All of 2025
Our winter in Kemah followed our usual routine of catching
up with old friends from our working days, making the rounds of doctors for
annual checkups and labs, and getting our fill of visits to our favorite local
restaurants.
In mid-December, we attended our friends Karen & Henry’s annual Christmas
dinner party in Stonewall, TX, which is west of Austin. Our normal plan is to
take the bus up there and spend two nights at
Peach Country RV Park, which is less than a mile from their house. We
readied the bus for travel and headed out, only to find that every time I
stopped at a red light, the bus didn’t want to accelerate away. The turbo
wasn’t spooling up, leaving us just creeping for 5-15 seconds, and then the
turbo would kick in and off we’d go. This happened at each of half a dozen
lights, leaving me feeling very uneasy about continuing. We returned to the RV
park, packed a bag and headed out in the car. We made a call to our hosts,
arranged to stay in one of their Airbnb rooms, and cancelled the RV park
reservation. The dinner was great as usual and we enjoyed catching up with
numerous friends whom we may only see at this event. When we returned to Kemah,
I started researching what might be wrong with the bus. Was the turbo not
responding as it should, or was something else never telling it to go? I
checked and found no codes stored in the computer, as well as visited the
all-knowing resources of Google and YouTube. I exchanged e-mails with a
well-known CAT mechanic to ask his opinion. He suggested two data points to
monitor while trying to recreate the problem. I setup my ScanGuageD to monitor
those data points and we took off for a test drive. Of course, the problem
would not happen again. I drove around coming to a stop for at least a dozen
red lights and each time it accelerated away just fine. It’s hard to fix a
problem that you can’t recreate. Assuming the problem would come back sometime,
I left the ScanGuageD setup to monitor those parameters, but the problem never
happened again.
In January, we took our annual trip to New Orleans to help with putting on
Pardi Gras, a Trop Rock music event. We used to drive the car over, but the
hotel parking rate has gone up to $58/day, making flying Southwest Airlines a
better deal as long as you catch a fare sale. In 2006 Pardi Gras was the first
event to return to the French Quarter after Hurricane Katrina. In 2021 we were
the first event to return when Bourbon Street venues started to reopen after
Covid. Well, in 2025 we find ourselves returning just two weeks after the
tragic vehicle attack on Bourbon Street. While Pardi Gras takes place seven
blocks from where the attack happened, there was still an increased police
presence visible as a reminder.
As reverse snowbirds, we like being north in the summer and south in the
winter. The nice thing about the Houston/Kemah area is that while being south,
we still get cold enough to still feel like there are seasons. Cold fronts come
through regularly, usually dropping the low temps to the 40s and highs in the
50s. Usually at least once a year, one of the fronts will be strong enough to
actually get below freezing for a night or two, setting people scurrying to the
hardware stores for things to wrap exposed pipes and fixtures with. Even more
rare is the cold front that coincides with moisture resulting in snowfall. It’s
usually the perfect snowfall, where you awake to everything pretty and white,
and by 10 AM it’s all gone. The multi-day freeze of 2021 was a record smashing
exception to this, and this year gave us a little larger than usual storm.
January 20th and 21st brought several inches of snow,
which stuck around a day or so, but the difference between this storm and 2021
was that we didn’t lose power. I’ll take a 2-day winter anytime.
In February, we went to Port Aransas, TX to attend
Pirates & Poet’s annual Songwriters Invitational show. We usually take the
bus to Port A and make that our jumping off point for travels north. This year
however, we left the bus in Kemah and stayed at Plantation Suites where the main
part of the event is held. This event is limited to about 80 attendees, and
most of it is a listening room setting, which we enjoy. It was a good weekend
and after, we returned to Kemah.
Our reason for staying in Kemah another month was because we needed a good place to leave the bus for ten days while we took a cruise through the Panama Canal. This was a group Windstar cruise with three of our Trop Rock musician friends, Jerry Diaz, Donny Brewer, and Bob Durand. If you are not familiar with Windstar, the boats have only 150 cabins, so less than 300 guests. This means that the boats can go to smaller ports of call and you aren’t one of thousands vying for tours and other local stops. About half of the ship will be part of our group. Houston has two airports. Hobby is the smaller of the two and is located on the south side of the city, closest to Kemah. Hobby is primarily served by Southwest airlines. Unfortunately, we are flying United to Panama City, which mean going to George Bush Intercontinental Airport, a.k.a. The Big Airport. The Big Airport is on the north side of Houston. If you aren’t familiar with Houston, the city is fifty to sixty miles across. So, it’s fifty miles from Kemah to the airport. Since we have an early morning flight, we reserved a room at a hotel near the airport that offers a park/sleep/fly package. That way, we didn’t have to be up before dawn, and the package deal was not much more expensive than the regular airport parking would be. Quite a few of our group are on this same flight, so the partying started before we ever left the ground. In Panama City we had a bus arranged to take us to the hotel where we would spend the night before boarding the ship. The Bristol Panama is a five-star hotel in downtown Panama City. Our room was basically a one-bedroom apartment and possibly the finest hotel room I’ve ever had. Too bad it’s only for one night. That evening we were entertained by Jerry and Donny in the hotel restaurant. In the morning, we enjoyed a breakfast buffet at the hotel and then met in the lobby to await our transfer to the ship. Our room on the ship is one of the cheapest, but that doesn’t mean tiny. All of the cabins have the bedroom area, a sitting area with a couch and chairs, and a full bathroom. We are on the lowest level of guest rooms, in the first cabin from the bow, with a couple of portholes for a view of the water. IMO, we’ll be in the cabin to sleep, so cheapest is ok. About 6 PM, we left the dock and anchored out for our first night aboard. At dawn, we were already slowly underway towards the southern entrance to the canal for our appointed transit time. Approaching the southern end of the canal (yes, the canal runs north/south connecting the Caribbean and Pacific) there is an anchorage of small boats awaiting their transit dates and several docks for handling cargo containers. We then passed under the Bridge of The Americas and proceeded to the entrance to the Miraflores Locks. There are three chambers to the locks that raised us about 85 feet from sea level to the level of the canal. As we moved north, we passed through Culebra Cut and into Gatun Lake. Some vessels, especially small private boats will moor overnight in Gatun Lake because they are not fast enough to transit the whole canal in one day. On the north side of Gatun Lake, we entered the Gatun Locks, which again consists of three chambers, lowering us the 85 feet to the Caribbean. We passed under the Atlantic Bridge and past the Port of Colon where Pacific bound boats await their passage. From the canal, we traveled about 160 miles west to Bocas del Toro where we dropped the anchor. Bocas is a small town popular with cruisers and surfers. It’s one of those places where some people go to get lost. The next day, we went ashore in Bocas. Jerry, Donny and Bob have made arrangements to play at Bambuda, a waterfront hotel, bar and restaurant. Our group pretty much took over the place for a couple of hours. Overnight we traveled about 225 miles east to the San Blas Islands. There are about 365 islands in the San Blas archipelago, of which about 50 are inhabited. The Cuna Indians are the inhabitants of the San Blas and are known for their elaborate embroideries called molas. The