Saturday night at Cattleman's Steakhouse in Fabens

We left Monahans Sandhills State Park looking forward to spending the night at Cattleman's Steakhouse in Fabens, TX (just east of El Paso). We arrived about 3:30pm and there was a worker at the gate who guided us to a place to park. He advised us that we could move to a parking area at the top of the hill later in the evening (9-10pm), and that the restaurant starts to get really busy at 5pm.

The lower parking area had us parked next to a pond/lake that had some teepees next to it. The lake had white areas along the shore that looked like ice but were probably some kind of salt deposit.

We walked up to the restaurant at about 4:45pm. Though this had been indicated as "less busy", we had a 40 minute wait for a table! Of course, it was the Saturday night before Christmas. They don't take reservations, so you show up and wait for a table. It is rated as one of the best restaurants in the El Paso area so is quite popular.

The meat options - part 1

The meat options - part 2

Since we had some time to look around, we looked at some of the objects and pictures they had on display... Label: "Horse 'blankets' for protection against flies and mosquitoes were used by the cavalry around the turn of the century - very rare."

A picture of the horse "blanket" in use

Where we are in west Texas (far west Texas)

This is a working cattle ranch -- they run 3 head of cattle per square mile (640 acres)!!!

One of their delivery trucks

Carl's porterhouse

My filet

Our dinners were yummy, and we had plenty to have leftovers! We moved Gracie to the upper parking lot at about 10:30pm and spent a very comfortable night. In the morning, two gates that had been closed in the previous evening were now open allowing us to exit easily. A very nice place to spend the night!

Pictures from our last couple of days

We enjoyed our time in Monahans Sandhills State Park--

...though it started out inauspiciously as we got the front end of Gracie nearly buried in the sand (it was worse than the picture shows) -- thankfully, the duals were on pavement and we managed to get her backed up into the campsite. (The park service guy came and said, "Oh, you found our quicksand!". He had a 4WD pickup and offered to help pull us out, but we were glad to be able to resolve it ourselves.)

In the campsite

Beautiful sunset Thursday evening

We walked up on the sandhill (dune) behind the campsite to take some pictures.

It was really quite beautiful

Gracie down below

A wider view of the campground area

Friday was predicted to be a beautiful day, so we walked over to where the park offices were to get some information about the park. There was a windmill...

And a Texas Historical Marker

The park office is currently housed in the historic section house

We asked in the park office about "sledding" on the sandhills. The lady in the office told us that we were welcome to borrow the sand disks on the front porch, though she indicated that the sledding might be better on Saturday if it rained overnight on Friday night - that it was best if the sand was cool, compact, and damp.

Undaunted, we decided to give it a try....

We got two disks, but then decided that one of us should stay at the bottom to document, while the other sledded...

Does it look like I'm whizzing down the hill?

It may appear that I'm sledding, but... not so much. Thankfully Carl did not take videos...

Carl going up to take his turn...

He had a similar experience to mine...

But... I took some videos -- I was laughing so hard and trying *not* to laugh during the video -- you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/D181gQPpNyk

He took a picture from the top of the hill too, looking over towards where Gracie is parked (though I don't think you can see her in the picture).

Besides sandhills, another thing that Monahans Sandhills State Park is known for is its Oak forest -- I'm standing next to some of the oak trees...

More of the Havard shin oaks - it is said that they cover 40,000 acres (making it one of the largest oak forests in the country), and though they are mostly only 2-3' tall, their taproot goes down 90'!

Gracie in her spot

We enjoyed having a day without RVs moving around us and that we could stay at home and get a few things accomplished. The internet was not good (thus the pictures posted today), but we could watch recorded videos and enjoy the beauty outside.

Now, on Saturday, we're driving toward El Paso, and getting great internet service as we go (so I could upload the video to YouTube and pictures to this post).

Thursday to Monahans

No pictures for this post -- internet very slow... will post pictures when we move to a new location.

On Thursday, we left National Indoor RV Center about 8:30am after dumping our waste tanks and putting air in one tire that was a little low... We did not have definite plans about where we were going, but had a rough idea that, if the travel seemed to be going well, we might stop at Monahans Sandhills State Park for a couple of nights. It is a little ways southwest of Midland (further along on our journey), and I (Patti) had visited there some years ago when we did our "Epic Journey around Texas" with Dwayne's and my Dads and Peggy back in 1992. 

Our travel went well and we checked the state park website to find that there was one site left that could accommodate a 40' rig, so I booked it. We headed to Monahans, arriving about 4:30pm. We had quite a bit of trouble getting into the site as the sites are small and it is treacherous if you get off the asphalt surface as the sand is very soft. Thankfully, we kept the drive wheels on the pavement and were able to get Gracie into the site. We're hoping to be able to leave the site on Saturday with no additional challenges.

