Thanksgiving, Nov. 26, 2009

The "Barn" was bursting at its seams with our Thanksgiving crowd which overflowed into two side rooms. Everyone brought a dish to pass or a dessert.

Getting the two rows of tables loaded with all the different dishes was no easy matter! There was barely enough room for all the side dishes. There was everything imaginable.

Meanwhile the kitchen crew was busy getting the turkey, stuffing, potatoes and gravy ready. The resort supplied all of this.

They served 380 people in just 45 minutes!

After the main meal all the main dishes were transfered to the table on the right and the desserts were brought out. As you can see they filled the table, one end to the other. There were over 50 pies alone!

What a meal! Thank you, Dee and Kathy for a delicious dinner.

Lost Maples State Natural Area, TX Nov.11, 2009

In mid November we took a drive south and west of Kerrville to Lost Maples State Natural Area in the Texas Hill Country. This was the week the maple trees were to be near "peak". As you can see the Texas Hill Country is indeed hilly. This is the entrance to the natural area.

This canyon area has quite a large growth of Texas Bigtooth Maple trees. They don't seem as tall as the maples of Pennsylvania.

As you can see, the leaves are a lot smaller too.

There are about 12 miles of hiking trails and a nice picnic area where we ate our lunch.

After lunch we headed out on a trail. We came mid week as on the peak weekends there is a wait of 2-3 hours to get into the park. They only allow enough cars that there are parking spaces and you have to wait until someone leaves to get in!

We took a picture of another couple and they did the same for us.

The maples were a pretty change to the mostly oak trees in this area.

You can see the grass also turns a pinkish red color in the fall. Even Ceilidh got to go for a walk.

The trail we took followed a pretty stream through the park. Ceilidh was able to get a drink here.

We found this field of long horn cattle on the drive home. The trees are pretty for this area, but nothing like the Northeast!

Buckhorn Lake Resort, Texas 2009

Welcome to Buckhorn Lake Resort, our winter "home" for 2009-10 located about 5 miles outside of Kerrville, Texas in the Texas Hill Country. It is so pretty in this area. Everyone is super friendly in Texas.

This is the office/store area. Notice all the flowers and hanging baskets? This keeps a gardener busy every day of the week. I usually work 3 days and 2 other ladies work 2 days each. But we get together for "projects" whenever needed.

This is pool # 1. We have 2 pools, one in the regular park and one in the adults only area.

Doesn't it look inviting? Bill's job is to keep the pools clean.

Each pool also has a hot tub to seat about 8 people. Boy, does that feel good after working in the flower beds! (Or anytime.)

My routine is: put laundry in washers, exercise for 1/2 hour, put clothes in the dryers, sit in hot tub 20 minutes, take a shower, and the laundry's done!

This is one of the flower beds I "rescued". It hadn't been cleaned out for a while so after 2 days I had it looking like this. Gotta be careful around those cacti.

This is a view of the exercise building. It's really relaxing to look out on the water while you are working out. Pool # 2 is just across the street from here. That's the pool I use when doing laundry. The laundry facilities (2) are located with the shower rooms by the pools.

Some more water areas. Pool # 2 is to the right, RV sites to the left.

This is our outdoor "Cafe Patio". There are huge grills here. We hold "Meat and Greet" (yes, that's spelled right) here on Sundays. Anyone from the park is welcome, bring your own meat to grill and a dish to pass...yum. Good food and you get to meet new people in the park.

Here's a view of the smoker at the Cafe Patio. It can hold up to 4 pigs at one time. Rumor has it they are going to cook a steer in this in November.

That's a Suzuki attached to the top of the smoker.

Another view of the Outdoor Patio.

There are 3 cottages available to rent. They each have a bedroom with queen size bed, bunk beds in an alcove in the hall and a kitchen/living room area complete with microwave, fridge, and TV. At the back is a patio that overlooks the pond. More flowers to water around the trees.

This is the "Barn" where all the activities take place. To the left is the Social Room complete with microwave, fridge, large screen TV, sofa, game tables, and book exchange. The center area is a huge dining room with a fireplace at one end that is big enough for about 8 people to stand in. There are also commercial kitchens. The room on the right is the Theater, complete with projection screen TV and 35 theater seats. Even has a popcorn machine. They show movies here and watch Monday Night Football. The tractor is surrounded with flowers and the wagon is full of flower boxes.



Tennis anyone? There is also a putting green in another area.

This is our "yard" for the next 5 months. The lawns look like a golf course. It is a really beautiful park.

This is "The Club" area, across the river. It is an exclusive Motor Home community. You "lease" a lot and can build any type building on it you want. Almost all of the buildings have a garage and at least a covered outdoor area. Most have enclosed rooms for sitting/cooking or even a complete house as you can see from these 2 buildings. People park their motor homes beside their building when they are in Texas.

This is our "Buckhorn Bus" which goes out on excursions every week. Last week a group of us went to Bandera for a night at the 11th St Bar. This week is the Johnson Ranch. Lots of shopping trips and golf outings. There is a wine tasting trip the end of the month.

