Cedar Hill State Park, Cedar Hill, TX
Sunday, 13 through Thursday, 17 June 2021Sunday morning
David and Anna go to brunch most Sunday mornings at the AllGood Cafe in the Deep Ellum section of Dallas. They told me they started going there as a way to support struggling businesses during the pandemic and continued because enjoy it. I've been hearing about these brunches for some time now and didn't want to leave town without going myself, which is why I chose Sunday afternoon as my departure time.
The night before, they took me to their one of their favorite pizza places - Industrial Pizza in Richardson. It was busy and crowded and was a big adjustment for me to go to an enclosed public place like that and take my mask off. The pizza was worth it, but I still had to keep reminding myself that Dr. Fauci said what we were doing (fully vaccinated, staying seated while unmasked) was safe.
So the next morning here we were in a similar situation, except the cafe was much larger and had a much larger crowd of people than the pizza place, making it yet another mental adjustment for me. Again, the food was worth it, but I was surprised at how thoroughly I'd incorporated the safety lessons from the pandemic: avoid enclosed spaces, avoid crowds, maintain social distance, wear a mask. It's clear I'm going to need a decompression period from the pandemic.
Except that I'm now worried about those variants that are circulating, particularly that delta version that is said to be extra virulent and extra communicable. And I'm about to head to a part of the country that has largely ignored the health warnings during this past year. So while I enjoyed these restaurant visits very much, I don't think I'll be repeating them much up north any time soon.
Moving back into the RV
When I moved out of the RV 5 weeks ago, I dumped most of the belongings for my critters and me into shopping bags. And I pretty much kept them there ever since, never believing I'd be staying as long as I did and thinking I'd want to be ready to move back in as soon as the RV was ready. So in many ways, the move wasn't hard. Except that it turned out I'd taken an awful lot of stuff into D&A's house to avoid making the RV at risk for burglary - I wanted it to look as empty - or at least uninviting - as possible. And that meant many multiple trips today by all 3 of us out to the RV with yet more bags and boxes.
It also meant that all those bags and boxes got stacked just about any place where they wouldn't slide around while we were traveling - all over the bathroom floor and my bed and lots more of the floor space. The RV looked like I was planning to hold a yard sale and just hadn't put stuff out yet.
To the state park
You'd think as many times as I've stayed at this campground in the last couple of years that I'd know how to get there from D&A's house. Apparently not. Google told me the trip would take me just under an hour; it ended up taking me 2½ hours because I got lost several times.
My first stop was at a gas station, where I was completely unable to locate my stash of cash. I drove back to D&A's, thinking that bag had somehow not gotten on board, but with Anna's help I eventually found it already in the RV.
The second stop was at the grocery store, because I felt moderately safe in buying perishables now that the frig was working. But not too many because if Dodie could find a new one I'd have to keep everything in the old one cold while the new one was being installed. That meant no ice cream, for instance, to avoid it melting all over everything else. I decided on a few pieces of fried chicken and some cole slaw that could be eaten or jettisoned fairly easily.
Then I got on the road, which is when everything went wrong. I kept taking wrong turns and having to make u-turns or just plain getting lost. Once I stopped in a parking lot to try to get directions online, only to find that I didn't know where I'd put my hot spot. I'd been using David's wifi signal at their house, so the hot spot had been stored for most of the 5 weeks. I looked unsuccessfully in several bags and boxes, finally settling on the AAA map. My mistake there was to ignore the map of Dallas I had and instead try to use the little inset map of Dallas on the state map. Definitely not detailed enough, I found, when I made my 3rd u-turn and my 2nd wrong turn. Instead of heading southwest, I ended up in Rockwall east of Dallas.
That resulted in yet another u-turn, but this time I got on a road that I knew would actually take me where I wanted to go. And I went. But all 4 of us had gotten out of practice for driving in the RV for several hours at a time. We were all tired and hot and ready to stop somewhere. By then, though, I was afraid to stop anywhere short of the campground in case I made the wrong turn again, so we all toughed it out.
And in the state park
I'd expected to find that getting to our campsite would be a relief, but it turned out to be the beginning of yet another problem. I'd forgotten to bum ice off D&A and forgotten to make any of my own. No ice. And after that long hot frustrating drive, I wanted a drink. A nice cold iced drink.
I took the dogs over to the boat ramp area so they could walk around and relieve themselves before we actually settled into our campsite. That meant that, once I'd plugged in the power cord, I could go immediately in search of ice from a neighbor. Unusually, they were all single women. The first I tried was already eating supper (which I would have been doing on a normal day) but she said she didn't have any at all. At the second trailer, I woke that poor person up from her nap; she offered ice water but I guess that meant refrigerated water because she too said she didn't have any ice. The third not only had ice but had an extra bag that she offered me, saying she'd just figured she'd take it home and dump it on the lawn. So I now had ice for multiple drinks and was hard put to express the depth of my gratitude.
