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What Did I Miss?

Houston is a massive city, and I’m sure I didn’t get to see even half of what I could’ve seen, but I made my best effort, starting with the donuts. I tried multiple bakeries around Houston and enjoyed donuts and kolaches from as many as I could. It was delicious because…

While I was eating donuts and Chicken Salad Chick, I also toured the Heritage Society at Sam Houston Park in downtown Houston and heard an hour and a half of tour guide commentary on the history of Houston. I was the only person on the tour, so I’m not entirely sure why it lasted as long as it did, but I learned a lot, forgot it, and donated some cat food to feed the large assortment of feral cats in the park.

The homes were beautiful, but I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside, so you get a picture of cats, the history behind a recreation of a TX general store, and some beautiful trees on the property. There was also a beautiful and informative exhibit about the Karankawa people. They rotate the exhibit, but the employees create each of them after extensive research.

We had tea at two different spots. The first one was in the northern suburbs near Spring – the Hummingbird Tea Room. It was a lovely tea service.

I enjoyed their take on the traditional cucumber open-faced sandwich with strips of cucumber on top of cream cheese. They also had a lovely English garden outside of the shop.

We took the tea bus around downtown Houston. It was a different experience but fun! Then we visited the downtown Houston library, which was confusing but expansive. They had this beautiful mosiac outside the library, so we grabbed a picture.

I also had a chance to drive out to the Johnson Space Center. This is where I learned that I really don’t care that much about space or learning more about it. I don’t know if it was just the mood I was in that day or what, but I was not interested or impressed. It really made me wonder if I have lost the wonder and amazement of a child when they think about space.

Don’t worry. My lack of enthusiasm did not prevent me from taking some pictures.

See? Rockets.

Can you believe that this t-shirt ^ was on clearance?? Can you believe that I didn’t buy it?

Next up – fabulous food in Houston and a side trip to Galveston. Stay tuned.

Holidays in Houston

Because I decided on Texas for the winter, it meant that I would be spending the holidays in Houston. Thankfully, I was blessed to have friends in Houston, and we had a beautiful holiday season in the Longhorn state.

Before Thanksgiving, I had a chance to visit downtown Houston with a friend and see the Houston Museum of Natural Science. There was a Death of Natural Causes exhibit that highlighted all the kinds of ways one could perish “naturally”. It was beyond interesting and kinda gross. 🙂 We had some good laughs and were definitely amazed by the ways that people have met their maker.

The herbivore part of the exhibit was displayed in a quaint greenhouse and was my favorite part.

For Thanksgiving, I baked what will hence forth be known as the crack brownies. My friend’s husband has been on a sugar-restricted diet for a few years now and rarely cheats on that plan. I baked the brownies at their house, and before I got back to Estella and Arthur, he had eaten a whole row of the brownies. He named them the crack brownies because he said they were like crack, and he just couldn’t stop eating them.

We had Thanksgiving at their daughter’s in-laws’ home, and there was an incredible amount of delicious food and great company. We played dominoes, had some great laughs, and all left with very full bellies.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we set-up Christmas decorations, and I made a quick trip down to Florida for a work trip.

The picture on the right is the tree we used in the RV to celebrate.

For fun, I also made a quick to Minnesota to visit my favorite orthodontic surgeon to get the implant for my missing molar. The drugs were effective, and the healing went well. Still no tooth back there, but we’ll get to that at some point.

These two cuties helped me feel better, and their dog mom made sure I followed all the directions from the surgeon. For two months, as per the recommendation, I did not eat on that side of my mouth. Have you ever tried not to eat on one side of your mouth. It really isn’t that easy. 🍫🍫 If you’re bored and looking for something to do while eating, I wouldn’t recommend it.

For Christmas, there were more crack brownies, gluten-free peanut butter cookies, and homemade sugar cookies that my friend’s grandkids helped us decorate. There was even a very cute grandkitty who helped open presents.

