For whatever reason, I woke up feeling worse on Thursday than I did the day before. I’m not sure why, but I do know that my sunburned legs were now covered with small little blisters. I made myself get up and dressed and went into town where I went shopping for souvenirs for the folks back in Baltimore. Bandera is a tourist town so is loaded with shops hawking cowboy-themed stuff. I found some cute little trinkets for friends and then went home.
It was time to face the laundry. Ugh. I’d put off doing the wash for about two weeks, so practically everything was dirty. I hadn’t checked out the laundromat beforehand to see what shape it was in before taking my clothes over there. I wish I had. The place wasn’t air conditioned. The building was in the shade and there was a fan running which helped a little, but it was still really warm in there. Once the dryers got going, it got worse. I didn’t stick around while the clothes washed and dried. Instead, I’d go back to the camper for a while and sit in the A/C before going back to swap out loads. The wash took FOREVER because there were only two dryers that were fully functioning. I finally got it all done, though, and was just wiped out from the heat of the day. Temps are up around 100 in the afternoons now.
We were supposed to go meet Jason and Chris for dinner and a movie last night. I hated to beg off, but all I wanted to do is lie down. Jason was very nice about letting us out of or plans, so I climbed into bed and ended up going to sleep early.
I must have needed some rest because I didn’t wake up until late. Once I finally got moving, I had to unhook one of the propane tanks so I could take it to be refilled. I found a propane station about four or five miles away in Pipe Creek where I only paid $22 to fill up a 30# tank. In Baltimore, I pay $30 to fill that same tank. When you consider that I usually fill two tanks at a time, that’s a significant savings. Oh, well, the cost of living on the East Coast is higher all around; I shouldn’t be surprised.
I left the filling station and went down the road to an RV parts and service shop to find a rack to hang on the back of my rig so we can carry our standalone ladder there instead of in the back of the truck. They had it, and it wasn’t very expensive. Yay! I’m hoping that the rack works. I’ve seen lots of other RVers carrying their ladders this way. I just need to dig out my bungee cords so that once we get the ladder up there it won’t fall off the first time we hit a bump.
I stopped at a nearby sandwich shop and grabbed lunch. I stopped at the RV long enough to drop off the things I bought, hook up the propane tank, and have my salad before leaving again. This time I was off to do a little geocaching.
It was after 1:00 p.m. by this time, and it was hot, hot, hot. My sunburned skin is still tender, so I wasn’t interested in caches that wouldn’t require much wandering around under the blazing sun. I found some one-star (easiest) caches on the website and went in search for them. I found two and managed to unload the two travelbugs I brought with me from Baltimore. Since I was already on the road to Medina, Texas, I continued on until I arrived at the town known as the apple capitol of Texas.
Monument to the Medina Apple
There is a place in Medina called, not surprisingly, The Apple Store. Believe it or not, there are no iPhones for sale there. Instead, there is anything and everything related to apples — potpourri, flavored coffee, figurines, baked goods, preserves, and fresh apples. I picked up a few goodies, including a bag of apples from Love Creek Orchards, and headed back home.
Our plan this evening was to go to the rodeo, but it was set to start at 8 p.m., when the sun would still be up, and given that it was still 100 degrees at 7 p.m. tonight, we nixed that plan. Instead, we went to a local steakhouse for dinner. The tiny place was packed! Bandera doesn’t have that many restaurants, so the ones they do have are rockin’ on weekend evenings.
Afterwards, we went to Jason and Chris’ house to pick up the last of our mail and get the photographs that were taken during our ordeal last Sunday. The cameras lasted only about the first two hours of the trip, so there are lots of smiles and silly faces, but in the last couple of shots, the smiles disappear. We compared sunburns and laughed (albeit halfheartedly) and the pictures before saying goodbye and coming back to the RV park.
Now it’s time to pack everything up so that we can hit the road again tomorrow and drive to Grapevine, Texas, near the Dallas/Ft. Worth area where my sister lives. Now that it’s dark and cooling off a bit, I should probably get outside and do the things I can tonight — putting away the awning, packing the things that are sitting out on the patio — and then come back in and secure the computer monitors, wash up the dishes, the usual.
The Grapevine stay is the last leg of our trip. I can hardly believe that I’ll be back at work in just a little over a week! I’m not ready for school! Just one more month of vacation, please?
P.S. Riverside RV Park will NOT be getting high marks from me. It’s dusty, there are Confederate flags flying everywhere, the staff in the office are rude, the WiFi doesn’t work, the cable reception is crappy, there’s no A/C in the laundromat, and they didn’t honor the Happy Camper discount despite the fact that they are listed in the directory. I’m hoping The Vineyards in Grapevine is an improvement.
Tags: Bandera, Geocaching, RV Parks, Texas, Travel
