Author: Steve

For some reason, this seems to be our practice trip for long rambling retirement trips. We just move with the weather and our own inclinations. Once a week or so, we do a chores day and do laundry, shopping, and whatever other errands or projects need doing. The rest of the time we just ramble. We make plans; and they change daily.

I’ve been thinking about work again lately. I think it’s time to head back that direction soon. I’d better treat it well. That work is what will make the extended trips of the future possible.

We went back to the marsh boardwalk again before we left South Padre. We were happy to see the clapper rail, but I really want to see an American Bittern. A Least Bittern would be cool, but there is not as much chance of finding that. We talked to some people at the boardwalk that had seen an American Bittern there earlier in the day, so we’ve watched and watched. Zero. Maybe we’ll stumble into a good marsh up around Corpus Christi.

Our birding has shifted a little. Rather than just looking at all the birds we see until we see something new, we’re more likely to research what birds there are in an area, pick out which ones we want to see, then go looking for specific birds. Just a little shift in focus. We still look at all the birds we see as well.

We’re back at the beach. Got an oceanside site at Malaquite. It’s on the Gulf of Mexico: waves and sand and everything. Won’t do much birding here. We’ll mostly just hang out on the beach. Maybe we can get a kite out tomorrow. Haven’t flown a kite yet. I got Judy a couple cool kites for Christmas. One of them has a forty-five foot tail. Besides, most of the birds here are those crummy shorebirds that all look alike in the winter anyway.

Had a pretty good dinner. Judy roasted a turkey. That, along with mashed potatoes, dressing, cranberry sauce, and peach nectar came together nicely.

And still, we call it camping.

Took a walk after dinner. Got to watch a giant orange moon rise up out of the ocean. Spectacular.

On these January trips we hang out with all the old people in RV parks. Snowbirds and Winter Texans. We pick up lots of advice along the way about what to do as we get older and how to age gracefully. Yesterday’s words of wisdom from Frank, the campground host, were: “You’re only as young as the women you keep.” I think that was a reference to the young woman with me. Works for me.

Took Annie for a two mile run along the beach. This was my chance to run barefoot in the sand along, and sometimes in, the water. Annie is a riot. She runs ten times farther than I do in the same amount of time, and with considerably more enthusiasm. I think I look better when we’re through though. My ears aren’t nearly as wet.

Now Annie’s getting a bath and blow dry while I’m writing this. Ooh. Maybe I could finagle a turn next.


I’ve noticed something that will apply to longer trips in the future. I haven’t done the usual exercises for several weeks and my lower back is beginning to talk to me. I run every day, but that doesn’t do much for the back. I think I need to get back to the back machine and the ab machine. I’ll need to figure out something portable for future trips.

We were standing on the beach watching some shorebirds, sorting out Willets, Sanderlings, Ruddy Turnstones, and Red Knots; when a falcon popped over the dunes and crashed into the middle of them. He didn’t get any of them and flew away empty taloned, but it made the birds disappear in both directions as far as we could see for twenty minutes.

Wednesday:
A last minute rear furnace fix from Richard the RV man and we’re off to lose some latitude. In Louisville, we’re at about 40 degrees north latitude. Edmonds, by comparison, is almost 48 degrees. San Mateo is about 37.5.

Great weather for traveling. We stopped early for the night at Capulin Volcano in Northeastern New Mexico. Only lost three degrees of latitude today. We were the only motorhome in the park. We hooked up and dewinterized the motorhome (we flushed all the red antifreeze out of the freshwater system). In the process, I discovered something really cool. There are three valves at the pump/fresh water tank. I had figured out two of them, but not the third. Today it revealed its mystery to me. Leave the other two closed and open the third while you’re hooked up to city water, and the fresh water tank fills. I don’t have to disconnect the hose and go fill the tank from the outside water fill anymore.

We stopped at an elevation of 7,000 feet. What we lost in latitude, we more than made up for in elevation. It was way too cold to leave hooked up overnight. I unplugged everything but the electricity. It’s a little dry here so I fired up the humidifier we carry. We’re definitely in vacation mode. Struggled to stay up until eight o’clock before we went to bed.

Thursday:

Had a low of fifteen degrees! No problem with the water system. The tanks are tucked up inside where it’s warm like testicles on a cold day.

Anybody remember the “ice palace” scene from Dr. Zhivago? That was us this morning. Every piece of glass was covered with ice on the inside. Anything, not fabric, remotely close to a window was covered with frost. Lots of ice to melt off before we could even see outside at all. The pets had a quiet night. Slept straight through.

