Visiting the Battleship Texas and San Jacinto Battleground

This is the sight of the battleship Texas, which is moored in the Houston Ship Canal. This ship was built in 1912 -1914 and served in both WWI and WWII. It is an amazing historical tribute to the Navy and gives you a great insight into life on a ship almost 100 years old. 

The Texas has 10 14" guns as well as many smaller weapons. Wow -- I would hate to have been on the wrong end of these barrels! 

The battleship is an amazing sight. We also learned that during Hurricane Ike, there was an 18' storm surge and the big ship came though in great shape.

Here, Orinda models the Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft gun. During WWII, about 1,800 men served on the Texas which must have made for very close quarters.

This is the fantastic monument at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site which is at the same site as the Texas battleship. This monument is taller than the Washington monument in Washington, DC and celebrates the victory by Sam Houston over the Mexican Army and thus ensuring the independence of Texas. This is well worth the stop and you will learn a terrific amount of information on the early history of Texas and the west in general.

Glad we made it to San Antonio Freightliner to have the faulty purge valve and some maintenance completed. The valve continued to leak and it was hard to keep air in the suspension. Fortunately, a new valve was at hand. While this work was being done, we decided to explore San Antonio a bit.

Of course, our first stop was the Alamo. What an interesting place it is with many, many historical artifacts and interpretations. The city has done a great job preserving this shrine of freedom.

We were impressed at the detailed information that was available and enjoyed learning more about this important site. While we were there, we crossed the street to the San Antonio Riverwalk.

Here is Orinda on one of the entrances to the riverwalk. We were amazed at the many, many fountains, flowers and water features that surround the walk. A beautiful spot!

This is the river itself. You can stroll on both sides of it past many different cafes and shoppes which was interesting for Orinda!

We ended up staying a second night at the Freightliner dealer since the work was completed in the late afternoon. No problem since they had complimentary full hookup sites! Super deal.

Traveling across Texas

We had a wonderful time at Palm Creek, but it is time to head east toward Florida. We traveled through New Mexico and then entered the great state of Texas -- and is it big! We stopped at a rest area in the Texas Valley and were amazed at the fantastic rock formations. Cody was also very impressed at the sign warning us about snakes!

The rest area was large and convenient and we decided to have lunch while we were parked. A nice stop.

There were many of these large rocks all over the area, but within a couple miles, we entered a very flat, desert area again. A very interesting terrain.

Right after we had lunch at the rest area, we stopped for fuel. After Rick filled it up, we cranked up, but the Low Air alarm in our coach went off -- our air pressure for air brakes and air suspension was dropping fast! We drove into a close parking lot and since this was a Saturday and there were no service facilities around, Rick decided to to take a look and see what was going on. After crawling under the coach, he found that a purge valve was jammed open (the brass valve on the picture above is the offending culprit!). Rick cleaned it up and tapped it with a plastic handle -- lo and behold, it clicked and then worked! Cool! We took off and had no further problems that day and made it to Ozona, TX for the night.

Rick plays in the Palm Creek Golf Tournament

I have really enjoyed playing golf at Palm Creek. The folks are very friendly and I have played with and gotten to know many different people. Plus, the course is beautiful and is very well maintained. This picture is on the walkway between the 6th and 7th hole -- the flowers are always beautiful!

The Palm Creek Golf association is made up of residents who volunteer their time to put on a variety of scrambles, league play and the annual Tournament. This is quite an undertaking with each player having an established handicap (created during other events held at the course). These handicaps are used to create 4 "flights" of golfers of comparable playing ability, so each person has a fair chance by playing folks of similar skill.

Rick had never tried anything like this, but figured "What the Heck", and signed up. He was assigned to the second flight with folks of 10 - 16 handicaps (which was right for Rick with his 14 handicap). The fee was $40 which included 2 -18 hole rounds of golf and a reception on the last day -- a pretty good deal! The first day, Rick had the best round of his stay at Palm Creek and shot a 60 (par for our 18 hole Par 3 course is 54) and he was thrilled. This score was good enough to tie for the first round lead in our flight, so it all came down to the second day's round.


Here, Rick shows his trusty 6 iron after the round in which he shot a 66. Not as good as Monday's round, but still good enough to win our flight! He was really pleased -- especially when he learned that there were CASH prizes!

He was delighted to receive a $50 bill for first place! Perhaps a new golf club might be in order! All in all, this was a great event and the many friendly folks playing made it very enjoyable.

RC Flying at Palm Creek

Rick has flown RC aircraft for many years and was very happy to learn that Palm Creek RV park has their own RC field right in the park. The club members fly only electric aircraft, but there is a very wide variety of planes and helicopters being flown.


Rick's favorite aircraft is called a Slo Stick and is very maneuverable, light, yet inexpensive. I have a small, but powerful electric brushless motor installed that will pull this plane literally straight up! I also added ailerons which allow the plane to perform much better in rolling maneuvers.
This shows the Slo Stick, radio and Li-Ion batteries. These batteries allow flights of 20+ minutes, at which point you can change batteries and fly again. This type of plane is perfect for the fulltime RVer!

Here is a model of a Corsair model that flew very well. I would say that about 40% of the models are scale types (models of a specific, real aircraft), while the rest are models of all different kinds. One guy even has a ducted fan electric "jet" which is a spectacular performer. If you get a chance, give this hobby a try!

Cody Visits the Dog Play Yards in Palm Creek

Palm Creek is a very nice RV park and has done many things quite well. One thing that we have really appreciated is the creation of a pet area and a non- pet area. The pet area has about 1000 sites and constitutes about half the park. This is a very large area and you are welcome to walk your pet anywhere in the pet zone. They even have special Dog "pot" receptacles to deposit dog waste (and provide new bags to pick up the waste). These are emptied daily and as a result, it is very rare to see any dog refuse around.


Cody might be an oldtimer, but he loves the dog play yards at the park. In fact, he tries to pull us to the yard to go play. When he gets to go, he plays like a puppy! On of his favorite activities is to play with the other dogs. Since he is bigger than most of them, he will lie on his back to play at their level:

It is really amazing how well all the dogs play together and it is very rare to have any disagreement.

Here are a couple of Cody's pal who are thrilled to see him when he comes to the yard.

It is a Slow Season in Arizona this Year

We are now approaching the peak of the winter season here in Arizona, and I was interested in how full the Palm Creek RV Park was going to become. However, it seems that given the economic situation, a number of folks have not made the trip. Indeed, I was surprised to see quite a few empty sites in our park in February. Here, you can see a couple streets down from us where there are quite a few open sites. You can also see that the sites are very wide and level -- a nice place to stay!

Here is another view of a group of empty sites. Some of these fill up for a few days, but then the folks move on.

Speaking of difficult economic times, you have probably heard the term "Toxic Assets" with respect to certain real estate operations. As we tooled around Casa Grande, we were able to see a number of these toxic assets in person. Here is a good example -- the development of Mission Ranch.

As you can see, all the infrastructure for the development is in -- roads, privacy walls, streets, power, water, etc. It is ready to build homes, but unfortunately, the real estate market crashed and the market is stagnant.

The development even built these models, now enclosed in chain link fencing for protection. It is very sad to see these beautiful homes just sitting empty. We have seen quite a few such developments like this -- must be a huge investment that is now in trouble.