There was so much to see and do in the Houston area, and I’ll cover that in the next installment. For now, just a little bit more on our journey since Thanksgiving and Christmas were months ago. Arthur and I are on to “Phase Two” of our journey, and Estella is taking a well-deserved break in a barn on my parents’ farm. Phase Two includes Arthur and I driving around the country in an SUV and living in some of my favorite places and where we may end up. This phase will last until April of 2026, but I am hopeful that we will find our forever hometown by that time.

Arthur is helping me write this post tonight in our first destination of Phase Two. He and I have both enjoyed living in the extra space and trying to remember what it’s supposed to be like to live in a city and travel like normal people. Once we leave this location, I’ll share more about where we are and what we loved about being here. Until then, know that we are safe and that I will finish blogging about Phase One: Life in the RV.

Destination: Houston

We woke up on Saturday outside of Columbus, GA, at a Boondockers Welcome location in Fortson. They had a great set-up with parking spot on their extended driveway by a utility shed. The host walked down to see me and brought an extension cord that I could use since the shed was a bit further than my cords would reach. We even had a nice chat. I woke up to Arthur sharing my pillow because I was late with breakfast.

Saturday was our longest drive from Fortson to Livingston Lakeside RV Resort in Louisiana – just to the east of Baton Rogue. I’d never driven across southern LA before, and it was a lot different drive than what I expected. It was amazing to drive over the waterways and see the people driving their boats and living as they normally do. Those little slices of life really make the 400+ mile journey meaningful. The RV resort was very sunny and a bit warm, but it was peaceful and safe, so well worth the side-eye looks I got. I’m guessing they don’t see a lot of Asian ladies camping with their cat in these parts. 🍫

On Sunday, we left for the last leg of our 1000 mile journey into Houston, TX. We stopped at a not-so-busy Buc-ee’s outside of Houston to fill up and head to the Laurel Springs RV Resort in the Kingwood area of Houston. As of 2023, Houston is the fourth largest metropolitan area, trailing New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, but I was still surprised at the sheer size when we first arrived. It has all the things other large cities have – major highway systems, every store imaginable, many, many neighborhoods and areas. Our spot was in the northeast corner of the region and in a quiet alcove near Spring Creek.

When we arrived on Sunday, the office wasn’t open, so I had a bit of a scramble to find the email with our spot location. We easily parked and got set-up for the next two months. I wanted to winter in TX to try to escape some of the more extreme temperatures, but when we arrived in November, it was warm and humid.

Arthur was really happy in Houston. With all the driving we’d done, he deserved the rest – we all did. We did quite a bit while we were in Houston. More on that next time!

Who Needs a Vacation?

Well, I do. While it seems like I’m always on vacation, the truth is that this life on the road is exhausting. It’s a lot of planning, and I do love to plan, but it’s a lot. I’m always about 4 to 6 months ahead when I make reservations for campsites, and – sometimes – that’s too far in advance. Plans change; it’s really the only constant on this journey.

So, when mid-November rolled around (yes, I am that far behind on my blogging), and my friend met me on Hilton Head Island, SC, I was so ready for a break. We did what all good friends do when they get together. We ate great food, baked ridiculously good cookies, went to some tourist sites, got to bed early, and talked about retirement planning.

Here are some of the highlights.

We happened upon the Harbour Town area within the Sea Pines community, stopped in some shops, walked the pier, and saw the lighthouse. We also found a dinner cruise that we booked for later in the week. We stopped by the Salty Dog area and saw this cute bird chillin’ in a store.

We did go to the beach where we obeyed the signs and fed no alligators. My friend ventured out into the water, but I didn’t wade in. I did admire the grooves in the sand as I walked up and down the beach. She’s more a wildlife / ecology kinda gal. I’m more of a take-it-all-in-from-shore kinda gal.

One afternoon, we happened upon the Coastal Discovery Museum. There was so much to see there. I’d never been to a salt bog before, they had a butterfly enclosure, and the most lovely camellia garden where some of the bushes were still in bloom.