islands are a very popular spot for cruisers to spend weeks, months, or years. I don’t know the specific island we anchored off, but it was setup to entertain cruise ships, with beach chairs and umbrellas. The ship provided the food for a beach lunch. There were many vendors setup hoping for our business. The next day was on to Cartagena, Columbia. It wasn’t until we spent our years on the boat that I realized there was more to Columbia than cocaine. As portrayed in the US, Columbia = cartels. When we were in the Caribbean on our boat, we had friends heading for the canal that stopped in Cartagena. It wasn’t until then that I started thinking there was more to Columbia. We were in Cartagena two days. On the first day we took a bus from the ship to Old Town and walked around. We had a goal in our wanderings. That was to find the Tejas Resto Bar to see if they would allow Jerry and Donny to play there the next day. We found it and a deal was struck to return the next day with a boatload of people. The next day, we returned as promised and enjoyed a couple hours of music and drinks and food. When we returned to the boat, we walked from the entrance to the port instead of the bus taking us all the way to the ship. This walk took us through the Port Oasis, which is an Ecopark containing lots of animals. As the sun set, we departed Cartagena behind another cruise ship. The next day was a “day at sea”. We spent part of it lounging on deck, reading books, and visiting with friends. Jerry and Donny did a show in the main showroom of the boat and a handful of us took over the game room for a late-night acoustic show. The next day, we arrived in Aruba and the termination of the cruise for almost all of us. We went through the normal cruise ship disembarking procedures of recollecting our passports and luggage and boarded a pre-arranged van to The Talk of the Town hotel where several of us are spending a couple more nights. We got to the hotel way before check-in time, so we spent several hours just hanging in the bar waiting for our room to be ready. After we got checked in, a group of us went across the street to the Surfside Beach Bar where we had dinner. The next morning, we bid goodbye to friends who were leaving, and I walked a few blocks to pick up a rental car for the day. We drove around the island clockwise, passing through the main drag of Oranjestad, the main city on the island. West of downtown is where all the large high-rise beach hotels are located, one after the other. We continued west and north to the California Lighthouse on the northwest tip of the island. From there we followed the northern coast to the east, stopping at Alto Vista Chapel, a small Catholic church popular for weddings. We continued east to Bushiribana Ruins. This is the remnants of a gold smelting mill, built in the early 1800s and abandoned in the early 1900s. Despite some of the walls looking pretty precarious, tourists were climbing all over it. Nearby was the Cave Pool which is a popular swimming spot accessed by climbing down a rocky path into a large crack in the shore. We were content with watching the younger, more agile people enjoying it. We continued making our way east and south towards the southeast point of the island. We stopped in the town of San Nicolas where we had a bite to eat and also walked around looking at the murals painted on almost every building. We proceeded on to the end of the island, passing the island’s prison, a large anchor memorializing lost seamen, and then stopped at Rum Reef Bar overlooking Baby Beach. Not far from here is the remains of a large refinery. The refinery was built in the 1920s and went through several owners including Exxon and most recently Citgo. It was one of the few refineries that could refine the heavy crude from Venezuela but that oil stopped flowing and it was shutdown forever in 2017. The government now owns the property and as of 2025 is beginning a very expensive dismantling and decontamination project. We returned to the hotel along the southern coast had a quiet evening preparing for our return to TX in the morning. Our flight back to Houston wasn’t until afternoon, so we went out to breakfast at a Dutch Pancake place. We had Dutch pancakes last year in Amsterdam, so we were hoping to repeat that experience and were not disappointed. We turned the rental car in and took their shuttle to the airport where we flew back to Panama City and connected with our flight to Houston. We arrived in the Houston area perfectly timed to see a beautiful sunset as we passed over the Texas coast over Galveston. Our experience with Immigration in Houston was terrible as there were only two open lanes (out of about 40) processing several hundred people in line. It took over an hour to get through Immigration and on to find our bag. Once we were outside it also took quite a while to get the right shuttle back to the hotel where the car was parked. We finally got the car and drove the hour south to the bus. While it ended with a stark welcome back to reality, it was a great trip.
We were just back in Kemah a week when it was time to pack the bus up and head north of Houston to Lake Conroe and the Lone Star Luau held at the Lake Conroe Margaritaville Resort. As with previous years, we are helping Thom Shepherd and Coley McCabe with putting on the event. Instead of staying at the hotel, we are able to park the RV in a large overflow parking lot about half a mile away and dry camp there. This year the weather cooperated and we didn’t have any snow or freezing rain to contend with. The event was good and we enjoyed all the music.
The last few years, our plan after Lone Star Luau has been to go north to the Dallas area to my son’s house for April. This year was intended to be the same until a couple of weeks ago when my son called to let us know that he was getting divorced and the house was being sold. We have plans to go with him to the NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway the first weekend in May though, so we now have to find something else to do for April still ending in Ft. Worth. So, we found a few Corp of Engineers parks between Houston and Ft. Worth and made reservations. The first park was Cedar Ridge on Belton Lake, which is just west of Temple. We had a nice view of the lake, although the water level was extremely low. One of the first things we found at this park was that it is home to a large herd of deer. There were 25+ deer that came out of the woods and grazed through the grass areas of the camping area each morning and evening. One of the things I had planned to do at my son’s house was change the oil in the bus. I couldn’t find any written rule specifically saying that maintenance was not allowed in the park, so I went ahead and accomplished this while we were there. We stayed at this park for 11 days during which the weekends were busy, but the weekdays had very few occupied sites. Next, we moved on north to McCown Valley on Lake Whitney. This park is a little north of Waco. Again, we found the place empty on the weekdays and full on the weekends. This park had a feature we have not seen before at COE parks; an equestrian camping area. In addition to the normal picnic table etc., each space had places to tie horses. A fun thing we saw at our site was many roadrunners. At first I thought there was just a pair who would run from the bushes near our spot, all the way across the camping area, and then after maybe ten minutes they would come running back. I started paying more attention and realized there were at least six of them, not just a pair. We took a day to go into Waco and have breakfast at Chip & Joanna Gaines’ restaurant Magnolia Table. We then found the Shops at the Silos where we browsed all the shops and had a beer. We spent two full weeks here and then moved further north to South Holiday Park on Benbrook Lake just west of Ft. Worth. On the way into the park, I made the mistake of following my GPS instead of some limited signage. This resulted in taking us through a tight neighborhood and ending at a dead end with a turnaround. I was just able to make the U-turn without having to unhook the car so I could back up. Once we followed the signs, we got to our spot just fine. We spent six nights at this park before heading on to the racetrack.
