Author: Steve

  After days of rain, the weather let up today.  The rain didn’t go all the way away, it only rained off and on, so we had a driveabout.  The three of us drove forty miles up the interstate to South Llano River State Park for some walking and birding.  Usually I send out pictures of what it looks like when we’re camping there.  Here is what it looks like when we’re just walking around:    

  You get tired of people driving over your landscaping, so you put a big boulder in the way.  Now everyone will have to drive around it.   It looks like putting a nice boulder there only kind of worked.   Of course, everyone ought to be able to stay on the road and drive around a boulder, but can you imagine the thousands of dollars of damage that rock did to someone’s RV just to keep them from driving over the gravel?  

    Hunkered down on the high ground at Buckhorn Lake RV Resort.       Buckhorn Lake Resort  

  That’s the name of the flood control project that’s going to help with our flooding.  Our part of the county north of Edinburg is a low spot.  Flooding has always been a problem here.  The drain will be sixty-three miles long collecting and draining water all the way from Edinburg Lake to the Gulf.  We’re at the Edinburg Lake end of it.   This project has been in the works for thirty years, but it couldn’t get any funding until now.  Phase One of the Raymondville Drain project just got started in 2017.  We can see progress on it as we drive in and out of our neighborhood.   So it started in 2017.  It’s a five-phase project.  I wonder what the completion date is.  I wonder if it starts to provide any benefit to our neighborhood at any intermediate stage.  The only thing I can find on Google is about phase one.  As far as Google knows, it’s a one-phase project.  We in our neighborhood would like to know more.  I guess time will tell.  

  It was a two-day trip.  One day to drive just north of San Antonio and one day back.  We were so careful not to pack a bunch of extra stuff.   Our location   Remember I said it rained the night before we left?  Five inches.  The park in front of our house was completely flooded.  We had to wade to the motorhome to get in it and drive away.  Well, it rained another five inches again last night.  Now the entire RV Park is flooded.  The roads to get to and from our park are covered by standing water.  More rain is forecast.  Oh, and there is a tropical storm in the gulf headed our way.   We always say that if a hurricane is coming, our house has wheels.  This isn’t a hurricane, but it is a significant enough rain event that we decided since our house with wheels is already on high ground, we probably ought to just leave it there and stay in it until the flooding in the Valley has receded.   But there is a problem with that.  To stay out, we need more stuff.  We didn’t even bring a change of clothes.  We didn’t bring our prescriptions.  We decided to drive back to the Valley today, get the stuff we need, and drive back here tomorrow, and stay out until the floodwaters have gone down.  We can drive through a little standing water; it’s a Jeep!  We got as far as San Antonio before we got the note that the County was about to let more water out of Edinburg Lake just south of our house.  The roads to and from our house are going to be impassible.  Time for a new plan.   We turned around.  Now we’re back in the motorhome in Bandera with groceries in the pantry and refrigerator.  Tomorrow we can go buy a change of clothes at Walmart.  Judy called Walgreens and they will provide new prescriptions in advance of us normally needing them.  Maybe we can go home next week.  Never know though; sometimes plans just have to change.