I was completely enthralled by the gorgeous oak trees on the property as well. This one was near the farmhouse and pavilion, and the photo does not do it justice. If I was more limber, I would’ve been tempted to climb it and just enjoy the view. Maybe my future house is a treehouse like the Swiss Family Robinsons had? After our wander around the grounds, we both were hungry, so we headed over to the Black Marlin for a snack.

On the Vagabond dinner cruise, we saw dolphins while the sun set, and came back to a bright moon over the Harbour Town pier. I love to be on the water, and we spent some time on the deck even though it was a very windy evening.

We even ventured into Savannah and took the Old Town Trolley around several of the historic squares about town with more amazing trees. The trolley even took us down a fantastic cobblestone road.

I ate at my first ever Waffle House on this grand adventure, and we were entertained by the server and the cook who had a sarcastic but loving banter back and forth the whole time we were there.

We met up with some of my friend’s pals from her days of living in Savannah, went to two different outlet malls, ate more Chicken Salad Chick, and tie-dyed t-shirts.

We had a rental car, which made it easier to visit all the different places we went on the island, but my dear Arthur and Estella sat in the resort’s shaded parking lot for most of the week. While we visited them frequently, I could tell Arthur was ready to get back to our routine.

When my friend headed back to the airport with the rental car at the end of the week, we started to make our way to Texas – a thousand mile trek in three days.

Belonging at the Beach

Those who know me well know that I am not a fan of the heat, so the beach is best for me when it’s warm enough for jeans and a t-shirt or shorts and a sweatshirt. Warmer than that? Count me out. November was the perfect time to visit Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. What I love about the beach is the beauty of the ebb and flow of the water and that water carves its path in the sand.

We camped at Hideaway RV Resort in the Socastee area to the southwest of the city center and backed up to a waterway. If my Uber driver is to be believed, it was also close to a property where the owner has several exotic animals. Even though she suggested that I walk down and try to find it, I decided against it. The RV park was great with really great individual shower rooms that were clean and felt very private – perfect.

Our first night there, our campsite neighbors were not great – up and loudly talking well past quiet hours and then woke me up again around 3AM. Luckily, they were just passing through, so we were able to sleep well the rest of our stay. 🍫🍫

I rented a car for a little day trip to Southport, NC, a very sweet coastal town that a friend recommended. I stopped for lunch at Edgewater 122 – a waterfront restaurant on an inlet on the Cape Fear River. Their menu boasted a BREAD & BUTTER BOARD – two of my favorite things, so I had that and a tasty blackberry cider. I think I also had a salad, but the butter board really was the highlight. I don’t know how often they have diners who take the bread and scrape the butter off the board before they go, but I most certainly did.

On the way back to the RV park, I stopped by the Myrtle Beach State Park, which I highly recommend. They have a small but interesting nature center, lots of trails, and lovely stretches of beaches. I could’ve spent the whole day, but only had a couple of hours to explore and enjoy.

I could imagine how the area would be swamped during the summer with a pancake house on almost every corner and a mini golf course next door. It reminded me a lot of Ocean City, MD, but with a lot more pancake places. 🥞

Glamour shot off Arthur, enjoying his favorite nap spot – my pillow. 🍫

Georgia On My Mind

Another co-worker lives near Gainesville, so we had a chance to grab dinner at Pig Tales on the shores of Lake Lanier after I did a bunch of laundry and some grocery shopping. Dinner was fun, and it was great to meet my co-worker’s wife and talk about books and teaching and about how they met. They dropped me off at the RV and got to meet Arthur and see Estella in all her glory, and my co-worker’s wife described Arthur as a sweet little pumpkin – a keen observation.

The following weekend, I got up early on Saturday to stop at Danny’s Donuts for an apple fritter and then run down to Atlanta again and visit the Carter Presidential Museum and Library. There was a farmer’s market in the park near the museum, so the area was busy, but the museum was quiet. To this point in my travels, the Carter museum was one of my favorites.

There was a beautiful courtyard at the entrance of the museum, and there were a lot of unique gifts and displays.

