New addition to the family

The month of June has been hot, averaging 10 degree's above normal and almost no rain. The heat has caused my business to be good and I have had little time for sailing with Bobby or even riding the bike. When I got to ride it was a sweat fest.

July has arrived and with it cooler than normal temperatures and rain, a much welcomed relief from the temperature and from work. The garden has responded well and I have undertaken a new project to make room for our new toy.

When we bought this house it had a 40 year old 30 ft wide carport that was in bad shape and it would not allow anything tall to be parked in the driveway. It did have some nice benefits but we decided it had to go.


One piece at a time we took it down and saved the pieces for a friend who wants build a small one from the parts, the job went faster than planned and we were done in about five hours.
Well, now that we can park larger items and the cooler weather has allowed me to shop, look what I brought home.

This our new to us Surveyor SVT210 travel trailer. This trailer is a 2006 model that was very lightly used and everything works perfectly, it also fits nicely in our driveway.

We now plan on setting things up to our liking and planning some short trips, more to come as we move in.

Dennis

New wheels for the Tandem

Since we bought our tandem the wheels have been an area of concern, the front wheel was warped and the manufacturing weld was a problem area causing a bad pulsing when applying the brakes.
We bought this bike used and it had been stored for many of its years in unknown positions, this may have caused some of the trouble with the wheels being out of true.
We purchased this set of custom wheels made by a friend of ours, and I think they look good and from the little I have ridden them they also seem to perform. The most important gain is they are true and smooth and greatly improve our stopping power, not to mention they are 2 lbs 10 ounces lighter than our old ones and are tandem specific wheels.

The search for a nice small travel trailer continues, we find them available but we have been unable to strike a deal I am happy with. With the continued heat I have been busy with work and would not have time to camp anyway, but come fall that should change.

Dennis

The Garden/ The Wall/ No camper

The garden is going great guns, however we are in an extreme heat wave for this time of year, and very dry. The rain barrel is empty and the garden cries for more water.It is still yielding green beans, potato's, lettuce, spinach and squash as well as peppers. The snow peas are done in this heat and the leaf crops are now just about toast also, we love our fresh food.

This morning, Memorial day I went on a nice little run and visited the traveling wall of the Vietnam Memorial. This was a moving experience as people placed flowers with name tags and traced the names of lost loved ones. I was fortunate to be born just late enough for the draft to be over, I did have to register but there was no active draft. Today I thank all of our veterans for their sacrifices and service to allow me the freedom I have.

Saturday we went to Liberty Fest in our little town of Farmers Branch where 20 thousand people listened to a band from my youth, REO Speedwagon as we celebrated our liberty here in the USA.

As for the no camper situation, we sold the pop up and are now shopping for a nice fairly small hard sided travel trailer. We have looked at new and used ones and today we found the one we wanted and I negotiated a very nice price. This deal never happened, when I asked about the title before putting down a deposit it was signed and ready to go except the seller was not the person named on the title. You have to be very careful about these things and I demand a drivers license for proof, well they did not match and out pours a long story about his friend who signed it over to him and does not want to be involved in the transaction, nor do I. This could be the truth but I am not willing to gamble with that kind of money.

Still looking

Dennis

Fort Richardson State Park Trip

We had a full weekend at the end of April, we started by taking our Treck tandem to the German fest bicycle rally in Muenster. This is a great rally and your entry includes admission to the festival and 2 drink tickets for soft drinks or beer(Shiner Boch). We were going to ride the 65 mile route but with extreme winds and the many challenging hills we wussed out and rode the 42 miles, the upside being we got to the festival early. After the Rally we took the pop up camper to Fort Richardson State Park, we were pleasantly surprised, I thought it was just an old fort site, it is that and much more. We toured the fort that dates to the 1860's, took hikes and rode the mountain bike trail.
We stayed Sunday night and in the lower camp ground we had only one other camper in the valley. we picked a spot that backed up to a limestone bluff with this little spring fed creek gurgling right by our trailer, nice to sleep by.

We rode our bicycles on the 9 mile off road trail to Lost Creek reservoir and back for 18 miles of nice improved trail with great views and a few challenging area's. At the Lost Creek Park where the ride loops through the park and then returns we met the camp host. This guy lived in a nice motor home and said he started as a host working about 12 hours a week for a free campsite for a 3 month term. Some 2 years later he loves this place and now works part time for the park system receiving a free full hook up campsite and a small pay check for doing work he likes.

On our bicycle ride around the park at dusk we saw 24 deer like the one in this picture.

