Texas - Days 123 - 129 - in the campground

Mt. Pleasant KOA, Mt. Pleasant
Saturday, 6 through Friday, 12 March 2021

When I first got into the campground, I was pleased to see a very busy bird feeder by the office.  Mostly it had sparrows, but one Cardinal stood out.  The day still seemed a little gloomy from the rain, which likely made the red stand out even more. 

I guess I was still recuperating from that stomach flu when I drove here, because it took me several days to get my energy back.  While I was here I got caught up with the blog, but the main thing I spent time on was my upcoming travel plans.  Yet again, I changed my mind, prompted by learning that New Mexico has finally lifted its quarantine period for travelers. 

First I spent at least half a day coming up with different routes I could take and figuring out which months I'd want to be in which states.  I ended up with 5 plans: Plan I that I'd already decided on, beginning in North Carolina, then taking the 3 remaining East Coast states, and then hopping over to Minnesota and going south; Plan II a version of my original one pre-pandemic, starting in Missouri, going north, then south from North Dakota, and zigzagging a bit to get down to Arizona by December; Plan III to begin in Wyoming in April, then Montana, under the theory that there'd be fewer tourists there in those months, then covering the entire western half of the US, ending in New Mexico in January; Plan IV went west through NM and AZ, then over to CA and up the western states; and Plan V which is a modified version of Plan II. 

And Plan V is the one I picked.  April in Missouri, then north, July in North Dakota, September in Wyoming, then head south.  In January I'll be in California and zigzag north, picking up OR, NV, ID, WA and MT.  Then I'll be in Nebraska in July 2022 on my way to the 4 East Coast states.  All of this is of course subject to uncertainty about the pandemic and other current events but I'm hoping I'll be able to do it.  I'm sick of marking time, sick of waiting for other people to show some sense (what on earth is so wrong with masks? or vaccinations?), and as ready as everyone else to get on with my life.  But I'll do the very best I can to keep myself and others safe, to get vaccinated as soon as I can, and then hope for the best.

While I was doing all that travel planning, I'd been thinking about all the time I'd spent in Texas, and how my "month" in this state had grown so much to allow me to make doctors appointments, and to sit in a snowstorm, and to try to cover so much area.  Then I realized that March has a lot of days in it, and I still had 3 weeks before I'd want to head north.  Although I had some chores I needed to do, laundry wouldn't keep me busy here that long. And it suddenly occurred to me that the one part of Texas I've never been to and really want to see is the Rio Grande Valley, where this trip still hasn't taken me.  So of course I decided to spend much of the remaining part of March down there.  

Then I spent another day and a half making reservations for the rest of the time I'd be here, planning out driving routes for it all, and writing down the driving instructions.  It's my understanding that a lot of the Valley is very rural and I was afraid many of the places I'll be staying might not have internet available, so I wanted to get those directions down now.

So between all that travel planning and my chores, I didn't have much free time.  I took the dogs out 5 times every day, though that was problematic at times because of there being many other dogs here.  At least I could occasionally grab that huge dog park I talked about last fall.  Often what my critters wanted to do was just lie down and enjoy being outside in the fresh air.

One of my first days here I saw both a Downy Woodpecker and a Hairy Woodpecker together.  Lots of Cardinals and Blue Jays and Robins galore.

We went into town once and I found a very large park we hadn't visited before, so we got a nice walk around the little fishing lake they had there.  I needed to get groceries, but mostly I just wanted to take the dogs somewhere besides dodging all the other dogs here in the campground.

I can't get any TV stations at all here without a cable, which I don't have and don't want enough to learn how to make my TV recognize it.  The Texarkana NPR station is very faint here, so other than a lot of furious planning, it's been a very quiet time.