2022-06-18 TRR Abilene Rally Part 2

Saturday was a busy day. We started with coffee and visiting. Oh, should have mentioned we did that every morning. It was so hot that the rig christening was moved from afternoon to morning. Anyone with a new or new to them rig can have it christened. They tell everyone about their rig and wish their future travels all be safe and fun. Balloons filled with water used to be used but now the president of the chapter uses a water gun. It's just a fun thing to do.

Next we had a cooking demonstration from Olivia. She loves to cook whether at home or in her RV and she is a great cook. She shows how easily everyone can eat well while traveling. Saturday's demonstration was spaghetti with meat sauce all cooked in an Instant Pot. She has the umbrella sitting there on the table to simulate how you can cook in quite a small RV kitchen. She browned hamburger in avocado oil and added half a cup of water before scraping the bottom free of any meat that was stuck. She advised using lots of seasoning when cooking with a pressure cooker which is what an Instant Pot is. Then she added the jar of spaghetti sauce. Next she added half cup of water to the spaghetti jar which was shaken to get all of the sauce and poured into the pot. 

Finally, the pasta is broken in half and arranged like pickup sticks pointing in all directions. then the remainder of the water is added. The pasta can be pushed down but should not be stirred.

The pressure is set on high manually and the timer set for 8 minutes. The 8 minutes starts once pressure is reached. A quick release at the end of the cooking time left us with delicious al dente pasta. Olivia stirred it and let it site for a couple minutes so it thickened to just the right consistency. We all had healthy sized samples and it was delicious.

Later on we all met back at the rally room for the group picture followed by a potluck dinner. THe Hosts provided fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy while everyone else provided sides or desserts. It was all delicious. My sister-in-law Elaine joined us for the potluck as well as the rousing game of jeopardy we played after. this was one of our smaller rallies which was a nice change.

Brenda's homemade jeopardy categories and questions are always challenging but everyone ends up with a prize after the winning team gets done gloating.

After the formal part of the evening was over, some of stayed to play Rummikub for a while.

I know the group had a good time Sunday but I got up at 5:45AM and pulled out of the park at 6:15AM to drive home in time for a late lunch on Father's Day. I had the car all hooked up on Saturday night and the water unhooked so I just had to run the car program, put things away inside, and bring up the jacks. The trip home went very smoothly and lunch with the family was great.

 

2022-06-18 TRR Abilene Rally Part 1

 I wasn't in any hurry to leave Hords Creek in the morning because it was only an hour to Abilene and check-in wasn't until afternoon. My GPS sent me on back roads, really back roads instead of routing me back through Coleman. Except for one short gravel section, the roads were good but had no shoulders at all and almost no traffic which gets you thinking about what you would do if you had a blowout. Stay on the road with flashers on I guess because there was no place to pull off. I won't do that route again if we rally in Abilene again next year. 

The rally was at the Whistle stop RV Resort where we also had a rally last year. It's a newer park which means very few trees but it's nice and they take very good care of us when we rally there. since the rally didn't start until Thursday, those of us that were there on Wednesday went to Heff's Burgers fo. r dinner. The burgers are great and the portions are so large that you really want to order off the kids/seniors menu. I remembered that from last year. They had a huge staffing snafu with only one woman working there. We told her we weren't in any hurry so she took our orders and then she cooked them too. By the time she was done with us, a second person arrived to rescue her.

On Thursday we had brunch at Cracker Barrel and then we went to see the new Topgun movie. It's nice and cool in the theater and the movie was good. If I was Tom Cruise, I would have been very unhappy with the dye job they did on his hair, lol.

 

I spent the afternoon visiting with my sister-in-law and got back just after the Meet and Greet started.

Friday morning was set aside for siteseeing on your own. Some of the group went to the National WASP Museum in Sweetwater. It is well worth your time to visit.

Since I went to the WASP Museum, I talked my sister-in-law Elaine into going to the Frontier Texas Museum with me. She has lived in Abilene for 30 years and has never been there. Seems like you often see more when you visit someplace than when you live there as you keep thinking you will go another time.

The Frontier Texas Museum was great. We both really enjoyed it.

The lobby had some really great sculptures and scenery typical of Texas.

The first thing you do is see a movie telling you about the old days. It was narrated by a character acter that many would recognize if they watched old westerns. Next we walked around and listened to various "actors" giving us their version of what the old west days were like. They were holograms set in natural settings for the particular well-known person. They werre all good but some were amazing lifelike.

the killing off of the huge herds of bisons was featured in many different ways.

Many of the props had ben featured in well known movies.

There were many settings where you pushed a button to learn all about that particular area.

The Butterfield Overland Stage was a very prominent means of travel.

This particular character, an actual person, told us her whole life story. she was married 4 times and lost every husband through some terrible mishap from Indians to accidents. Her husband, daughters, and a son were killed by Indians during a raid. One horrible thing after another happened to her but she just kept persevering. It was an amazing story of fortitude and courage.

The final part of the museum was a theater where sate on stools that turned around. The whole story happened all around you with storms and stampedes and stories being told. It was really amazing. I definitely recommend a visit to this museum.

2021-06-9 Whistle Stop RV Resort in Abilene Texas

 We arrived at the RV park mid-afternoon. They quickly checked us both in and we got all set up in our sites. Getting the A/C turned on quickly was key as the temps were rising rapidly.

The resort is pretty large. There are quite a few long term guests but the sites are all very neat and well taken care of.....no junk or messes laying around. They have a really nice clubhouse which was reserved for our rally with a sign on the door. The rally room had a very nice kitchen which was spotless as were the restrooms. The manager was really on top of things. One of our members pulled in on Thursday evening and had a problem with her electric. We checked it out and then called the emergency number because we thought there was a problem with the electric. A gentleman arrived promptly to check things out and shortly after, the manager herself came to make sure everything was being taken care of. She also checked to make sure we didn't need anything else in the rally room.

The pool was great. It was a saltwater pool so no smelly chorine and dried out skin. It felt so nice.

We were busy with the rally but the park had a lot for residents to do. They had horseshoes here and there were lots of other games under the pavilion. 

They had a nice dog park that was well taken care of staff and guests.

There was a volleyball court and a pickleball court too.

I ended up with a deluxe site.....just luck of the draw. We all had the same rally price. The deluxe part was being on the end and had a fire pit. There were trees but they have a lot of growing to do. Abilene has gotten a lot of rain too so the grass was also green here. It was very hot but my A/C works well. Two of our members were in a pop-up and their A/C went out. Fortunately, a mobile RV tech came and installed a new one.

This is Texas so the park even has a horse hotel but there were no horses in residence while we were there. All in all, it was a great park and the manager does a fantastic job of keeping everything running very smoothly.