Our New Friend

We put the Hummingbird feeder out and had a little visitor within five minutes.
The feeder is held to the window by a suction cup and lays flat against the glass. We get to have dinner and watch the Hummingbirds.....cool!

We Stopped To Smell The Roses

Joyce did some research to see what was in the area and she found a Rose Garden in the city of Tyler which is about an hour away. We took our time because we weren't in any hurry.
As we drove along, there were a lot of historical markers along our route but we didn't get to stop at all of them.
We passed fields with large old trees that were obviously planted in rows years ago. This marker explains that the area was a nut farm.

So I guess that would make this the nut house?

More history on the area.
And here we are at the Tyler Rose Garden

Most of the roses were past their prime for blooming but they were still beautiful to look at. I took a lot of pictures but had a problem getting sharp closeups.

So many different colors.
In the Mood below was probably my favorite.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Joyce couldn't resist stopping to "Smell the Roses"

Another pretty mix of color.

So much to choose from.

Unusual mix.

The vines above Joyce are Rose vines that fill with flowers during the spring.

Areas within the gardens invite you to sit and relax.

And that's just what Joyce did.

Then on to more roses

And more.

Then we had to stop for a shot!!!!

This short video shows the Garden from above.

Saturday Sleep-In

So it's Saturday and I got to sleep in till 8:45. Then we decided to take a ride to check out Daingerfield State Park.
The park was really nice and after getting here I found out that you don't need a fishing license. It seems that as long as the water within the park is landlocked within the Park, you don't need a license.

We may have to visit here again and try the fishing. They also rent paddle boats.

Joyce always has to take her shoes off and test the water. She said it was a little cool but people were swimming. The temperature today was in the high 80's.

From the Park, we stopped for lunch, Joyce had a chicken taco salad.

I had a burger and some fried Okra with ranch dressing, mmmmm.

We figured that we would take a ride down some back roads and enjoy the scenery. We saw a lot of these flowers in people's yards but we don't know what they are. The stems come straight out of the ground and look like straw.

This poor animal has boo boos all over it's nose

We traveled down a back road to get to a Wine Vineyard and we had to cross a heavily traveled track so I had to stop to get this shot. The trains are very active in this area hauling coal and grain. I'm glad the Jeep didn't stall.

This is the Winery but they charged $5 per person for the tour and another $5 for wine tasting.

The grounds were nice and they did have outdoor tables where you could sit and have a glass of wine or lunch.

This dog was at the side of the building and the odor of wine was very strong. She didn't move or open her eyes as I stood and took the picture. She may have had one too many!!
We continued along on our trek and came across this! You will have to click on this picture to see the sacred tractor.
As we continued down the road, we ran out of road and had to turn around.

This road wasn't much more than one lane and you had to be careful when traffic approached.

Back at camp this was my first chance to clean the bugs from the front of the coach. Note Joyce surfing the web, the tree stub is holding the camera for this shot.

Later we did dinner at Fat Boys BBQ and I just had to take this picture. The brisket and sausage were delicious. This is our first BBQ since we got to Texas.

Now I'm fat and happy and calling it a day, see ya tomorrow!!!

Got Carded In Texas

We went out for dinner tonight at Applebees because they were the only restaurant around that had Fish & Chips that wasn't Catfish.
Figured I would have a drink but it wasn't that easy. Seems that Applebees is in a dry county.
In order to get a drink, I had to show my drivers license so they were sure that I was at least 21 ........ yea right! Next I had to fill out a form listing my name and address so I could get what they call a membership card.
Once that was all done, they issued my the card below and I was cleared to get drunk.
Hey, now I'm a full fledged member of the Texas drinking club and this card can be used in any of the dry counties that serve liquor.

Nothing New

It' tough trying to find things to post about when we really haven't been doing much. I get up at 5:00 am and go to work while Joyce gets the whole bed to herself.
I come home for lunch because I am only a mile away from camp, then I get out of work at 2:30. I get to rest for a half hour then Joyce and I drive to the track and do our two laps.
Tonight we had turkey burgers with fried green tomatoes and ranch dressing. A lot of premier shows on TV tonight on so got to go.

Oh No, It Didn't Rain

We were expecting rain today and there was hope that I would have a day off from the track. As luck would have it, the rain stopped as soon as I stepped into the coach but Joyce already had rain gear out for me in case it rained.

The track is only down the street so I gave in. But first it's important to stretch so I tried but things don't bend like they use to.

There are stations located around the track. These stations offer different ways to hurt yourself. Here I am working out on the balance beam, you should have seen my dismount!

Just in time, my ham strings were beginning to tighten up. Time to stretch.

Oops!

This is great for working on the old six pack.

Last but not least, this is where you totally blow your shoulders out.

So we completed one lap of the track and tomorrow we are going to go for two again. Stay tuned and you may notice that we may begin looking younger.

Time To Exercise

There's a recreation field about a quarter mile down the street from us. So Joyce announced that WE are going to walk every night.
The track is nine tenths of a mile long around a large soccer field and there were some people there already walking. Now I don't feel that I really need to walk nine tenths of a mile every night because I'm already in great shape!!!!!!
Well half way around the track two young women in their late 40's early 50's passed us and asked if we were ok. What was that suppose to mean???
I told them that I was fine and that I was still breathing in and out. Joyce said that they were just being nice, yeah!

There was also a nice pond with a fountain and it was hot enough that I would have loved to jump in to cool off.

We finished one lap and Joyce said that was easy so tomorrow we have to do two laps...... I hope it rains!

New Camp and The Sun Is Shining

Check it out, looks like the liquidators got caught up in their own business.
Here we are in our new camp, the one problem is that the trains are not that far away and we can hear the whistle as they hit ALL the crossings. And there are a lot of crossings and trains. Guess we'll have to get use to it.

Didn't get to watch the Patriots play ball but from what I heard, we didn't miss much.

The black tank wash stopped working and I wasn't able to rinse the tank when we dumped at the last campground. I did some online research on the Tiffin forum and found that the rinse nozzle tends to get clogged if it's not used at each dumping. People on the forum suggest removing the nozzle and opening the spray holes out to 3/32". So looking at the coach in the picture above, we had to remove the large panel forward of the rear wheel. Once removed, the wash nozzle is install at the top of the tank on the end and was very easy to remove.

The nozzle was clogged and had to be flushed out which wasn't a pleasant job due to the matter that was clogging the small holes.....thank God for rubber gloves. I opened the holes to 3/32" and had Joyce run the water while I held the nozzle in a bucket. Everything was clear and working fine so we put it all back together and ran it for five minutes to insure there were no leaks. Another job well done!!

Had a problem with our Master Card (What's in Your Wallet), it was showing a charge of $13.15 for a bogus company that we never heard of. I looked it up on the web and found that the fraudulent company was created by the Russian mob, yup the Russians are coming! They somehow get your credit card number and charge a small amount to it with the hopes that you won't notice. When I checked online I found that this company was charging the same amount of $13.15 to a lot of people so keep a close eye on your credit card bill. We had our card canceled and a new card issued.

Oh man, back to work tomorrow after a short weekend, oh well I do get to sleep an extra half hour if the trains go easy.