The jeep didn’t want to leave the beach either. It had one last chore to do before leaving and it balked. We had decided not to take the kayaks with us this summer, but to leave them here. We found a place in Aransas Pass, on the other side of the ferry that would store them for us. Saturday morning, we put the racks on the jeep, put the boats on the racks, and headed off for Aransas Pass. When our turn for the ferry came though, the jeep wouldn’t start. They gave us a few minutes to try to get it going then pushed us off to the penalty box. The problem was not the battery. In fact, all the next guy that got pushed into the penalty box needed was a jump. We took care of that and got him on his way while we were still stuck. A tow back to Gulf Waters, push the Jeep back into one of the boat parking places behind the office, and we were set. Pull the mothership around the next morning, back it up to the Jeep and hook up. The boats will stay on top of the Jeep and go with us this summer. We’ve towed the dead dog a thousand miles so far. We called ahead to Benson, Arizona and found a Jeep dealer who will fix it for us. No problem; all it needs is a starter motor. Small problem; there aren’t any in Arizona. No problem; we’ll stay here a couple nights while the part gets shipped from Los Angeles. We should be on our way again mid-day Thursday. We’ve made good time so far. We’ll still make the conference in Las Vegas in time.
Time travelers
We have been so looking forward to getting back to the mountain time zone. The whole while we’re in the central time zone, we never quite shake mountain time. Our home channels on satellite TV are the Denver stations. Programs that air at 9 and 10 mountain show up at 10 and 11 central time. We’ve been watching TV in the evening; going to bed on mountain time, and getting up and going to work on central time. We’ve been missing an hour every night.We have been so looking forward to getting back to the mountain time zone and cashing in that extra hour of sleep. Just before we crossed from Texas to New Mexico, we crossed from central daylight time to mountain daylight time. We gained an hour. Three hours of driving in New Mexico and we crossed into Arizona. Know what happened when we crossed into Arizona? We went from mountain daylight time to mountain standard time. Arizona doesn’t recognize daylight savings time. We gained another hour! So after five months of being out of synch with the time zone of our kids and our television, we were in synch for exactly three hours. We didn’t even get to go to bed and wake up once on mountain daylight time. Now we have no idea when to go to bed and when to wake up.
Van horn
We couldn’t open up the front door to warm up the coach this morning. We actually had to turn on a furnace. A low in the forties last night. Great driving weather today. Eighty and sunny. A couple birdy rest stops on Interstate 10, and a walk around the Van Horn KOA. Today’s list:Scaled quailGambel’s quailBlack vultureTurkey vultureSwainson’s hawkRed tailed hawkKilldeerEuarsian collared doveWhite winged doveMourning doveEastern phoebeCouch’s kingbirdWestern kingbirdScissor tailed flycatcherChihuahuan ravenBarn swallowCactus wrenNorthern mockingbirdCurve billed thrasherYellow rumped warblerSummer tanangerWestern tanagerCanyon towheeLark sparrowLark buntingSavannah sparrowWhite crowned sparrowBlue grosbeakWestern meadowlarkGreat tailed grackleBrown headed cowbirdBullock’s orioleScott’s orioleHouse finchLesser goldfinchHouse sparrow Not a bad bird day for a travel day. Quail, kingbirds, tanagers, orioles. Tomorrow, another travel day. Tomorrow night, somewhere in Arizona.
Kerrville, Texas
Texas hill country. We’ve a fifteen hundred mile trip to make between Port Aransas and Las Vegas. We knocked off all of two hundred fifty miles of it today. It’s always a slow start after we’ve been in one place so long. There is a lot to unhook, hook-up, and put away to get away. Buckhorn RV Resort; a regular overnight stop for us. Buckhorn bird list:Black vultureTurkey vultureRock doveEuropean starlingRed winged blackbirdYellow headed blackbirdGreat tailed grackleLesser goldfinchHouse sparrow Today’s crock pot torture: ham and scalloped potatoes.
We don’t wanna go.
We don’t wanna go. We don’t wanna go. There isn’t an easy solution to the problem though. We’ve loved being here through April. We’d love to stay through the end of May. If we stayed through the end of May we’d probably want to stay through the end of June. It doesn’t matter how long you stay, at some point you have to leave. The reason for the leaving this time is to head west to the annual accounting conference we always go to. This year it is in Las Vegas. After that, we’ll work our way back east and end up in Colorado in early June for the Aspen Center for Physics job. After that we can head over to the front-range to spend some time with the kids and grandkids. For years we’ve been saying we live on the road. We roam from town to town. We’re citizens of the universe. Now, as we’re leaving, we recognize that we live here now. Gulf Waters on Mustang Island is where we live. We take trips to other places and return to Gulf Waters. This will be an extended trip. We expect to be gone from here about five months.