2012 October 20 Saturday

            19^th Friday – We stayed around home until late afternoon.  We took a walk along the South West edge of the park and found a nice spot along the river where they’ve placed a picnic table.  As we walk around I continue to marvel at the fact that we are, for the most part, walking on bare rock.  I don’t mean loose gravel.  I mean it is solid rock.  They quarry a lot of marble around here.  I’ll bet that it polishes up to be a pretty pinkish surface.  I guess I’ll start telling people that we have marble floors and staircases throughout the park.

            I think that I’d mentioned getting the slideout 2/3 of the way out.  This allows us to use the recliners.  Ella’s recliner had a really bad case of the ‘tilts’ to the right.  If it had been a ship, I’d have feared capsizing.  Since we now have that little bit of extra room, I upended the chair and found that it had a broken rivet at a hinged area.  To fix it I’d need to replace it with a flat-head machine screw, which I did not have.  So we went for a drive.

            Not being in a hurry, we took a drive through Inks Lake State Park.  It is a huge park with lots of choices for picnicking, primitive camping, RVing and cabins.  We picked up all sorts of information … but list the price list.  We also drove past the fish hatchery.  I’ve heard at the morning Men’s Coffee that none of the fish that are raised there go to waters in Texas but are all shipped out of state.

            We found a new way to get to Kingsland.  We knew how to find the Ace Hardware there … so that’s where we went.  A helpful Ace employee named George spent a lot of time with us helping us find just the right kind and size of bolt and nut.  The bolt was 14 cents and the nut 7 cents.  We also bought a patio block / stepping stone 16x16x3 that we placed below our bottom step so that the step from the stair to the ground wouldn’t be quite so far.  The block cost $7.99.  So all in all, we spent more in gas in our round trip than we did shopping.

            I was able to ‘sort of’ fix Ella’s recliner when we returned home.  It still leans to one side but not nearly as bad.  We’ll have to start looking for a replacement recliner.  Hello, Goodwill, Salvation Army, DAV and second-hand and thrift stores.

            I slow cooked some boneless pork ribs for supper and drowned them in home-made BBQ sauce, paired them with pork and beans and kettle cooked ‘tater chips, and then sat outside and ate.  Later in the evening we got a text from Jenny inviting us to their house on Tuesday to carve pumpkins and celebrate her birthday.

            A really great afternoon and evening.

Today … 20^th is starting off overcast.  It looks like it could rain.  However there isn’t any rain in the forecast until early Monday morning and it is only listed as a ‘slight chance’.