Day 14

We didn't get up very early this morning. The dog had a chance to get in bed with us as we surfed.

When we did get up, I spent a couple of hours looking a Craig's list. I didn't see anything that I needed. I also looked at the Texas website concerning getting a license. In order to get a license, you have to register a car in Texas. No problem, except the titles are in Oregon. I guess we won't become citizens until next year.

In mid afternoon I decided that I should do something. I started by changing the orientation of the cell booster antenna. I managed to get it a little better, but our internet connection still sucks. It seems to vary over time. It can be great for a while, and then degrade to no connection at all.

After the antenna work I unloaded the trailer. I'm amazed at how much stuff I got in there. After unloading it I started unpacking and doing some small tasks. I put up the road runner crossing sign and hung the extension cord reel. I also rearranged the peg board, toolbox, and shelves in order to put away some of the stuff that I brought. I've still got a big box of stuff to go. I also have to hang up the thermometer after I fix its hook. Three different lights also have to be installed.

The nice thing about this is that I can do it at any speed that I desire.

Day 13

Home again. It's almost exactly 100 miles from the park to the house. I took my time hooking up this morning. We even washed the dog. I filled up the fresh water tank halfway in case the well was dry.

The trip up was uneventful. Parking the trailer when we got here was as big a pain in the ass as it always is.

The house seems to be in fine shape. I'm not sure yet that the well works. Of course the water smells terrible. I'm really liking watching football on the big TV. The car was a big surprise. It started up first time. I did have to fill up the tires. All of them had about 24 psi, when the label on the tire says 44 psi. I filled them to 39.

We spent a couple of hours moving stuff from the trailer to the house. I also unloaded the back of the truck. We've got a lot more work to do tomorrow. By 3:30 we were tired and hungry (no lunch). So we quit and went to Cheddars. The food was just as good as we expected. Afterwards we went to HEB.

When we got home we moved a few more things from the trailer, but not much. Then we declared it time to relax.

Day 12

We slept in again today (a nice habit). When we got up we went to the club. We shot a practice 5-stand. It wasn't near as much fun as yesterday because the wind wasn't blowing the targets out. I ran the dog afterwards, which made her very happy and a lot calmer.

We hung around a bit and then shot the K-cup. The course was an easy one. It was the sort of course that you would see at a tournament in Oregon. I sucked a little and Ellen sucked a lot. I shot at least 10 birds less than I should have. I topped it off by missing 3 on the last station.

Shooting the K-cup took 2 and a half hours. So we had a late (3:30) lunch. We sat around awhile and then met up with Dorie. We talked about the Western and settled on a 300 bird main and a 200 bird prelim. No 5-stand, but we'll set up a couple of games on the 5-stand fields.

We didn't win anything in the contests and drawings at the end of the day (want to see my surprise face?). We did get a good dinner of German food courtesy of Blazer.

We got home late and I just did a couple of things in preparation for leaving tomorrow. We'll have to get up reasonably early to get the rest done.

Day 11

We slept in late today. When we woke up, we surfed in bed until about 10:30 or 11:00. I love being retired.

Gerry sent a copy of Stephan's proposed contract to us yesterday. I took it with us to the club. I sat on the patio, read the contract, and typed up a response. It was like being back at work again. After an hour and a half or so I was done. That's all the work like activity I want to do for a long time.

We did a little more cruising of vendor row, but we didn't buy anything except the glasses that I ordered yesterday. We also met with Dori and introduced her to the people at Promatic. We also shot some 5-stand with her.

In the evening we watched the pro shoot-off. It was fun, and the food was pretty good.

All in all it was a pleasant, restful day. Sort of like what retirement is supposed to be.

Day 10

I signed up and shot the 20 gauge today. I didn't do very good, but I had a lot of fun. Jason set a good course. I also got my gun back from Lucio. It looks up very nice now. It should. The service cost me $435.

After the 20 gauge I we had to go home to get the checkbook to pay Lucio. He gave me the gun and trusted me to come back later.

We ate a lunch that Ellen fixed at the club. We're both tired of the food there. It's the same every year. Then we went out and shot a practice round. I shot pretty well in the practice, much better than in the competition. I was really tired afterwards. 200 targets in a day it too much.

A note on the weather. It was supposed to get cold, windy, and possibly rainy by the afternoon. It didn't. It stayed sunny and warm all day. The wind did come up a little in the late afternoon and it also cooled down a little.

We have nothing to do tomorrow except watch the shoot off in the evening. I plan on sleeping in.

