Eastward

Since leaving San Antonio, we have had a wonderful time catching up with friends and family with much more to come in the next few weeks. We left San Antonio and stayed at Live Oak Ridge State Park at Belton Lake, near Temple, TX. This was our first experience with a COE (Army Corps of Engineers) park, but likely not our last. It was a beautiful place to stay with access to the lake for boats as well as kiddos. We went down and launched a small toy "boat," built a small wall of rocks, explored with roly poly bugs and played with snails (ew!).

We also had a chance to go visit with one of my Great Aunts (I have a few), Jackie, who is one day older than my mother. They have a two dogs, and my kids are not really great with dogs, but these cute pups won their hearts pretty quickly. It was great to hear stories of my mother growing up and the two families interacting with each other.

Petting a puppy is HUGE in our circles

Even a smile or two while doing it

Sad to say goodbye

From Lake Belton, we headed southeast to League City to visit with a friend from my Navy days (Kitty Hawk West-pac 1995-6, I was with VAQ 135, she was with VAW-117). We stayed up too late, laughed a lot and got to know each other's midgets. We also headed to Schlitterbahn Water Park in Galveston on a torrentially rainy day, cut short slightly by thunder and lightning and the closing of the park, but it was still a great time. The rains continued as we toured the sea wall in Galveston, and headed back to her home. I guess I should have paid a little more attention to the weather, as rain is in the forecast for the foreseeable future as well. BOOOO!

Belton Lake

 A lot of what we hoped to do this trip

Rockin' it

Loving it

Will this rock skip?

He had a blast in the lake

Launching their "boat" (yes, we retrieved it)

"Our" snail

After a bittersweet farewell to Krista and family, we headed east and out of Texas into Louisiana. We were fortunate to find an RV park with a pool (Coushatta Casino) for Monday night, and the rain held off long to allow the kids to get to swim for a short while. They also had cable and internet, so the monkeys were happy.

We got up and out of there early enough, and headed east, yet again. I had watched the weather channel that morning, which I don't normally do, and noticed that I-10 was going to have blinding rains and potential flooding along the entire route all day, and decided to take a smaller route, I-190, which also lead east, but on a more northerly tract, which turned out to be a blessing. Because, as has been our luck on this adventure, something broke.

Uh oh!

Driving along on a small highway with a great big shoulder, the wipers stopped working. As in, I turn them on, and the passenger's side blade flipped over under the driver's side blade and got stuck, blocking both blades from working. I'm 53 miles from my destination in a fairly heavy rain, with no windshield wipers. I pulled over and looked to see if there was anything I could figure out that would make them work, and tightened the passenger's side blade a little, by hand. Nope. Pulled over again and called Thor. The closest repair shops were either 53 miles forward in Gulfport, or 43 miles back. Poop! Of course by this time, it was 5:00 p.m. and local repair shops are closing, and no one I called can help me out.

So, I pressed on, slowly using back roads rather than major highways, but there aren't many ways to get across LA to MS. Route 90 follows the beachline, much of which had been destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, and I was a little concerned about the choice, given the amount of rain. I called Frank's uncle Hank and aunt Judy, to be sure the RV wouldn't meet any complications with low bridges or small bridges unable to handle the weight of the RV. They have been local to the area for years and familiar with the route and gave me the all clear (with the caveat that the rains may have flooded parts of route 90).

Whew! Getting there...

I'm starting to remember my years in Gulfport and some of the issues we faced here with weather. It was kind of interesting that these flashbacks started at Schlitterbahn, where they had high water lines for Hurricane Ike, which hit the area September 13, 2008. For those who remember my experiences in September 2008, we had evacuated Gulfport in late August, about 36 weeks pregnant with C, when Hurricanes Gustav, Hannah and eventually Ike were on the horizon. While there was no immediate danger to the area, hangovers from Katrina were fresh in everyone's minds, and it was best for us to leave. C was born just after Ike devastated Galveston, safely up in Massachusetts.

In any case, back to today, we are safely parked in Gulfport, heading out to get the wipers fixed, now that I've had some time to take a few breaths.  Hopefully we're here for a few days, before continuing on east, yet again.