As we traveled north, we began to encounter the hills of south central Texas. Huge ranches with ornate gates and very long driveways began to go past our windows. Many of these ranches are so large that we could not see the house that was at the other end of the drive.
We made it to Hondo about 4 p.m. and started looking for the SKP Co-op there. As with the Plantation and Rainbow's End, the directions did not really help us as we headed west from town. Luckily, a fellow SKP passed us and led us to the entrance to the park. Had we just gone far enough west, we would have seen it from the highway, but not knowing that and driving along with 50 plus feet of rig and toad always makes one a little apprehensive when looking for a specific place. You just never know how long it will take to find a suitable place to turn around if you need to.
As we arrived at the Lone Star Corral SKP park, we
were very impressed with the grounds and clubhouse. Walking out of
the office after registering, we immediately ran into Lila Oster.
Lila was parked next to us at the Plantation last December. Lila
started fulltiming when she was 69. 
At
age 75, she has been to Alaska 5 times, once by herself, traveled to Tonga
with EarthWatch, backpacked across Europe with her daughter using EuRail
passes, rafted the Amazon in South America and attended over 10 EdlerHostels.
She is quite a remarkable lady.
As we backed into our boondock spot, we were met by Suzan and Al Horvitz, who we met at the Fall Escapade in Goshen, Indiana last September. The next night we ran into a couple we had met at the Plantation in December. The great RV family continues to amaze us.
We left Hondo after 3 days and traveled up to Georgetown,
TX where we parked in the driveway of our good friends Larry and Sarah
Wise. The Wise's daughter in law, Bobbie was staying with them pending
the closing of a new home just around the corner. 
Bobbie and David were moving back to the Austin area from Minnesota.
We left Georgetown on Tuesday headed toward Big Bend National Park. While in Austin, we met with a our broker and set up my retirement accounts. The really interesting thing about being retired is that our income from both of our retirement accounts will exceed the net of my last year's pay checks. One of the big differences, of course, is that we are now in a much lower tax bracket and will not be paying FICA or covering all of the optional deductions I used to have. It's a pretty good feeling, knowing that we are going to be able to continue our fulltime adventure indefinitely, without worrying about work kamping or finding other jobs.
We rolled through the hill country west of Austin heading for I 10 at Junction. We followed Texas route 29 until we ran into the Interstate. It was an interesting trip with lots of ranches, small towns and rolling hills as we rumbled toward the more arid part of west Texas. By the time we emerged on I 10 at Junction, we were in semi desert. We again filled up with diesel just to make sure we would not have to find fuel near Big Bend. I think the cost was in the mid $1.50s.
We stayed at Sonora that night in a small RV park that seems to be the coming thing. It was being developed behind a small motel. There are a lot of these motel/RV park combinations scattered throughout West Texas. It was here that the weather turned a little nasty. A front came through, the sky dropped a little moisture on the rig, just enough to dampen the roof and then a dust storm blew threw. The roof was a nice shade of brown after that and I didn't get a chance to wash it off for a couple of weeks.
The next day we headed south to Del Rio. Del
Rio is a border town with a military base. A beautiful lake, Amistad,
lies just north of this town. We might try to come back here next
winter to spend a few weeks. After Amistad, we stopped at the Judge
Roy Bean museum in Langtry, Texas. Langtry is a pretty unique community.
It appears to have two restaurants, the museum and a couple of houses.
Most of the town is abandoned. It almost looks like you could see
Judge Bean dispensing his bar room justice behind some of the broken doors
that lean against the buildings.
We moved on to Marathon, Texas for the evening. We stopped at the Ranch RV on the east side of town. No one was at the office, but the sign on the door said the owners were at the roundup and would see us when they got back. By dark, all 10 sites were occupied, but still no manager. When we left the next morning, we wrote a check for $12 and put it through the letter opening in the door. We never saw a manager, owner, caretaker or whatever.
From Marathon, we headed rolled into the east entrance of Big Bend. Of course it was 69 miles from our campground to the park headquarters. We saw a herd of deer crossing the road, a covey of quail and a flock of wild turkeys, all before we even got to the park entrance. At the entrance, we bought our Golden Eagle pass for $50. This will get us into all the national parks, forest service lands, BLM, etc for free. It seems like a good idea, since it now costs $10 to get into the parks, maybe more.