Maggie Knows Something Is Up
Maggie is pretty tuned into the normal things of every day life and seems to quickly notice when something changes. Our last few days have been a slow-motion packing up and getting ready to go dance. It is easier for us to do it that way. The steps get prioritized by what’s on the critical path to depart. So for example, tire pressures got checked on the coach and pickup several days before we were going to leave. Better to have time to do something than to find out on the morning we are leaving that we have a low tire.
Maggie knows all of this is not part of the everyday routine. She followed me around to every tire on the coach to see what I was doing.
And we think she is eating differently. Her morning breakfast is getting ignored. By dinner time she eats right away. It might be that we have been going out shopping or for coffee or lunch almost every morning, more often than usual. So we think she might just get fed once a day on the way home.
She is more snuggly than normal. We are not complaining.
If Flowers Aren’t Enough
The local newspaper this week summarized the “entertainment” venues in the region within 75 minutes, a short drive in Texas.
125 wineries, 45 breweries, 21 distilleries, and 7 multi-beverage stops
Just 10 years ago there were maybe 10 smaller wineries, only a few breweries, a couple of distilleries, and a multi-beverage stop was a convenience store at the gas station.
These are big businesses, lots of outside investment, a big influence on land and home prices, a big demand for workers, and a big affordable housing crunch. Short-term rentals (AirBnB sorts-of-things) have increased rapidly as have local controls, licensing, and taxes. Fredericksburg and the local area are much more than the small town that it was when we first came. Good or not, things change. But we like it and if all the tourists in town count, so do they.
Our RV park in the middle of town has changed owners three times since we have been coming here, and prices have gone up (they have everywhere to be fair). But it is still a comfortable RV Park, right in the middle of what we want to do.
Last Suppers
Many of our friends in Fredericksburg belong to the “Lunch-a-Lots” crew. They go out to lunch often. We go too.
We went to Woerner’s with Molly and Maureen and Mike and Jackie.
And we took Peggy to Mamacita’s, a nice Mexican place the next day. She likes the food there and they have tamales every day. I like those and they are not commonly on the menus of many Mexican restaurants. Mike and Jackie joined us at the last minute. It wasn’t busy so we had a nice unhurried time to chat.
It is a good way to say goodbye and spend some last time together. We always expect we will see everyone again but you never know.
In a recent article about Tom Sellick, I was reminded of a line from his 1990 western “Quigley Down Under” character who said, “Don’t know where I’m goin’, but there’s no use bein’ late.”
None of us really know where we are going, we can try to keep a hand on the rudder for the journey but the currents take us mostly where they want. There is life to be lived, get busy.
The Brown
Moving North is a time trip, each day moves us backward in the spring season. The landscape gets Browner each day. This year was not much different.
Our first night was in Thackerville, OK. We stayed in an old dreary Mom and Pop RV Park. It was 1/2 the price of the fancy WindStar Casino RV Park but fine for overnight.
And then came the black clouds, lightning, and thunder from every direction. We rolled up and latched the awnings, pulled in the slide, and battened down the hatches. It rained for a while, everything seemed to be some distance away, so we went to bed.
At 11 PM the phones started squawking tornado warnings in the area. A closer read said it was about 10 miles north. The warning expired at 11:45.
We sort of went to sleep again, we had the better part of 8 hrs to drive the next day. At about 2 AM the lightning and thunder were right on top of us, flash – boom. One after another. The thunder sounded almost continuous and the rain was very heavy. All of that was over by about 5 AM. We got some sleep and got up later than we were planning.
We had some breakfast and headed north about 1/4 mile on I35 and traffic came to a dead stop. It took more than 2 hours to go the next 6 miles. They were clearing debris from the interstate.
We were grateful that the tornados missed us. News reports said there were more than a dozen of them in Oklahoma that night. We are sorry for the loss these people and this small town have suffered.
Not much further north and the gray clouds turned to mostly blue skies, at least for us. We still had 8 hrs to go.
By staying on the toll way instead of the freeway we saved an hour and arrived at Lake Melvern Corp of Engineers (COE) Park SW of Kansas City at about 5:30 PM.
We slept well, very quiet here. This is a park we have stayed at before and will again when we come this way again. We should stay for several days, it is that nice. Fishing for seniors is free and the fellow I talked to in the morning already had 4 nice crappies in his creel.
It was surprisingly green in this area, much greener than last year.
We set out in the morning for Saylorville COE Park, just north of Des Moines.
The trees are leafing out, many still in the bud stage. Further along it seems than last year.
Driving towards the Minnesota border with Iowa, the trees were less leafed out, the fields definitely brown but many had been tilled and planted. Sooner than last year.
Towbar
We had a mishap just as we were getting to Minnesota. Our towbar connecting the coach to the F150 suddenly broke. The safety cables did their job keeping the pickup from careening across the highway. The brakes on the pickup did an amazing job of slowing the coach down. We were able to pull off the interstate at an exit and come to a stop.
With no rigid attachment, the pickup bumped into the right rear corner of the coach as we came to a stop.
And some scrapes and dents to the pickup.
Unfortunate, stuff happens. We disconnected the pickup and Susan drove it home following along behind me. We stopped once to double-check, and all seemed OK. Susan got some gas and away we went.
All is repairable, just more things on our summer to-do list.
We got home in the mid-afternoon.
Home Feels Good
We started up the house, the heat was turned up, the water pump turned on, and the water heater on. All three of us are wandering around in a much bigger space.
The moving from the coach to the house happens over several days. The medical appointments start in just a day or two, the list of summer projects is long and will keep us busy. Yes, home feels good.
We leave in just three months for the Oregon coast and the Tetons for August and September. And then in November, off again for the winter.
More Later, Much Love,
Maggie, Susan, and Roger