We knew when we got up this morning that it was going to be a busy day, but it was even busier than we originally thought it was going to be.
We have been staying at a KOA near town for the last four nights, but it’s not the kind of place where you can stay long term. A couple days ago Mark and I scouted out long stay campgrounds near Kerrville and found one way out in the country on the road to Bandera.
For those of you who haven’t done a lot of camping, there are several clubs one can belong to and get discounts on camping. We have a KOA membership and a Good Sam membership, but my mentor for the Christmas tree job had told me about something called Passport America. It only costs $44 per year to join and there are nearly 1900 Passport America campgrounds around the US, Canada and Mexico. If you are a member and you stay in one of those parks, you can stay for half price. That’s better than the ten percent discount at either of the other two clubs. However, most Passport America campgrounds seem to have a limit of two nights. The campground we’ve found sold us the membership but gave us an even better deal for staying for the month of January.
This morning we packed up the RV and drove to this new site and barely had time to get hooked up before heading to San Antonio. Our bosses had our pay checks ready to pick up and we had a few things to bring back to them, such as the tree stand our Christmas tree was in. Yes, it’s sad but true…Our tree had two days of glory before being left by the dumpster at KOA. Also at the office we picked up some large packages my cousin sent from our storage unit in Washington. More about that tomorrow.
The one thing we hadn’t known about when we first started out today was that there was a big RV show in San Antonio today. My mentor told me about it, so after we left the office Mark and I decided to go. We walked around and looked mostly at toy haulers but weren’t very impressed.
However, we got our money’s worth when we happened to see Terry Cooper giving a presentation in one of the rooms. If the name sounds vaguely familiar, he’s the one that taught the RV Tech course Mark took in Canton, TX right before we started the Christmas tree job. Terry’s wife, Lady E, was there too and she told us they had a booth in the vendor lobby. We headed over there kind of slowly, looking at other booths along the way, and by the time we got there Terry and Lady E were back. There were also three former graduates of the RV Tech course there. Terry introduced us to them. One of them will be the one to check Mark’s work when he does inspections. The other couple will be teaching the advanced course that Mark wants to take in Louisiana in March. What a serendipitous meeting!
We got home after dark. This park is a gated park and we’d forgotten to bring the code for the entrance gate with us, but fortunately there was a way to walk around the gate. Mark hiked in to our RV and called me with the gate code so I could bring the car in. We’ll have to remember to take that code with us every time we leave. Right now we are sitting inside where we are safe and dry with a good-sized lightning storm going on outside. How lovely to be inside on such a night!