First you will see there are new blogs which are out of sequence, so have fun with that.  It seems they were published as “pages” which don’t actual post on my blog for whatever reason, but now that is sorted things should come out on schedule?

We are all on course to close out the Fredericksburg flat on September 29 and head for Sedona.  Of course we can’t get a set time for Cort to pick up the furniture on the 29th, but hopefully it will not be too late!  Then there is car packing!  We haven’t done a truck load-out for 6 months, so a dry run will have to be done to see what will fit.  Still remember our first load-out at Scott and Lisa’s!!  Our future homes are all rented furnished so we won’t have the leasing furniture,TVs, and power issues that we had with Fredericksburg.  We have now booked everything through to the beginning of July 2016 – organised, or what?  So we are in Sedona until December 31 and will therefore spend New Year’s Eve on the road heading for California.  We will spend a week at a vineyard in Adelaide – outside Paso Robles on the Central Coast – then a week in Kelseyville in the northern CA wine country – before heading to OR.  We have 3 months in a flat in Tualatin – a suburb of Portland – for the winter months, then move on to a house in Carlton in March for another 3 months stay. Carlton is a town of 3,000 people, but has 10 tasting rooms and 40 wineries in the county!  Jim and Jerrie have already made a booking for a week!  Oh yes, we have our first guests booked in to the Sedona house, so remember it’s first come, first served y’all.

Apart from our hectic life of eating, drinking, going to the gym, and playing golf (Tony), book club (Ann), we’ve had to visit local sites before departing the Hill Country; like the Nimitz Museum of the Pacific War.  Very impressive – complete with fighter planes, tanks, a miniature submarine, and extensive film shows and photos.  It even had a small exhibit on The Chindits and Vinegar Joe Stillwell.  Pop loathed Vinegar Joe because he refused to move his troops into Burma to support the British, resulting in many of Pop’s beloved Gurkhas getting killed. The tickets to the Museum are valid for 48 hours so you can thoroughly cover the museum, gardens, and Admiral Nimitz’s home nearby.  Our next tourism visit was to LBJ’s ranch and the Texas White House just down the road from us in nearby Johnson City on the banks of the Pedernales River – well worth a visit. On the grounds of the ranch are the one-room schoolhouse Johnson attended as a boy, the Johnson family cemetery, Johnson’s birthplace, and the home of his grandparents. The Texas White House was quite small and spare considering it was the base of a president who often ran the country and hosted international luminaries at his home (and when compared to the homes of more contemporary American leaders). In the collection of his cars there was a Lincoln open-top hunting car complete with gun rack and bar!  All The Way with LBJ!

Ann and Jerrie made a day trip to Austin to visit the LBJ Presidential Library. I had to drive her to Johnson City to meet up with Jerrie and used that as my excuse to have a chicken fried steak breakfast at the Country Cupboard. Their sign says, “World Famous Country Fried Steak – Over 3 dozen sold.” I think World Famous is pushing it, but not a bad brekkie!

Notched up a few more local eateries – Cranky Franks BBQ – only open for lunch and very much a local haunt, which had seriously good brisket. The Navaho Grill – considered one of Fredericksburg top restaurants – which was very good, but our visit was a little strange as we were the only diners in the place!  The fried avocado salad was outstanding.  Then it was El Gallo with the Newcomers’ Dinner Group – always a wacky, but interesting gathering.  El Gallo is a family run Mexican restaurant that has been going for 20 years, but is dry!  However, Nancy our group leader, had arranged for us bring our own adult beverages. We had to keep our booze out of sight and sipped wine from plastic tea glasses – very funny.  Good cheap Mexican food and good company.  We took TJ our neighbour as he had not heard of the Newcomers.  He was soon bonding with the other folks and will hopefully keep going after we leave.

Had Chuck and Kathy round for dinner. I cooked Quail Confit and Ann made a fabulous English Trifle – great fun.  Met a couple, Stephen and Donna Hugly (whom we had previously met a few weeks ago at August E’s when having dinner in the bar) for lunch as they were in town to meet with their contractor on the construction of their retirement home.  Stephen’s a Brit and they are a really nice couple who we will hopefully keep in contact with, especially as Stephen is going to plant grapes on their property!  Looks as if they will visit us in Sedona.

Jerrie organised a few days in a cabin on the Frio River, her family’s summer retreat for many years, where we had a cabin slap bang on the river in a gated complex.  School was back in session so things were nice and quiet most of the time, except for pair of Mr & Mrs Rednecks who sat in the river every day playing country and western music and drinking! We normally went in closer to the rapids where the rushing water drowned out the music and which allowed Ann to lie in her floaty and read – tied off to a convenient tree. Tubing is big in the Hill Country rivers so we had groups of tubers coming through which was extremely entertaining. They all had coolers in tubes with them so nobody had to sober up on the trip. Mind you lying back in your tube and drinking will not cut it, because if you don’t follow the water run you’ll end up in the shallows or stuck on the rocks.  We found out from the locals that tubing from our spot to the next exit point, Neal’s Landing, was 4 hours with a set of rapids that should be walked.  So watching the tubers come through our bank of rapids, getting stuck, falling flat on their backs on the slippery rocks, while still drinking, would result in at least a 20% mortality rate. The local pundit said don’t miss Neal’s Landing because after that you are in wilderness and there is nowhere to get out of the river. Bet the mortality rate goes up after Neal’s Landing!  We had planned to go to Neal’s Landing for dinner one night to eat their famous chicken fried steak, but they were closed – very annoying – so we had to stay in and eat our meagre supplies with the limited wine we had bought.  Yeh right – it was the Bethel/Hendeys, so though we got through the wine we still had enough food to feed 2-3 tubing groups!  The only damper on our fabulous stay was that I found out iPhones don’t like being submerged in the Rio Frio.  I rushed off the a grocery store about 4 miles away to buy rice, and when I was paying the young lady at the desk she looked at me with a straight face and asked if I had gone in the river with my phone?! There were no straight faces when I relayed the story back at the cabin – everybody was in stitches!!  Jim said he intended to create a new dish in my honour called iPhone Risotto.  Warped sense of humour!

Drove home via Bandera so we could introduce J&J to the meat market there.  Loaded up on Texas Akaushi steaks and garlic pork venison sausages.  I was restrained from buying quail stuffed jalapenos, and skewered quail legs.  Boy, what a great butcher’s!

August has been hot, with a string of days at 100’F+, but low humidity, so not too bad.  One small thunderstorm in the last 30 odd days and that’s it for rain.  The humming birds have still been flocking the feeder and keeping us entertained, though I think they may have started their migration back to Mexico as there appear to be fewer birds in the last few days.

Getting hectic as we wind down our Hill Country sojourn. Two more Hill Country wineries to visit and we’re heading for those on Friday. Saturday there’s a fish fry to benefit the Volunteer Fire Dept. in the community of Doss. We hear they give you free beer while you wait in line for your fish so we’re going. We have a trip to San Antonio with J&J for a Western photography exhibition at Briscoe Western Arts Museum followed by dinner at a yummy SA eatery to yet to be selected. Then Scott & Lisa and us are all staying at J&Js’ fabulous new house for a few days when there will be an excess of cooking, eating, and drinking – yes!  And finally, the Italian wine dinner at Valeria in Boerne.  I tell you retirement is not for the weak!!