That's it from "The Best Little RV Resort in Texas"!

What a place-we love it here!!

White Sands National Monument, Oct. 14, 2009

At the northern end of the Chihuahua Desert lies a mountain-ringed valley, the Tularosa Basin. Rising from the heart of this basin is one of the world's great natural wonders, the glistening White Sands of New Mexico.

Great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert here and created the largest gypsum dune field in the world. The dunes, brilliant and white, are ever changing. They grow, crest, then slump but always advance.

The common mineral gypsum is rarely found as sand because it is soluble in water. Rain and snow in the mountains dissolve gypsum from the rocks and carry it into the Tularosa Basin. Rivers would usually carry dissolved gypsum to the sea, but no river drains the Tularosa Basin. The water, with the gypsum and other sediments is trapped in the basin.

One of the basin's lowest points is the large playa, Lake Lucero. This dry lake bed occasionally fills with water that then evaporates and deposits dissolved gypsum on the surface. Strong winds blowing across the playa pick up gypsum particles and carry them downwind. As sand grains accumulate as a dune, they bounce up the gentle windward slope and ripple its surface. At a dune's steep leading edge, sand builds up until gravity pulls it down the slip face, moving the dune forward. These low dunes can move 30 feet a year.

They have these neat picnic shelters to protect you from the winds. You can see how high the dune is in the background by comparing it with the motor home parked there. You can rent "saucer sleds" at the visitor center and slide down the dunes just like down a snow covered hill.

The eroding mountains have now filled the Tularosa Basin 2000 feet deep with sediments, including the gypsum that forms its white sands. Here they have to keep the road plowed to keep off the encroaching sands. Looks like winter in Pennsylvania!

What an amazing world in which we live.

White Sands Missile Range, NM, Oct. 14, 2009

White Sands Missile Range

On our way to White Sands National Monument we stopped at the Museum and Missile Park just west of Las Cruces on Fort Bliss, New Mexico.

Established in 1945, White Sands Missile Range is America's largest overland military test range. At White Sands the world entered the Atomic Age when the first atomic bomb was tested at Trinity Site on July 16, 1945.

In 1949, the world entered the Space Age from White Sands, when Bumper, an early two-stage rocket roared beyond the earth's atmosphere. In 1950, bumper went on to become the first missile launched from Cape Canaveral.

At the close of WWII, White Sands proving Ground was established to test the emerging rocket technology. Since 1945 the missile range has conducted more than 42,000 missile and rocket firings. The range also conducts purely scientific research. Rocket payloads from NASA are regularly launched to collect information about the sun and stars or conduct microgravity experiments.

Today, White Sands continues to test the most advanced technologies. Many missiles like the THAAD don't have explosive warheads anymore-they must actually strike the target to destroy it. The military shares the range with a huge assortment of plants and animals in almost pristine conditions. Recently, wildlife biologists studied mountain lions found in the White Sand mountains. Other scientists are currently conducting research on one of the world's largest herds of African oryx which freely roams the missile range.

Gila Cliff Dwellings, New Mexico, Oct. 13, 2009

After a brief visit to Silver City, we headed north on Route 15, through the Gila (pronounced Heela) National Forest and to Gila Cliff Dwellings.

Tour books recommend that vehicles pulling trailers longer than 20 feet to use a different route. Route 15 is only 44 miles but takes a good 2 hours to get to the Cliff Dwellings. We enjoyed the ride through the national forest.

We found this rest area to stop and have lunch. You can see the beautiful mountain view.

More questions than answers surround the story of people who built structures in natural caves of Cliff Dweller Canyon. Archeological evidence suggests that many different groups of people have inhabited this area over thousands of years. The people who built the cliff dwellings were part of the Mogollon culture.

Another famous group of people who occupied the area were the Apache Indians who migrated to the upper Gila river about 1500. Legendary leader Geronimo was born near the Gila river headwaters in the early 1820s as Mexico challenged Apache control of the area. This monument to Geronimo says "I was born by the headwaters of the Gila. Geronimo, Chiricahua Apache Chief. 1829-1909".

The Mogollon found abundant game and fertile soil in the Gila River valley for both native vegetation and their crops of corn, beans, and squash. Breaking the tradition, the Tularosa Mogollon build inside the caves of Cliff Dweller Canyon with rock, mortar, and timbers from trees cut between 1276 and 1287. But by 1300 the Gila Cliff Dwellers had moved on. These caves were much larger than the ones at Bandelier.

Approximately 40 rooms were built inside several natural caves in Cliff Dweller Canyon. This picture was taken from inside one of the caves-what a view of this rugged, wild area.

I spotted this cactus in bloom along the trail. The leaf was about 12 inches long.

Here's a look at the cliff dwellings from across the valley. They faced south to capture the heat in the winter when the sun was lower in the sky and were kept cooler in the summer when the sun was higher and didn't shine directly into the openings.

We took a different route back to the campground and found this wonderful view out across the mountains.