With no client-facing work on Thursday or Friday, RDB and I took off for our first camping trip in Camper #3 to Cedar Hill State Park. Needless to say, I should've checked the weather!
A huge thanks to my RDB for always taking the long hauls when we travel and especially for this trip, since it poured buckets on us the whole way north!
We arrived at the park well after dark Wednesday night, and I didn't realize when we booked this site (#123) just how difficult it was going to be to get into: backing in uphill, and a significant tilt to the drivers side. We were really impressed with the auto leveling on our new Palomino Columbus Compass Series.
Cedar Hill State Park made for a beautiful "office".....
View from my desk...
the break room....
my coworkers....
Even the time clock was reminding me how sweet it is to be here for work this week.
We reached out to Mom & G to see if they wanted to have dinner Thursday night - they came over afterwards to check out our new digs. It's so nice to have a spot to be able to host other people and everyone is comfortable. It was wonderful to share this space and a bottle of wine with them.... the label on the bottle says it all:
Friday was a bit of a blur - more work, including applying for a new role at my company (I've been waiting on that to post for _at least_ two months!), and trips to Ikea, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Starbucks, and Target. New campers require stuff, y'all!
Saturday was a blur of a different kind: we started the morning over at Randshe's new home in Castle Hills. R recently purchased an Audi R8 and was participating in an exotic car Make-a-Wish drive by. He invited RDB to ride along with him, so they took off (and I mean, the _took off!_ that car is a rocket!). S and I stayed back a the house to chat for a bit and then joined them for bunch later.
We're excited to come back up here in late October for Randshe's wedding - 10-30-20! (reminds me of RDB and my wedding date of 11-12-13). We already have a site booked for that one as well. It's awfully nice to be able to take our "rollin' home" with us to visit friends and family!
Speaking of - it was so sweet to be able to snuggle on Kali and Ickis again - we sure miss those little cuties!
After lunch we came back to the site, packed up the camper, and hauled it over to Camper Revamper Chris Cox. You'll remember we met him on a Facebook group as we were dealing with the beginnings of the camper crisis this year. His prices are fair, his ideas are fabulous, and the quality of his work is second-to-none. We had a few items that we needed help with:
Camper mattresses are notorious for bad sleep, and RDB and I have been spoiled by a SleepNumber in the house, so we splurged for a SleepNumber (regular queen) for the camper. Chris helped out by reworking the wiring so that the plug for the base unit would be under the bed rather than plugged into the wall. He put it like this: when he does improvements or modifications, he wants to make it look like it's always been there. (I'm telling you - Chris does quality work!)
Our unit came with the Wineguard wifi booster roof unit already wired in, you just need to add the router to the ceiling inside and buy a data plan. Big thanks to Camping World of Fort Worth for staying open for a few minutes extra on Saturday night - we came sliding into the parking lot literally at 6pm as they were closing, but they let us in to buy the router we needed for Chris to install it.
Again, Chris' mentality of "make it look like it belongs there" meant that instead of just installing the on/off switch on the ceiling (like he's seen some service shops do), he opened up the back of our "brain box" to put the switch in with all the other controls - like you would never have known it was installed post-production. And watching him snake the wires thru the ceiling and walls with minimal space to spare? He's a master at it!
While he was working on those projects, I took a few quick minutes to use a wood stain touch up pen and finish off a few spots on the slides where you could see the backside of unfinished wood. It's a little thing, and most people probably wouldn't even notice, but it made me glad to have it done so that when I'm laying in bed or sitting on the sofa, I won't be bugged by that "unfinished" bit of trim.
It was dark-thirty when we left Camper Revampers and headed back to our site at Cedar Hill State Park. We had left behind our white water hose and stinky slinky, along with the leveling legos - trusting that they would be left alone (we had reserved the spot thru Sunday night, so no one would have been parking there.) Unfortunately, as we turned the corner into the camping loop we could see that our site had been completely cleared out. BUT! The campers next door came running over to tell us that they had collected all our items, concerned that we had been gone for so long and afraid someone else might steal them. Faith in Humanity: restored.
We decided to extend our reservation thru till Monday, just to give us the ability to sleep in Sunday morning and not have to be packed up and out by noon. Best. Decision. Ever! I'm sitting here finishing up this blog post (sans pictures as the wifi (not our new set up yet) is s-l-o-w) and RDB is enjoying the beginning of football season lounging in the living room.
We'll pack up and head home eventually, but for now? I'm loving the flexibility of working from the camper during the later part of the week, have an extended weekend and fun with friends and family, and truly making this place ours while enjoying all our camping adventures.
We were at Cedar Hill State Park, Eagle Pass loop, Site #123. It is an "advanced parking" kind of spot! Backing in uphill, and not level at all from right to left. If you can park in this spot, you'll be able to park _anywhere_! (We're eyeing site #117 in this same loop for the next visit.) This state park is HUGE! We were wandering around the park Friday afternoon, trying to get back to our site, being followed by a park Ranger.... when we pulled into a parking spot to grab the map and figure out where we were, he tapped on the window: "Ya'll look like you might be lost?" Huh! Like I'm going to admit to that! Needless to say, I was grateful for his help to get us pointed back in the right direction. (But I think we could've figured it out; after all, not all who wander are lost.)
We've been here once before, back in our pop-up camper days: Thanksgiving - Part 1, and Part 2
For more pictures, go here.
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(Post Script: the weekend was bookended with rain; it was storming again as we drove home. Just a note: when you're driving a rig that's nearly 13' tall, it's like driving a broadsided billboard - the wind, though it wasn't much, had us stopping over for a period of time to let the storm pass (just happened to be we were stopped at a Bucees again, go figure.) Though it made for a longer trip home, I am once again, so grateful that RDB takes our safety seriously. He's the best kinda camping partner you could ask for.)
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