We spent three nights in Riesel, Texas, just outside of Waco, and had lots of fun touring around the town of Waco: shopping at Magnolia Market at the Silos plus lunching at the food trucks there, enjoying the beautiful scenery at Lake Waco and the Brazos River, driving past several homes featured on Fixer Upper (including the castle they’re currently working on) – and getting a quick glimpse of the “famous” gorilla in the yard on Austin Avenue. We were so happy to have Savanah and Brad join us Monday for lunch and a tour of the Dr. Pepper Museum (who knew Dr. Pepper was invented in Waco?).
Wednesday morning we headed to a pretty RV park in Coldspring, Texas, where we’ll be staying for the next month. Coldspring is a small town about 15 minutes outside of Livingston where our “home address” is. On the way into Coldspring we had the RV and car officially inspected, Thursday we picked up tons of mail, and Friday we registered both vehicles and got our Texas plates.
Today we explored just a tiny portion of huge Lake Livingston. The residential areas on the lake are soooo lovely – if only the weather wasn’t so intolerable, it could be a pretty great place to live. Deron is spending the rest of the day adding insulation to the back walls of all our cabinets to help keep out the heat.
Savanah is planning another visit in the next couple of weeks, hoping to coordinate with her cousin (our nephew), Fernando, who lives in Houston. We’re looking forward to some fun family time together.
I can’t believe it’s been over six weeks since we pulled away from our Santee home! This is by far the longest I’ve gone without working since I was a teenager – even when we were partially homeschooling Tori and Savanah while they were at FCHS and FCMS I was editing and proofreading from home. Since we’ve been moving from place to place every few days (for the most part) and have been filling our days with a variety of scenic stops, it’s really felt like an extended vacation, but I think this month in Coldspring will probably be a reality check. We’ll eventually run out of fun things to do and it will be all business.
Because we had so much to learn and so many things to fix, we’ve decided to call this first leg of our journey a wash. So we’re not going to try to rush to get to any of the areas where we potentially want to live. Instead, once we’re finished with all the business things, we’ll make our way back through Texas, up into Utah and Colorado for some more scenic stops, and then back into Arizona and California for the holidays. Then next year we’ll take off for real, to explore until we find our future home.
praise & prayer
Our hearts have been burdened for Afghanistan, and for friends at home struggling with COVID and other serious illnesses. It’s hard to be so disconnected, but at the same time we are very aware of God’s presence and know He is not caught unaware of all that’s going on.
Each night as we finish praying, regardless of what’s happening in the world, I find comfort in the verse I have sitting on my nightstand: “In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You alone, O Lord, make me to dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8). Our prayer is that those who are suffering will also know the nearness of the Lord.
learning curve/random thoughts
- Driving in different states is weird. New Mexico’s and Texas’s stoplights are sideways – it seems counterintuitive that when they want left turners to go there’s a red light on the left and then a green arrow to the right of it. And I’ve already had to Google twice whether turning right on red is legal.
- Texas LOVES fried chicken (all the chains are here: Church’s, Raising Cane’s, KFC, Chicken Buffet, Popeye’s, Chicken Express and Chick-fil-A – not to mention independently owned restaurants) and fried food in general (fried mushrooms, fried zucchini, fried pickles, fried okra, fried boudin balls, fried cheese sticks, fried bottle caps (jalapeno slices) plus all the fried meats, fish, shrimp, and tater tots, french fries, onion rings, etc.)
- It’s so deceptive driving through the beautiful Texas countryside on a cloudy summer day with the RV’s A/C blasting – you’re totally fooled into thinking it’ll be so nice outside, until you step out into the 99°/86% humidity/feels like 105° grossness. Dang!
- Meeting people in the RV park was much easier when it was tolerable to sit outside and chat. In this weather, no one ever leaves the A/C!
travel teasers – what’s next
Visit w/family in Dallas
Corpus Christi/Padre Island
Colorado/Utah
Four Corners
More fun in AZ: Meteor Crater, Tombstone, Bisbee + Thanksgiving @ the Christensen’s
Christmas in San Diego
Schutzonthemove 