Getting to Florida - 2 weeks in Texas

Stage 1: Plano, TX, medical appointment
Tuesday, 6 December 2022

When the eye doctor fixed the bleeding that was blinding me in my left eye, he told me to get a checkup in a year.  He knew I might be in some other state and just said to find a doctor who could be sure it was all still okay.  So when I knew I'd be going from Iowa to Florida, I made an appointment with this same doctor - after all, who better to see how things were.

Dr. Musa, the staff calls him, his name being Dr. Musa Abdelaziz.  I really appreciate his willingness to ask questions and listen to my answers, which not every doctor does.  And I appreciate him being good at his job - my eyesight is now pretty much back to normal, when I'd been afraid of going blind in one eye.

We'd gotten my errands done yesterday so I mostly spent the day waiting for my dilated eyes to get back to normal and enjoyed the company of my family.  Dexter got to be in a house again and be in a back yard (without a leash!).  And for a few hours I brought Lily into the house to give her a break from being with the kittens - Dexter gets breaks when we go for walks but Lily never does.


Stage 2: Dallas area to McKinney Falls State Park, Austin
Wednesday, 7 December 2022
Pearl Harbor Day

today's route -
the orange line

I hated to make Dexter leave Anna behind, but she kept telling him that she'd see him in a few weeks for Christmas in Florida.

For the life of me, I can't see why gasoline is 40¢ to 50¢ more here than it was in Oklahoma.

On my way out of town, I stopped at the local recycling center and got rid of everything I'd saved during the last few weeks.  I always feel lighter after I dump that stuff - and my bathroom looks much bigger.

I noticed that I lost another hubcap - likely in that messy road construction area at Sherman a couple of days ago.  That makes 2 I've lost.

When the highway passed the small town of Italy, I noticed a little neighborhood of round buildings.  It turns out they're rental units built by a local business called Monolithic Constructors.  They're basically tiny homes, 210 square foot domes, and the company has built several of these little neighborhoods in other communities in Texas.  Who knew?

I heard on the radio that Forbes magazine has listed H-E-B Groceries (Texas-based chain) as the 6th largest private company in the US.  Which is saying something since I think their stores are only in Texas.

David had warned me that the bathrooms at the rest area near Hillsboro were closed (though that's not a problem for me since I carry my own).  But I was interested to see the port-a-potties being serviced by the Stool Bus (painted school bus yellow, of course).

This rest area had a display about something Lady Bird Johnson started that's become "The Longest Garden."  It includes gardens planted at rest areas in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota.

Another garden at this rest area was devoted to native Texas plants that support Monarch butterflies.  I understand some people don't realize that modern, hybridized versions of important butterfly plants (like milkweed) aren't a help to the critters - they need the original native species.

Anna had told me that Texas is the center of a fake temporary license plate scheme.  I was curious and looked it up and learned that, although it's Texas tags that are used in the scam, they're sold (illegally) all over the US.  They're in demand because using a fake tag lets someone drive without paying on toll roads and helps people dodge arrest warrants, as just 2 examples.  Here's the most recent explanation for the situation that I could find.   https://www.capitalone.com/tx-fighting-a-wave-of-fake-paper-license-plates

I saw a billboard that said: "Biden: Buy Oil From Texas - Not Terrorists!"

I managed to negotiate Austin's increasingly terrible traffic to get to the southeast side of town to tonight's campground.  I've stayed at this state park several times before and have found it to be the best option for RVers in the Austin area.  The KOAs are wildly expensive and too far out, other private campgrounds are pretty iffy, and no other state park is this close to town (between downtown and the airport).

Stage 2: medical appointments in Austin, TX

Thursday, 8 December 2022

I had 2 appointments today - the first with my regular doctor who I haven't seen in a while.  I'm pretty sure my file was in her archives because it's been so long, but since I was in the neighborhood, I thought I'd get myself back on her current list.  She laughed at the idea that Austin was in the neighborhood of Dallas, but I pointed out that I'd been in Iowa when I made the appointment, and from there it looked pretty local.

