Choke Canyon State Park, three Rivers, Texas.

After the gate, we only go as far as Choke Canyon, another lovely Texas State Park.  We see our first whooping cranes .

We spend a week here. $14/day water & electric since we have the Texas State Parks Pass.  While we're here, a massive windstorm blows up and our poor awning, (not in the best of shape to start with) is half ripped apart.  We'll tackle that another day!

November 16, 2011.  Its official-  we have a gate.  But exactly where is it?

Left and right hand not knowing just what is going on, we are dispatched to a gate that doesn't exactly exist yet.  We get to spend 3 lovely days running the generator across from Gate 5, while we wait for instructions.  As luck would have it, we also figure out what Moya's main problem has been all this time while we're sitting here.

Soon however, they start building "our" gate. 

We will spend the next 7 weeks here.  Bill is injured from a fall on New Years Day, 2012, breaking seven ribs and 2 vertabrae.  We leave the gate about 10 days later.

Heave a big sigh of relief- Corpus at last!

We limp our way into Corpus Christi and find our way to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.  What relief!  Our campsite is in the grassy sites at Paradise Cove, $15/night.

We find out quickly that we just love this city and the surroundings.  Living on base is great!

Bill does a good bit of fishing and we sample the different restaurants Corpus offers.  The weather is lovely and we just can't get enough of that sea air.

However, after a few weeks its time to look into gate guarding.  We contact Loma Rentals and get our TX state licenses.  Ready, set... phone call on November 15!  See you at the gate!

Heading south west...slowly

After a pleasant month at the Escapees Park in Livingston, we decide to move south to Corpus Christi, in order to sign up for a gate guarding company or two.  We leave the van behind in a storage facility.

Amid heavy rain, we leave Livingston and travel some backroads around Houston.  Although running well initially, about halfway Moya starts her gawd-awful running again.  Hours behind schedule, we pull into Lake Texana State Park.

Although there is no Verizon service, we stay 5 days here.  $14 night plus $4 daily fee W/E.  The lake is low but the park is pleasant-  we see our first armadillos.

    My brother Jason suggests some things to try to get Moya up and running again.  We only have a couple hours trip to Corpus, so off we go.

Next stop: Livingston, Texas!

  Only...not so fast.

Friday, Sept 2, 2011

Moya started bucking and bumping, and finally died on the side of the road.  The Friday before a holiday weekend, and Coach Net is proving singularly useless.  "Maybe" the Chevy dealer can look at us-  on Tuesday.  Finally a tow truck arrives-  big enough to tow the car, but not equipped to tow an RV.

We are blessed, however:  instead of a tow, we get a driver who knows a fella who is a mechanic, whom he calls.  This lovely young man shows up, diagnoses our trouble as a bad ignition switch, wires around it and gets us on our way.  He even offers to come help us if we get into further trouble-  our East Texas hero!

Our joy is short-lived however-  Moya exhibits a new problem.  We decide to keep going, and I nurse her 100 miles into Livingston, where we limp into the Escapees Rainbow Park.

We stay here in Livingston a month, establishing our residency, registering vehicles and spending several thousand dollars having Moya worked on.  finally ready to move southwest and look into gate guarding...

We pay various rates here, but around $15 a day, separate electric.  The electric bill seems very high.

 We also spend several days "camping " at West Rv Repair while they work on Moya.  Not a bad campsite-  no neighbors after 6pm!

Beautiful Texarkana

Pushing on south, our next campsite is at Clear Springs COE on Wright-Patman Lake , just south of Texarkana.  We were very fortunate to find a campsite, since we were  coming in just prior to the Labor Day weekend.

Gorgeous park-  huge cement sites, widely spaced for lots of privacy, tall trees to cut the heat, beautiful lake out the back.

Wonderful place-  $18 for 50 amp and water.  We could only stay one night, sadly.  Wonderful barbeque take-out from a joint down the road.

Fort Smith

Our next stop was a KOA in Alma, Arkansas, just north of Fort Smith.  The day had been long and we were tired, so we pulled in here.  Pleasant enough, but overpriced at $37 for FHU.  The owners were unhappy about pretty much everything, especially the economy.