Back in Rockport!

It's been almost a week since I last posted, because I had to interrupt my narrative of our trip to Boise (which I'll continue soon). I've been engaged in a noxious task that hardly anyone else is doing this time of year: working on income taxes! Yes, I know I'm late. But in my defense, it's been a singular year. Right when tax season started, I had just lost my beloved Dad, and I just couldn't find the heart to work on the taxes. So I filed an extension. But then we decided to take our big trip, so when I should have been working on taxes, we were packing up two houses and loading everything we owned into storage and making arrangements for our 5-month, 11,000 mile trip. Who can do taxes in that situation? 

So all this time, I've had the black cloud of undone chores hanging over my head. I knew that the instant we got back to Kerrville from Boise I would have to take all our records and totally isolate myself until the job was done. It took 5 days, but yesterday we packed it all in an envelope and mailed it to our accountant. I feel like I've been released from prison!

I know some of you have been trying to contact me, and I apologize for being incommunicado. It just happened at the same time that I ran out of cellular data on my iPad for a few days. But I'm back among the living now!

For almost two weeks we've had our travel trailer parked on the property of our friends David and Bill. They live between Kerrville and Harper, Texas, on a lovely piece of land. They've been so hospitable and generous to share their space with us...complete with an RV pad sporting full hookups!

Not a bad place to stay, eh?

Other than church on Sunday, the only "field trip" I took during the time I was buried in paperwork was a trip to San Antonio with Curt, David and Bill. They've been telling us for years about their favorite Italian restaurant, Maggiano's. I must say, it certainly lived up to their glowing reports. The food was delicious and plentiful, and we felt like we were right smack in the middle of Italy.

It was a lovely evening, and such a welcome respite from my least favorite job!

Being confined to the trailer for days, I was able to enjoy witnessing a fun tradition that Bill has instituted. Everyday when he comes home from work, the two dogs, Stella and Lola, get to go for a golf cart ride all over the property. I'm not sure who enjoys it more, Bill or the dogs!

Yesterday after mailing the tax information, Curt and I headed to our storage unit to unearth some of the things we want to have with us in Rockport for the next 6 months. My, there's a lot of stuff in there! But we were able to locate some of the essentials. I know we'll be back for more before long. Then we filled both vehicles with gas and spent the last night (for now) in Kerrville.

This morning we packed everything up to prepare for the drive to Rockport. It was not without its challenges! As I retracted the electric awning, I heard a terrible noise. I looked out to see the extension arms of the front edge of the awning all twisted and bent. Oh, NO!!! Apparently a bolt holding the awning arm to the roof of the camper had come off. So Curt applied his strength and ingenuity, and I rocked the switch back and forth as needed, and we were able to work the bent arm back against the trailer. Curt secured it with a rubber strap (a step up from our usual duct tape repair job!) and we were able to drive it. It will need to be repaired in a shop, but thankfully it's covered by the warranty.

Here you can hardly tell there's a problem...but there's no way we'll try extending the awning until it's fixed!

Then the slide out portion wouldn't slide in...no matter what we did! We eventually figured that it was a fuse problem, so once we replaced that, we were good to go. Whew! That one was an easy fix!

Two vehicles and a trailer, and we're off to Rockport!

It rained the whole trip, making the usual 3-1/2 hour drive a 4-1/2 hour journey. But no problem...we just eased our way through San Antonio traffic and through the south Texas coastal plain. This was my view pretty much the whole way:

We arrived at Goose Island State Park after the office had closed, so we prowled around the campground until we found a vacant site. We'll settle up with the Park personnel in the morning. Setting up camp in the dark and the rain, we were so thankful for our new travel trailer, rather than the old pop-up. That would have been a VERY soggy proposition!

After changing out of our wet clothes, we enjoyed the ultimate in comfort food: some of the delicious Italian leftovers  from Maggiano's, salad, avocado, and a glass of wine. Ahhh....camping isn't half bad!

Since we can't move into our cottage until Monday the 10th, we'll be camping for the next few days. But we have plenty to do, orienting ourselves to our new hometown, setting up our mailing address, beginning to check our local churches, etc. Plus, we need to buy some fishing gear. We both want to learn to fish this winter. And we have our inflatable kayak win us now, so as soon as the weather clears up, we'll start exploring some fun places to launch and paddle it. The next 6 months promise to provide a great new adventure for us!