Enjoying Fall in the Hill County

For the last two weeks we've been enjoying being with our family and the wonderful fall weather in the Texas hill country.  We've also had a chance to get a number of miscellaneous things taken care of on the motorhome, as well as visiting friends in this neck of the woods.  We also did our Christmas shopping here, and saved some Fedex fees!! 
Of course, the most important thing to happen was the birth of our new granddaughter Chloe almost four weeks ago. She is doing fine, as is her mom, Stephanie and dad (our son Kevin) -- and we're doing our best to spoil her while we're here.
 


 
 
 

We're also having fun with our grandson Garrett, who is now two, and is all boy!!  We were able to go out trick or treating with him on Halloween, and had a great time. 



















Grandma and Grandpa also had an "overnight sleep-over" in the motorhome for grandson Tristam and granddaughter Kaila a couple of days ago.  Grandma and the kids caught the morning cartoon shows while snuggled in bed.




We're also got a chance to go to the Saturday soccer games to watch Kaila and Tristam play (and our son Brian coach)!





Both of our sons and their families live on the same acreage northwest of Austin in the Hill Country, and they have a parking place for us and the motorhome, so it works out great when we come here to visit.


The boys also have a gun range on the property, and they usually give me a chance to get some shooting in while we're here.  A couple of Saturdays ago they had about 15 of their shooting friends out to practice with their collection of very interesting guns. I was able to shoot a bunch of rounds with my gun, as well as try out some of the more exotic firearms that showed up -- even a full automatic Uzi, as well as a 50 caliber sniper rifle.










The following weekend a squad from the Texas State Guard came out to the range to do their annual pistol qualifying.  They could not find any available weekend time at the local military posts, due to the large number of troops training for duty in the Middle East, so they took advantage of Brian's invitation to use his range.  Brian and Kevin are seriously considering joining the Texas Guard group.

Brian also talked me into taking a ride with him on his Yahama sport touring motorcycle.  Here are the both of us ready to take off for a fall ride through the Hill Country.











While we'e in the area we took advantage of visiting with our friends who live in the Hill Country.  We've made a number of friends in the Austin area, most from our two summers of work at Sunset Point RV Park in Marble Falls.  We all got together for a wonderful lunch hosted by our good friends Bill and Carol at their beautiful home in Marble Falls.
    
Since we arrived here in late October, we found out that we have another safety recall on our Freightliner Motorhome Chassis, which we needed to get inspected while we were here in the Austin area.  There was a possibility of defective welds on a major component of the rear axle -- which sounds like something we needed to get resolved sooner rather than later -- we took a 140 mile round trip drive to Freightliner of Austin to get it resolved.  After a short inspection of the rear axle components, the good news from them is that our welds are perfect. 

Since we'd wandered well over halfway to Bastrop, Texas, where our good friends Clair and Al live, we went the rest of the way to park at their place and visit with them and with another good friend from Abilene, Mary Sue.  It was great to see them all for a couple of days and to relive the good times we had at Sunset Point several years ago.  We took advantage of the good weather to do some geocaching with them at nearby Bastrop State Park -- it had been a number of months since we'd gotten a chance to do some geocaching, and we all enjoyed the opportunity.


We'll be staying here in Liberty Hill until after Thanksgiving, and then heading west to Yuma for our winter stay there.  We're planning on arriving back there on December 2, and anxious to get there and get back to regular riding with our bike club.  We've only been able to ride occasionally since we left Iowa, and we're both getting a bit soft and slow.  We're also looking forward to the warmth and low humidity of the southwest desert, which is the best place (in our opinion) to spend the next 5 months.