I really like her and would move back to central Texas just to keep her if I could afford it and if I could bring myself to live in this strange state again.  She's good at her job, she's thorough, and she listens carefully to what I say.  All traits that don't grow on every bush where doctors are concerned, I'm sorry to say.

Later in the day we went to our second appointment - with my regular vet.  The kittens needed their monthly checkup, and it was time for them to have more shots.  My huge mistake was in forgetting to ask them to clip the kittens' claws, which I didn't remember till the evening when it was too late.  But they keep gaining weight and keep growing - and they keep being healthy, which is the important thing.

I'd intended to do some errands while we were in town but was just too tired to fight Austin traffic any more than I had to.  I figured I'd do them on my way out of town tomorrow.

I did get gas though, and was interested to find that it was somewhat cheaper here than in the Dallas area.

Stage 3: Austin to Fairfield Lake State Park, Fairfield

Friday, 9 December 2022

today's route -
the orange line

On the way out of town, I stopped first at an H-E-B (groceries), then at Twin Liquor (local chain), and then at a Target to get more clear plastic storage boxes.  What David got for me out of my storage unit were 2 boxes of those notebooks I made for each state.  I'm planning to stay in the Washington, DC, area after I finish my last 4 states; I want to visit the nation's capital and I want to spend time reflecting on where I've been during this trip and where I might want to live.  I figured those notebooks might come in handy because I've got a lot of information in them that I didn't put anywhere else.  The plastic storage boxes make them much easier to access than in big cardboard cartons.

The sensible route to get to tonight's state park was to go back north through Waco.  I usually hate to retrace my route, but any other way would have taken much more time.

I heard on the radio about a program called Inside Books Project, which seems to be an Austin-based program that sends books to prison inmates.  I wish I'd known about it when I was trying to figure out what to do with all Momma's books.  

Bucky felt punk all day.  I've noticed he has that reaction to injections, which is what he got yesterday, so that's probably what was wrong with him.  I've never had a pet that had such a clear reaction to vaccinations.  It usually takes him about a day to get back to his usual marauder persona.

When we got to the state park, I spent an hour or so trying to fit the notebooks in the storage boxes.  I thought the boxes I'd gotten were the same kind I was already using, but it turned out the new ones were a little smaller.  Too small for the notebooks.  So instead of a straightforward move-them-from-the-cardboard-box-to-the-plastic-box plan, I had to come up with a Plan B.  Which was to take all my books and clothes and other things in the right-sized plastic boxes and move them into the smaller plastic boxes, which left the right-sized ones empty to take the notebooks.  

I did all this on the campsite's picnic table, which was up a slight hill and somewhat removed from the RV's parking space.  Lugging the boxes uphill, changing the contents, lugging them all downhill, stowing them in the basement.  I was pretty dadgum tired by the time I got done.  But it is done.

My doctor's office called to let me know that my sodium level is normal, which it isn't always, and that they sent a referral to a place in Mt. Pleasant (my next stop) to get a mammogram.  Like I said, she's thorough.  I've been putting off that mammogram because they're incredibly uncomfortable and because I'm not usually anywhere that I can get them set up.  But my wonderful doctor made it easy for me.

Stage 4: Fairfield to Mt. Pleasant KOA

Saturday, 10 December 2022

today's route -
the orange line

I heard on the radio that the enigmatic street artist known as Banksy went to Ukraine to create several of his unique murals.  He said he did 7 of them, and the article at this link shows 5.   https://www.cnn.com/banksy-ukraine-murals  I would think these would be a morale booster for Ukrainians.

I also heard that Pres. Zelenskyy was named Time Magazine's "Person of the Year."  I'd say he deserves it.

I passed a geodesic dome that was built with 4 offshoots that were shaped like dormer windows but were on the 1st floor and looked like they were the size of rooms.  One might have been the entryway, another maybe the dining room.