It is beautiful here and quiet, though you can hear the traffic on I-20, particularly if you go up on the dunes. We're happy to be away from the service center where the engine noise and beeping of moving RVs was nearly constant during the day and we were parked within arms length of other RVs every night. 

More later (maybe Saturday?) when we get better internet service!

Last visits on Wednesday

Since the service on Gracie is completed, we plan to leave the DFW area on Thursday, so Wednesday was spent with last visits...

We went up to the service office to pay our bill -- they had recently had a wall art installed!

Some of Patti's friends from IBM got together for lunch at Mattito's -- it was great to visit with all of them!

Kathleen and Mark had invited us over for supper -- such a great meal and fellowship too!

Their dog, Kora, knows that she is not allowed on the carpet in the den, but she came as close as possible...

I couldn't help but give such a good dog attention! I'm sure Miss Kitty will forgive me!

It has been a delightful stay in the DFW area -- we were able to get most of the service completed that we wanted, and we've seen a lot of friends and family. We're happy to get started on our trip to the Scottsdale area a little earlier than we had planned, hoping to make it a little easier trip overall.

Tuesday's report

Pictures: None 🙁

Dentist visit: ✅ (cleaning for Patti and one less tooth in Carl's mouth - ouch!)

Crisis Ministries visit: ✅ (got to see old and new friends from our time volunteering there)

Podiatrist visit: ✅ (diagnosis - time to get new shoes! Whoo-hoo!!)

SAS Shoes: ✅ (following recommendation of the podiatrist, of course!)

RV Service: ✅ (last task completed on Tuesday and quality check done)

Dinner with a friend: ✅ (so nice to get to see friends!)

2021 Scripture Access Statistics

On Monday, we had the joy of visiting the International Linguistics Center, where I volunteered for 9 months after Dwayne's death and before our marriage, and Carl volunteered 2 months as we "courted" and decided that we felt sure it was God's will for us to marry. While visiting the campus, we got to see many friends, ate at the Dining Hall, walked around the RV park, re-visited "the wedding venue", and generally enjoyed renewing our memories!

Unfortunately, we didn't think to take any pictures, other than one I took regarding the current state of scripture translation -- but one of the things I particularly wanted is an update on scripture translation, so maybe that is most appropriate!

This information comes from https://www.wycliffe.net/resources/statistics/

You know how I love data...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

There are 7378 total languages in the world; the world population is 7.9 billion people.

Languages with Scripture:

• 3495 languages have "some" scripture, representing 7.04 billion people
• 717 languages have a complete Bible - 5.75 billion people
• 1582 languages have a complete New Testament (some also have Old Testament portions) - 830 million people
• 1196 languages have some translated Bible portions - 457 million people

 Languages with no scripture:

• 828 languages have work in progress - 67.6 million people
• 1892 languages need translation (or preparatory work) to begin - 145 million people
• No scripture, but not in need of translation:
• 1119 languages are not vital enough to plan translation work - 2.8 million people
• 44 language communities are served by Scripture in another language - 4.6 million people
  

Bible translation need:

• 1.51 billion people, speaking 6661 languages, do not have a full Bible in their first language.
• 145 million people, speaking 1892 languages, still need translation work to begin:
• Africa - 558 languages, 16 million people
• Americas - 119 languages, 2.4 million people
• Asia - 751 languages, 124 million people
• Europe - 59 languages, 2.3 million people
• Pacific - 405 languages, 0.43 million people

Bible translation in progress 

• 2217 languages in 147 countries with active translation or preparatory work begun - 1.1 billion people 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Vanay shared with us how God used situations in the pandemic to bring about progress in Bible translation. Even though some workers were required to relocate away from their translation area, they could continue working remotely due to electronic tools being available. Some local translators were not going to their regular jobs, so they could spend more time doing translations. God continues to bring His word to all the peoples of the world, and we get to participate with Him!

Sunday with our church family

We were so blessed to be able to join with our church family at MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church in Irving on Sunday...

Rickey preparing to preach on Luke 1:39-56 in the series "Worthy of All Praise: Praise the God Who Elevates the Weak"

Carl was clever enough to get a picture with the lesson points at the end of the sermon so we can refer back to them!

After church, Carl had been thinking (dreaming?) about the Indian food restaurant up the hill from the church for over a year...

They have a buffet, and, even though we had wonderful Indian food with Mohamed and Naina this past week, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to have more Indian food from this restaurant that he liked so much from when we were here in early 2020.