There are SO MANY little tiny town cemeteries!
It's astounding how many we passed on the way to the DFW area. I just know that they have not been documented or anything. It was all I could do to just keep driving and ignore them. Really. Okay, it helped that it is a freaking 97 degrees on a cold day out here, and there's not a cloud in the Texas sky. And that I know that even a small cemetery is pretty close to an all day project, even if you cheat and just snap electronic photos and do the transcribing later.
Not to mention I would have absolutely NO CLUE how to document where I was on the road.
But OH how I wished I had a trailer so I could roam the Texas state highways and byways, memorializing these loved ones for time and for all eternity. I guess I can start with Bridgeport's and then also do Point, Wills Point, and maybe Decatur.
It would be fun :)
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Monday, July 20, 2015
The Devil's Revenge
Not happy with our escape from California, the devil took his revenge. My DH is still in California. Crashed on his motorcycle the day we crossed over into Texas. DH is okay, bike....will be okay.
We arrived late (10pm) last night after leaving at 530am from Albuquerque.
We could have stayed elsewhere, but after 3 days of getting up at 4am, I was ready to sleep in until 730am, which we could only do if we got all the way to the DFW area. I had a child care job interview Monday afternoon. After rethinking it, I determined it wasn't the right fit (2-3 hours a day M-F in the heart of Dallas.) Since we are going to be tenting it from a distance of 70-85 miles, I figured that wasn't the best use of mileage. Although in retrospect, it might have been.
We finalized our entrance and food arrangements at 6 Flags over Texas (6F). We now get free entrance, free parking, and two free meals a day per person, and unlimited free drinks (soda, powerade, lemonade, water.) Today alone, our meals were the equivalent of one "season dining pass." We still need to get our timing down; after all, we won't be just dropping in for the heck of it from 70-85 miles away. But we have to look for jobs in air conditioning somewhere. Might as well be at the local Arlington library or Starbucks as the one far far away. But in this heat, I'm LOVING not having to cook, even if it is heating up hot water for freeze dried food.
It is way the heck hot in Texas. OK, we lived four blocks from the beach in California and caught the cool afternoon sea winds every day. So anyplace is going to be hot by comparison. But since we get free electricity at our campsite, I am seriously thinking about buying a small air conditioner and running it in the tent <grin.> Sigh. An air conditioned trailer would be so nice. Although, as a friend of mine pointed out, so would a house or an apartment <grin.>
The weather is a small price to pay for living free. Coming down State Hwy 287 we passed a whole lot of churches (one tiny town had population 195 and 10 churches!), a whole lot of "God loves you" signs, a passel of "God Bless America" signs; things you never see in California. Ever. Everyone is friendly, says hello, goodbye and punctuates the end of their sentences with Sir and Ma'am.
I'm already over carting stuff around in the cars, so I think we are going to rent a small storage space somewhere convenient. (Do I really need to cart my 2000w generator with me every where I go? Prepper types may remain silent on that issue.)
So far, we are healthy, happy and looking forward to our new life of freedom. And we thought it a good omen that even the food says TEXAS!
We arrived late (10pm) last night after leaving at 530am from Albuquerque.
We could have stayed elsewhere, but after 3 days of getting up at 4am, I was ready to sleep in until 730am, which we could only do if we got all the way to the DFW area. I had a child care job interview Monday afternoon. After rethinking it, I determined it wasn't the right fit (2-3 hours a day M-F in the heart of Dallas.) Since we are going to be tenting it from a distance of 70-85 miles, I figured that wasn't the best use of mileage. Although in retrospect, it might have been.
We finalized our entrance and food arrangements at 6 Flags over Texas (6F). We now get free entrance, free parking, and two free meals a day per person, and unlimited free drinks (soda, powerade, lemonade, water.) Today alone, our meals were the equivalent of one "season dining pass." We still need to get our timing down; after all, we won't be just dropping in for the heck of it from 70-85 miles away. But we have to look for jobs in air conditioning somewhere. Might as well be at the local Arlington library or Starbucks as the one far far away. But in this heat, I'm LOVING not having to cook, even if it is heating up hot water for freeze dried food.
