"Hub" Parker

We made a new friend today! When we were at Fort Stockton we ran into a gentleman in the gift shop who had written a book which they had on sale.

Hub Parker and I got into quite a discussion about the area and it's history. Hub has lived and worked on ranches throughout the area for his entire life of 74 years.

He is a walking encyclopedia of the geography and happenings and is more than ready to tell you about it! He said that he only went to the sixth grade and most of his education came at the feet of the cowboys and ranchers of the area.
He talked of breaking horses and was delighted to hear that Barbara had broken horses in her youth.

We bought his book which he signed to Neal and also two small books of cowboy poems that he had written and he signed those to Barbara.

This was a delightful interlude in our day of sightseeing!

Fort Stockton, TX

We visited the museum at Fort Stockton today. It consists of about 5 buildings left from the original fort.

The fort was started around 1858 but abandoned in 1861 due to the Civil War. In 1867 the army returned to the post and started rebuilding it so they could guard the trail from San Antonio to El Paso from the Indians and Mexican bandits. The first building on the fort was the guard house. (Now that says a lot about how they controlled their soldiers back then!)

The soldiers that manned the post were exslaves who became known as buffalo soldiers.

There is not a lot of exhibits at the fort with the exception of the buildings which were interesting in their own right.

This exhibit was in the enlisted mans barracks. We found the beds very interesting. They consist of iron headboard and footboard with wood bolted to them. A real neat way to make a bed that could be taken apart and moved without much bulk. I doubt that they would be very comfortable as they did not have much in the way of a mattress! 

Annie Riggs Memorial Museum

We decided to stop in Fort Stockton, TX for a couple of days and visit the sites.

One of the best sites in town is the Hotel turned into a museum which displays a lot of the articles from the pioneer days.

The hotel began construction in 1899 and finished in 1901. The cowboys needed a place to stay when they came to town which is also the county seat for Pecos County so they all got together and put up the money to build it. It is made of exposed adobe bricks with walls two feet thick and ceilings fourteen feet high. There are 15 rooms nine of which are guest rooms.

When you stayed at the hotel you did not rent a room, you rented a bed and there were two beds in a room. It cost 50 cents a night and if you wanted a private room you had to rent two beds! Annie Riggs purchased the hotel in 1905 for $5,000.00 with $3000.00 cash and the balance in payments. (To be able to come up with that much cash back then was astounding.)

Here is a picture of an inner courtyard at the hotel. It is a very pretty place.








The folks in the museum showed us a desk that sits in the lobby of the hotel. It seems that this desk has a history.

It seems that it sat in the 1883 courthouse office of the Sheriff by the name of A. J. Royal. Sheriff Royal was one of those that took advantage of the office and was expropriating from the locals everything he could including complete ranches. He came up for election in 1894 and it was a very volatile and fueding atmosphere so the governor sent in 5 Texas Rangers to monitor the situation.

In the meantime a group of local business men got together to draw straws to see who got the pleasure of killing Sheriff Royal. Well, the election came and went and Sheriff Royal was not reelected. Several of the Rangers left and two weeks after the election poor old Sheriff Royal was shot and killed while sitting at the desk. There is a drawer with some of his blood stains still visible. Even with the three Rangers still in town, there was never any solution to the crime.

The museum holds many artifacts from around the area. One display is of many fossils which is quite interesting.

Surprise Visitors!

This afternoon we were just finishing up our laundry after a busy week here in Buckhorn Lake Resort when we got a knock at the door of the coach. To our surprise, Hal and Susan Hunsaker had come by to visit! They are on their way to Indio, CA to spend the winter and stopped here for the night. They remembered that we sometime come here so they took a tour and looked for us.

It was a lovely day so we sat on the patio and got caught up on all of the things they had been up to and we passed along our adventures of this last year to them also. Of course Barbara had to give their dog Huey a treat or two while he was here!

