Last Night in Texas for a While

Site B7 at Shady Pines RV Park in Texarkana, Texas

Yes, that’s right.  We are spending our last night in The Lone Star State for a while, at least.  After arriving at the campground in Mt. Pleasant in April, we soon realized that the property had several issues (which I will not elaborate on here) and we stepped down as managers.  We did, however, stay on as workampers and have been doing that until this past Monday.  At that time, we headed over to Shady Pines RV Park in anticipation of a service date at their adjoining dealership today, June 10.  The issue of a non-emptying shower gray tank turned out to be minor and inexpensive; we certainly have no complaints of four shop hours and a bill of just under $200.00.  I did purchase some LED bulbs (yay for a Good Sam discount!) and we are changing out the lights we use most often from incandescent to LED.  Wow.  What a difference!  Love it, love it!  Less heat, less energy usage and a brighter light of a quality which is pleasing.

We gained some good experience at the campground and Dave did a ton of work making the grounds looking really nice.

We experienced rain and thunderstorms daily and/or nightly throughout May, but no flooding.

If we had been getting enough hours to generate adequate income, we would have stayed on; however, the park simply cannot sustain that, and we had been looking for something else for a while.  We were contacted by a ranger with the Corps of Engineers (COE) in Arkansas and are headed to the northwest part of that state to work the fee booth at one of the parks there.  Let me tell you . . . this has been an experience just slogging through the paperwork to get on board with the COE!  Well, it really hasn’t been too terribly bad, I suppose, especially in comparison with the process we went through for Dave’s visa back in 2005/2006. 

Close, though.

Let’s just say I had never been in a jail and had never been fully fingerprinted!  We were able to acquire the requisite fingerprinting at the county jail in Mt. Pleasant.  Cheers to the officer who assisted us; he was courteous, helpful and friendly. 

Dave and Jim cut down a tree at the campground in May.  Dave acquired a whole new set of skills including roadwork, tree cutting, pool maintenance, pond maintenance, etc. 

Dave spent a good part of Sunday cleaning our home.  It got pretty dirty with all the rain in May, but looks totally awesome now.  Dave rocks.  I washed our truck the day before, so we have a good-lookin’ rig – truck and RV – right now.

I gained a good chunk of working knowledge regarding running a campground.  We aren’t ruling out a management position in the future and, in fact, turned down a couple during our search; however, we  hope to explore other options first.

Part of me wishes we had more time in Texas to perhaps hook up with friends; however, if I had not been convinced this was a good move, yesterday did the trick.  Temps were in the mid 90s and I felt ill all day.  I simply cannot tolerate Texas summers these days; this was our first summer back here in five years and the first here since my cancer in 2012.  Nope, can’t do it.  I was nonfunctional yesterday and felt really bad.  Heck, it’s not even really Summer yet . . .

Yes, it will be hot in Arkansas; however, it should not be as drastic as Texas.  This will be easier on Dave, too, as he will not be doing strenuous manual labor.  That’s a good thing.

It’s the beginning of a new stage of adventures for us!

I’ve got one load of laundry in the dryer here and I’d best go check on it.  Then I’m chilling out for the rest of the evening.  Tomorrow we boogie on to Arkansas!

Thanks for stopping by!

I am a Warrior

The above bracelet is a Toby and Max design