It is way the heck hot in Texas. OK, we lived four blocks from the beach in California and caught the cool afternoon sea winds every day. So anyplace is going to be hot by comparison. But since we get free electricity at our campsite, I am seriously thinking about buying a small air conditioner and running it in the tent <grin.> Sigh. An air conditioned trailer would be so nice. Although, as a friend of mine pointed out, so would a house or an apartment <grin.>
The weather is a small price to pay for living free. Coming down State Hwy 287 we passed a whole lot of churches (one tiny town had population 195 and 10 churches!), a whole lot of "God loves you" signs, a passel of "God Bless America" signs; things you never see in California. Ever. Everyone is friendly, says hello, goodbye and punctuates the end of their sentences with Sir and Ma'am.
I'm already over carting stuff around in the cars, so I think we are going to rent a small storage space somewhere convenient. (Do I really need to cart my 2000w generator with me every where I go? Prepper types may remain silent on that issue.)
So far, we are healthy, happy and looking forward to our new life of freedom. And we thought it a good omen that even the food says TEXAS!
Friday, July 17, 2015
We Beat the Devil out of California....
Rest assured, he's still there, but we managed to escape over the border even despite his best efforts. Reminds me of the Irish saying, "may you be in heaven a half hour before the Devil knows you're dead."
We got a late start this morning, compounded by a shopping mis-queue at Walmart. Yesterday they had the tent we wanted, this morning when we went to buy it at 6am it was completely sold out. Really, in southern California, the whole county decided overnight to go camping? We ended up buying a much larger tent that we had planned--still an "instant" but we'll see how cumbersome it turns out to be. We may or may not be returning it, the whole point after all, is not gigantic, but quick up and quick down.
We were about two hours out of Huntington Beach when my son (who was in the second car behind me) called to ask if I would step on the brakes. It turned out my brake lights had failed. Of course they did. So I pulled over, found a place at 8am who could look at it. Fortunately I asked "could it be a fuse?" and it turned out it was. A pretty fast fix and we were back on the road.
Shortly thereafter, the check engine light came back on. My mechanic has assured me (this is a repeating problem) that it's "just the EGR sensor and don't worry about it." And I did happen to see this last time around that the EGR sensor cord is very frayed, so I am hoping that this is all that it is. The car seems to be running fine otherwise, so we are continuing in faith to Texas.
While in Ludlow (about 90 minutes inside the California border) we realized we were well off track of our plan to be in Flagstaff tonight. I figured I better make a motel reservation sooner rather than later, so we stopped in Needles about 60 miles inside the California border. Why was I surprised to find EVERY hotel in Flagstaff sold out? Our choices were stay in Kingman (2 hours shy of Flagstaff) or Winslow (90 minutes past Flagstaff.) I knew our energy level wouldn't get us to Winslow, so here we are in air conditioned comfort in Kingman.
This means it's unlikely we'll make it to Amarillo tomorrow as hoped, and likely stop for the day in Albuquerque New Mexico, nearly a 7 hour drive from Kingman. And that's if we get out of here by 5am as planned. We're not in a hurry to get to Texas (obviously), and I don't like crossing deserts in the heat of the day if I can avoid it. and we're passing through a lot of them: Mojave, Sonoran, Chihuahuan: three of the four American deserts in the United States. So we're taking it easy (oh, to be listening to the Eagles as we pass through Winslow Arizona, lol.)
Grateful to God we are not forced to travel on a shoestring, particularly with gas prices a whopping $5 a gallon out here. Grateful things are going smoothly. We didn't quite make it out of California before the Devil realized we were trying to escape, but are are well on our way to Heaven <grin.>
We got a late start this morning, compounded by a shopping mis-queue at Walmart. Yesterday they had the tent we wanted, this morning when we went to buy it at 6am it was completely sold out. Really, in southern California, the whole county decided overnight to go camping? We ended up buying a much larger tent that we had planned--still an "instant" but we'll see how cumbersome it turns out to be. We may or may not be returning it, the whole point after all, is not gigantic, but quick up and quick down.
