Balmorhea, TX is tonight's stop.  We are staying at the Saddleback RV Park, which is the only thing at this exit of I-10.   It is a parking lot with electricity, water and sewage, decorated with cactus.  Someone has painted some of them yellow and put happy faces on them.  There is no Wi-fi, no TV of any kind and nothing else here except our fellow RVers, a small cafe where we had authentic fajitas and a gas station.  We will watch some of our House of Cards DVDs and turn in early tonight.

We woke up this morning in Columbus, TX to the sight of eleven deer grazing right in front of the Bays Bus.  We watched them for a long time before they wandered away and we got on with our day.  We see deer at home but never that many at one time.

We left for Junction, TX and arrived at the North Llano River RV Park about 2:30.  We stayed here on the way to Florida and knew we would like it. 

The city of Junction has a Deer Horn tree with a star on top, which I imagine they light at Christmas time. 

We had dinner again at Lum's BBQ and gas station.  It is very basic but the food is great.

After dinner we discovered, but did not use, a drive-in beer and wine store.  I am guessing that this is a Texan phenomenon.  Has anyone seen one anywhere else?

I wasn't going to write tonight as the day was uneventful, until we stepped into Mikeshkas Bar BQ in Columbus, TX.  I have never seen so much taxidermy in one place in my life!  It was like eating dinner in front of an audience.  Poor creatures from all over the world.

We are staying at Colorado River RV Park which is part of Thousand Trails RV group.  We were given a free short-term membership when we bought our motorhome in hopes that we would eventually join.  Not going to happen.  The reservation desk told us there were no spots open in the park but we had already spoken directly to the park and knew they were wide open.  We think that they didn't want to be bothered giving us our discount. The park told us that they had pull-through spots which wasn't true. This is important to us so we don't have to unhook the car we are towing if we don't need to go anywhere. It makes our departure in the morning much quicker if we don't have to reattach it.  Very aggravating.

Imagine my personal hell today.  We were driving for three hours from Alabama through Mississippi to Louisiana with nothing but sports news on the radio.  We could not change the station AND we could not turn off the radio.  AAARRRRGGHH!  Finally, we got into range of some different stations, but not soon enough!
Now that we are driving a motorhome we have started to notice things about the ones we see on the road.  One interesting phenomenon is how many RVs have color coordinated tow vehicles.  We have even seen some that are painted with the same swirls and decorations as the RVs that are pulling them. 
As we pulled into the Lafayette KOA RV Park tonight we noticed the unusual speed limit sign above.  This is a lovely park for all ages on a lake stocked with fish and home to many ducks.  Dudley loves chasing the ducks even more than chasing squirrels.
For dinner we walked to Billy's Homemade Boudin and Cracklins to see what in the world they were selling.  They graciously let us taste some of their offerings and we bought two Boudin Balls and two Boudin Balls with Pepperjack Cheese.  The filling, which can also be inside a sausage, is a concoction of pork, liver, rice, garlic, onions and a little too much pepper for me.  Gary ended up eating three of them.  I managed one.  We also tried Cracklins which were fried pig skin, I think.  Very oily but tasty.

Son, David spent the day showing us around the Mobile area. We had some great seafood and saw the town of Foley where he lives and works.  We stopped for a Starbuck's break.  David knows what I like. 
We are staying at Johnny's Lakeside RV Park which has a big waterpark with a lazy river in the center.
The highlight of the day was an art festival in Fairhope, AL which was one of the best I've seen.  It was so big that we didn't get to see the whole thing but did end up buying a few things that we liked.  Fairhope is a lovely little southern town with an artistic flair.
One thing I love about the south is how friendly everyone is.  We sat down for a snack at a communal picnic table with a middle-aged lady and her dog.  Strangely enough, she offered us some of her fried green tomatoes as she couldn't eat them all, and even stranger, we accepted.  It seemed perfectly normal.
After that we went back to Foley to one of the best outlet malls I've seen, a Tanger Mall with a Chico's outlet and several other more upscale stores.  Then grocery shopping at the Piggly Wiggly, which advertises that it sells everything at 10% above their cost.  We stocked up to hit the road tomorrow.  We are aiming for Scott, LA in the afternoon and then we will tackle Texas once again.

Finally, we're on the road home.  With the Bays Bus functioning well and sunny skies we will be out of Florida sometime tomorrow morning.  Dove Rest is a very non-descript RV park in Marianna, FL.  It is the first one we have found that only took cash or checks.  Nothing very interesting to report except that the change of time zone really sneaked up on us.  We parked tonight just over the line and didn't know we had gained an hour until we turned on the TV.  We have two more chances to have this happen again.

Disappointed.  We got up this morning and made the Bays Bus (credit for the name to Nancy AND to Linda Emroch Leithner who had suggested BaysBus a while back.  I don't know why I didn't decide to use it then!!)

ready for travel to sister, Janis in Jacksonville.  One hitch, the slide that holds the dining booth and the sofa would not retract.  One end of it was trying to but the other end didn't move.  So we called Holiday Rambler and they weren't able to help us do it ourselves..  We are now waiting for the RV repair service to arrive.  We hope they will be able to help us retract the slide and we will just keep it retracted as we make our way back to Oregon.  We will lose a bit of space but we can have the repair made at home and won't have to check into a hotel while someone fixes it here.  It just means that I won't see Janis until November when we gather in Jacksonville for her birthday.  Hopefully tomorrow we can start west.  We are on somewhat of a deadline for Brian, Aei and Evan to arrive in Portland from Bangkok.
UPDATE:  The slide is fixed.  The rubber gasket around it had glued itself to the body of the RV in the Florida heat.  The repairman was able to break it free and put lubricant all around so it won't happen again.