Austin Capital, Friends, Cooper's BBQ, Wild Flowers and catching up...

Cottonwood Creek RV Park, Dripping Springs, TX.


We've been having an excellent time here at Cottonwood Creek RV Park in the Texas Hill Country. The overall friendly nature of the guests and the almost daily "Happy Hour" (snack times) in the park really make it easy to get to know the guests. Often we end up caravanning to group outings at local restaurants. Last week we took a trip out to Salt Lick, a local restaurant known for their BBQ. This was only a few days after having the smoked brisket that Les and Sherry cooked for everyone in the park!
We made some new friends, Jeff and Joann. Jeff is a Lt. Col. in the U.S.A.F. and B-1 pilot, call sign "Hoof". Joann is a former deputy sheriff in Montana. But aside from that, together they are a wonderful and generous couple. We plan to stay in touch with them.

Unfortunately Jeff had to get back to work after having extended their vacation for a few more days!

We took Paul and Paula on a walking tour of the Texas State Capital and the beautiful grounds.

 Of course no visit to Austin is complete without a walk along the 6th Street district.

Back at the RV park, several of us volunteered to assist Les and Sherry in grinding up cut cedar trees into mulch to use on the paths. We spent about 8 hrs. over the weekend helping out. We were rewarded with a meal and outing at a local Mexican Restaurant, Flores.

It wasn't long before it was time for our scheduled trip with nearly everyone in the park to Cooper's BBQ in Llano Tx.  I gotta tell ya we weren't feeling like eating anymore BBQ before we got to Cooper's but, after smelling and seeing the meat...it was game on! 

Paul and Paula selecting their meat from the BBQ pit.

The Happy Hour gang at Cooper's

After eating at Cooper's, we took a scenic ride home via the Willow City Loop. The wild flowers were better than we had seen the previous two years.

Along the Willow City Loop we came across this Llama(?) greeting visitors along the narrow road.

Llano River

Mix of Blue Bonnets and other wild flowers.

We have/had a lot planned to do while here in the hill country, it remains to be seen if we can do everything on our list. Time has really gone by quickly and some of our dear friends, old and new are already moving on. Soon we will be joining them on the road as we head to Florida in about 10 days.

Today, Paul and I took my truck to the Dodge dealer in Austin and killed the day getting it serviced and taking care of a recall. Not a bad day to go as it has rained repeatedly today. Speaking of rain, it has been refreshing to see and feel some real rain since leaving the desert. I hope we don't see and feel too much!

Cottonwood Creek RV Park, Dripping Springs, TX

Well we made it to Cottonwood Creek RV Park outside of Dripping Springs, TX on March 16.  Our travel day from Ozona Tx. was cloudy with some spotty precipitation. We only had about 200 miles to travel that day because we had done the bulk of the miles the day before. So, it was a comfortable ride through the Hill County.

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This is our 3rd stay here at Cottonwood Creek RV Park and we just love the park and the location. We paid $325 for a month plus electric. We will probably only stay for about 3 weeks. This puts us about halfway on our trip to Florida.

Since we no longer own a home, coming here every year kinda feels like home. The owners, Les and Sheri are very hospitable and they always spend time with us catching up.

Front sites 1-7

Laundry and back patio building

Paul and Paula got set up in site 16 and we took site 17. There's only about 32 sites in the park. Our sites back up to the woods which contain some beautiful walking trails. The park was full on our arrival due to the weekend.

Sites 17 and 16

We quickly got caught up with several of our friends and guests that we had met last year or even three years ago. The park doesn't have permanent residents, but it does have may guests that return every year during the winter and spring months. One cool thing about this park is that because it is small and so many folks return, we almost always have a happy hour (snack time) gathering at someone's site in the late afternoon.

The weather had been overcast and last night, March 19, we had some good rain. Cottonwood Creek began flowing from all the rain!

Lower end of Cottonwood Creek

We really like taking advantage of the walking trails in the back and get an opportunity to stretch Maggie and Rico's legs a bit!

Maggie on the walking trail looking for Rico!

This afternoon Les and Sheri are smoking brisket for the entire park. Everyone is invited and asked to bring a side dish or dessert. Les and Sheri frequently have these little BBQ gatherings and it's always tasty and fun! Les smokes the brisket for about 12-14 hours!

Les's brisket smoker doing it's thing!

It should be a good Blue Bonnet season this year as we noticed lots of the flowers on the sides of the roads ready to bloom.  We look forward to re-visiting the Hill Country and perhaps seeing some things we didn't see on the previous visits. 

Stop over in Ozona TX

We enjoyed our week in Las Cruces and Hacienda RV Park. We re-visited La Mesilla and the two weekend markets.  However, mostly we just relaxed yet stayed busy. 

A funny thing happened yesterday. In preparation for our travel, I decided to put some more water in the rig's 80 gallon water tank. I usually keep it at about 30 gallons. As you may recall we boon docked in a parking lot overnight last week because of a dust storm. So, I needed to replenish the water in the tank. So as the tank is filling, I'm doing some other things and eventually get distracted and end up over at Paul and Paula's RV. Not long after Joyce comes running over yelling water is pouring out of the rig. Sure enough, I overfilled the tank. Thankfully nothing was damaged or got wet. I drained the tank to the level I wanted and all was fine. 

Today we hit the road about 8:30 headed for Fort Stockton 300 miles away. We made good time and the weather was cooperating with a cool overcast (temps 70-80's). So after reaching Fort Stockton, I filled up at $4.05 a gallon for diesel and Joyce filled the Jeep. 

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Paul and Paula were willing to keep going so we pushed on for another 100 plus miles to the Circle Bar RV Park in Ozona Tx.

I don't believe there is a website for the park but, it's at exit 372 in Texas. It's not much more than a dirt parking lot. Cost was $27 for the night including cable TV, 50 amp and Sewer. It's first come first serve and it seems to be common practice to park your tow vehicle in the adjacent site if it doesn't fit in the site with your rig. We were told to pick our own site and the office didn't care to know which ones we took. Very relaxed. 

We made a quick meal watched American Idol and are now preparing for some shut eye after driving 400 miles today. Tomorrow we should make it to Cottonwood Creek RV Park in Dripping Springs, Tx.

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