We have camped at almost a dozen NASCAR tracks over the years. With the exception of Sonoma, CA, the $200 - $300 fee got you dry camping for the whole week prior to the race. This was the case last year when we came to Texas Motor Speedway. This year though, my $300 only gets us in on Thursday prior to the race. We did have a better spot than last year, but it still pissed me off that they charge more and give you less. Even though my son’s house is about an hour away, he can’t stay with us because he still has his horses, goats, and chickens and he needs to feed them daily. So, he came each day to visit and go to the various race events each day. Now for the good part. Any grumpiness I had about the camping fees was erased by the fact that my son scored us all-access passes for the entire weekend. By all-access, I mean ALL access compliments of NBC Sports. We were allowed to roam around the garages, be in the pits before and during the races, and pretty much go anywhere. We also had good real seats (in the shade) between the start/finish line and turn one. On Friday afternoon, we went down to the infield and wandered through the truck garage area and got the lay of the land before going up to our seats to watch the race. On Saturday we went to the infield and roamed around the garages for a while, then hung out just behind the pits during Xfinity and Cup qualifying. We were able to go out to the stage at the start/finish line where the driver introductions happen, and stood right off the end of the stage where all the drivers walked past us after their intro. We went back to the pits until the start of the Xfinity race to see the first couple of laps from that point of view, then went up to our seats via the under-track pedestrian tunnel for the rest of the race. We did a similar thing on Sunday, except there was no on-track action until the race, so we spent more time wandering the garage area and up and down pit road looking at the cars. We saw all of the TV reporters doing their interviews and pre-race clips. By chance, we were standing in the right place to see all the drivers walk from the driver’s meeting to their cars. Once they were all near their cars, we walked up and down pit road again and got some pictures. Again, we stayed in the pits to see the start from there, and then went to our seats for the rest of the race. In addition to the NASCAR trucks Friday, Xfinity cars Saturday, and Cup cars Sunday, there are sprint cars with the High Limit Series racing on the dirt tract adjacent to the big track on Friday and Saturday nights. We had tickets to everything, and a couple of my son’s co-workers came to the sprint car races too. The weather cooperated all weekend, with the only rain coming Friday morning and not affecting the program. Also, we were not in a spot that got wet after the rain so all in all we had a great time.
This must be our season for plans changing. Our plan after
the races was to go to northern New Mexico to my exe’s property which we have
visited before. But, during race weekend, she called to let me know that her
brother had been in an accident in Tucson and she had to go deal with that. So,
while we were welcome to come park on their property anyway, I didn’t want to
deal with the 10 miles of dirt road if they weren’t going to be there. We have
another fixed date to meet friends in Colorado, so now we had to fill the 10
days that we were going to be in NM. So, we made quick plans to overnight in
Wichita Falls and Amarillo, then spend 5 nights in Santa Fe and 3 nights in
Taos. We had stayed at the Santa Fe park before. The park itself is basically
just a parking lot. Probably ¾ of the park seemed to be long-term residents.
We spent the days checking out Santa Fe shops, restaurants and a nice farmer’s
market. The park in Taos was a little odd. It was old and small, but they
seemed to be doing some DIY upgrades. They had us reserved for a spot that was
going to be a challenge to back into due to a pile of dirt, but the guy who
seemed to be in charge moved us to another spot. Later a smaller trailer got to
back into the spot we originally had. One day while here, we took a loop road
trip through Angel Fire and Red River and back to Taos. This took us over the
Rio Grande Gorge Bridge which was unexpected in the middle of the desert.
On this trip, we also had a flat tire. I got to find out if the little donut
tire that has not been touched since it was built in 2010 has air in it. It
did! We drove on the spare to a tiny village called Eagles Nest where we found
a tire shop. We determined that there was no leak in the tire, but the sensor
for my tire pressure monitoring system in the bus had come loose. The guy
checked out the tire and then put it back on the car and didn’t want any
payment. I gave him a nice tip. While in Taos, I tried something I hadn’t done
before; getting an Amazon delivery to a locker. It worked seamlessly and was a
nice option while traveling.
After Taos, we got back on our planned schedule by joining fellow Alfa owners
Jim & Becky Godfrey to camp in Woodland Park, CO with their local camping club.
There was a total of nine rigs there, and we enjoyed meeting their friends.
There was a lot of time spent around the campfire and sharing meals.
Now we will get started on our main summer event. The plan is to go to my
brother’s house in the Hudson Valley of NY via Vancouver. In other words, we
are going to cross Canada west to east over about six weeks. Then while in NYS,
I am scheduled to get a new knee. From Woodland Park, we drove to a KOA in
Lyman, WY. This KOA was quite long in the tooth. We seemed to be one of three
rigs in the place, but it satisfied our needs. The next stop a Harvest Host,
the Vali-Hi Angus Farm. It was a nice quiet farm and we bought some meat from
them. Next was the Columbia River RV Park in Portland, OR. We are spending a
few days here to visit Portland. The park was quite tight and occupied by
mostly smaller rigs like Class Cs. Turned out the airport wasn’t far away, but
when closed up inside it wasn’t bad. While in Portland, we did another Amazon
first; we picked an order up at a distribution center. Once we found the
correct door, it was surprisingly easy. Another option while traveling. We
took a day trip to the coast at Tillamook. It was a nice ride through the State
Forest. We visited the
Washington Park International Test Rose Garden one day, but we were still a
little early for most of the roses to be blooming. It was still a nice park to
walk around. We also rode the
Portland Aerial Tram to get a nice view of the city from the top. While
Portland has been in the news over the past year with claims that it is under
siege, we found no such thing. There is a noticeable amount of people living in
cars and old RVs, but the claims of anarchy are bull.