For lunch, I met up with another co-worker and his girlfriend at Food Terminal, and they brought me delicious baked goods from a local Asian bakery. The restaurant had delivery robots and unique food, and we had an engaging conversation. I followed up that delightful lunch with a massage, a stop at a Trader Joe’s that had an actual parking lot, more laundry, and picked up another Amazon package at the Piggly Wiggly that was kinda in the middle of nowhere.

I returned the rental car on Saturday night and spent Sunday morning getting ready to hit the road. Our next stop was the Myrtle Beach Hideaway RV Park. The drive to SC was uneventful, but I did see a dog in the back of a pickup truck, going 70 mph down the highway. The dog was having a great time – just never seen that before, but I also haven’t spent a lot of time in the south either….

Music begins where language ends

Time on the road gives plenty of opportunities to listen to music, and I rediscovered some older albums that I enjoy from in their entirety. Comment for others I should try, and I’ll keep adding them as I keep remembering.

Bridge Over Troubled Water / Simon & Garfunkel / 1970
Tapestry / Carole King / 1971
Time-Life Treasury of Christmas / various / 1986
New Jersey / Bon Jovi / 1988
Metallica / Metallica / 1991
Janet / Janet Jackson / 1993
Crazysexycool / TLC / 1994
You Get What You Give / Zac Brown Band / 2010
El Camino / The Black Keys / 2011
Midnights / Taylor Swift / 2023
The Rise & Fall of a Midwest Princess / Chappell Roan / 2023

To Be or Not in GA

The end of my time in NC was another trip for work. Because I’ve been living out of the RV since November 2023, I had backed off the amount of work travel I was doing, but it’s picked up again, and I enjoy it. Arthur spends quality time with Estella, I get a babysitter for him, and he is really grateful when I return. For this trip, I parked in my friend’s driveway outside of Greensboro, and her kiddos helped with Arthur while I was away.

While in FL, we drove out to Bucee’s where I got a picture with Buck himself and a sticker, and the team had a night out at A Petrified Forest – a series of three haunted houses. We went on a night where the actors could touch the people walking through the trails. They had a “chicken” lanyard that you could buy if you didn’t want to be touched or frightened. This lanyard had a small rubber chicken attached. I don’t like to be scared, so I got one. Once we were in line, an employee told me to tuck it in my shirt and that the workers would just “know”. 🍫🍫 Uh, that wasn’t entirely true, but I did discover that if I employed empathy with the actors, I felt less scared. In one house, there was an actor wailing that “they” took her eyeballs, and I said, “I’m so sorry. That must be terrible.” In other another house, a guy flew down from the ceiling in a really impressive show of acrobatics, and I complimented him, “You’re doing a great job.” He must’ve seen my chicken lanyard, so he replied, “So are you.” See? Nothing to be afraid of. (I won’t mention that I had a death grip on my co-workers’ hands as we walked through.)

The flight back to Greensboro was an early one through Charlotte. Once we got on the road, we drove right past everything I just flew over. We did see some lovely fall colors, a little traffic, and some construction on our way to Gainesville, Georgia. We stayed at River Forks Park and had a gorgeous site with a lake view and one neighbor but only occasionally.

The park is on a peninsula in Lake Lanier. Little did I know that Lake Lanier has quite the past. 🍫Google it if you want to know more. There’s a lot of history and some scary stuff. It was October, so I guess I was in the right place at the right time.

I rented a car and drove into Atlanta the first weekend. As luck would have it, my cousins who I visited in Iowa, were also in Atlanta for the weekend. We met for breakfast at Hansel & Gretel Bakery Cafe and then took a walk around the Centennial Olympic Park and stopped into the small museum. We even found a hidden path to the left of the CocaCola store with sweet twinkle lights and landscaping.

My next stop was Emory University for family weekend. My MN friends’ daughter is in her first year at Emory, and they invited me to join them for some family fun. We had a great lunch, wandered around campus, and ate snacks in one of the dining halls all while the freshman told us about some of her adventures. One of the joys of this journey is seeing friends and family all over the country – even in places where I don’t normally see them.

Arthur was a big fan of our campsite, too. Between the leaves blowing and the squirrels going about their business, he was thoroughly entertained. My little pumpkin on Halloween.

