Day Dance video

Vickie and Jim Round Dancing during Spring Training Dance

Betsy Nyhan, Killeen Kickers caller

Square Dancing with the Killeen Kickers

3-19 Dog Days Puzzle

Dog Days Puzzle

Last night I finished putting together my Dog Days jig saw puzzle, it took me a week to accomplish the task and I had a great time doing it. It was challenging because the colors were very close to each other, Larry noticed how much fun I was having so the other day when we were at Walmart we found they had lots of puzzles in the toy area, some of the puzzle boxes came with multiple puzzles in them. We were surprised with all the choices and the prices were either the same or cheaper then the Internet. I decided on a 2000 piece puzzle called Pine Road Service made by Buffalo.

Poster that came with puzzle

All 1000 pieces of the puzzle

The frame of the puzzle 26.75in x 19.75in

Dog Days puzzle partly built

Dog Days when it was finished

Pine Road Service 2000 pieces puzzle

Our water heater has been turning off for a couple of days and Larry has been resetting it. He went on the Internet to do a little research and found out it could be a couple of different problems. He decided to start by replacing the thermostats and found out he could buy some after market thermostats that fits our unit at The Home Depot so off to town we went. The after market ones aren't exactly the same as the old ones but we still bought them. Larry installed the new ones and they fit but he didn't feel comfortable about not have the right ones so he went to the Internet and ordered the right ones. Hopefully the thermostats will solve our problem but if they don't Larry has a couple more things to try.       

3-17 Doing Errands

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!! We have a 2014 Equinox and under the warranty it gets up to four free oil changes the first two years or 24,000 miles. Ours has 23,000 and it was due for an oil change so Larry and I took it to town to get its last free oil change. After getting the oil change we went home and had lunch. A little later we took Flo for a ride in the truck because we hadn't driven it for awhile. When we returned to the house I took Flo for a walk around the neighborhood. In the evening we watched a movie called Flight starring Denzel Washington. It was about an airline pilot who miraculously crash lands his plane. We really enjoyed the movie. 

3-16 Getting Ready for our Spring Camping Trip

Yesterday afternoon Larry and I went to Waco and squared danced with TIPS (Texas Independent Plus Squares. In the evening we watched a couple of documentaries Assault on El Captain (Wings of Steel) and Ground Operations ( Battlefields to Farmfields). Assault on El Captain was about the most controversy climb on the Yosemite's El Captain by Wings of Steel Route. Ground Operations was about veterans who are transitioning in careers as farmers, ranchers and artisan food producers.

We getting the Minnie ready to go on our six weeks Spring Camping Trip at the end of the month so today Larry replaced the old lights inside the Minnie to more energy efficient lights. In the evening Larry and I went to our club's square dancing lessons.       

3-14 St. Patrick's Day Dances

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I'm sorry I haven't bogged in awhile, here is an update on our adventures. I walked Flo to the lake a couple of days ago so she could swim and explore. While she was exploring she came across a snake sunning and it struck out at her just to warn her that she was getting too close. I didn't know if it was poisonous or not but she jumped back. I was surprised that the snake was out of hibernation because it's still cool. I've been working on my puzzle and working out while Larry read. Flo has been doing her normal thing sleeping except for today she sunned. In the last week we have square danced five times. One event was for our club lessons and the other four were St. Patrick's Day Dances with Shirts & Skirts in Georgetown, Coryell County Squares in Gatesville, Double C's in Copperas and Denim and Lace in Bruceville- Eddy.

Flo swimming

Line Dancing with the Double C's

Square Dancing with the Double C's

Larry square dancing with Denim and Lace.

Larry promenading Barbara home.