From Portland, we are Canada bound. We drove to another Harvest Host, Oostema Wagyu Farm, which was another cattle ranch selling their Wagyu beef. We enjoyed chatting for quite a while with the owner about beef and traveling to Canada. She assumed we were heading to Alaska and was surprised when we explained our plans. Our reason for picking this stop was its proximity to the Lynden border crossing. We hope to avoid crowds at the Blaine crossing where the interstate crosses. Well, we did avoid the crowds, but probably didn’t save time. As we approached the checkpoint, the signage said either “passenger cars” or “trucks”. Nothing about RVs. So, guessing that the lane size may be the determining factor, I went towards the truck lanes and pulled up behind one truck at the booth. In seconds, an officer walked up and with a snide attitude said “are you a truck”? I calmly said no but I thought I might be too large for the car lanes. He told me to back up and go to the car lanes. I explained that I couldn’t back up without disconnecting the car. That concept appeared to be totally foreign to him and I had to repeat it to him before he told me to follow the truck but “pay attention next time”. I didn’t continue to argue the point that there was no RV signage. When we pulled ahead to the booth, the same guy was in the booth. He took our passports, asked a few questions that you would expect, then told us to pull ahead, park in the inspection lanes, and then take our passports over to the main building by the car lanes. We parked, and walked to the building where we found four officers in an empty room since there was no incoming traffic. One officer motioned us to his window, where he took our passports and again asked us the expected questions about where we were going, for how long, did we have pets, booze, drugs, or firearms. When I answered no about firearms, he asked if we owned any but didn’t bring them. I explained I had never owned any despite being from Texas. I explained that our lifestyle of traveling from country to country on the boat and now state to state in the RV didn’t lend itself to legally carrying them. He finally accepted that and told us to have a seat while he went out to inspect the RV. After maybe ten minutes out there one of the other officers called us up, gave us our passports, an told us to go meet the first guy out there. We went out and he asked us to unlock the RV (which we had told him was unlocked). He just wasn’t pulling hard enough, so we let him in and he asked us to double check the outside compartment latches to make sure they had all closed after he had looked in them. By the time I walked around the bus checking doors, he was outside and commented that we had a nice rig. We thanked him and were on our way. All told it took us about half an hour to cross. Although it was more than we expected, there was no issue with anything we had.
Our RV park in Vancouver is the Burnaby Cariboo RV Park in Burnaby which is an eastern suburb of Vancouver. As we turned down the street that ran along a creek and under a highway bridge, I was wondering if the GPS was leading us astray again, but sure enough, the park was at the end of the street. The park is pretty old, probably built before RVs got big. The park is pretty full, with the vast majority being small trailers or Class Cs, many of which are rentals. Rental Class Cs would turn out to be a very common sight throughout western Canada. We were able to back into our spot with the nose of the rig being just on the line and the back almost in the trees, but it worked. There was a railroad behind us, just out of sight through the trees, and being in the city, the trains move slowly meaning the noise lasts longer, but we’ll survive. The first day we were in Vancouver, we just drove around getting the lay of the land. We found Granville Island and the Public Market which is lots of cool vendors. This area was the location of both the 1986 Worlds Fair and the 2010 Olympics. We had lunch at one of the restaurants in the market and enjoyed browsing around. The next day we took a road trip north to Whistler stopping on the way back in the town of Sproatt for lunch at the Whistler Brewing Company. The scenery was beautiful, and along the way we got to see a bear in the wild. (Some may recall that we spent a week in Yellowstone and never saw a bear.) The next day we took a trip to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. The beginning of the park passed through a number of cool totem poles and exhibits honoring the First-Nation peoples of the area. The highlight of the park is the 450-foot-long pedestrian suspension bridge 230 feet over the Capilano River. The bridge takes you to the Rainforest Canopy Walk which is a suspended walkway in the treetops. There is also a non-elevated trail through the forest which included a stop to see a couple of birds-of-prey. Back on the starting side, we walked on the Cliffwalk which is a glass floor walkway on the side of the cliffs along the river. The next day we went to the Britannia Shipyards Maritime Museum in Richmond, on the water of the Strait of Georgia. We toured the museum and had lunch at a little outdoor place on the water that served salmon fish & chips. Returning to the RV park after one of our day trips, we intentionally got off the expressway to drive through downtown Vancouver. By chance we drove on Hastings Street which has become a center of the large homelessness problem in Vancouver. Block after block we saw hundreds of homeless people and their tents, grocery carts etc. ranging from people who could have been your neighbor, to those obviously strung out or with mental health issues. It was pretty sad.
From Vancouver we headed northeast towards Jasper. Our first stop for two nights was Merritt, BC. Merritt is a logging town and you can tell that’s the only reason the town is here. Moon Shadows RV Park was a rustic park with quite a few permanent residents. Our spot was right on the banks of the Coldwater River (there’s an imaginative name). Our second stop, also for two nights, was Blue River Campground, in Blue River, BC. The funny thing about this campground was that to get to the pull-thru sites, you went back out onto the street and drove through the lawn into the site. On our way here, we had a flat tire on the tow dolly. I had put the spare on, but not wanting to continue without a spare, on our day here we drove 90 km north to a tire shop in Valemount. The very talkative guy there tried to put a patch in the tire, but the 80 lbs. of pressure blew it out. So, he had a tire that was the right wheel size but skinnier that he sold me and mounted. I figured it could be the spare. An interesting tidbit about Blue River was that there was a long-running protest going on against the Trans-Mountain Pipeline. The protest has become a semi-permanent tiny-home encampment outside the entrance to a pipeline pumping station. This is all just across the street from the RV park.