One of the things I learned is that I don’t just seem fine – I am fine. I am braver than I thought, and I’m learned and growing through all the mishaps in the journey. What a blessing these months have been to remind me of what I am capable of. So, I definitely am being rather than seeming. There is no question.

To be rather than to seem

Esse Quam Videri – North Carolina’s motto – all these months later is meaningful.

Before we made it to NC, we stopped in Virginia at another great Boondockers Welcome location. We were outside of Ashland and in the country. The hosts encouraged me to take a walk, and once the sun started to set, I took a nice walk down the lane.

If you’ve traveled down the east coast, you probably guessed that I was on I-95 – not my favorite stretch of road. Back in 2012, I went to Virginia to visit the Edgar Allen Poe sites in Richmond, and I got into a car accident – drunk driver ran a stop sign. I was fine, but my car was not. It ended up getting fixed in VA, so I spent a good amount of time up and down 95. This is the type of road where traffic slows for no reason and for plenty of reasons. One time, I was driving to Richmond, and traffic slowed, and then there was someone’s entire wardrobe strewn across the highway. Just another day on I-95.

We also needed to refill our propane. I don’t use it very much, but I like to have the tank full just in case. We tried two different RV dealerships – The General and Camping World, but none of them would fill our tank without a service appointment. 🍫 I ended it up at Tractor Supply, and they were great. The manager who helped me was chatty and interested in our journey. He had lived briefly in PA, so we talked about some locations, and then we were on our way.

Our camping spot was a quiet location in the Oak Hollow Campground outside of High Point. October is a great time for acorns to fall off oak trees, so the two weeks were there was filled with a symphony of pings on Estella’s roof. The name of the campground should’ve been my first clue.

When we were in MD, I also had an RV tech (Fixed It! Mobile RV Services) come out to see if he could source the water leak I was starting to see evidence of. We ran the water and ended up overflowing the grey tank without any clue where the water leak was coming from. We couldn’t find anything even after taking off the back panel and scooting under the RV. Matt, the owner of Fixed It, was a great help and felt pretty bad that we couldn’t find the source. He gave me his number and told me to call if I found the leak and was still in Maryland.

Fast forward to NC where I found that I had standing water in the basin of the shower. The litter mat under Arthur’s litter box had blocked the drain after we overflowed the grey tank. It was pretty gross, and I spent a couple of days cleaning up the mess that was left over. I ended up warping the tabletop. 🍫🍫🍫🍫 Needless to say, I spent some time chewing through the chocolate and thinking about my life decisions.

My friend and co-worker lives in NC, so we planned to take a day off and meet up for lunch and an adventure. The timing of my stop in NC was just a couple of weeks after Hurricane Helene had devastated a large portion of the state. We had talked about walking the grounds of the Biltmore, but we had scratched that idea to get tattoos even before the storm and its aftermath. I wasn’t near the area where the storms had the greatest impact by sheer luck and the desire to be close to my friend and her family.

Before tattoos, we had brunch at a Print Works Bistro in Greensboro. The mini cinnamon rolls were pretty good, but the bacon was even better.

My tattoo guy’s name was Ryan. We’d never met before, and he spent two hours creating a very elegant weeping willow branch and small blossoms on my right forearm at the Dogwood Ink Tattoo shop. His work is really impressive, and he was very patient and observant when the pain was starting to get to me. It healed really nicely. The picture on the right was about 48 hours after. I’m not sure what the overall design will be, but for now, I’m just enjoying it.

I also had a chance to tour the Blandwood Museum in Greensboro and made a stop at a great store called Cattywampus General Store outside of the city. I also discovered Chicken Salad Chick. Do you know it? If you don’t, you should. With most of their locations in the southeast, it wasn’t a restaurant that I was familiar with, but once I had some of their Cranberry Kelli chicken salad, I was hooked. When I can find it, I buy a tub, and eat chicken salad for lunch and – sometimes – dinner. If you like chicken salad, I highly recommend.