We also took Sprocket on a hike to Rumbling Springs where he drank and splashed around and seemed to have a great time, a short video follows, or is supposed to, my first try at this.

I caught bass in the quarry pond, hiked all the trails, had a great bike ride and will return again to this park less than 2 hours from home.

Who knows where we will go next.

Dennis

Caprock Canyon State park Texas

We loaded up the pop up and headed Northwest to caprock canyon, nice weather was expected along with a little wind. A little wind was a big understatement.
After setting up camp on Friday we decided to hike to Fern Cave, I noticed the map had a little note that said extremely steep and rough but downplayed this to Michele, as the photo show it was extremely rough and steep. We made it to a point on the trail that required inching along a ledge with nothing to hold on to and a huge drop if you fell. With the ledge being buffeted by gusty winds we decide to retreat and just make a really nice hike.
Saturday morning we woke to wind gusts of 55 mph trying to rip our pop up apart, we took it down and decide to do the lower canyon loop. The lower loop is fairly well protected in the bottom of the canyon, as we parked another couple pulled up with the same game plan. Doug and his wife are from Canada and are two months into their RV trip, they had a dog named Miles that was about the same size as our dog Sprocket. We all hiked together for the 7 miles and since it was obvious no one else was around the dogs got to hike the entire trail off the leash. We are very careful to keep our dog on the leash even though he is a friendly 20 pounds but in this case they had a blast. This canyon is full of incredible geology and Doug was a very knowledgeable man making for a really special hike.

The wind had most of the wildlife hidden in the box canyons out of the wind but I did spot these mule deer and got a picture before they ran off.

We kept waiting for the wind to die enough for us to set up the trailer but it was not to be so we decided to head home Saturday evening instead of Sunday. For the first time ever i drove through a dust storm in which I could not see and had to slow to 20mph.

Even though our trip was cut short and we did not get to ride the rails to trails on our bicycles and go through the 750 ft. bat tunnel we had a great time and will return to ride the trail and visit Fern Cave.

While we really like our pop up and it tows very easy with good gas mileage we may look at a 20 something foot hard sided travel trailer.

Well that's it for now since I need to recover from my 60 mile bike ride this morning with a group of hammerheads.

Some of the pictures are clickable, some are not, I don't know why.

Dennis

Some of it's majic, some of it's trajic

I made it to the lake again with Bobby and as we left the Marina it became obvious someone wasn't going to have a good day. Observing the police boat and divers working a site with grappling hooks started our sail off in a somber mood. We motored by at a safe distance and may never know the story of someones tragedy. I did catch a very nice fish while trolling and it picked my mood up but still I was reminded to never forget safety on the water, sailing can be inherently dangerous, especially with cold water.

We were in for a treat as this small plane with pontoons made two landings and takeoffs near us, It is hard to take a good photograph from a rocking sailboat when using a 10x zoom (even with image stabilization) so this photo was the best this amateur could do.

Michele and I are returning from a trip to Caprock Canyon and I will journal on that next, it became a real adventure and we met some really good people and a dog named Miles became best friends with our dog Sprocket.

Lake Bob Sandlin State Park

This is my good friend Bobby, the owner and salty skipper of the SV Bobcat. Bobby is the same age as my father and he and I have sailed for years and I really enjoy spending time with him, we have sailed and raced on area lakes and gone on coastal cruises as for as 20 miles offshore and up and down the inter coastal waterway.

I took this picture last week when the weather finally let us out for a nice day on the lake and we sailed and then hove too and enjoyed pb&j sandwiches.

We had a great sail and as the next picture shows we were at or above theoretical hull speed for his 26 footer, man I love sailing with Bobby.

Over this weekend Michele and I loaded up the camping trailer, bicycles and the kayak and headed to Lake Bob Sandlin State park. We had a great time at this park hiking, cycling and fishing from the kayak. While on a hike I spotted the tree with a large hollow and it reminded me of one of my favorite reads from my youth, the story of My Side of The Mountain in which a young boy ran away from home and lived in a large tree. The story now seems a little far fetched but about 1970 I could see myself doing this.

While kayaking I caught a few bass and one nice 17 inch one that got in the bottom of the kayak and starting thrashing me, for this it paid the ultimate price and made a great poorboy sandwich which I will remember for a long time.

We like to tour winery's and found the Los Pino's Winery in the piney woods of east Texas and thoroughly enjoyed a tasting as well as a glass of wine and some appetizers to make for a great long weekend, just look at Michele.

Springtime is finally here, get out and be active.

Dennis