I passed a sign telling me that the town of Gladewater is the Antique Capital of East Texas.  News to me.

And I started seeing a lot of the pines that are still left in east Texas - they give this part of the state its unique atmosphere.

We left last night's campground early enough that I had time to do laundry and take a shower when we got to the KOA here.  I've stayed here quite a few times and have always been comfortable.  The folks are really accommodating and the campground's pretty good.

Stage 5: Mt. Pleasant environs

Saturday, 10 through Saturday, 17 December 2022

Early Sunday morning we got a bit of thunder but it didn't seem to bother any of the critters much.  At the first sound, Dext came to get a CBD treat (which I got out of bed to give him) so he was okay.  Lily was startled but settled down just fine when nobody else reacted.

I finally decided to diagnose what ails me as diarrhea, only to discover I don't have any medicine for it.  I'll have to get some when I go do errands tomorrow.

At least as important as that is that I'm now out of any kind of milk except powdered milk.  Makes my coffee taste a little funny but I can't drink coffee without it and I have to have my coffee.

I had a grooming appointment for Dext at 7:45 Monday morning, so we left the campground pretty early.  Fortunately, nothing's very far apart in Mt. Pleasant.

As I was driving to the grocery store I passed a sign that said, "NATO is not a defense alliance - it's a war machine founded by the Nazis in WWII."  If you look up that phrase you'll find articles by people who think NATO is "a wholly-owned subsidiary of the CIA," among other very strange (and anti-semitic) beliefs.

On a lighter note, I saw another sign that said, "Instead of presents, I'm giving everyone my opinion."

After the grocery store I went to an outlet store I'd shopped at the last time I was here.  Back then I found 2 pairs of jeans that have been the only pants I still have that fit me, and they're starting to wear out so I was hoping to find more.  This time around I found a completely different selection and absolutely nothing I even wanted to touch, let alone buy.  Too bad.

On the way back to the grooming place I stopped at a jewelry store to get my watchband fixed; they said they didn't do repairs and sent me to an antique store, where the owner fixed it right up.

When I got Dext, I discovered I'd forgotten to tell them not to use scented products - the RV is a very very small space for strong scents to be in.  But they told me he'd behaved beautifully, which was a relief.  You never know when you ask someone to trim your dog's toenails.

I got some Kaopectate, which is what we took when I was a kid, though all they had was vanilla flavor and I'd have preferred the old chalky stuff (a taste I relate to getting well).  Then later in the day I vomited - not for the first time.  I just don't know what's wrong with me but I sure wish it'd go away.

One morning the kittens went on an absolute tear right from the get-go, harassing everybody.  It went on for hours and drove us crazy.

Maybe it was caused by an atmospheric change, because we started getting rain and some thunder - Dext came asking for his CBD treat.  Then about an hour later a HUGE clap of thunder actually made me scream.  After which I tried to calm everybody down.  Jimmy went racing for the protection of the driver's seat; Bucky sat at the end of the bed with big eyes.

I spent a lot of time trying to make reservations for my drive over to Florida and had a terrible problem with them.  The state parks in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida all fought me over it.  Very frustrating.  I changed my planned route 3 times to accommodate the problems, though I finally cobbled something together after devoting hours to it.

I got an appointment at a clinic because of being tired of having something wrong with me for so long.  The doctor there decided to go along with my self-diagnosis of diarrhea and wrote a prescription for Lomotil.  Anyone who's spent any time in Mexico should be familiar with this drug, which most tourists have bought over-the-counter in Mexican farmacias for many years.  I remember it as being an immediate plug - which is a relief for those who have a bad case of tourist's tummy - but not necessarily something I wanted now.  But they called it into the local CVS for me.

As I was leaving the clinic's parking lot, I discovered the large oak I'd been forced to park partly underneath (by space restrictions) had a very sturdy, low-hanging branch I didn't see.  As I started to drive out, it sounded just like my TV antenna was getting scraped off my roof.  I went outside to take a look, and though I couldn't find the antenna on the ground, I could still see where it should have been and wasn't any more.

