Edinburg, Texas. It was a long way to go, but it’s a good place to be. When we left Junction this morning, I put gas in the car while Judy went inside to buy a bag of ice for the ice chest. The clerk asked her “Small or Large?”. Judy answered “Small”. It’s not a very big ice chest. The clerk charged her $1.99 and Judy went outside to grab the bag. There were only 10 pound bags. Is a 10 pound bag Large or Small? Judy carried one back inside to ask. The answer: “They’re all one size”. There were certainly more questions we could have asked, but we chose to drive on instead. On our drive across North Central Texas we passed thousands of windmills. They used to be a novelty. Now there are so many they’re kind of annoying. When I look at them though, I see all that oil and coal fired smoke that’s not in the air. The annoyance fades. I’ve heard the argument that it takes more energy to construct and install a windmill than the windmill produces over its lifetime. I looked it up on Snopes to find that argument was disproved way early on, but it persists in the minds of windmill opponents. I think I’ll believe Snopes instead of Fox News on that one. Windmills are apparently a serious source of electricity now. The Jeep turned 100,000 miles today. Our first day back to the house; we ran straight into a mystery: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFbwSwIFzxg
Junction
Continuing south, we stopped for the night in Junction, Texas. Got caught in a rainstorm. We’re told it’s the first rain here since November. Since it coincides with our arrival, we’re taking full credit for the much-needed moisture. The Motel Manager told me it’s so dry here the fish in the South Llano River have ticks!
Got an evening walk at South Llano River State Park. Lots of birds. Mostly White-winged Doves, but there were Inca Doves, hummingbirds, kingbirds, chickadees, titmice, Bewick’s Wrens, Black-throated Sparrows, buntings and goldfinches too.
We’re not moving back to Texas for the winter yet. We’re just going to lurk here until the coach in Colorado is ready for us to move back into it. …and there is that wedding in September in Colorado we want to be at too.
Tomorrow, Edinburg! That’s about as far as there is to go.
Plainview
We drove through Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, one time-zone, and triple digits. We got four new tires and three new tire pressure sensors yesterday. They weren’t done until after 5 o’clock, so we just stayed with Becky and Brian for the night and headed out this morning. Three states later, we’re settled in at the Best Western. I wouldn’t say it’s the best place we’ve ever stayed. On our way out we’ll probably suggest they change their name to just Western. We’re in Texas, but there is still a long way to go to get to Edinburg. We’ll probably get there on Thursday.
Two roads diverged..
And I took both!
We’re out of here
We love Jim and Ellie. They couldn’t be more hospitable. Their house couldn’t be more wonderful. But we’re out of here. Three more weeks before we can have the coach done? We want to go home. We have two homes. One of them is disabled. We can’t go to our coach home? We’re going to our Valley home in Texas.
We packed up the Jeep and drove to Denver this morning. We dropped more stuff off at Matt’s house to lighten the load for our drive south. Judy made Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner. Tomorrow morning we’ll drive to the Jeep shop in Longmont for four new tires (The Jeep shop in Longmont doesn’t know this part of the plan yet. We hope they’ll be on board when we call them first thing in the morning.) A quick visit with Becky and Brian, and off we go. South.
In the meantime, a nice place to walk today in Ken Caryl Valley just behind the hogback from Denver.
