Along the way

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re all over the place

 

September 2018 trip map

 

(But just in South Texas.)  Now we're in San Antonio.  Took a walk on the Salado Creek Greenway yesterday.

 

The last time we were here at this campground was in May on our way to Colorado.  Walked the same trail then.  This time felt a lot better than the last time; I was less tired at the end.  Last time was BS (Before Surgery).

 

The water level goes up and down at Sandpipers, it depends on the amount of rain.  There are still a few more things we want to do here so we'll stay out a little longer.

 

I’m a juror

 

A case is put before me.  I'm presented only two witnesses.  They tell opposing stories, which are mutually exclusive; only one can be right, the other has to be wrong.  I have to decide.  Each story is compelling and credible.

 

Witness 1 has nothing to gain and everything to lose by telling their version of the story.  Witness 2 has everything to gain from their version of the story, don't know if there is any more to lose; it's already bad.

 

There is more to the story.  We know it's out there, but I'm not allowed to know or consider it.  Witness 1 requests further information be allowed.  Witness 2 is evasive about allowing it.

 

The testimony of Witness 1 is heartfelt and gut-wrenching.  The testimony of Witness 2 is impassioned and expresses outrage, but some of that outrage is expressed while referring to notes, reading rehearsed talking points.

 

That's it.  That's all I have to go on.  Now I have to choose to believe one and not the other.

 

Witness 2 is not getting my vote.

 

Do spiders creep you out?

 

.

.

.

.

.

 

You may not want to read the rest of this.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Texas Brown Tarantula.

 

 

Henry the water-dog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re back!

 

Civilization, in the form of digital connectivity, for what that's worth.

 

Here is why we love Lost Maples so much:

 

 

 

 

Lost Maples State Natural Area

 

Love this place.

 

No internet though.  Internet at the entrance station, but not much.  We should be back to civilization by Tuesday afternoon.

 

 

I’ve been complaining for years

 

That we're getting profiled.

 

At our house in Edinburg, we're well north of the Mexico border.  We're in the U.S., but we're not through with checkpoints.  Fifty miles in any direction north or west (Can't go south and still be in the U.S.  Can't go east without running into water.) we have to go through another checkpoint.

 

They're looking for drugs or undocumented migrants.

 

Here is the problem.  They never stop us.  They stop other people.  They stick their heads into their cars.  They make them open their trunks.  Some get sent to time-out for a more thorough search, but not us.  Us, they ask how we're doing and just wave us through every time.  I maintain we're being profiled.  Two "mature" adults and a little dog in a motorhome.  They think we can't be trouble?

 

Well, my complaining days might be almost over (or really just beginning).  They're expanding the Falfurrious checkpoint.  They're building the country's most advanced border patrol station for the country's busiest checkpoint.

 

https://www.themonitor.com/news/local/article_b10dea72-d882-11e6-8e6e-e7b6bc382393.html

 

 

Soon they'll have plenty of space and agents to pull over seemingly innocent people like Judy and me.

 

I'll report back.

 

We’ve moved on

 

We're back to the bus in Bandera.

 

September 2018 map

 

 

 

Out of the low country into the high country (High for Texas, we're at 1,200 feet.)

 

I can see concrete and road!

 

Out at the end of the driveway!

 

It still takes rain boots to get to the car, but looking west, the neighborhood is clear.

 

Looking east, yards are starting to reappear.

 

Looking north...

 

And down at the end of the road, a large county pump running nonstop.

 

Lake Sandpipers

 

 

Lake Sandpipers in the rain.

 

No cause for alarm; just a brief shower.

 

Jay has four pumps going.  The county has two larger pumps going.  The water is receding.

 

Lake Sandpipers

 

 

Our own tadpole pond.

 

Warm and sunny.  The water is going down a little.  There is no longer standing water on the little patio out back.

The flagstones in the grass are still submerged though.

 

But the cavalry has arrived.  The county has pumped out the drainage ditches along the road to the south of us.  (Of course, one has to wonder if they are drainage ditches, why don’t they drain, why do they have to be pumped out.)  Anyway, pumping out the drainage ditches outside our park didn’t make our water level go down, so they’ve finally agreed to pump our water into the newly emptied drainage ditches.  I think they’re going to pump around the clock for three days, so that should make a difference.  A difference until the next storm anyway.  Someone still has to figure out where all this water is coming from when it rains.  It doesn’t all come from just rain that fell on us.

