Banjo Doesn’t Care Where We Go (We’ve Planned Anyway)

Banjo is always excited to hop into the truck and go, but she’s pretty blasé about the route. There’s no hanging her head out the window with ears blowing in the wind or tongue spattering spit down the truck sides; Banjo sleeps the whole trip.

Same deal with our destination: she’ll sniff around the new campsite for a bit, but after finding a sunny spot, she’s napping again. Her high “lounge level” is one reason we adopted her.

So, as we leave the Tip O’ Texas and drive into our fourth year on the road, where are we taking Banjo for her next nap?

(Photos in this post are from our last few days at Boca Chica Beach, Space X StarBase, and Brownsville, Texas.)

Up Tornado Alley

Why, of course we’re headed right where we’d rather not go: up Tornado Alley in the springtime.

I know it seems like we could go anywhere in the country. But we have goals (sometimes), and we plan our route backwards from those. This time, it’s Alaska in June.

You stick that point on the map, then think where you want to go on the way. I always have Finn on my radar, so we’re hitting the Midwest, where we can also get the trailer worked on at the Airstream factory in Ohio and where we have friends and family.

Yeah, we also have friends and family on the East Coast, and it’s been even longer since we were there. But an East Coast trip takes all summer, so we’re saving that for the summer after Alaska. See, planning!

When we leave Brownsville tomorrow, we’ll dawdle in various state parks in Texas for a few weeks as the weather warms up. We’ll then be trading the threat of snow and ice for the threat of tornadoes along our route, but I’ve been assured that you can see tornadoes coming.

Really though, is that a good thing? As an East Coaster, I know nothing about them except what I see on news footage, which is invariably flattened trailer parks. Um…

It’s all for goals though! Friends in central Texas and in the Midwest. Doctor appointments in Finn’s town. Then friends in Canada. These days, no matter where we go, I call it the Friends and Family Tour.

Throw in some kayaking, some hiking and breweries, and you have an itinerary.

Into Alaska

The final destination is more a string of possibilities. We’re sharing our Alaska planning map with Melanie and Doug—we’re all adding coded and noted waypoints so we have options no matter the weather or road conditions. I say “we,” but it’s been Tracy reading the Milepost book, cross referencing with Google Maps and our many camping apps, and entering camping spots and meet-up points.

Blue, green, and yellow are possible campsites, all researched and planned according to milage between sites and access to interesting activities.

Those are marked in purple (Melanie and Doug are just starting their research, they use black). Damned if Tracy hasn’t entered a note about each cool place, including whether it has RV parking. I’m having fun already just reading the map data.

So long, Brownsville.

I wanted to wrap up this long segment of the blog with video of the red-crowned parrot. (This picture is a free-use one from Wikipedia.) They’re endangered, but, as I’ve mentioned enthusiastically, a flock roosts in the sports park right by our mobile home park. They fly overhead at sunrise when they leave the park and again at sunset on their way back to roost.

I started our three months here standing outside twice a day with my phone, hoping to capture footage, but I miss them, or the sun is at a difficult angle, or their flock is oddly split up, or they’re in the distance, or they’re all amazingly overhead with the sun glinting off their green feathers and I don’t have my phone with me.

I did grab this video that at least shows the flock and its sound.

Adios, neighbor parrots and resacas, winter blooms and citrus trees, colorful culture and all that is Brownsville. Hasta luego!