Hal and Susan are from the Houston, TX area and own a Newell also. They were surprised and delighted to find out that we would be going to the Barrett-Jackson Auction with the Newell group and then going over to Indio for a while. Turns out that they are going to the auction also! We had to laugh when Hal explained Susan's approach to auctions. He said that she loved "Winning" bids!
Now to him he is not sure that if you are successful with the high bid it is really a "Win" to be overly happy about as it always means you have to come up with the bucks to cover it!!

We really enjoyed their visit and getting brought up to date on all our friends in Indio.

DataStorm users Rally, Kerrville, TX

This last week we have been attending the DataStormusers Rally at Buckhorn Lakes RV Resort in Kerrville, TX which is one of our favorite places to stay.

The DataStorm users Rally is for those of us who use the Mototsat DataStorm automatic internet satellite dish when we are traveling in our RV's.

We were pleasantly surprised to find our friends Bob and Lynn Packer attending also. They are from Dallas, TX and have spent the last 4 or 5 winters out in Indio, CA at Outdoor Resorts where we stayed. We also got to see their new Newell coach which is just beautiful! As we plan to go to Indio for the later part of January and all of February we will get to see thier new lot at Outdoor Resorts Country Club that they customized to thier needs.
There were people from many distant locations at the rally. These folks are from Australia and are touring the north american continent in their RV. They are very supportive of the Americans and have found that the information that they had heard before coming here was totally false and the Americans were a pleasant surprise to them.


The Rally consisted of many technical seminars that gave helpful tips on how to get the best from your dish. Of course no rally is complete without the social side. We enjoyed wonderful dinners and live bands for entertainment.






There were about 110 RV's of every size in attendance which made for a lot of curiosity and there was a nice writeup in the local newspaper along with photos.

All in all, the rally was a ringing success and everyone (and that is not an exageration) had a wonderful time.

Canton Lake

We took a day trip down to Canton Lake in Oklahoma to visit with Barbara's sister Beverly and her husband Perry.

Beverly and Perry live in Enid and have for many years spent most of the summer and early fall at Canton Lake fishing, boating and living a good life!

Barbara's mother Doris went down with us and brought her dog Pepe who was just delighted with his new playground.


The weather could not have been better. There was no wind and the temperatures of around 70 degrees, just ideal day to sit at the campsite and visit.

Beverly and Perry told us that this was a banner year for fishing at the lake and they had caught a large quantity of fish. Their daughter her family come out some weekends and fish and boat with them which is a delightful way to spend quality time together.

Stray cat and Possums on the farm.

We live on a farm in Kansas and the nearest neighbor is one and a half miles away so it is somewhat isolated and it is unusual for a stray cat to show up here. Now we have three "Barn Cats" that have been "Fixed". The other day, a stray cat showed up and proceeded to try to establish himself as the "Alpha" cat which is MY JOB.

I decided that I would take care of this interloper by catching him in my live trap and haul him to some remote location so he could try to ply his trade elsewhere! I carefully baited and set the trap in what I thought was a suitable location and left it for the night. The following morning I went out early to check to see if the cat was caught. Instead of the cat the trap held a possum! Now, the possum had not done anything to me so I decided to haul him (or her, I did not check real close!) to a real nice creek some number of miles from the farm.

Not to be out smarted by the cat, I set the trap up again the next night. The following morning I again went out to check the trap. No cat in the trap, just another possum! So again I loaded the trap up in the truck and hauled it to the creek to be with its relative. (I wanted to keep the family together!)

I began to make jokes about giving the possums away for the meat but no one was in the mood for good possum stew around our parts.

Never one to give up I set the trap again! You guessed it! I caught another possum! This continued again and again, night after night. The final tally of possums caught was 16!!

The wife asked why I could not catch the cat and I told her that the possums where not giving the cat a chance! Finally, I caught a racoon in the trap and hauled him off also. The cat was not to be caught and in fact had become scarce around the farm so I guess I got rid of him as he knew if he hung around I would have him in the trap. (I like that thought as it makes me feel I won!)