ROS AND JOHN RV LIFE: March 2023

Tornado

Ray Roberts State Park was pretty isolated with thirty minutes drive to Gainesville in the north or longer to Denton in the south, so I just enjoyed some walks and chilled while John was working. I did have to drive to a laundromat as this is the first time the park did not have one on site. While it was a pain to have to drive there and the washes cost more, the machines were fancier and faster. While I was waiting for my wash someone entered making a metal noise as they walked, this lady was wearing spurs. John asked me if she had parked her horse outside! Texas!

We had some lovely evening walks as the nights grew lighter and saw some beautiful sunsets.

Saw our first wild cactus, sure we'll be seeing a lot more

Starting to feel like Spring, the trees and bushes seemed to
tune green overnight and there was some early blossom.

Thursday 2nd March 2023

We had been keeping a close watch on the weather all week as there was a strong possibility of tornadoes. The same day that I walked in high 60 degree temperatures looking at Spring blossoms we had the worst weather we have experienced since we began our travels. I was watching a guy live on You Tube, Ryan Hall Y'All who was covering the two huge weather systems moving across Texas, with the help of storm chasers. He was spot on with his timing when he said watch out Sanger (town where the laundromat was down the road) you are about to get hit with golf ball size hail. The sky went dark as night and five minutes later BAM! we got it. The noise inside the rv was crazy and very scary. This was about 3.30pm

Hail

After my heart rate leveled out I resumed watching Ryan as there was still a second system to pass us and this one could have tornadoes. The sky had lightened up after the first part of the storm passed but as the second neared it grew darker and darker then the rain started. John finished work and we were both watching Ryan and deciding what we should do. If a tornado warning sounded we had to get to a building that would be tornado safe, in our case the bathhouse near us. There had been warnings in other towns and Ryan said they had not had a lot of notice to get to safety, so we decided to make a run to the bathhouse and stay there until the storm passed, rather than wait and see. I had packed an emergency bag earlier in the day with blankets, torches, snacks, battery banks and water so we grabbed it, got Morgan and dashed to the bath house in the crazy rain. Luckily this was quite a nice building and there was a big bench area near the showers for us to sit on. Some buildings are small with no seating that would definitely not be a nice place to wait out a storm. We chatted to a lady, Cathy who was also being safe. She was a camp host, someone who is usually an unpaid volunteer that works at the park and gets a free rv site as payment.

It was scary in the bath house, luckily the power and lights stayed on. The wind was so strong it kept pushing the exterior doors making them bang and the thunder and lightning were crazy. After an hour and half it quietened down and our cell phones showed the storm had passed so we left the bathhouse and returned to our rv. We didn't get a tornado but what we did get was very scary and we were very glad we had not stayed in the rv.

Morgan was so calm during the storm

Ray Roberts Lake State Park, Johnson Branch, Texas

25th February 2023

We moved 213 miles west to Ray Roberts Lake State Park, Johnson Branch where we stayed for two weeks in a very spacious pull through site. We stopped at our first Buc-ee's which is a famous travel stop/gas station and it's own experience. They are huge, with one in New Braunfels Texas being the world's largest convenience store at 66,335 square feet! They are now building one in Luling, Texas near Houston that will be 75,000 square feet and will have 120 fueling stations. When we have seen rv you tubers visit a Buc-ee's they never seem to have a problem going there but the one we visited had signs saying no trucks and we couldn't find any official rv parking place so we made our own up using eleven car spaces! They have some great snacks and you could spend ages looking at all the souvenirs and knick-knacks.

Pull through site was very large but very exposed

Where are we today? Best check.

On Sunday we took a drive north to the town of Gainesville but being Sunday it was all closed, so we continued up the highway a few miles into Oklahoma and ticked off another state.

We stopped to look at the worlds largest casino, Winstar, which was just on the edge of highway I35. That would be a great quiz question, where is the largest casino in the world? I'm sure you would guess at Las Vegas first then maybe Dubai or Asia, last guess would be Oklahoma.

https://www.winstar.com/videos/experience-the-worlds-biggest-casino/

It was gigantic, had it's own inner road system, massive parking lots, hotels, golf course and rv park. Would have been fun (and maybe a bit dangerous to the bank account) to have gone in and looked around but we had Morgan with us and she was not very well that day.

To make up for not going into the casino we stopped to get some fried pies. If you are a regular reader and have a good memory you will remember we experienced our first fried pie at our first stop, Burnt Cabins, Pennsylvania. Arbuckle Mountain store was next to a gas station on the edge of I35and looked liked it had been around a while and if it was not for it's reputation we probably would not have stopped but glad we did as they were very good. Lemon for John and pecan for me. If you are English or Geordie you will say pee-can, if you are American you will say per-carn. Either way you say it they were very tasty.

https://www.arbucklemountainfriedpies.com

Ray Roberts park is set on a 29,000 acre lake and has 2 camp areas.

https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/ray-roberts-lake

The campsite was pretty full each weekend but during the week it felt like we had the place to ourselves.

There was a concrete trail that went through the park for over three miles and was an easy walk but not as fun as being off in the woods. There were also Dorba trails which were open or closed depending on weather, these are for cyclists.

https://www.dorba.org/

Turtle

Easy walking but bit boring

Texas Baby!

Saturday 18th February 2023

We left Louisiana and headed to Texas! We will be staying in northern Texas until May.

We were glad to be leaving Indian Creek as we had not realized it was President's Weekend as well as Mardi Gras and the campsite filled up very quickly beginning on Friday lunchtime. Everyone was towing a big rv with a trailer carrying a golf cart. We found out there was going to be a Mardi Gras golf cart parade on Saturday afternoon. All the new residents seemed local and think they all come just for the parade and long weekend.

The drive to Texas was very bumpy, some highways are concrete and are like washboards. Stopped at a truck stop but this one was not very nice, we just used the facilities grabbed a drink and left.

State Parks charge a daily entrance fee to access the park, but this fee has been waived in parks in other states we have stayed at up to now, if you are paying to camp. Texas charges to camp plus the daily entrance fee! To save this fee we purchased an annual park pass which cost $70. This pass can be used to cover entrance fees and also get discounts at park stores. This will save us a lot and easily pay for itself in just a few stays. For example, on this stop one week's entrance fees was $42 and for our next stop the entrance fees for two weeks would be $196. Each park has different fees depending on popularity.

Atlanta State Park is in two sections and our campsite is one of a few set along the edge of a small road that leads to the day use area. In low season that was not too busy and there is just an odd car passing us to access the reservoir, kids play area and picnic tables but I'm sure in high season this road would be very busy and if people speed a bit dangerous.

We had a pull through site and lots of space as we stepped out of our door looking at trees, bushes and behind them the lake.

We enjoyed a quiet week at Atlanta and wished we had been staying for our usual two weeks. This park was flooded six years ago and the day area was 35 feet under water and the park was closed for a few months. The trees in an area I walked were under water for months and died so they had to cut them down and are slowly replacing them with pine and hardwoods.