So, with our next campsite in the heart of the ice storm we decided to cancel and head southeast to Louisiana. It will be cold but out of the winter storm watch. As we headed east, we saw fleets of of electric trucks and tree service trucks heading towards the winter storm area. They will be prepared. 

February 5 was laundry day. Sunny but chilly. Since the camp laundry is over a mile away, we piled it into two big bags, bungied it to the back of my e-bike and off I went. While it was washing we went for a bike ride. You all know that I have poor riding skills plus I am still learning my e-bike. On the way back, I was negotiating a sharp turn onto a sidewalk, missed the turn, and drove head first into a sign at a slow speed (think Keystone cops🤣). Luckily I had my helmet on because the bike and I both hit the ground and I hit my head. Luckily no serious damage to either of us! 

After several cold rainy days, we headed back to Texas and our original itinerary. The weather has been all over the place. Lows from the 20s to the 60s, highs from the 40s to almost 80. We even had a little bit of snow on two different days! Since we last posted we have been at four different parks. We stay 3-4 days during which we try to hike all the trails and find all the geocaches. So far, we are at 100% on geocaches but have missed a few trails due to weather. Looking for geocaches takes us to some very cool places including the mission at Mission Tejas Park and an old cemetery at Fairfield Lake State Park where there were even some slave graves. Sadly, all slave graves were marked as UNK for unknown. They were not unknown, the owners just chose not to acknowledge their names in what was a mainly white slave-owner cemetery. We are currently at Lake Livingston in SE Texas. The literature says it is the second largest lake in Texas (a reservoir) at 83,000 acres. It is enormous! We had a couple of shorts days here, and since it is all newly repaved we were able to ride every road in the park on our bikes as well as hike all the trails. Our job here is done. Time to move on!

Michigan bade us farewell with icy roads and an icy windshield. As soon as we rounded the bottom of Lake Michigan, the roads cleared but the freezing temps continued. It takes a long time to warm up the frozen RV interior! Luckily, I am hand sewing the binding on a quilt which kept my lap comfy, but the poor driver (Denny) froze. The second day we found some 50s as we entered Arkansas. This made all the flies and lady bugs from Michigan come back to life. Fortunately a fly swatter is part of our travel gear!

We have been on the road for two weeks so far and just settled down in our 5th state park. The first two were in Arkansas and involved de-winterizing the RV. We have had many below freezing nights and 40-50 degree days.  Luckily our propane heater keeps us warm. We have hiked 3-5 miles and geocached nearly every day which also helps keep us warm!

January 29 was our first jacket free day. Since then days have been in the high 60s and sunny. Heaven! But alas another cold front with a possible wintry mix is on the way. ❄🌬 Brrr!

Most Texas state parks are on lakes, most of which are dammed rivers but still beautiful.

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These two guys showed up shortly after we arrived. Since we don't have a cat with us this year I was forced to give them some of Denny's turkey lunch meat.😂 They liked it so well that they left and brought a third cat back with them!

This tree reminded me (more than once!) of how picky and prickly Texas is!

This park said it had a lot of armadillos. This is the only one we saw!

This tree decided it didn't need any dirt to grow!

Another park, another lake!