Day 9

It was a short drive to San Antonio today. The traffic wasn't too bad. I did have to get used to being on an interstate again. All those cars and trucks passing me.

We finished setting up at the park about noon and went to the club. We decided to shoot the K cup, so we registered. Then we went around to the vendors. We bought a couple of t-shirts and I took my SC3 to Perazzi. It was working fine, but Lucio said that it had a broken firing pin and the lock was worn out. He said he'd have it fixed by tomorrow morning.

Adam asked us to go the Advisory Council meeting to protest the new rating system. We went, but didn't bother to speak. It was basically just a BS discussion with no real purpose. Now we're back at the trailer. I'll have to pick up my gun about 9:30. Then we'll go shoot some practice.

Day 8

We pretty much did Fredericksburg yesterday, so we went to Mason today. Every time we go through there we say we should stop, but we never have. So today we went back north 40 miles to see it.

The town has a whole bunch of tourist shops and antique shops. We went through all of them, at least the ones that were open. Several are only open on the weekend. There was even a gun shop to go to. I saw a rifle I'd like to have, but it was about $250 more than I wanted to spend.

We saw a lot of cool stuff at the shops, but we didn't see anything that we really wanted to buy. I did get a few books for Dan.

When we got back we tried to find a place with antenna parts. It turns out that the closest DirecTV vendor is in Kerrville. Oh well.

Day 7

Fixing the tires went a smoothly as it could. There was a tire dealer 5 miles from the park that had two replacement tires. Not only that, but the store was on the way to Fredericksburg and there was a gas station on the way to it that had cheap fuel. It took about an hour to get the tires fixed. It was clear that I had hit something that cut the two tires that needed replacing. Whatever it was was nasty. The lead tire had serious damage. We were lucky it didn't blow.

The new tires are noname Chinese. Hopefully they won't be junk.

The trip was uneventful except that I got worse mileage than I expected. That was offset by the cheapest prices that we've seen on the trip. We got to the park about 1:00. That's probably earlier than we would have got there if we hadn't had tire trouble.

After we set up we went to town. We shopped for presents, but only found something for Hooch. We also stopped for a beer and did some grocery shopping at HEB. It's nice to get back to a place that doesn't charge near as much for food.

I was really tired when we got back to the trailer. I'm going to sleep in tomorrow.

Day 6

I'm not sure if we're lucky or unlucky today. The trip was uneventful. Just another long (360 mi) drive through the north Texas flatland. It was actually a few miles of Kansas, 40 miles of Oklahoma, and the rest Texas. We made OK, but not wonderful, time. Fuel has been getting cheaper as we go south.

At one point in Texas we drove through the results of one of their fires. We drove for one to two miles with burned trees on both sides of the road. We saw one burned out farmhouse. There could have been more, but that was the only one that was close enough to the road to see. It's amazing how fast the vegetation grows back. In some places it looked like the burned trees were growing new foliage.

Finding a campground was a little weird. There were three candidates. The offices of the first two were closed because it was Sunday. We stayed at the third one. Welcome to the Bible belt.

Now for the kicker. When we got to the campground I noticed that the tread on one of the tires on the right-hand side was separating. Looking closer, the other one was, too. The left-hand side tires looked OK. We would have been really screwed if they had blown out on the road.

Tomorrow I'll have to try and find someone to remove the tires from the trailer and replace them.

Day 5

The original intent was to go to Garden City today. Instead we went on to Liberal. That's 400 miles, and a big chunk of the distance left to go. We could make it to Austin from here in two long days, but I see no reason to.

About 100 miles of the trip was on the interstate and the rest was on back highways. There wasn't much traffic on the back roads at all. I think I passed two or three vehicles today and was passed by maybe 8 or so.

We've got a little bit of a timing issue here. It's Saturday, so all of the gun clubs that we could drive to will be closed for two days after we get there tomorrow. I don't see spending three days in either San Angelo or Midland. That means we might as well push on to Fredericksburg. That's 529 miles and too far for me to want to go in one day. I'm going to look for an intermediate point after I'm finished with this.

Since we can't shoot on the way down, it looks like we might as well go to Nationals. One option would be to get to Fredericksburg on Monday, stay Tuesday, and go to San Antonio on Wednesday. We could shoot practice of course, and maybe the K cup.

Day 4

Today we just screwed around a little. We went into Sidney to try to find a LNB for the dish. One place didn't have the right one. The only other one "won't have any until Tuesday". It's supposed to snow here on Tuesday.