We continued north and east to Jasper. On the way, we had another flat on the dolly. This time a valve stem failed, so I put on the new spare and hoped that being even smaller, it would make it to Jasper. In 2024, Jasper and the surrounding area was devastated by a wildfire. About 1/3 of the town was destroyed along with about 80,000 acres of the Jasper National Park. Our reservation is in the Whistler Campground which has been reopened with no services other than a rebuilt visitor’s center and bath houses. The campground is just south of the village. We found the nice new visitors center, got checked in and found our spot. This campground has 781 sites and was nearly full, even though almost everything is gone. The burnt trees left standing have all been cut to avoid falling, but they’re not all cleaned up. With the vegetation gone, there is also a lack of critters. There was a mama elk with a baby, but there were no little critters or birds. Looking up the mountain from the campsite it was clear what burned and what didn’t. In town we found that the main drag had been saved, and while you were there you could be unaware of the damage just blocks away. By the time we were there, almost all the debris had been removed, leaving whole cleared areas where neighborhoods had been. One day we rode the Sky Tram to the summit of Whistler’s Mountain. The Sky Tram was not affected by the fire. The lower station had been defended although the fire came close, and the upper station is well above the tree line. At the top we enjoyed a snack in the restaurant. I ordered poutine, which I have never had before. The waitress informed me that the best poutine is in Quebec where she is from, but for being outside Quebec, it was pretty good here. I thought it was pretty good, but I had no frame of reference. The view from the top of the tram put the fire’s effect on the town on clear display. You could clearly see the cleared areas and the undamaged area. One day we drove to Maligne Lake which is east of Jasper. The ride there took us through burnt areas, but the area around the lake was not affected. We browsed the gift shop and got coffees to sit by the lake and enjoy the scenery.
From Jasper, we turned south towards Banff. Halfway between Jasper and Banff is the Columbia Ice Fields Center. The Athabasca Glacier is a glacier that you can actually walk on. The visitor center has a large RV parking lot that is first-come-first-served and you can stay overnight. We had a late afternoon reservation for the glacier tour, but we left Jasper early in the hopes of scoring a parking space with no problem. When we got there, we found that the lot is pretty sloped except at the very top. We found plenty of places to park, but not near the top. Even though our reservation wasn’t for several hours, we went to the check-in desk to see if we might get in earlier. We were moved up to a group leaving in about an hour. So, we went back to the bus to get our coats and then went and got in line. The tour boards a bus which takes you across the highway and down a road towards the glacier. Nearer the base, you get off that bus and board a giant all-wheel drive bus that takes you the rest of the way onto the glacier. The glacier itself was slushy in the area where we could walk, and you had to watch for the little rivers of clear, cold water running off. Wearing only sneakers, we had to be careful to not reboard the bus with soaking wet feet. The on-glacier bus took us back to the transfer spot where we switched back to a regular bus that then took us north a few miles to the Skywalk. The Skywalk is a 1300 foot long glass walkway that arches out 1000 feet over the Sunwapta Valley. Lots of people freak out at walking on the glass, but it doesn’t bother us. When you have had enough of the valley views, you board a bus back to the visitor’s center. By the time we returned to our bus, most of the RVs had left, leaving plenty of space left near the top of the lot where it is more level. We moved to a better spot and settled in for the evening. We were amongst fewer than a dozen overnighters and had a nice quiet night.
In the morning, we continued south to Banff. We are staying at another national park campground called Tunnel Mountain 1. As with Jasper, this is dry camping. Unlike Jasper, there are only two small two-hour windows when you can run a generator. We adhered to their schedule, which meant our batteries were never getting fully recharged, and we did witness the park rangers politely remind our neighbor about the restrictions. We found downtown Banff to be a busy place, with parking at a premium and lots of people walking the main drag of shops and restaurants. One day we took a road trip south of Banff. The plan was to take the Trans-Canada south to the next town, Canmore, where we would take Three Sisters Parkway south to Hwy 40 which would bring us back north through Kananaskis Village to the Trans-Canada and back west to Banff. In Canmore, we stopped at a Subway and got sandwiches to take along for a picnic lunch along the way. We didn’t know that shortly out of Canmore, the road became a gravel road with varying degrees of washboard. About 10 miles south of Canmore, at the north end of Spray Lake, we came to a RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) roadblock. The officer asked us where we were heading and we told him we were just out for a ride. He told us if we were going to hike, to stay to the west of the road as east of the road was closed. We laughed that we were in no danger of hiking and bid him farewell. We continued another 20 miles south enjoying the scenery to the Chester/Sawmill Cross Country Trailhead where there was parking and a couple of picnic tables. We waved to a few RCMP officers eating lunch by the trailhead and we sat across the parking lot at a picnic table. After enjoying our lunch, we continued south another 10 miles until we hit Hwy 40 where we turned back north. In the 40 miles or so of the gravel road, we had seen at least a dozen RCMP or Fish & Wildlife officers or their cars. It made us wonder what the deal was. Hwy 40 was a real paved highway, but about 7 miles north, we came to another RCMP roadblock. The first officer politely told us that we couldn’t go any further and would have to go back. A second officer, a woman, approached because she saw our Texas plates. She asked where in TX we were from, and we told her between Houston and Galveston. She smiled and said she had worked on a cruise ship out of Galveston. But, even though we had a nice little chat, we would still have to go back. They did make sure to ask if we had enough gas, as there was only one chance to get more, and it was just south of where we were stopped. Before we turned around, I mentioned to the officer that it might be nice if the guys at the other roadblock made it more clear exactly what was closed. We still didn’t know why the area was closed and when we asked, they were not forthcoming. We headed back the 40 miles of washboard gravel to Canmore and then back to the bus. We later learned that the reason for the closure was the upcoming G7 meeting. We were aware that the G7 was going to be in Calgary, and had intentionally planned to avoid being right in Calgary then. What we didn’t know was that the meeting wasn’t actually in Calgary, but rather at the Kananaskis Resort, which was on Hwy 40 between where we got turned around and the Trans Canada Hwy. So much for my planning. The next day, we took another ride, this time northeast of Banff to Lake Minnewanka, Two Jacks Lake, and Cascade Ponds. There were no roadblocks this time.
After a few days, we moved east to the east side of Calgary. Along the Trans Canada on the way, we passed a couple of small motorcades of people heading for the G7 meeting. East of Banff, you lose the mountains and begin crossing the plains of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Just like the center of the US, it’s pretty flat farmland. Something we have noticed on this drive is the lack of large truck stops. Instead, you’ll find regular gas stations with a couple of truck lanes and a few parking spaces. Our fuel discount card that we use in the US doesn’t work in Canada anyway, so we’re back to using GasBuddy to try and find the best price. While the price of fuel was higher than currently in the US, it wasn’t as high as the US was in 2022 and 2023. The park outside Calgary was nothing to write home about, but it was quiet and easy access from the highway. Speaking of the highway, the Trans Canada Highway is not always a 4-lane highway like the Interstate system in the US. In some places it is a limited-access highway, in some places it’s four lanes but with crossroads, and in some places it’s just a two-lane.
