We have spent three wonderful weeks at Cedar Blue (home
base) head to Rockport, TX for the winter tomorrow. We were reminiscing that the Sunday following
Thanksgiving last year we had snow and found ourselves driving our motorhome
back to Newcastle in that nasty weather.
It was icy, cold and snowing. We
came across cars in the ditch, had to stop multiple times to deice the
windshield and vowed never to drive the motorhome in that type of weather
again. This year we haven’t experienced
any bad weather in late November, so very thankful we will have good traveling
weather to TX.
The weather this November has been incredible – sunny, warm
days, and cool nights; although there is wintry weather headed to Oklahoma next
weekend. The fall colors finally arrived
and the park was full of trees with leaves painted in bright gold, crimson red
and flaming orange. We have enjoyed a
lot of outdoor time with our fur babies often walking an average of two miles a
day or more. We enjoyed walks both
during the daylight hours as well as after dark when you can hear a pin drop
since we are out in the woods and there are very few people in the park
now. The nice weather provided us the
ability to get a lot of small projects done around the property. When we return in April we hope to get some
painting done but that will be weather permitting since spring is storm season
in Oklahoma and yes, we have our own storm shelter. We also plan to plant some bushes around the
patio. We will have about 10 weeks at
home base before heading out on our next adventure in mid-June 2017.
Some have asked us why we choose to stay put at Cedar Blue
during the spring storm season and the answer became very clear to us while
traveling during storms two years ago.
In the spring, it seems that there are severe storms throughout the
entire east half of the country. When
you are on the road you don’t know the names of counties and cities so when
high winds and tornadoes are active you have no idea where they are in relation
to your own location. Also, you have no
idea where to go to seek shelter. A
tornado missed us by 2 miles on that trip two years ago – very unnerving. We would much rather stay put at Cedar Blue
where we know exactly what’s going on and we have our own shelter to get
into.
We spent Thanksgiving at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Norman,
OK for a couple of nights. It’s a very
nice hotel with an indoor pool, hot tub, a huge free breakfast buffet as well
as a free manager’s reception nightly.
They are also very dog friendly – even providing their furry guests with
goodie bags. Ours included some nice
treats, bottled water and a great ball.
Dinner was at Legends Restaurant with a dear friend. It was very nice intimate dining with good
food and conversation. They even gave us
desserts to go on top on the desserts we had already eaten. While in the city we did a bit of shopping,
got April’s shots and other vet things taken care of, wondered around the
Myriad Gardens in downtown Oklahoma City and visited some friends. Oh, yes – we did enjoy the hotel’s pool, hot
tub and bathtub! We are hoping to get a
portable hot tub for two for our place at Cedar Blue as our Christmas present
to ourselves!
We spent Monday and Tuesday making sure we had everything
organized to be gone for an extended period.
The cargo hauler is secured on the back of the jeep and loaded up a few
extras to take with us. We also wanted
the cargo hauler in case we decide to travel overnight someplace without the RV
as there isn’t room in the jeep for suitcases and dog crates. I’m hoping after taxes are prepared, we have
the cash to trade our current 2-door jeep for a slightly newer 4-door
jeep. We are leaving one of our vehicles
at Cedar Blue so we need to top off the gas tank to stop condensation, put a
trickle charger on it, moth balls under it and a cover over it.
So off we go for our first year as ‘snowbirds’. We will be staying at Wilderness Oaks RV Park
in Rockport. Once we get ourselves
situated there I will put up a post.
Although ‘home’ is now our RV I still consider home to be someplace in
Oklahoma so it’s going to be a bit of a transition for me into this next stage
of our lives, as I’ve never been away from home for four months.
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