Temple/Belton, TX 

Wednesday, Oct. 3rd – Monday, Oct. 8th

Gary picked us a good route to drive south to the Temple area and avoid just about all of the Dallas metro traffic area. We headed north on I-35-E to Denton then headed south on I-35-W over towards Ft. Worth. It’s amazing how many “35s” there are, and how many of the highways have people names. “LBJ” (or as LeighAnn calls it the “evil road”), President George W. Bush, and Sam Rayburn highways to name a few.  We had a good drive down to Live Oak Ridge Campground in Belton. Once again, there was some construction and our Garmin nav messed up on a few of the exit numbers, but we managed. We drove into the campground to the welcome site of brother Andy & Linda camped directly across from us! We backed into our site like pros, got unhitched and headed over to visit!  We had a fabulous afternoon catching up. Linda had planned baby back ribs for dinner and we had some salads to accompany so all was good!

The days went fast in Temple. L&A had bought a new (to them) 2016 travel trailer which had a few little hiccups. Gary & Andy were able to make a few repairs while we were parked, which hopefully will make their future camping outings even more comfortable for them. Thursday we had our nephew Blake, his wife Misty and their two boys Brendon & Cayden over for a cookout. Great to see them all! 

Friday L&A cooked us breakfast burritos in the morning then Linda and Gary & I went for a very fun bike ride called Pepper Creek Trail along a paved path with some shade. It was a rather hot day and we had one whiner (who shall remain nameless… Gary) complaining that it wasn’t as shaded as he had been led to believe. Not that he’s a wus or anything. Andy, a non biker, walked part of the path. (Linda had initially offered a 15 mile bike ride in Austin that her biking group was doing, and we could join them. She must have us mixed up with people who are actually fit. When she heard 4 or 5 miles is about our limit, we changed course to stay local.) Then in the evening L&A took us out for a bbq dinner at a local joint, which was excellent!  Then they took us to Johnny’s Outback for a Steve Wariner concert, a well known country music artist in TX. As Gary said it was like Prescott Park (in Portsmouth) on steroids!  We had good seats, but most folks had general admission and were standing. The setting for the concert was behind Johnny’s bbq joint. Lots of blue jeans, boots, booze, cowboy shirts and hats…. very cool! The opening act was an older country music band. They were quite good and at one point, the lead singer said “They aren’t having this kind of fun in New Hampshire on a Friday night.”  What a hoot!  He didn’t know we were from there. It just came out! The concert was very good and high energy with the audience singing along with many of Steve’s hits, but we left a little early to avoid the mass exodus at the end. 

At the same time the concert was going on, there was a rival high school football game going on between the neighboring towns of Belton and Temple, which Blake & family were attending. Misty (Temple girl) texted Linda during the concert with updates on the score.  It went into three overtimes with Temple pulling out the win by 3 points. Final score was 58 to 55 with Temple winning. High School football is huge down here!!!

Saturday we headed over to Blake & Misty’s to watch the OU vs UT football game and have a cookout. (Plus the Clampetts brought their laundry over to do.) Blake attended OU so that whole side of the family are OU fans, plus L&A lived in Tulsa for a number of years. Bob & Mike are UT fans. This is a big state rivalry and gets lots of media attention. Blake & Misty moved into a lovely big home about six months ago and there are more TVs than people in the house!  One TV was going in the outside patio, one in the family room, and one in the living room. Lots of whooping and hollering going on. During halftime a few of us went out to play corn hole. OU was losing but started to make a come back during the second half of the fourth quarter. Just about the time that FOX/DirecTV, who was broadcasting the game, had trouble and all the screens went black. Uh oh. Pandemonium ensued. Brother Bob was texting score updates from his home in Fairview. Gary managed to download the Fox app on our iPhone and we all huddled around the iPhone for the last few minutes of the game. OU lost, but just barely. Made for a memorable viewing of a big game! 

Sunday Linda and I headed off to the town of Hamilton and the Region 10 High School Rodeo competition to see Brody (Linda’s grandson) calf rope and team rope. Bill (Brody’s Dad) was working so I missed seeing my nephew but finally had a chance to meet Pam, his wife, and Jessica, Pam’s daughter. Lovely women! Had my first Cowboy Church experience. A nice way to mix a fun family activity like a rodeo with a Sunday mass service and teach compassion and caring. Brody and his friend were complete gentlemen (lots of “Yes, Ma’am”…. so sweet!) and put up with our picture taking. Linda did a great job of explaining everything to this Northener who hadn’t ever really attended a rodeo before. I saw teenage girls competing in “Pole Bending” (sort of a slalom event with weaving in and out of poles on horseback), calf roping (Brody’s event), girl’s goat roping (amazing how fast those girls are!), and the Team Calf Roping event (also Brody’s event). Brody also plays football and runs track. Quite the athlete! A fun day getting a real TX experience!

While we did that Andy & Gary were doing a few more things on their trailer and Gary ran some errands so we’d be ready to hit the road the next day. We came back to see the boys sitting outside with an adult beverage. We all headed out to dinner that evening to the Dead Fish Grill and had a lovely table overlooking Belton Lake with good food and even better company. 

Hard to believe that tomorrow we head further south to Spring Branch, TX (outside San Antonio) and visit our very dear friends and neighbors for over 30 years, Meigs & Paul.