Category: 2024 Snowbird Trip
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2024 Snowbird Trip Recap
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12/19/2023 – 04/12/2024 It wasn’t our longest trip in Usain in terms of miles (almost 6,000), but it was the longest duration at 116 days away from home. That’s 2 adults and 2 cats living in a van for nearly 4 months! No new states visited in Usain this trip, but we got to see…
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Martie’s Farm, GNO then home
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Our last stop on this long trip was to Newton, Kansas to stay with Martie and Robert at their farm. Fence repair was occupying their time today, but we knew Martie was home to meet us when Daisy, Molly and Duke were on hand to greet us. You can always find the dogs with Martie.…
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Camping at a Casino?
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The halfway point between Leander and my friend’s farm in Kansas just happens to be the WinStar World Casino in Oklahoma. We aren’t big gamblers, but this enormous place catches your eye as you drive by. This time we stopped. Our first (and only) night was free, and the campground is really nice. There is…
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Solar Eclipse and a photo of Indian Paintbrush
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The day started off cloudy and had us worried a bit, but all was well come time for the eclipse. We are in Leander, Texas, which is in the path of totality. The cumulus clouds cleared off as the eclipse progressed, and then came back for a cloudy afternoon. Solar-reflected heat is the energy behind…
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Lakewood Park in Leander
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We walked for free today in a really nice city park a few miles from our campground. Lakewood has a dammed body of water called Soil Conservation Service Site 3 Reservoir. That’s official, but maybe the locals just call it Lakewood. This park has a very large and inclusive playground, a splash park (closed for…
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Leander KOA and Garey Park
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The wildflowers continued as we drove through the hill country part of Texas to reach Leander, where we have a four-day (mandatory for the reservation) stay to see about 4 minutes of totality during Monday’s solar eclipse. We are seeing RVs from many places in the US. If one wants to travel for the eclipse…
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Beautiful wildflowers on the way to 1693 Distillery
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With windy conditions coming our way again, we decided to leave San Angelo a day early and found a Harvest Host site just outside of Fredericksburg. They have a large field, and are already accepting several campers to stay until the eclipse. We are just staying tonight. The highways here were lined with wildflowers, so…
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San Angelo State Park, Texas
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We drove south and west today, so we are back in semi-arid territory with short, scrubby trees and drought-tolerant undergrowth. San Angelo State Park has miles of trails to explore. I took a bicycle ride back to the park entrance to check out the Library Box and found The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin. I’ll…
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Abilene State Park in Texas
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As we drove east toward Abilene, Texas, we watched the roadsides become more green, and saw farmland, wind turbines and a beautifully wooded state park south of the city of Abilene. The ranger checking me in asked how our drive was, and I said we welcomed the greening up of the landscape and seeing trees…
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Museums in Lubbock, Texas
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What do you do when it’s cold and windy out? You go visit a couple of museums and take really cold and noisy walks. In Lubbock, we stayed at an RV park in the city. It was nice and I was able to use the laundry facilities rather than finding a laundromat. Traffic noise is…