We were about two hours out of Huntington Beach when my son (who was in the second car behind me) called to ask if I would step on the brakes. It turned out my brake lights had failed. Of course they did. So I pulled over, found a place at 8am who could look at it. Fortunately I asked "could it be a fuse?" and it turned out it was. A pretty fast fix and we were back on the road.
Shortly thereafter, the check engine light came back on. My mechanic has assured me (this is a repeating problem) that it's "just the EGR sensor and don't worry about it." And I did happen to see this last time around that the EGR sensor cord is very frayed, so I am hoping that this is all that it is. The car seems to be running fine otherwise, so we are continuing in faith to Texas.
While in Ludlow (about 90 minutes inside the California border) we realized we were well off track of our plan to be in Flagstaff tonight. I figured I better make a motel reservation sooner rather than later, so we stopped in Needles about 60 miles inside the California border. Why was I surprised to find EVERY hotel in Flagstaff sold out? Our choices were stay in Kingman (2 hours shy of Flagstaff) or Winslow (90 minutes past Flagstaff.) I knew our energy level wouldn't get us to Winslow, so here we are in air conditioned comfort in Kingman.
This means it's unlikely we'll make it to Amarillo tomorrow as hoped, and likely stop for the day in Albuquerque New Mexico, nearly a 7 hour drive from Kingman. And that's if we get out of here by 5am as planned. We're not in a hurry to get to Texas (obviously), and I don't like crossing deserts in the heat of the day if I can avoid it. and we're passing through a lot of them: Mojave, Sonoran, Chihuahuan: three of the four American deserts in the United States. So we're taking it easy (oh, to be listening to the Eagles as we pass through Winslow Arizona, lol.)
Grateful to God we are not forced to travel on a shoestring, particularly with gas prices a whopping $5 a gallon out here. Grateful things are going smoothly. We didn't quite make it out of California before the Devil realized we were trying to escape, but are are well on our way to Heaven <grin.>
Thursday, July 16, 2015
A New Blogpost-- And My Family Dwelt in a Tent
This is still my main blog, but I have started a new one. It's called "And My Family Dwelt In a Tent" and can be found here: andmyfamilydweltinatent.blogspot.com.
It's about our adventures as four of us (mom, 2 boys, 1 girl) live 24/7 in a tent. We are moving to Texas and the house we were going to purchase fell through after being in escrow 90 days. Since all our stuff is storage anyway, rather than jump hastily into another bad buy, and since it's summer, we are going to live life in a tent for a while, in a structured timeshare/campsite, while we regroup and figure out the best housing solution.
That may end up being a tent. It may end up being a 30 foot trailer. It may end up being a traditional home or apartment. But for sure, for the next 30 days, it's going to be a tent.
I don't want to spend too much time recapping on this blog. Once we arrive in Texas and settle in, some posts from that blog will be replicated here, as this blog has a pretty large following.
But in the meantime, please mosey over and take a gander as we embark on this exciting journey enabling us to become even more prepared for the last days.
It's about our adventures as four of us (mom, 2 boys, 1 girl) live 24/7 in a tent. We are moving to Texas and the house we were going to purchase fell through after being in escrow 90 days. Since all our stuff is storage anyway, rather than jump hastily into another bad buy, and since it's summer, we are going to live life in a tent for a while, in a structured timeshare/campsite, while we regroup and figure out the best housing solution.
That may end up being a tent. It may end up being a 30 foot trailer. It may end up being a traditional home or apartment. But for sure, for the next 30 days, it's going to be a tent.
I don't want to spend too much time recapping on this blog. Once we arrive in Texas and settle in, some posts from that blog will be replicated here, as this blog has a pretty large following.
But in the meantime, please mosey over and take a gander as we embark on this exciting journey enabling us to become even more prepared for the last days.
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