Tag Archives: Texas

travel days

Plotting the Rest of the Way South

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Our loose plans for the month of November were to go south, stopping in Ohio, Kentucky, and Louisiana on the way to Alamo, Texas. Richard did a great job of trip routing down here to (outside) New Orleans. But we were both kind of stumped on the best way to get from New Orleans to Alamo.

The big elephant in the route between New Orleans and Alamo is Houston. Nothing against the city of Houston, but to be perfectly honest, their interstate and freeway systems are kind of scary. Richard had never driven there before, but I have, and I vividly remember the traffic and confusing roads. I lived in Los Angeles for 13 years, and even I didn’t wanted to drive the interstates around Houston again, most specifically in an RV.

Every route we looked into seemed to take us either through, north, or south of Houston, and all way too close for comfort. We’d heard from other RVers that the best time to take on the city would be early, early Sunday morning. Unfortunately, we plan to visit the French Quarter this Sunday and leave on Monday. And there was no way we were going to brave Houston traffic on a Monday morning.

So we called our fellow (and far more experienced) full-time RV friends who traveled from Illinois to Alamo every year. We’re going to be staying in the same park this winter on their recommendation, so we thought that they would have a good route. And boy, were we right!

Richard spent a good part of an hour on the phone with our friend getting the scoop on the route. The route will take us through Louisiana and then straight down to the coast. From there we’ll hug the coast, going down Galveston Island and from there on to Port Lavaca, where it turns inland. It involved several bridges, but best of all, a free ferry! Did I mention the ferry is free?! I think I did, but let me get it out of my system. Free ferry!

He also gave us several park recommendations. Our plan is to take it in three to four legs. The first leg will take us almost out of Louisiana. The next to a county park we found across right on the beach south of Galveston Island. There we want to spend a couple of days getting ready for and enjoying Thanksgiving. We both also need to get some work done for a couple of clients as well. Juggling travel and work sometimes means that you’ve got to just hunker down somewhere for longer than you planned to get the work done.

From the county park we’re looking for someplace between there and Alamo. The last leg will be on to Alamo! It’s exciting to know that we’re almost there, but at the same time, I do enjoy the traveling. Chloe doesn’t like travel days very much, because our routine gets changed. She does like sitting on my lap while we travel though.

Tomorrow we visit the French Quarter. I’m so excited to share with Richard all the places I’ve been, and to get some good Creole or Cajun cooking (including a beignet from Café du Monde).

travel days, travel plans

Our (Loose) Plans for Now

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Richard and I try to remain flexible on the road, but we do like to make some sort of rough road map for at least the next couple of weeks or so. But these are not set in stone. Things change: weather, health, constitution, roads, the budget, etc.

Being able to be flexible is one of the most important skills I think full-timers can have. It’s not necessarily my strong suit, because I am a planner at heart, but it is a skill I would like to develop. I knew this lifestyle would help in that development. I’ve recently (like in the past year) adopted a more optimistic attitude.

“It will work out,” comes to my lips now without even having to try, because I know from experience that it will. Will it always work out the way I planned? No. Will it always work out the way I’d prefer? No. But life continues, and it does work itself out.

I didn’t always have this attitude. It was something I had to work to gain. I faked it for a long time before it became instinct. When something seemed challenging, or in danger of “not working out” I forced myself to take a breath, and say,

It will work out.

And low and behold! It worked out. Often better than I’d wanted, or in a way totally unexpected than I’d planned. But because I had accepted that life works out, one way or another, I didn’t find it unbearable when it worked out in a, shall we say, less pleasant fashion then I’d planned.

Are things always hunky-dory? Nope. But without a doubt, even when things worked out not so well, things still worked out. The key for me was taking away the unspoken valuation on the phrase, “it will work out.” Before, I attached a positive value to the phrase. So when I said, “I hope this works out,” what I really was saying “I hope this works out to my advantage.”
Our friend from RVillage, Peter, expresses a similar concept in his blog, Life Unscripted:

I suspect we all say things we mean in part, but don’t mean absolutely. There is a portion of travel I tire of; there is a flavor in hazelnut that I dislike; I don’t like the tingling sensation I get in my fingers when I’m in extreme cold. — We all say we don’t like things with an emphasis on specific characteristics.

And I think these characteristic valuations go unspoken but not unexpected.

Now I merely say, “It will work out,” secure in the knowledge that life will work out one way or the other, ether to my advantage or not. But one thing is certain, life goes on, and life going on isn’t anything that I can’t stand, since if I’m alive, I’m clearly standing life.

So, here’s the (loose) schedule for our next few days:

Travel Data

  • Traveled 240 miles in 5.1 hours from Fort Payne, MS to Marion, MS
  • Used 26.4 gallons of diesel at an average of 9 mpg
  • Cost of one night (averaged between one night with Passport America discount applied and one night with FMCA discount applied) at Benchmark Coach and RV Park $26 (averaged, with tax)