While watching Saturday morning TV in Jasper, we caught a Jack Hanna show from 2010 that featured a wildlife rescue place called Discovery Wildlife Park. It just happened to be halfway between Calgary and Edmonton, in Innisfail, and it has an RV park. So, after a few days around Calgary, we headed north to this park. The park requires reservations to tour, and ours aren’t until tomorrow, so we found a nice brewery for lunch and had a relaxing evening. In the morning, we were at the entrance waiting for them to open. There were a few school busses of little kids there too, but we got the jump on them and got right in. We spent several hours walking around looking at the various animals who found their way here.
The next day, we continued north to Edmonton. Something we noticed since leaving Calgary was the end of the flood of Class C rentals. I guess the mountains are where everyone wants to spend their holidays. The RV park here is a nice park, which is actually in St. Albert, a northwestern suburb of Edmonton. One day, we drove into downtown Edmonton to check it out. We have found that opening the inner cover of our sunroof gives an excellent view of downtown skyscrapers without craning your neck out a window. That’s really the only good use I’ve found for a sunroof. After cruising around, we found a place to park and went to lunch at the Underground Tap Room which was one level down from street level in an office building. It was a sports bar, which was evidenced by the silverware handles in the shape of hockey sticks and golf clubs. After lunch we found the downtown funicular which takes you down from the downtown street level to the park level along the North Saskatchewan River. We walked along the river some, insulated from the sounds and bustle of the city by the elevation difference. The next day we drove east to the Elk Island National Park. The park has bison, elk, and lots of birds. After visiting the visitor’s center, we drove to the Astotin Lake Recreation area. On the way we passed a bison hiding in the trees along the road. At the lake, we found a boardwalk through the wetlands where we could see several types of waterfowl and off in the distance we did see some elk. We continued to drive to the other side of the park where we found the original ranger house. We exited the park on the north side and headed west on what they call Township roads through a very rural area. The weather looked like it could rain, and at one point, up ahead the road looked odd. It looked white, but I thought it must just be an optical illusion. As we got closer, we realized it wasn’t an illusion, but rather the road was white from pea sized hail. And then we entered the falling hail. Not knowing what way the squall was moving, I didn’t know whether to stop and wait, or drive through, so we kept on driving slowly. There was no place to pull under any kind of cover, and it sounded like the car was getting beat up, but in the end, there was no damage. After a few miles, we drove out of the storm and continued west to Fort Saskatchewan where we stopped to eat at the Canadian Brewhouse. I tried another Canadian food, the Donair sandwich. A Donair sandwich is similar to a Greek Gyro, but the meat is beef. It is roasted on a vertical spit that it is carved from the same way a gyro is made. It was quite tasty. From Fort Saskatchewan, it was big road back to the bus. Another day we went to the West Edmonton Mall. We are not shoppers, but this mall is an attraction. In addition to any store or food choice you want, it has an indoor waterpark, karting track, ice skating rink, bowling alley, aquarium, and Hasbro themed amusement park. It was quite a place and after walking around looking at everything, we had something to eat and headed home.
Next, we headed southeast to the Gordon Howe Campground in Saskatoon. This park is an older one (i.e. not designed for 40 foot plus Class As) right in the city. There were some tight turns around big trees with several scars from previous encounters with RVs, but we made it. We spent a day at the Western Development Museum. The museum had a large display of vintage cars, model trains, tractors, tools, and a recreated “main street”. We just happened to be there when a wedding was taking place on Main Street. As we left the museum, it was raining but we heard the sound of car engines racing nearby. We got in the car and crossed the parking lot to where a group was watching a drifting competition. The rain didn’t seem to be deterring them.
Our next big city is Winnipeg, with an overnight stop on the way in Yorkton, SK. The RV park in Yorkton is on the edge of town, just off the highway and is owned by the city. We had a reservation, and had been told a phone number to call when we got there. The guy who answered the phone told us what spot to go to, and to come back to the office to check-in later. We followed the signage and found the assigned pull-thru spot near the back of the park. The roads in the park and the sites are all gravel, and there has apparently been a lot of rain lately, because the whole place was pretty muddy, but it’s fine for just an overnight. I checked in later with the park host, who apparently has been here running the park since 2008. We had a good night and carried on to a KOA outside Winnipeg in the morning. The campground was large and well-kept and although just off the highway, it is outside of the city a bit. On the trip today, we had a little issue with the bus. A check-engine warning light came on and the engine monitor registered a code. I also noticed the oil pressure gauge was very low. After a couple of seconds, the pressure came back to normal and the light went out. This wild fluctuation continued until I got off at the next exit and checked the oil. I have never had to add oil between oil changes, so I was surprised to find that it was a gallon low (it hold five gallons). There was no evidence of leaking and I’ve never noticed any smoke from the exhaust, so where the oil went is a mystery. I added a gallon and started the engine. The pressure seemed to be normal, so we carried on to the KOA with no further issue. One day, we went to The Forks. The Forks is a neighborhood at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. It had been the natural meeting place and trading post for Indigenous peoples, fur traders, and then the railroads. Over the past 30 years, the abandoned railyard has been redeveloped into a neighborhood of residential and commercial properties. One of the large attractions in The Forks is the Human Rights Museum. We were not expecting to find such an interesting and well-designed place. We spent more than half the day learning about Canada’s history of human rights, from the history of the First Nations to racial issues, slavery, Asian influx, LGBTQ+ and differently-abled people’s treatment. It was very interesting to see both parallels and differences in how Canada’s history with these issues compared to the US history. Even more sobering was thinking about how many of these issues are still being dealt with today. After the museum, we went to The Forks Market which is inside a large building that had been stables in the railroad days. Inside there were many shops, including over a dozen food vendors and a large beer and wine bar. We picked up a couple of craft beers and then got a pizza.
