They Call the Wind Mariah

February 26, 2023 — Day 11

We both got up pretty early, I think our bodies are still on East Coast Time, but that’s ok, we need to move. We’re pretty good at packing up and moving out, but it still takes too much time.

Much of that is caused by trying to manage weights. I drained 6 gallons out of the fresh water tank and moved 2 gallon to the front. As you might imagine, this is not exciting work or work that either of us want to spend the time on. Then I couldn’t find my 3/4″ socket to raise the stabilizers. Eventually we were ready to go and headed out in the foggy morning.

We said goodbye to our last big ship.

Soon I was braving the Houston traffic. It was much better than yesterday, almost certainly because today was Sunday.

Outside of Houston we started see a lot of cows, and a lot of trees. We’ve left the swamps of Louisiana behind, but I had thought Texas was flat and arid. No, it is flat and green and absolutely full of cows.

We followed the music pattern we’ve been trying, local music. We google “musicians from San Antonio” and found Two Tons of Steel, which I really liked. Hopefully I can insert a video here.

Hey, it looks like it worked. There were other bands but this was the most memorable one.

The winds were picking up and it was getting spooky. I was able to do 70mph yesterday but with even better weight distribution I was topped out at 65mph. This is in a 70mph zone BTW. We soon got off the highway to see the sights and grab lunch. We found a wonderful Mexican place in Schulenberg TX called Me Casita.

My enchiladas were amazing.

Susan was a little disappointed in hers BLAH BLAH BLAH (Susan here; my lunch was awful. If that’s what I had to judge on? I’d never go back. But Paul’s dinner—yes I swiped a couple bites—was awesome.)

The terrain was getting less and less flat and with more trees. We still had standing water, but not like LA. (The cows above are from this area, they just fit the blog better up there.)

This is not what I expected rural Texas to look like.

Oh, I don’t know many jokes, but I can tell my Texas joke.

The Texan was admitted to Harvard University and was walking across the quad on his first day. He came across a young preppie wearing a tie and stopped to ask a question. ‘cuse me ya’ll, can you tell me where the library is at? The preppie, looking suitably irritated, replied. At Harvard University we do not end our sentences with a preposition. The Texas paused, thought for a bit, and corrected himself.

‘cuse me ya’ll, can you tell me where the library is at, you jerk.

Anastasia really wanted us to go to Buc-ees, a chain gas station/store. They are all over the place so we found one east of San Antonio.

Sadly, we could only get gas since the place was a madhouse with no room for parking a travel trailer. So no Cosmic Pops for you Anastasia. Speaking of snacks, Donna writes in to say the red soda I was originally talking about is Cheerwine, which is from SC and available in the south, but I guess not in Texas. Maybe Buc-ees had it, I’ll never know. Oh, and lets talk about the madhouse that gas stations are, we’re about to pull out and this guy pulls in, aiming at us.

“I’m only getting a quarter tank.” And you can see the morons to our left, also facing towards. Madness.

Oh, and everybody, not just a few people, fill up and then go in and shop. Whatever happened to gassing up and then pulling away to park?

We crossed around the busy city of San Antonio stopping at a Home Depot to buy the missing socket. I didn’t want to get a flat tire west of there, that’s wide open nobody home country.

And then the scenery changed, it was no longer flat, we were climbing a lot. Susan exclaimed, a prickly pear! Soon we were seeing them all over the place. The trees were stunted and we saw very few cows.

The road conditions were deteriorating, speed limits were now up to 80mph and the winds were really picking up. Susan had a real nail biter coming into Junction Texas but the Morgan Shady campground is beautiful. We’ll probably hit this on the way back.

We’re glad we’re not north of us, winds gusts to 85mph!

The plan is to leave early tomorrow morning to avoid the sun’s heat which should keep the winds down. The forecast for tomorrow is much better. Speaking of that, we’re going down to 49 tonight!

Time for the map!

Daily: 342

Total: 2,580

Miles/Day: 234.5