The Galaxy POS refuses to stay connected to the internet here. So we went to the library to use their WiFi connection. We spent over an hour locating places in KS to hunt. I left messages at a couple, but they didn't call back.

For lunch we went to this fast food place called RUNZ. They sell this weird ground hamburger/cheese in a roll concoction. It wasn't terrible, but I don't think I try another. Their fries were great.

After lunch we went back to Cabela's to see about a clock for the big trailer. They didn't have the one we saw in the catalog, but we bought one that we liked better. I also bought some hearing protectors at the bargain cave and some sale ammunition.

I also called the club, to talk to Roy. He wasn't there, so I talked to Suzanne. I just bullshitted with her for a few minutes. She didn't seem to be upset with me. Later Roy called and I gave him Dave's number so that he could get the tower parts from him.

Right now we're fighting the POS trying to get connected enough to figure out where we are going tomorrow and what route we'll take. The tentative plan is to go down through KS. We may still get to hunt if one of the places calls back.

Day 3

On 250 miles to Sidney. The drive was more boring Wyoming accented by a whole lot of going up to go back down again. The culmination was climbing to 8600 feet east of Laramie so that we could descend to 4500 feet at Sidney.

The first 75 miles were made even more enjoyable by an asshole driving a double trailer. He was going about 1 mph faster than I was. That meant that it took literally miles for him to pass me. Of course he slowed down whenever there was a grade and I would pass him. I passed him at least three times in the 75 miles. I was happy to stop for gas so that he would get out of my hair.

Going to Cabela's was a good news/bad news thing. The good news was that I didn't have to pay for either the camping or the merchandise that I bought because of the credit that we had built up. Also, they had a nice pair of shoes in the bargain cave that I bought. The bad news was that they didn't have either the dog collar or the mesh vest that I wanted to by. The lady there said that they had put away the mesh vests this morning.

Tomorrow is a rest day. I need it. Even though today was only 250 miles, I was pretty tired by the time we got to Sidney.

Day 2

It was cold (28 degrees) in the morning. The truck was covered in frost and the water hoses frozen solid. I folded the hoses into the back of the truck and idled the truck until the defroster cleared the front window.

We originally planned to go to Rock Springs today. It's only 250 miles. When we got near Rock Springs I decided to go another 100 miles to Rawlins (the next campground). We had made good time and I didn't feel like stopping in Rock Springs at 1:15. Sitting around the campground isn't exciting.

Going this far means that we can sleep in tomorrow. We only have 250 miles to Sidney. That means I might end up going to Cabela's in the afternoon.

The trip through NW Utah and southern Wyoming has no socially redeeming value. The best thing to do is get through it ASAP. We did stop for a few minutes at the Devil's Slide. It's a cool rock formation in the canyon leading out of Ogden. Ellen took some pictures.

Two things about this stretch that are particularly aggravating are the trucks and the elevation changes. The overall elevation change is a rise of about 3,000 feet. Unfortunately about 1,000 feet of this gain is accomplished by going up 500 feet and then down 400 feet over and over again. Obviously this burns a lot of fuel.

The damn trucks don't make it any easier. The speed limit is 75. I go 63 because of the trailer tires. This means that the trucks are always passing me on the down hills and being passed by me on the up hills. Lots of times they cut me off at the bottom of a hill, or prevent me from passing a slower truck when I'm in the right lane. By the end of the day I'm driving like an asshole - just like they are.

We made good time again and made it to Rawlins by 3:30. That's after starting at 8:50. I'm going to take the dog for some bumper and then take a shower. The showers close at 7:00.

Day 1

I forgot to do an entry yesterday, so here's the inaugural entry for the fall.

We spent two weeks in Richland before we left Oregon. It was successful. We had a great time with Dan and Patsy. The dog had a good time hunting. We got 3 pheasants, a hun, a chukar, and at least half a dozen quail. The dog did super on the retrieves and not very well on the points. It's kind of sad to leave the people we know, but I really want to get down to Texas.

The drive from Richland to Snowville was typical - long and boring. The gas mileage was a little better than I expected. That might be because of the new tires.

It seemed that every time we stopped for fuel we were delayed by assholes that wouldn't clear the pumps. I really hate that. We made good time, but crossing the time zone cost us an hour. That meant we didn't do anything when we got to the campground except walk half a mile to the local cafe. It's got great food and atmosphere.

After dinner we watched a couple of DVDs. The campground doesn't have cable and the antenna I bought isn't compatible with our DirecTV receiver.