We had a very nice Christmas dinner here at Park Place Resort in Harlingen and after relaxing for a few hours in the afternoon we went back to the clubhouse and had a nice snack with several couples from our section of the park. We then played cards for a while, it was a full day.

On Wednesday the 29th we left Park Place and traveled north to the Lone Star Corral, an Escapee park in Hondo, TX which is about fifty miles west of San Antonio on Rt. 90. Thursday we drove the car into San Antonio and visited the Alamo and the city’s river walk. The river walk is really neat with shops and restaurants all along the water and all is done in a way that makes it look very natural.

Friday New Years Eve we took a ride west to the town of Uvalde and just looked around. This area is in the foothills of the Texas hill country and there are a lot of ranches and grazing land with the hills visible to the north. We stopped for dinner on the way back to the campground and in the evening we stayed in the motor home and watched the ball drop on TV. We had a quiet New Years Eve.

Monday January 3rd we took a ride up to Bandera which is about thirty miles north of Hondo and is located in the hill country. In Bandera which is just a small town and looks like a western ranch town that you would see on TV we went into some shops and visited the Frontier Times Museum which was very interesting. From there we went on north to Kerrville which was a beautiful ride through the hills and to our surprise we passed apple orchards and lots of goats and sheep ranches.

Wednesday we went to Fredricksburg and Johnson City and stopped by the famous Luckenbach, TX which includes a dance hall, store, saloon, post office and a few houses. We then went to the LBJ Ranch and visitors center. It was interesting to see the Texas White House and the one room school President Johnson attended as a boy. Lady Bird still lives on the ranch.

The rest of the time we were in Hondo we toured the countryside and observed the farming operations including the cattle and a lot of cabbage harvesting and tillage.

On January 12th we left Hondo and moved west to Brackettville where we stayed at historic Fort Clark Springs which was a Calvary base established in 1852. Fort Clark was decommissioned in 1948 and is now a housing and RV community.

Near Brackettville is the Alamo Village Movie Location which was built originally for John Wayne’s movie “The Alamo” and is where many other western movies and television movies and documentaries have been made, including things starring Jimmy Stuart, Richard Widmark, Dean Martin, Kenny Rodgers and many more.

On Friday the 14th we moved west to Del Rio on the Rio Grande river which is home to Laughlin Air Force Base and is near the Amistad Nat’l Recreation Area which surrounds a great man made lake on the Rio Grande. We spent a day just looking at the marinas and vegetation and birds and wildlife in this great habitat.

On Sunday the 16th we left Del Rio and headed to the Big Bend Nat’l Park. We stopped for the night just outside the gate to the park at The Stillwell Ranch Museum and RV Park. There is a lot of history involved with this ranch and the lady who lived here.

Hallie Stillwell was a town girl and a schoolteacher twenty years old when she met Roy Stillwell a rancher twenty years her senior and married and moved to the ranch which was forty miles from the nearest town. Hallie learned to do everything the other ranch hands did (working cattle, including branding, driving etc.), plus bearing and raising three children. The museum and her story shows what pioneer ranch life was like living through the droughts, dust storms and outlaws in the Big Bend area.

Monday the 17th we traveled into the park and stayed at Rio Grande Village RV Park, which is right along the Rio Grande. Big Bend is one of the largest and least used of the Nat’l parks and is a beautiful mix of river, mountain and desert environment. We had javelina, coyotes and road runners right in the campground. There are also mule deer, black bear and mountain lions in the park.

After two days of exploring Big Bend we moved north to Pecos TX where we stayed in the SKP park. Pecos is an old west town established as a railroad town. There is a great old west museum downtown. Pecos is now known for ranching, truck farming and petroleum.

Saturday the 22nd we moved on north to Carlsbad NM where we will visit the caverns and other points of interest in that area.