Murphy’s on a Roll - New Braunfels and Salado, Texas

We arrived on Tuesday, 3/26, in New Braunfels, TX which is situated about halfway between San Antonio and Austin. Parts of the drive here were absolutely beautiful.  Texas Hill Country has its moments. The wildflowers along the road were spectacular. Texas Bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, phlox, daisies and so many more I couldn’t identify. Blue, yellow, pink, purple, white – Monet would have had a field day.

The pups enjoyed the wildflowers too. 

Randi and Jose moved to Texas when Jose’s employer made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. They left Rancho Cucamonga, CA for New Braunfels, TX and rented for a little over a year, then bought a home last fall. One saving grace for Texas, affordable housing. They have a lovely home that would have been totally out of their budget in either California or Washington. Sigh. Both sets of parents would like them closer, but that doesn’t look like it's going to happen anytime soon unless someone wins the lottery. For this week, we’re staying at Sun Retreats RV Resort which is less than a mile from Randi and Jose’s house. That’s pretty close!

Randi and Jose's new home.

The happy homeowners.

Since there is nothing particularly blog worthy or photogenic about doing a million loads of laundry (yes, I counted!), cleaning the rig (an army of dog hair dust bunnies was about to stage a coup), running errands, or doing rig maintenance, I’m going to skip over most of our week. You all have been there, done that.

We had lots of fun too. Dinners together, both at Randi’s and dining out. Scoring our favorite River City Catering key lime pie and watching the remake of Jumanji – Jack Black channeling a teenage girl was hilarious.

We enjoyed dinners together and...

...this amazing key lime pie!

We also visited the Snake Farm and Zoo. Randi and Jose have driven by it almost daily since they moved here but had never visited. They had a surprisingly large collection of venomous snakes as well as many other reptiles. It was also much larger than we anticipated with a fun petting zoo and opportunities for animal encounters. We had a great time feeding the goats (greedy and demanding little creatures!) and the birds (also greedy and demanding!). Chickens were everywhere!

Fur, feathers and scales - we saw them all!

The big cats were all taking afternoon naps.

Randi liked feeding the fancy chickens. Lol.

Just gorgeous!

Jose was the koi whisperer. 

The baby goats were adorable.

Baby cows too! (This one is for Rian 💓.)

We spent part of Saturday working on their boat. Jose and Randi bought a huge pontoon boat last year and we have a plan. How about watching the total eclipse on a lake in your boat? Hell, yeah!! The previous owners had just left the boat sit out in a field for quite awhile and Jose and Randi have been cleaning and repairing it and doing a fantastic job. Not to say that everything has gone smoothly.

Her name is Lola.
Jose and Randi's Labor of Love. 

The weather has been nothing if not changeable. Rog got both the pupwagon and the coach washed – just in time for a thunderstorm that blew dust mixed with rain to give both vehicles (not so) lovely leopard spots. Ugh!

After the rains, we got into Randi’s Scion and were shocked to find the front dash could have doubled as an aquarium. She’d recently had the windshield replaced and they obviously failed to seal it properly – the entire dash was soaked, water dripping out of the headliner and seeping out of the electronics. Ugh! But that was just the start of Murphy’s nefarious plans.

It's hard to see, but that dash cubby is completely full of water!

On Tuesday, 4/2, Rog and I moved to Union Grove Campground on Stillhouse Hollow Lake about 100 miles northwest of New Braunfels. That put us closer to the center line of the eclipse and set us up for an awesome view of totality. IF the weather will cooperate. Unfortunately, the reports are not promising. The weather guessers are calling for high clouds, low clouds, some sun breaks, rain, severe thunderstorms on Monday… yes, all the above! Lol.

Huge grassy sites close to the lake.

Regardless, we plan on having a great time. All you can do is set yourself up for success and then hope for the best. Another huge plus – we were meeting up with Bob and Carole and Ruby at Union Grove. Happy reunion! The pups were ecstatic, and we were thrilled to be traveling together again too.

BBF's reunited!

We're parked next to each other with plenty of room for the pups to play.

The people are as happy as the pups to catch up.

We had some breezy days after we arrived, so we explored the nearby town of Salado. It’s tiny with some fun shops. We enjoyed watching the artists at Salado Glassworks create beautiful art glass. We stopped for gelato at Vecchio Pallino, where the owner was justifiably proud of and eager to share his excellent homemade gelato. 

The town of Salado was very picturesque.

Something about molten glass is just facinating.

Yummy gelato.

We have wings!

Lunch at Provecho.

We stumbled onto a fantastic taproom, Chupacabra Craft Beer. They had 60 Texas craft beers on tap! Woohoo – can you say flights? They had some great sours, so we ended up going back. This time we brought a small growler to fill. However, it didn’t meet Texas requirements so, while they wouldn’t fill the growler, they’d sell us the pints so we could fill it ourselves. Sure. No problem. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so confident. Bob starts pouring and all is well until some critical mass was achieved and the growler erupts like Mt. Vesuvius! We ended up quickly drinking more than made it into the growler. Sacrifices must be made. Lol.

Chupacabra Craft Beer - love the logo!

With 60 Texas craft brews on tap there's something for everyone!

Sampling the wares at Chupacabra.

Rog tries his hand at filling the growler.

We went kayaking twice on the lake. The lake is about 18 feet below full pool and I can’t say that it’s very scenic country, but the weather was perfect on Thursday and Friday morning.

Kayaking on Stillhouse Hollow Lake.

We also celebrated Ruby’s second birthday on Friday! The birthday girl got special cookies and a new toy. Auntie Carole had treats for Raney and Riley so everyone was happy.

Happy Birthday Ruby!!

While we were enjoying a fun, relaxing stay at Union Grove, Jose and Randi were wrestling with Murphy in New Braunfels.

In additional to the million little last-minute things that go wrong when you’re trying to pack and prep for a trip, one of the boat cushions went missing. Best guess, it flew out of the back during transport to their storage unit. After a frantic, but ultimately unproductive, search they decided to make a new one. Randi went to San Antonio to buy marine grade vinyl and foam. They had Home Depot cut plywood to spec and while Randi was loading it into her Scion, Murphy struck again. The plywood hit her back window just right and completely shattered it. On top of the leaking windshield and missing cushion, it was just a bit much.

Nooooooo! Randi is not having a good week.

The plan was for Randi and Jose to bring their boat to the campground on Saturday afternoon and then stay at a hotel in Salado. Jose’s parents (Lori and Jose Sr.) were also driving from California to join us for the eclipse and then spend some time with the kids in New Braunfels. They had their own run-in with Murphy, after a late start they were unable to find a hotel in Arizona because of the eclipse and ended up driving until 2-3am. Despite Murphy’s best efforts, everyone made it to Salado by late Saturday evening.

They made it! 

We had a few potential Murphy moments too. I was walking Riley near the lake and disturbed a snake that went straight for the water where Riley was standing. Water Moccasin? I don't know, but Riley nearly stepped on him while I was doing the "Arrrrrgh! It's a Snake" dance. Then Bob and Carole found not one, but two scorpions near their coach, not too far from the shoes they'd left outside. Ugh. Not sure which creepy crawly is worse. 

An unwelcome visitor!

The weather is still looking iffy for the eclipse and we’ll have to see what else Murphy has up his sleeve. Stay tuned to see how things go!