 

The clothes on our backs

 

That’s all we needed.  That’s what we kept telling ourselves when we were packing for our trip in the motorhome.  One day to San Antonio.  One day home and we’re done.  Now we’ve been wearing the same clothes for a week, except when we take them off and wash them at night, so we can wear them again the next day.

 

Enough of that.  We drove home.  We arrived just after dark to eight inches of water in our driveway, a billion mosquitos, and frogs singing their little hearts out in the lake out front.  No problem.  Inside our house, the electricity is still on, the air conditioning is still running, and we’re comfortable.  Other houses in the park, not so lucky.  They’re a little lower so rooms and sheds are flooded and air conditioners are submerged (so not working).  There aren’t a lot of people that spend the summer here, but our sense is that about half of them have evacuated.

 

We left the motorhome up by San Antonio and came home in the Jeep.  We’ll pick up clothes, medicines, and a few other things.  Judy has a doctor’s appointment Thursday morning we don’t want to miss.  Then we’ll drive back to San Antonio to rejoin the bus as a planned trip this time, until the flood waters go down here.

 

 

Cabin Fever

 

After days of rain, the weather let up today.  The rain didn’t go all the way away, it only rained off and on, so we had a driveabout.  The three of us drove forty miles up the interstate to South Llano River State Park for some walking and birding.  Usually I send out pictures of what it looks like when we’re camping there.  Here is what it looks like when we’re just walking around:

 

 

What can you do?

 

You get tired of people driving over your landscaping, so you put a big boulder in the way.  Now everyone will have to drive around it.

 

It looks like putting a nice boulder there only kind of worked.

 

Of course, everyone ought to be able to stay on the road and drive around a boulder, but can you imagine the thousands of dollars of damage that rock did to someone’s RV just to keep them from driving over the gravel?

 

This is us

 

 

Hunkered down on the high ground at Buckhorn Lake RV Resort.

 

 

 

Buckhorn Lake Resort

 

Raymondville Drain

 

That’s the name of the flood control project that’s going to help with our flooding.  Our part of the county north of Edinburg is a low spot.  Flooding has always been a problem here.  The drain will be sixty-three miles long collecting and draining water all the way from Edinburg Lake to the Gulf.  We’re at the Edinburg Lake end of it.

 

This project has been in the works for thirty years, but it couldn’t get any funding until now.  Phase One of the Raymondville Drain project just got started in 2017.  We can see progress on it as we drive in and out of our neighborhood.

 

So it started in 2017.  It’s a five-phase project.  I wonder what the completion date is.  I wonder if it starts to provide any benefit to our neighborhood at any intermediate stage.  The only thing I can find on Google is about phase one.  As far as Google knows, it’s a one-phase project.  We in our neighborhood would like to know more.  I guess time will tell.

 

Plans change

 

It was a two-day trip.  One day to drive just north of San Antonio and one day back.  We were so careful not to pack a bunch of extra stuff.

 

Our location

 

Remember I said it rained the night before we left?  Five inches.  The park in front of our house was completely flooded.  We had to wade to the motorhome to get in it and drive away.  Well, it rained another five inches again last night.  Now the entire RV Park is flooded.  The roads to get to and from our park are covered by standing water.  More rain is forecast.  Oh, and there is a tropical storm in the gulf headed our way.

 

We always say that if a hurricane is coming, our house has wheels.  This isn’t a hurricane, but it is a significant enough rain event that we decided since our house with wheels is already on high ground, we probably ought to just leave it there and stay in it until the flooding in the Valley has receded.

 

But there is a problem with that.  To stay out, we need more stuff.  We didn’t even bring a change of clothes.  We didn’t bring our prescriptions.  We decided to drive back to the Valley today, get the stuff we need, and drive back here tomorrow, and stay out until the floodwaters have gone down.  We can drive through a little standing water; it’s a Jeep!  We got as far as San Antonio before we got the note that the County was about to let more water out of Edinburg Lake just south of our house.  The roads to and from our house are going to be impassible.  Time for a new plan.

 

We turned around.  Now we’re back in the motorhome in Bandera with groceries in the pantry and refrigerator.  Tomorrow we can go buy a change of clothes at Walmart.  Judy called Walgreens and they will provide new prescriptions in advance of us normally needing them.  Maybe we can go home next week.  Never know though; sometimes plans just have to change.

 

It rained last night

 

Five inches!

 

We had pulled out onto the road the night before and got the car hooked up.  We waded out to the RV this morning and left for a two-day driveabout.

 

We’re at Bandera for the night.