Our next destination is Thunder Bay, Ontario, with a mid-way stop at the Wabigoon Lake RV Park. This was a little private park right off the highway again, with a bonus of a railroad following the highway. The park was less than twenty gravel/grass spots, and most were pull-thru so we didn’t have to unhook the car. The next day we continued to Chippewa Park outside Thunder Bay. The directions provided by the RV park were very specific about NOT following your phones navigation, which would take you to a narrow bridge. Our RV specific Garmin routed us the way they suggested, so we didn’t have a problem, and when we later crossed the narrow bridge in the car, we understood what they meant. The old steel bridge was two lanes, but each was very narrow with a high concrete curb that would be very unforgiving of your wheels or tires. The RV park is part of a large park that is all on First Nations land. As in the US, First Nations land is often home to cheap fuel and cheap smokes, as they are exempt from taxes. This meant we were able to fill the bus for about $.75/gal less than the going rate around Thunder Bay. The road to the park was a couple of miles of pretty rough road. Once we got in to the park, we found not only the RV park, but a large park with a big pavilion and beach. We had a nice big pull-thru site on the edge of the park, away from the bulk of the sites. One day we visited the Ft. William Hitorical Park where everyone is in-period character. From the large visitor’s center, you walk a little over a quarter mile to the edge of the fort itself, where you find a covered seating area with a campfire and a voyageur waiting to start the next guided tour of the fort. You realize that you have stepped back to 1815 and your guide (a voyageur) was one of many who worked for the North West Company paddling canoes along the river, either from here east to Montreal, or to points west where furs were harvested. The voyageur will start to explain his job and then lead us towards the entrance to the fort. Before entering the fort, we stop at one of the several teepees to visit with some of the Ojibway Indigenous People who help the fur traders navigate life in the wilderness. We move along and enter the fort itself, with it log walls protecting it. Inside there are numerous buildings, each with its own purpose, from the fur storage building to the canoe construction and repair shop, to residence and dining halls. Our voyageur explains along the way how the fur trade worked, with furs coming from the west and being exchanged for goods that went back west while the furs were forwarded on east to Montreal. This trade was all done via canoe and the voyageurs worked very hard to make these trips. The whole place was very well done and having the people in character was fun. Another day, we toured the Alexander Henry, an ice-breaker turned to museum. The museum is a one-person operation, and our tour guide seemed happy to have some business. He spent about thirty minutes more than the allotted hour for our tour since we were interested. Thunder Bay is a paper mill town. Unfortunately for the town, the paper mill makes newsprint, and the demand for newsprint has plummeted over the past few years. I know paper mills are not great for the environment and tend to stink, but it is sad to see a town that depends heavily on any one industry suffer when that industry dies.
From Thunder Bay, we followed the coast of Lake Superior north and east to the Neys Provincial Park. We have a reservation here for two nights in an electric-only spot. We found the park and checked in. There are several distinct areas to the campground, but only one that has electricity. The area with electricity is basically two rows of pull through spots, with a row on the beach and a row behind that. We are in the back row which is amongst tall pines and has about fifty feet between each spot. Once parked, I went to plug us in, but didn’t see an outlet. Looking around at other spots, I realized that between each pair of spots there were two outlets. It’s a good thing I have two long extensions for our power cord. I can imagine most campers being surprised by this. We enjoyed two nights here before moving on towards Sault Ste. Marie.
In 2020, we spent a week in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. This trip we are in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. We are only spending two nights here so on our full day we went to visit the Canadian locks. There are three locks between Lake Superior and the St. Marys River which leads to Lake Huron. Two on the American side and one on the Canadian side. The US ones are large enough to handle large cargo ships, including the 1000-foot-long ore haulers, while the Canadian lock only handles pleasure craft. We first toured the small visitor’s center which explains the history of the locks, then we walked across the top of the lock doors to the island south of the lock. The trail takes you out to the southern edge where you can see the rapids and across to the US side. At the end of the trail there is a covered seating area where we thought there was a homeless guy. Turned out that, while he might have been homeless, he was sitting out there because he was shooting up. He didn’t seem disturbed by our presence, so we just passed him by and went out on the rocks. I checked the Marine Traffic app and there weren’t any 1000-footers coming, so we returned to the lock where as luck would have it, the local tour boat was about to lock through, so we got to watch that.
Our next stop will be the Toronto area. We already have a longer than normal day planned, at eight hours, but then fate made it longer. We had another dolly tire valve stem break, meaning I had to put the undersized spare on again. Additionally, the other dolly tire is wearing very badly. So, I stopped at a tire shop in the next town to replace the valve. I found three very talkative guys there who were excited to talk to the American about current affairs. They also happened to have two new tires, the right size, that they would be happy to sell me. And, when it came time to pay, they were really happy if I could pay them with US cash. It was fun to chat with them, but we needed to get back on the road (45 minutes later). Western Ontario was surprisingly beautiful, with rolling hills and tons of lakes. But, in the rolling hills, we were beginning to have an overheating problem. The bus has always been prone to overheating on long mountain climbs, but this was getting worse than usual, and we had to stop a couple of times to let it cool off (more delay). Then, of course, there was weather. A heavy rain storm slowed us again, but we finally got to the Olympia Village RV park. Olympia Village is outside of Hamilton, which is about halfway between Toronto and Niagara Falls. Our logic staying here is to make day trips to Toronto, Niagara, and visit Alfa friends and some old boating friends. We found the park to be probably 90% permanent residents with a small section for transients like us. We also found that they are under a boil-water notice, so when we went to the grocery store, we picked up a case of bottled water, which we never normally drink. One day we went to visit Alfa friends Dave & Willie at their summer residence. After visiting for a while, we went to a nice lunch. The next day, old cruising friends Don & Heather came to the bus to visit and we had lunch there. We haven’t seen them since 2014, our last year on the boat in the USVI. The next day, we drove about an hour to visit the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. We have always heard that the view of the falls is very different depending on which side you are on, so we figured we’d do both. Somehow, growing up in New York State, I’ve never been to Niagara Falls. I was duly impressed by the falls. It was not at all crowded so we enjoyed walking along the park’s edge towards a casino where we had lunch at Shoeless Joe’s Sports Grill. We ended up blowing off visiting Toronto proper, because I’ve been there several times and Barb didn’t care to see another big city.
Our time in Canada has come to an end, and we moved today to Grand Island, NY. Given the current US/Canada tensions, we didn’t know if there would be any stricter inspections at the border to make sure we weren’t smuggling back a bus load of contraband. This time, the signage made it clear that RVs went with cars. It took maybe fifteen minutes to make it to the booth, and when we did, we just got the standard questions and waved on. No drama at all. We continued on to the KOA Grand Island where we were able to check in early. This is a large nice KOA and we got a pull-thru in the back. We are here for three nights, so one day we went to the US side of the falls. In addition to just viewing from the top, we took the ride on the Maid of the Mist. Even though it’s a very touristy thing to do, which we usually avoid, it was pretty cool. We also rode the tram over to Goat Island and the lookout point over Horseshoe Falls, where we had lunch at the Top of the Falls restaurant. The next day we took a ride south through Buffalo and had lunch in Athol Springs. We had to visit Athol Springs just because of the name. Athol, Idaho is where we spent 2021 and 2023 summers workamping. The day we left, we stopped to fill up with propane at the KOA. I knew it was probably more expensive there than other places, but it was conveniently located right on the way out. We paid a lot for that convenience, as it turned out to be over $7/gallon!