The size of the pocket doors in the Blandwood mansion were incredible. I am grateful for the preservation of these historic homes – even if the history of the families that lived in them can be questionable. It’s the glimpse into the untold stories of the past that pique my interest.

Extra Time in Maryland

From 2012 to 2014, I lived in Maryland – Mount Washington (north of Baltimore), Columbia, and Laurel. I moved there after living in Minnesota for over 30 years, and it really became like a second home to me – new friends, new experiences, and a lot of new places to explore. Whenever I get back there, I’m flooded with great memories and time with friends.

After our stay in Bangor, we left a little earlier than we had planned and camped outside of Gardenir, ME, at another really great Boondockers Welcome location. It was a short drive, and we left after work, dumped our tanks, and headed south. There was a beautiful sunset over the banks of the Kennebec River, which I wish I could photographed – reds, oranges, pinks, and yellows mixed in with the blue sky and sparse clouds.

On Saturday, we were up early, Arthur was drugged (the only way to travel it seems), and we were driving to our stay in Connecticut – our 24th state. It’s a miracle that this doesn’t happen more often, but we got lost on the backroads of CT. 🍫 I think I misread the address, and after a long day of driving through rain and Boston traffic, I was all turned around. Luckily, our hosts were great and delayed the start of their camping trip to help us get settled in. Located outside of Ashford, I felt comforted by all the beautiful trees and our peaceful surroundings. It was a reminder that, even though we’ve been all over the country, there are probably locations that I would love to live that we didn’t visit or spend a lot of time in.

Arthur enjoyed the views, too. This is his “please stop driving” face. 🍫🍫

The next day, we were on the road early again – our final leg of the drive to MD. We really only encountered traffic around New York City. And I cannot explain the relief I felt as we drove down a familiar stretch of I-95, approaching Baltimore, and as we headed into to suburban Columbia. Driving around the country and not really knowing where you’re going wears on a person, so when the roads are familiar, the relief is real.

My friend and her foster pup, Shaq Attack, were my hosts while we were in MD. She had a great driveway where we parked. In CT, we discovered that Estella is not a fan of GCFI outlets. This didn’t seem like a big deal until it was. 🍫🍫🍫🍫 More on this later.

Action shot of Shaq Attack, playing with one of the toys I got him while I was visiting.

Part of the reason we stopped in MD was because I had a work trip, and I needed a place to park that was Arthur-friendly. During that trip, the cat sitter from Rover messaged me and said that there was a loud beeping noise, and she couldn’t tell where it was coming from. There wasn’t really anything I could do from TX, and my friend said she couldn’t hear it, so it had to wait until I got back.

Work hard. Play hard. Sweat a lot. At our staff meeting, we ventured out on a scavenger hunt (my hunting team) in the San Antonio afternoon heat (it felt like 100) and then had an 80s dance party. I hand-beaded that shirt and wore jelly shoes (neon is back!) and had a lot of fun dancing and doing karaoke and eating queso and tacos.

Back to reality in Maryland after the meeting, I came back to Estella’s house batteries completely dead. Turns out, when you don’t plug in the RV for over a week, and run the lights, the batteries die. I tried starting the engine to recharge the batteries; that didn’t help. What I didn’t remember until later was that I need the house batteries to pull the slide-out in. You may be thinking- why didn’t you just get a battery charger and trickle-charge the house batteries. I did think of that, but when I crawled under the van, the batteries were tucked up behind the rear tires, and the terminals were not visible…. I made a lot of phone calls, but I ended up solving my own problem by rigging a cord to a non-GCFI outlet in my friend’s house.

Before I go, some other highlights from my stop in Maryland.

I went to see Richard Osman speak at Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg about his writing process and his new book, We Solve Murders. I grabbed lunch with a friend at Ever Grain, had lunch with another friend at Gettysburger, went to get some blood work done, went shopping, and spent some lovely evenings out in Columbia with friends, and solved the NYT Letter Boxed in two words. After the beeping while I was gone, Arthur had a great time in MD.

And one last picture of me, eating two pieces of cake, instead of dinner, with my co-worker. The strawberry cake was better.