McKinney Falls

Thursday, 22 February 2018

McKinney Falls State Park, Austin, TX

I hadn’t thought about this until I lived in Alaska, but what’s called a subsistence lifestyle is very time consuming. It takes an enormous amount of time and effort to stay warm, dry, and fed. Realizing this gave me a new appreciation for what life must have been like for the early American Natives and the westward-ho pioneers.

It often takes longer to do basic tasks than I expect it will. Which puts me way behind on the non-basic tasks I’ve been wanting to do.

For example, I was too frazzled to write yesterday, or to do much of anything once I’d finally gotten us settled in our camping spot here at McKinney Falls. The drive from Corpus Christi was one long fight with a very strong and squirrely wind. It didn’t seem to matter which direction the road was taking us,  the wind still shoved us so much I had to hang on tight to the steering wheel to keep us on the road. That meant I couldn’t go any faster than 55 without risking losing control, and that meant that our trip lasted a great deal longer than I'd planned.

Nice scenery, though. Flat southern Texas giving way to some hills and trees. Nice little towns. I don’t remember ever noticing a small town named Berclair between Beeville and Goliad, but it must once have been special – some very fancy houses along the main street.

I was stunned to see the Bee County Courthouse.  Can you see all the gilt?

Bee County Courthouse

Courthouse detail

Today I was doing some make-up from what I couldn’t do a week ago when I left town.

I stopped to get help from my friend and computer blog expert Janice Friesen. I first learned about Janice’s service from a newspaper article that said she was helping someone set up a blog. It occurred to me that a blog was the way to deal with all the friends and relatives who said send me an email now and then to say what you’re doing. Her service is called "I'm Not A Geek"  http://helpimnotageek.blogspot.com/ ” and she’s not. But she does know how to figure out how to do things on a computer, and she can teach anybody else how to do it, too. I know because she taught me to, which means anybody could learn. This blog is entirely thanks to her.

Then I took the critters to the vet, which is something I’d intended to do last week but ran out of time for. I’ve been going to Hyde Park Animal Clinic for the last 10 years, and could only get in because my mom was a client and had taken my cat in once when I was visiting. The clinic stopped accepting new human clients ages ago – they had plenty of business with the ones they already had. Good people.

Then I went to my mom’s house intending to finish cleaning it out, since I hadn’t been able to finish last week. It’s still not done. I’ll have to go by early tomorrow morning. Silly me, I spent part of the afternoon using the running water that I don’t have in the RV: I washed the dishes (!) and washed the clothes and washed me, all of which left less time than I expected. It was after 4:00 when we left Momma's house. But most of what I have to do tomorrow is figure out where to stash things while toting them to Goodwill, which is doable. The buyers are taking their final walk-through around 10 before they sign closing papers, so I can get over and out of there before that.

Then I have a few more errands – replacing Dexter’s collar he split in two while charging at another dog (is there really intelligent life on this planet?) - and so forth. Closing for me is at 1:00, and then I high-tail it out of town to make it to Cleburne State Park, south of Fort Worth. That’s only down the road from the MHSRV place that’s going to fix my little problems on Saturday. I’ll relax after all that.