We drove from Nagara to Corning, NY where we stayed at Ferenbaugh Campground, north of town. We found there is a surprising lack of RV parks in this part of New York State. It seems most of them are seasonal residents only – no transients. Our primary purpose for stopping mid-state was to visit an old friend in Endicott (an hour away) and this was the closest to there we could find. Anway, we found this park to be a combination of small spots in the woods that seemed to be seasonal, and pull-thrus in what amounted to a field with utility hookups. But, we’re not here for the park, so it’s fine. One day we drove to Endicott to see my old friend Glenn. Glenn and I met about 1971 when I worked for IBM in NY. Since I left NY in 1975, we’ve only seen each other in person a few times, but we’ve always kept in touch. We spent a few hours there including going to eat spiedes. Spiedes are an Endicott specialty. Another thing I never did even though I grew up in NY was to visit the Corning Glass Museum. So, we spent a day there. And when I say spent a day, yes it was the whole day. The museum is beautiful and very well displayed. It displays glass as art, covers the history of Corning the company, explains the science of glass and the use of glass in science, and included a number of interesting demonstrations. We were tired, but it was worth it. The other day we were there, we took a ride. We went north from Corning to Watkins Glen, then up the western shore of Seneca Lake to Geneva, then southeast to Ithaca where we drove around the campus of my mother’s alma mater, Cornell. From Ithaca it was back to the park via Corning.
After four nights in Corning, it was time for the last leg to my brother’s house in the mid-Hudson Valley. Again, we fought overheating as we climbed some of the hills southeast of Binghampton. We also had an exhaust problem again. We were on Route 17, which is four lane, but not an Interstate, when the bedroom smoke alarm went off. Barb ran to the back and smelled exhaust, so I immediately pulled over in a spot that conveniently had a wide shoulder. I shut the engine off and quickly raised the bed and opened the engine cover. Nothing was burning, but we found that the flex pipe piece of the exhaust had come loose. We know from our past mistakes that we can’t continue with it leaking badly, so we sat letting it cool off while I contemplated what to do. Once it was cool enough to work on, I inspected it and found it had just come loose, so I repositioned the clamp and with the aid of my floor jack from underneath to hold it up, I got it reattached and tight. We got back on the road and got to my brother’s house without further ado.
At my brother’s, there is always a list of projects to work on, and this time I have my own list to do. My list included replacing the motor mounts on the car. This is a job I’ve been putting off for a couple of years. I didn’t pay to have it done because it’s about $100 in parts that takes about $1500 - $2000 labor. So, after watching a bunch of YouTubes, I tackled the job myself. It took about fifteen hours, but went pretty much like the videos described and was successful. I tackled the bus overheating problem by replacing the radiator cap and both engine thermostats, then flushing the whole system, pressure washing the radiator, and refilling with new coolant. The coolant was ten years old and I think that was probably the likely culprit. I completed a bunch of little projects for my brother and had all tasks resolved by Labor Day. Labor Day was my deadline for getting things done, because I got a total knee replacement on September 2nd. That makes my third replacement surgery. Left hip, right shoulder, now left knee. This surgery was done by the same doctor that did my hip in 2022. I started physical therapy in NY until the end of October and resumed it when we got back to Houston. In mid-September, I got surprised by my kids. My son flew in from Dallas and my daughter picked him up at the airport. They then drove up to my brothers to surprise me. I see them both every year, but it’s probably been over twenty years since I saw them at the same time. We had a good time visiting for three days. My brother and his wife spend the month of October in St. Maarten, so we stayed until a couple days after they returned.
Since we stayed in NY so late, we are making tracks back to TX. We have annual doctor appointments scheduled on Nov 10th, and we left my brothers on Nov 4th. We plan to make the trip in four days, stopping at Harvest Host locations each night. The first day, we made it to the Shenandoa Heritage Market in Harrisonburg, VA. This is an indoor market with a restaurant and about a dozen other vendors. We found a nice large parking lot where we could turn around without unhooking the car and got parked. We went in to the store that monitors the Harvest Host reservations and checked in, then went to the Hungry Famer Café for an early dinner. After we ate, we went back to Grandma’s Pantry where we had checked in, and bought a few things. Grandma’s Pantry was an Amish store, selling many bulk items that they repackage in individual sizes. We got a good night’s sleep with about half a dozen other RVs. The next day, we made it to Silver Springs Vineyard in Riceville, VA. Since we were the first RV to get to their parking, I was able to circle around and not unhook the car. If the other RV that showed up had been there first, I would have had to unhook. The place has a Greek Café as part of it, and as soon as they opened at 5:00, we had a nice dinner. Their parking was gated, but before we left the café, I confirmed that if the gate was still closed when we were ready to leave in the morning, I could open it as it doesn’t get locked. Sure enough, in the morning I had to open the gate, and what looked like it might be a tight turn to get out turned out to be no problem. The third day we made it to Hattiesburg, MS, where we stopped at J’s Tavern for the night. We went in verified that where I parked was ok, then took a table on their nice large deck to eat. Being only about 4 PM, we were the only customers there. We commented to each other that the place had a similar vibe to it as T-Bone Tom’s in Kemah. As we finished and started to go back to the bus, a guy who had been working around the deck asked us if we enjoyed our meal. Turned out he was the owner, and he asked us about RV life. In our conversation, we learned that his daughter lives in Kemah and he is very familiar with the area, including T-Bone Tom’s. Small world. During the evening, we were a little worried about the traffic noise, but about 10 PM it died down and wasn’t an issue. In the morning, we were off on the last leg to Kemah. We went back to Brickhouse RV Park, where we have stayed for five years now. We drove through checking out the available spots and picked one facing west and where the neighboring apartments will block the afternoon sun early. We found that since last year they have installed covers over about half the large spaces like we use. Of course, a covered spot costs more, and may be worth it in the summer, but for us, it was an uncovered one. Over the next few weeks, we made the rounds of doctors and annual lab work, all with no surprises. I arranged to continue doing physical therapy on my knee and that went through the end of the year.