It’s a chilly, rainy day in south Texas, so I’m looking around inside for something to do that’s moderately productive. This is where “craft” enters my vocabulary; in my before life I used that word only after “beer.” Another oddity: I have time on my hands but very little space. I can’t garden, or do […]
On the Road Again 🎶
And man does it feel good. Yesterday, we finally pulled out of Brownsville, Texas, and drove north for a couple of hours, including through a customs checkpoint where the dude with the gun glanced in Tracy’s window then said to him, “Just you and the two dogs then, huh.” I usually keep quiet in these […]
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 […]
Fixing to Get
Yes, that’s the Airstream not in our site at Honeydale Park. For the first time in almost three months, we towed her out, but not for the spring leg of 2023 traveling. We were checking off the final, major item on our to-do list here this winter, which was to get new tires on the […]
That Cracker Dog’s Gonna Flop Bot (and other family sayings)
This entry is part of my personal series on grief, called Wish You Were There, that’s unrelated to travel. Turns out those two phrases did not originate with my family; we’re all plagiarizers! It was a character in All Creatures Great and Small who used to say that her dog running around like crazy was […]
Be Glad You Missed the Grateful Grannies
That’s the name a neighbor and I chose for our karaoke duo—see, we’re grey-haired ladies singing Grateful Dead songs in front of strangers, and not well, either. So we had to make fun of ourselves from the get-go. Did you know that if you type in the name of a song on YouTube plus “karaoke,” […]
The Warm and Lively Colors of Charro Days
I looked up the traditional colors you see in Mexican culture so that I’d know what to call them, and I found “warm and lively.” Perfect! Although, the day we stood in the sun to watch the Charro Days parade was more like hot and lively. It’s still February though, so for folks who are […]
Doug and Melanie Get Stuck in AZ
Imagine having a breakdown when you’re off-grid. You get your truck towed to a repair place but they don’t know when it’ll be fixed. So you’re back at your campsite for who knows how long. With no one in sight. No electric hook-ups, no running water, unreliable cell service. And you’re surrounded by rats—obnoxious rats. […]
Culture Smash in the RGV
In the last couple of days we’ve attended Charros Days (a celebration of international goodwill between Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico): plus a competitive rodeo distinctly celebrating the US of A, with much machoism. I’ve gotten quite the vision of people here in the Rio Grande Valley. Charro Days has just begun, but the first […]
Tiny Victorian House
Oh, this Tiny House confounded me! From the breakable thin pieces of wood to the cloth that wouldn’t cut straight to the anachronistic Victrola next to the TV set, it was a tough one to figure out. I Make Everything, Kind of Before I get to the difficult items and the cool stuff, here’s a […]
