House inspection...

 That evening, after we were done making the RV happy, we let the kids in to inspect their new home...

 Master bath...

 Yikes!  Hayes suddenly realizes we could turn the water on and give him an impromptu shower! (no, we didn't really do that!  We'd have to get in there and get wet with him!)

 What's behind Door #4??  (nothing, as it turns out!)

Kitchen...

 Tractor was the first up to the top level, and first over The Gap.  And Scratty gets ideas...

 She manages to climb up (they cheat and use the frig) but isn't 100% sure about Evil Knieveling over to the other side...

 Finally, she finds the courage, and away she goes!

 Bill plays ATV driver, and the dogs play chase the ATV!

 Happy hangar people. 

On a subsequent day, we went out for propane (for the RV) and found some pretty fall colors at a nearby RV park/marina!

Honey, we're home!

And we're off and running, again!  For the last stretch this time...

 An early morning rest stop.  Bill knew it was going to be another long driving day, so we stopped the night before in the dark and got going this morning in the dark!  It ended up being mostly a cloudy day, but for this short stop, it was sunny!

 And back under the clouds we go...

 Kinda neat clouds though...

 And coming down this slight hill, you can get a good idea of what the terrain and vegetation look like.  We're still quite a ways from home (still west of Dallas if I'm remembering right), but it's looking more like it all the time!

 Some more cool TX overpasses...

 Ah-ha!  Downtown hometown!

 And we're on our little road (not the little little road, but the little road...)...  This is a busier street than you might imagine.  If you saw it, you'd think wow, this is in the sticks, there won't be that much traffic, and hah!  You'd be fooled!  Even though the road doesn't go anywhere except to a couple of little neighborhoods, it is surprisingly busy!!

I have to admit - it was at about this point that it started to sink in for me.  This is it.  This is where we'll be living now!  This is our place!  This was probably where I first had real new home excitement.  Up till this point, it was mostly daunting and just such an arduous, rushed task that I was too busy just putting one foot in front of the other, just loading one more box, to think at all past that part!  Now Bill on the other hand, he had the excitement from Day 1, and that's what carried us through!!!

 Here, you can see the "little road" we came down (on the right).  It is paved and a quicker drive than the dirt road that goes around the perimeter of our airpark, and since our house is on the other end of that road, it's much easier to take the paved road.  The problem comes (and it's only a problem if you have a loooong wheel base...!) when you need to essentially make a u-turn to get onto the little little dirt perimeter road...  I had no idea how/if Bill was going to be able to do that turn!!!!!!!!!  But good on him, he's an engineer!!!!!!  And an engineer is...A Man (or Woman, of course!) of Ingenuity!!!!!!!!!!!!!  So Bill had it figured before we got there.  He made the turn and went through the coded gate (that provides airpark access to the lake) far enough that he could then back straight out and then turn enough to get onto that little little road!  Except for the gate closing on the RV two or three times (and me having to run from one side to the other constantly, to re-enter the code and then to check the clearance!!), we made it!!!!  Amazing.  So here's Bill turning off the little little road onto OUR road!  That was a pretty tight turn too, but thankfully that power line pole was on the OTHER side!!!

 Heading down our road, passing the (still apparently mostly unoccupied - one of them is getting a home built in it but doesn't have a full-time resident...yet) hangars.

 You can see OUR home through the trees on the left!

 There it is!  That's OURS!!!!!  Whoa...!?!

 And for the first few days, this was home and home.  We lived in the RV while trying to get the house livable.  That worked great, until the black tank started to get full...

 But for now, we're just busy trying to get set up - mostly, trying to get power and water to the RV.  Bill tries to find some critical thing in the pile of things...

 Home, meet Home.

And...let the move-in games begin!

The Bummer Day...

 We knew this day was forecast to bring rain, but it sure brought everything else that can come with rain - accidents, traffic delays, traffic jams,...  It ended up being a very long, very tiring day, but we have to be grateful we weren't IN any of the accidents!!!

 Another state line crossed, and yes, this shot pretty much sums up the weather for the day!

 Arriving in the long, always crowded and busy stretch of I-10 known as El Paso!  Doesn't look too bad...yet....

 Wait, now it does!!!  Bill and I sat in that traffic, hardly moving, for about 2.5 hours (about half of the total time the freeway was closed there).  At first, we had no idea what was going on, but since there wasn't anything better to do and no sudden movement likely, I got on-line with the smartyphone and found out there was a semi-truck stuck cross-wise on the barrier up ahead and that they had to shut down the freeway, both directions.  Ugh.  Guess two other cars had been involved.  I don't think anyone ended up seriously injured, amazingly enough!!  But there were sure A LOT OF US left sitting, waiting for a LONG time!!  And for folks like me, it seemed like a VERY LONG time!!!!!!!  I didn't exactly have a full tank of gas...and I DID have a pretty full bladder!!!!!!!!!!!  And there was Bill - and our bathroom - sitting, stuck, right in front of me!!!!!!!!  I was seriously tempted to pop out and run up and use the bathroom!!!!!!!  I could have gotten away with it, but I would never have left my Zouey in that truck by herself in that mess!!!!!!  Fortunately, no bladder infection, and we stopped for gas and bathroom privileges as soon as we could!!!

 The cutest passenger.  Zou weathered the weather and traffic well.  Ahhhh, to be a dog and just sleep through all these things...!!!

 And this shot pretty much characterizes our entire day!!!!!!!  Because of the accident-caused bottlenecks and other things as you'll see later, we were sandwiched between semis pretty much all day.

 A lot of Texas cities have a lot of these...

 Pretty clouds gracing the tops of these hills.

 Hmm, a lot of semi traffic coming the other way...

 Time for one more potty stop...

 Ah-ha, that's the hold-up...an inspection station!!  Sheesh.  We got to pretty much keep moving (albeit slowly), but those poor trucks had to stand in line for hours, I'm sure...

 But with a storm, sometimes you get a rainbow!

If Bill and I had been smart, we would have sat ourselves down at one of those rest stops and reconfigured our overnight!  We should have just accepted that the hours-long delay would mean we needed to find a different campground, something closer.  Instead, we just kept driving.  And then it started getting dark, and we realized that our original destination was just too far away.  Driving the RV with the trailer, in the dark of night, with wet roads, and when you're really tired and hungry, just isn't a brilliant idea!!  So we finally stopped at a rest stop and tried to find a campground that could fit us that wasn't too damn far away!  Not an easy task, as there just aren't a heck of a lot of campgrounds to choose from in those parts, and most of them were made for smaller rigs.  But we finally did locate one that could take us, and we made it - in the dark, through small ponds and lots of mud...  And it ended up being a 9.5 hour driving day!  We were beat!!

But tomorrow's another day - and THE day we would arrive "home..."