Catch Up - 12/7/21

It has been too long since I posted a travel update so I thought I would take a quick minute to catch everyone up on where we have been and what we have been up to.

We spent the Thanksgiving holiday at Padre Island National Seashore which was a delightful break despite the horrible weather and no power.

Side note: - We have since purchased a generator as it turns out that solar power is only a good power source if there is sun. Who would have figured? We will be heading to the Everglades over the New Year and will be without hookups again, but this time we will be prepared. Of course we will probably have beautiful weather, plenty of sunshine, and no power outages -but better to be prepared.

We left Padre Island on a Saturday and drove to a Harvest Host site in the Texas Hill Country, The San Gabriel Brewery. Jason is a lover of all things beer and so we have been trying to visit as many breweries as possible. When they are linked up with our Harvest Host membership it is even better as we get a place to stay for the night along with some tastings.

This one turned out to be a real gem despite the road we took to get there being lined with what looked like one long extended garbage dump but turned out to be houses with people actually living in them. The tap room was tiny and we were the only folks there for a good portion of the night but the owner and his brother were friendly, and they had the most talkative bartender on hand. Add in someone waiting to cook us food and we were happy campers. We both did a tasting and felt it was the best beer we have had in some time. We shared a pizza and a side of bacon (I know strange but the cook makes his own bacon and it came highly recommended so we gave it a try and it was well worth the $1 per slice). After closing time the owner drove up to his house, locking the gate and leaving us alone in a beautiful field overlooking the Hill Country. I awoke early, had a romp with the dogs in the morning mist, and watched the sun come up.

The owner comes to unlock the gate around 10am so we just hung out and enjoyed a peaceful Sabbath. Jason made breakfast, I read my Sabbath book. The dogs rolled around in the grass and barked at anything that moved. We took a slow drive up to Dallas and checked into our least favorite KOA campground. We had to be in Dallas for our sixty day warranty check up on Biggest Betty so we didn’t have much choice. And we made sure to try and pick a better site this time - opting for a pull through instead of a back in.

The weather was much nicer and we enjoyed some beautiful sunshine and a lot less mud than the last time we were there in August. But it wasn’t enough to charm us into coming back again. The campground would be alright for a one night stop over but not for a whole work week. On a positive note we did do some yoga in a nearby park and got to spend some lovely afternoons in the sunshine working. And I think they have updated their laundry facilities but they are super expensive so not sure it was worth the upgrade.

We weren’t sure what to do with ourselves while Betty was getting her warranty things fixed up. We finally decided to get a hotel for two nights and it turned out to be a great idea. I had recently discovered that the Kimpton Hotel brand accepts all pets as long as they fit through the door for no extra charge. This was good news considering the flea bag hotels we had staying in during our wait for Biggest Betty. We checked in on Thursday night and splurged for an upgraded sweet which they gave us for a great deal - they even had dog biscuits waiting for the girls. Our room had a bathtub (something pretty special when you live in an trailer) and two spacious rooms for us to enjoy. All from the 20trh floor of an old historic building in Fort Worth.

Fort Worth turned out to be everything Dallas had not been for us. Charming, historic, friendly. We treated our two nights like a little mini vacation and early Christmas/Birthday present. I managed to squeeze in three baths and two showers in the fancy bathroom and we spent Saturday night sprawled out on the couch in the main room watching movies. It wasn’t all lounging though - we also made our way down to the workout room and spent an hour trying out all the different fancy equipment and checking in with how out of shape we both have become. Something to try and fix in the New Year.

Our last night there included an incredible dinner at the in house restaurant called “Il Modo”. We started off with an appetizer that was so good we joked we should have just ordered a second one and called it done. It was a lovely piece of Burrata mozzarella served with a sticky spicy mostarda of cherries and apricots. We have been researching ways to make the mostarda ever since, and hope to create our own version soon. If anyone has any tips on making a mostarda please share your wisdom.

By the time we left on Saturday we were well rested and ready to pick up our home. We stopped for biscuits at the best biscuit place we have found (one of the good finds from our time in Dallas) called, “The Biscuit Bar”, taking a moment to explore the historic Stockyards of Fort Worth. We picked up our spruced up Betty and headed back down to the Hill Country spending the night at another Harvest Host brewery, Brazos Valley Brewing.

This one was right in town, so not as scenic as our last stop, but they had food and a tasting menu and live music. We sat out under the stars and the indigo blue night sky and listened to some of the best live music we have heard in a long time.

Our evening was not as restful as normal as the place doesn’t close until well after 10pm on weekends and the final staff drove off about 1am in the morning - locking the gate. And it was so unseasonably hot we had all the windows open in hopes of catching a breeze so we were privy to all the noise.

The next morning we slept in, made breakfast, and headed out to our next destination. We will be spending the week outside of Houston where we have our storage unit in a campground near Lake Conroe- finalizing the last bit of switch out of stuff - before heading to Florida this coming weekend.

We just celebrated our seven month anniversary of full time on the road living. Things have been pretty stressful getting to this place so it felt nice to have a couple of weeks of pure joy. We both felt that the past couple of weeks felt like a beginning. As if all the hard work of getting here is finally starting to be worth it. Let’s hope so.

We have a super long three days of driving to get to Florida this weekend, and a busy week here in Conroe settling up our last trade out of things in the storage unit. And I am also doing a major culling again - seeing if I can get us down to fewer items.

I am not sure if I will be back in here again this week but you never know.

In the meantime may Peace surround you in this season of waiting. And may love encircle you and all that you hold dear.