Then I called the CVS who told me they don't stock Lomotil and were having to order it and it wouldn't be available for more than another 24 hours.  Very discouraging.

Back at the campground I got there just as the whole place lost electricity, which also lost them the wifi system.  And they'd already lost their water, which was actually a planned outage.  But losing power was something else and the owner was on the phone to the power provider sounding pretty worried.

After I waited for her to get that situation dealt with, I told her about my own particular problem, and she suggested I try the pharmacy at the local hospital, which she'd switched to herself because they were easier to work with.  So I called them, they said they did have Lomotil in stock, I called the clinic and asked to have the prescription changed to this pharmacy, and then made another trip into town to pick it up.  So Dexter got an extra walk out of the day and I got my medicine.  The pharmacist was very helpful when I told him my concern about that drug, and he suggested just taking one and seeing how things went before taking a 2nd one.  Good advice.  And by the time I got back to the campground, power had been restored.

I finally finished my posts for Iowa, and I wrote out driving directions that would get me all the way to Jacksonville, FL.

A German shepherd joined us in the dog park one day and Dexter got to play with him.  He's still following his new pattern of never playing for long, and spending most of his time sniffing around.  But it's good for him to at least have the chance to play.

Another day Dext had diarrhea beginning in the afternoon - and the next morning he woke me at 2 AM so he could go outside.  Poor little guy.  He's acting like he ate a bone, but for a change I don't know when he ate anything besides his food.  It usually takes about 36 hours for it to run its course for him.

The kittens, on the other hand, are blazingly healthy and act like the Flying Wallendas sometimes - you know, daredevil stuff without a net.

The campground gave me one of their best sites since the site I usually get wasn't available.  But I was next door to a woman who spent all her daytimes with her husband in an assisted living center.  She left at 7:00 every morning and got back about 5:00 in the afternoon, and I was sure she was wiped out by the time she got back.  Providing care for someone is an enormous drain on a person in a lot of unexpected ways.

Besides my other health problem, I was still coughing a lot.  I'd hoped when I got down to a warmer and more humid climate it might ease up, but so far it hasn't.  Anyway, I was feeling bad that my neighbor was having to listen to me cough so much, so I moved to another site, not as nice but also not as guilt inducing for me so it was worth it.

I started trying to plan my visit to Florida and had an odd thing happen.  First, I was worried about competition for camping spots at this time of year - with the snowbirds coming down from the northern winter.  So for a place to go after our Christmas gathering in Jacksonville, I found an inexpensive KOA near Gainesville, less than 2 hours south of Jax and made a reservation there for 2 weeks, to give me a chance to look around the area and reset for Florida.

But when I started to think beyond that I started to shake, as if at the start of a nervous breakdown.  Which is ludicrous in a way, because this entire trip is a choice, and all my plans are self-imposed.  And when I realized that, I called that KOA back and upped my stay to 3 weeks.

I'm still not feeling really healthy and am too low on energy.  Not only have I not been able to summon up the will to do much of anything but I also keep losing things - once or twice a day now.  That means to me that it's not just my body that needs a rest but also my mind.  I need time to get healthy again and regain the curiosity to learn about each state that has kept me going all this time.

So I'll stick with my travel plans that get me to Jacksonville to meet David and Anna and visit with my cousin Karen, and then go on to that KOA and figure out my plans from there.  That decision made me feel so relieved that I suddenly realized what a heavy burden it can be to try to fit yourself into an artificial framework - even one you've created - because people aren't robots and don't always fit into structures.  (Some who know me would argue that I've never been really good at fitting into structures, and I guess it's high time I realized that about myself.)

So despite taking time to read and watch videos, I got a lot done while I was here.  The weather was mostly the typical Texas-yucky for this time of year, but it was a good excuse to relax.