Back at the RV, after fixing my drink I fed us all because we were definitely past our suppertime. But then, instead of resting, I had to make a start on dealing with all those bags and boxes, just to find my toothbrush and clear off my bed so I could sleep. I'd already had to locate and unpack the bags with the critters' supplies, and I just picked up from there and put away a bunch more stuff.
What I found odd was that I couldn't remember where things went. After living in this space for so long, I've figured out spaces for most of my stuff, and have routines worked out so I can find what I need without much thought or work. Well, it turns out that 5 weeks was long enough for me to lose all that muscle memory, so to speak. I'd aim to put something away and realize I couldn't remember where "away" was. Weird.
Monday
Today I spent many more hours unpacking and stowing stuff. I have no idea why it took so long. Gradually I started remembering more about where things went, which was helpful. I didn't find that hot spot until the bags I unpacked in the afternoon, but was very thankful when I did find it because the state park doesn't have a wifi system.
Cedar Hill State Park has enough of a problem with ants to warn campers about them. They say some campsites have Argentine Ants, which is an invasive species. Apparently, my site is one of them, because on Monday I saw a bunch of them. I've been infested with ants a couple of times before and know it's excruciating trying to get rid of them and wanted to stop them before they invaded again, so I drove into Cedar Hill and bought the large-sized box of baking soda. That's a trick I'd learned from a state park somewhere back a year or two during one of the invasions. I sprinkled the baking soda liberally all along and covering the power cord lying on the ground, and then used toxic bug spray on the tires and wheel wells, then called it good. I also have an okay-around-pets bug spray, and I used that inside the kitchen trash can. I decided against hooking up my hose to the water outlet to limit my exposure to ant invasions, and the baking soda + bug spray apparently did the trick. But I worried and kept a sharp eye out for them inside.
The really important thing I did was call Dodie about a new frig. He had indeed located one, which he said was local so easy for them to get, and that it was still-in-the-box brand new. He said it'd take 2 or 3 hours to install and he'd be glad to do it this Wednesday morning. My regular frig was still working just fine, but I knew I'd waste too much energy worrying about it if I didn't replace it, so Wednesday it is.
Speaking of the frig, though I'd tried to limit the items in it to make the transfer to the new one easier, I'd acquired slices of several different kinds of pie. Anna took us to a bakery called Piefalootin in Garland that occasionally makes a double cherry pie that she especially loves. I too am an admirer of cherry pies, so David and I went with her. We each ate a slice of pie while we were there - Anna had the cherry, and David had some other kind. My choice was a chocolate cream pie that looked and tasted like the chocolate ice box pies I remember from my childhood. Of course, I couldn't finish it, so half of it came with me in the RV, along with a slice of the double cherry and also a slice of Southern pecan which I couldn't resist. But with the frig replacement actually scheduled for Wednesday, I decided not to wait too long to enjoy them. I had the leftover chocolate pie for dessert tonight, and planned for the cherry pie to be breakfast tomorrow and then the pecan could be dessert tomorrow night. So much to look forward to.
Tuesday
I'd intended to stay in the campground all day today but changed my mind when I tried to plan the logistics of running some errands. I wanted to get more of those CBD wafers, so I'd have a supply that would last me for a while, figuring I might have trouble finding them in the Dakotas, for instance, but would undoubtedly have no trouble finding thunderstorms along the way when I'd want them for the dogs. The only store I knew for sure had them was the one in Plano where I'd first gotten them. And getting there would be at least an hour's drive. Also, I've been wanting a copy of The Milagro Beanfield War (the DVD, not the book). Half Price Books in Cedar Hill told me over the phone that the only store locally that had a copy was in Lewisville, even farther north than Plano. I'd intended to go by both places tomorrow after the frig installation but realized that would likely shove me into DFW rush hour traffic, which I wanted to avoid. So I decided to go today.
Got me and the critters and the RV ready to get on the road, and then discovered my battery was on its last legs. I'd left my headlights on all night. First time I've done that. It took several serious cranks of the engine, during which I had time to envision calling AAA and wondering how I'd get them into the campground to help me out. But finally the engine turned over, I breathed a major sigh of relief, and figured the battery would charge up during the 1-hour drive north.
Bought the last 3 bags on the shelf of the CBD wafers, cranked the engine again, and found basically no juice at all. But here I had an advantage, because I was in the smack middle of an urban area with services all around, so I figured I wouldn't have trouble getting help. And I didn't. The AAA guy was at the RV in less than half an hour from my call, and in the meantime I'd turned on the generator so we could run the AC. We've been having a serious heat wave, including serious air quality warnings and highest level ozone readings. I didn't want the critters to have trouble breathing, even though my asthma was making itself known to me.
The AAA guy did some tests and said the battery was the original one and was completely dead; but the also-original alternator and starter were still a-okay. So I now have a new battery to match the other new stuff on the interior. Thank goodness I didn't have to deal with that while I was still in the state park.