Had an interesting drive east and then south through the Texas Panhandle. A nice sunny day today, but we drove through the aftermath of a twenty inch blizzard for the ninety miles between Dumas and Amarillo. The highway was reduced to one very rutted snow-packed lane each direction. There were snowy mounds of stranded and abandoned vehicles everywhere. No place to pull over for lunch and have any hopes of getting started again, so Judy fed me a sandwich while I drove. We got as far south as Lubbock before we stopped for the night. We are in an RV park, but we drove through unbroken snow to get into our site. Hope we make it out ok tomorrow morning. We’re down to thirty-seven degrees latitude and down to 3,000 feet in elevation. Should be a lot warmer tonight than last night. We didn’t struggle to stay up at all. We were asleep by seven-thirty.

Friday:

Wow! Fourteen degrees last night. We could hear and feel every wheel on the motorhome and tow car break free from the ice, and then we drove out just fine. The pets had a great night last night. They’ll have to sleep all day today to rest up for the next one.

Lubbock has no snow equipment to clear the roads. Whatever melted the day before was now thick puddles and streams of ice. Slow going to Big Spring. Another beautiful blue sky day. Made it as far south as South Llano River State Park. Now we’re just over thirty degrees latitude, and down to 1,200 feet in elevation. The temperature was sixty degrees when we stopped. Surely we’ll get a warmer night tonight.

We’ve had good luck with birds here before, so we stopped with enough daylight left for a good look. This is where we saw the vermilion flycatcher a couple years ago. We discovered a new bird blind a hundred yards up a trail. Saw lots of cardinals and spotted towhees. We got three new sparrows, and a canyon towhee. Had a flock of wild turkeys glide past directly overhead. They are the most bizarre looking birds in flight.

Annie has to go outside to pee tonight, but she saw/heard/smelled something out there and is terrified. She just sits on the opposite side of the house from the door and stares at it growling. Judy will have to try going out there with her.

We’ll have to decide where we’re going soon. When we turned left at Raton, that confirmed that we were, in fact, going to Southern Texas, and not Organ Pipe, or Southern California. Now, we’re within a day’s drive of the coast, and we have to decide if we want to start at the north end of our range, at Goose Island, or farther down at Padre Island, or farther still, in the Brownsville area, or inland in the Rio Grande Valley.

Saturday:

It was a lot warmer. The only frost this morning was outside the motorhome.

Football games today. The Broncos don’t play until tomorrow, so we can drive and listen to them on the radio if we want. Go Broncos.

The animals are pretty entertaining. They are a great pair. They have settled into a rhythm, each critter with it’s own responsibility. First, as soon as we settle down for the night, they start the game where they take turns chasing each other from our bed in the rear to the dash in the front, and back. This involves lots of blocking and tackling, biting and growling. The primary rule seems to be “touch the floor as few times as possible.” The route mostly involves furniture and walls.

Then, when the puppy has had enough, she picks the spot on the covers stretched between us that looks most like a hammock and proceeds to perform her best impression of a large stone. It’s a little known fact, except among pet owners, that the weight of a dog is directly proportional to its state of relaxation. By the time we got up this morning, Annie weighed over forty pounds!

The cat has a different responisbility. No one knows exactly what it is, but sometime after the dog falls asleep and we fall asleep, it involves clearing off all the unnecessary or inappropriate items left on shelves or bedside cabinets, like change or jewelry, or a watch turned so the face will be visible to me the next morning so I’ll know what time it is when I wake up, and carrying them to other rooms and batting them about until they dissapear under or behind furniture. He ensures that each morning will be moment of discovery and renewal for us.

We already knew that Annie was a good traveler. The biggest surprise has been Rags. When I carried him out to the motorhome to leave the first day, he was a little spooked by the engine noise when we walked in front of it. But when I carried him inside and set him down on the couch, he fell over onto his back to get his belly rubbed and started purring. The entire rest of the trip has been that easy with him. He and Annie play/sleep/eat/wander around together during the day. When we stop and take Annie out, the cat never bolts. He stands at the top of the stairs, or against the screen watching, but when you open the door, he still just stands there and watches.

Before we left, we bought a harness for the cat. When we put it on him at home to get him used to it, it looked like he had been pinned to the floor. He was so humiliated, he refused to move. We had to leave it on him for a week before he could walk and play normally again. Now, we hook the other leash to him, and we can walk both of the pets at the same time. He doesn’t walk perfectly smoothly on the leash, but from the very first time, he walks around on it. It works best when we follow him. He doesn’t like the part where he is supposed to follow us as much yet. It looks pretty funny to come back from my run at a rest stop to find Judy headed down the road with one leash in each hand, walking them both at once. They are about the same size, but each with completely different posture.

Well, we decided on the north end. Nice day. Nice drive. We’re parked at Goose Island State Park, about fifteen feet from the water of the sheltered bay. But that’s at low tide.

Twenty-eight degrees of latitude and much warmer.

That’ll do for now.

Aah. Life on the beach.

We’ll use this as a home base for a few days.