After our trip to Disney with friends and our son, we are now headed west. The next extended stop is in Houston to visit friends but we had two, one night stops along the way to break the trip up into managable pieces.

When we are just stopping over for a night, we really like to stay at “Harvest Hosts”. This is a program for RVers where you can stay 1 night for free at over a thousand places across the county. These places are typically wineries, breweries, museums, distilleries, golf resorts and family farms. We have used this alot and have always had great experiences.

On the first leg of our trip, we scheduled a stop at a Harvest Host near Ponce de Leon Florida called Campos Family Farm. We arrived at the farm which was off of a rural county road. The “driveway” was a sandy road that went up a small hill. As we entered, I quickly felt the RV losing traction and in seconds, we where stuck in the loose sand with our RV still sticking out into the road. This was bad!

While our Jeep does have a winch, its no match for a 25 ton RV so we had to figure out another plan. The one good thing is that RV’s come with leveling jacks that are powerfull enough to raise the wheels off the ground. So we got busy jacking the RV up and placing boards underneath the tires. Doing that along with shoveling alot of sand and we finally got free after about 45 minutes of high stress. Fortunately, no damage was done and we settled in to our spot on the farm. (Sorry we didn’t think to take any pictures!)

The farm was more of a “homesteading” operation than a real farm. The couple who owned it had a huge number of animals, most of which were roaming around freely. Dozens of chickens, sheep, a couple cows, a few horses, pigs, rabbits, cats and several dogs along with a bunch of puppies. We bought some jellies and fresh made sourdough bread and called it a night.

In the morning we left and headed to Lafayette LA for another 1 night stop. Brenda and I lived in Lafayette back in the late 80’s and always love returning for the great food and awesome people. Since we were only in town for a night, we went to the local shop for some fried boudin balls, cracklins and of course we hit the drive-thru daiquiri stand. I think I gained 10 pounds in one day but it was oh so good!

The next day we made the drive to our campground near Lake Conroe, north of Houston where we would spend the next four nights. After arriving, we received a text from the owners of the farm we stayed at in Florida asking us if we had seen the puppies. We said yes as they were running all around the place and were very cute. Then we received a reply that said “Thank You. The police have been notified. It is a felony”! We weren’t sure how to read this but it sure sounds like they were accusing us of stealing their puppies! We didn’t reply and haven’t heard from the police but we sure as hell didn’t steal any puppies! Never a dull moment in the RV.

Four Wheeling in a 43’ Bus, Stolen Puppies and Boudin Balls

Good friends & Cattle

Disney X 2