From there I drove another half hour to Lewisville, got lost, got found again, and went to the Half Price Books, which was holding my DVD copy for me. You know how sometimes a song or movie or quote will keep cropping up in your life - and that's what happened to me with The Milagro Beanfield War. I hadn't thought of it in years, and maybe it first came to mind when I went over to Albuquerque for a few days last year to visit my friends Paula and Bruce (the movie was filmed in New Mexico). But it's kept coming up, popping into my mind here and there, and I finally decided to buy it. I know I'll want it anyway before I spend my month there. But it's an old movie and was never a big hit so hasn't been easy for me to find. It's the 2nd movie Robert Redford directed, following his masterpiece of Ordinary People. I find Milagro truly a miracle in some ways, mostly for the way it makes me feel. I'm glad to have found a copy.
And because of the delay in dealing with the battery, I was indeed mired in Dallas's rush hour traffic, on a blazing hot day, with no choice but to live through it. Still, I got those 2 errands done that might have been hard to do otherwise, so that's good.
Wednesday
Install-the-new-refrigerator day.
Another day of beautiful weather that was already showing signs of being a hot one. For more than a week, this area has been posting temps well over normal, though none of them record-setting, which I guess is good. And when the temp each day would come near 100° I'd tell myself that this is, after all, June in Texas, which made it easier to accept somehow.
Dodie had expected that most of the work could be done by one guy, but this one guy discovered early on that the RV cabin door was too small either to get the old frig out or to get the new one in. The door opening is 22½" and the frig is 24¾" - and neither the opening nor the frig has - say - an expandable waistline. The only option was to take out the window over the kitchen table. Which is what they did.
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| where the window used to be |
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| hoisting the new frig through the opening |
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| the new frig from the side |
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| the window reinstalled |
The labor cost ended up being more that any of us had expected, but that wasn't anybody's fault and I didn't mind paying it. The final bill was $3,500 for everything, which was a whole lot of money I hadn't expected to spend, but I now have a new refrigerator that I hope will last for the rest of my trip.
And in case you were wondering about the critters, I put Lily into her crate and put her on the bed, where she was pretty comfortable after her first round of vocal indignation. She had 2 windows to look out of, which she did, and she could easily see what was going on in the cabin.
The dogs weren't so well off - I put them both on leashes, put myself into the passenger's seat, and pulled the dogs up into the cab with me. Okay at first, but as time went on, it was less so. Gracie was lying in the driver's seat, which after a while was in direct sun. Dexter was on the beds between the seats, but he got really hot there over time and finally insisted on lying on the floor near the cabin door. Both workers said he didn't bother them, so I let him stay there and hoped it wouldn't be long before we could start an engine to get some AC again.
In all, it didn't take much longer than 2 hours - the extra labor cost came from them needing 2 guys for most of the time instead of only 1, but having both of them shortened the total time so it was worth it.
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| after a run to the grocery store - I just stuffed things inside without trying to organize them |
This new frig claims to have more capacity than previous versions, but their bright ideas actually provided far less capacity than my old one. Each shelf had a divider in it that limited the number of items I could put on it because of the size of the spaces it created. And there are 2 lower drawers instead of 1 large one for vegies, so I could barely fit a head of romaine lettuce into the space in 1 of them.
In desperation, I figured out that the shelf dividers moved (the owner's manual said I could slide them to keep shelf items from moving around during transit, but I've never found that to be a problem), so I then figured out how to slide them out of the shelves altogether. Which nearly doubled my shelf space. Sadly, there's nothing I can do about the lower drawers except live with them.
When I took some time back in the campground to organize all of that, the frig looked much less crowded than in that photo. I didn't bother taking a photo of the outside of it because it looks exactly like my old one. Mainly because it actually is the outside of my old one: the doors are actually covered with the panels of my old one. Turns out the fronts of those doors are wafer-thin sheets of plywood that slide into the door frame to make an attractive front for the industrial frame. I watched them do it.
So that's the last of the fixing-the-RV chores. I hope.
Thursday
I spent most of the day figuring out and writing down directions to all my stops between here and North Dakota on July 1st. I'd made reservations at the various campgrounds already, so it was just a matter of figuring out how to get there. I was a little surprised to find that each of these states - Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota to North Dakota - is about the same width. I'm leaving tomorrow for a few days at one of my favorite KOAs in Mt. Pleasant. From there, Google says it's 3½ hours to Lake Eufala State Park in OK; 3½ hours from there to the KOA in Wellington, KS; 4½ hours from there to the Grand Island KOA in NB; 4½ hours from there to the KOA in Kennebec, SD; and 4¼ hours from there to the Bismarck (ND) KOA. Interesting, isn't it? And of course, I have to add at least half again as much time to those estimates, which is why I'm making what looks like short hops. Any drive that Google says will take 4 hours is one I have to assume will take me at least 6, especially if I'm on an interstate because I rarely go the speed limit. And of course there are the rest stops that we all need every couple of hours.
I'm still trying to relearn my routines, which help me remember where things are supposed to go. I don't know how the critters feel about being back in the RV, but they seem to be adjusting with no problem. Oddly, for me it's been a bit of a rediscovery, remembering the life I'd gradually constructed and trying to adapt. I'll never stop being grateful to my family for their generosity, but I'm glad to get back to my own life again.
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