Tag Archives: grand design

Hellos, Goodbyes, and a Whole Lot of Drives

First of all, I feel the insanely strong urge to point out that I really wanted to name this blog post: “Hellos, Goodbyes, and a Whole Lotta Drives.” I tried, really I did.   But I just couldn’t bring myself to keep it that way.  What can I say? I’ve been a homeschool teacher for 22 years with no end in sight.  (In all honesty I only have four more years to go, so there is an end in sight.  That said, the end is way too far away for me to be able to actually see it yet.) Anyways, it seems being grammatically correct is ingrained in me way too deep to change now. (Which is funny considering the fact that the word anyways is not grammatically correct either.)  What can I say, I just gotta be me!  When you read the title though, please pronounce it correctly, er uh, incorrectly!  “…Whole Lotta…”  ?

I know I am wasting time on pointless banter, but frankly I am too overwhelmed with what I want to blog about to even know how to fit it all in.  So I’m not even going to try.  I’ve decided instead to do a couple of blog entries closer together.

I feel like I just stepped off Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and I have not fully recovered yet.  In ten days I have logged a total of 1,976 miles and that doesn’t even include our ‘around town’ drives.  That means I’ve easily surpassed 2k miles since my last entry.  THAT IS A LOT!

Sandy Creek Park/Jasper, TX→Port Arthur, TX (roundtrip) = 202 miles
Jasper, TX→Cowtown RV Park/Fort Worth, TX = 294 miles
Fort Worth, TX→Orange Beach, AL (roundtrip) = 1,382 miles
Cowtown/Fort Worth, TX→Downtown Dallas (roundtrip) = 98 miles

Do the math, I’m not making this stuff up.  Not all of these miles were done with our fiver, aka home.  Actually only 294 of them were logged while pulling our fifth wheel. Our intention is not to log major miles in a short period of time.  If we did that we’d burn out quickly! Most of it was done in a rental car.  For the trip to Alabama that I put in bold above,  I rented a cute little Nissan Versa, left Greg and Elijah at our tiny home on wheels and drove there myself with my oldest granddaughter, Saylor, then I drove back by myself.  But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Before we left the Jasper area we decided to go down to the Gulf of Mexico and visit the Port Arthur area.  We went to Sea Rim State Park as well as the Sabine Pass Battleground State History Site.  It was quite a fun day trip.  Here are some pictures to prove it:

The next day was Scenery Swap day and time for us to leave Sandy Creek, our first Corps of Engineers Park, and head to Cowtown Rv Park in Fort Worth, our first RV Park.   I’ll blog about our thoughts on RV Parks as well as show you around the Fort Worth and Dallas area soon, I promise.

Next though, we had an unexpected turn of events which resulted in my driving Saylor, back east.  My health has been steadily going downhill since she arrived.  Granted, she is about as easy and well-behaved as a five year old could possibly be and we have been enjoying her visit immensely, but the sheer 24/7-ness of caring for a five year old was really wearing on me.  My oldest was vacationing with his family in Orange Beach, Alabama and he and Greg (i.e. Dad) were talking about it and he generously offered to take her for the rest of the summer so she could spend time with her cousins (my two other granddaughters!)  We also realized that flying her home from Colorado was going to be easier said than done as not only was it going to be costly since I would need to accompany her, but also we simply hadn’t taken into consideration all of the “stuff” that she came with, like her bike, car seat, and more.  Since he was already in Alabama the drive was only 691 miles each way, so although it was a long drive, it was doable.

That means we drove from Jasper to Fort Worth on Sunday; I did all the laundry, grocery shopping and packing on Monday; then on Tuesday morning I picked up the rental car and Saylor and I hit the road. We drove Tuesday, spent the night in Shreveport, then finished the drive on Wednesday.  We still managed to see a few sights during our very short visit at Shreveport, Louisana.  Oh…  And I can’t leave out that on the way out Saylor and I discovered Buc-ee’s and we both fell in love with it!  She even insisted on hugging Buc-ee!  I’ll throw in some pictures of that stop too.

My awesome son booked me a beautiful balcony suite at the Perdido Beach Resort which is where they were already staying in a room next to theirs for both Wednesday and Thursday nights as an early birthday present. (I am turning 50 soon…  But I don’t want to talk about that right now.)  While I was there he even paid for all of my meals and refused to let me spend a dime. Happy Birthday to ME!

My exhausting long drive there ended in celebration as I was immediately greeted at the resort by my generous and loving son, his absolutely GORGEOUS and pregnant with our fourth grandchild wife,  two more ADORABLE granddaughters, as well as a bottle of champagne on ice.  After our toast I was able to relax on my balcony that night to wind down, then I spent the entire next day (Thursday) with the family before heading back to Texas on Friday morning.  It was truly a whirlwind week of precious memories.

I drove the 691 mile drive back home to our current spot in Fort Worth all by myself.  After having Saylor for almost 6 weeks the drive was eerily quiet.   I broke that drive up into two days as well.  As I mentioned earlier, I do have a big birthday coming up and I simply can’t do those long drives all in one day like I used to.

Somewhere along the way I saw this sign and I had nobody with me to share it with.  So you are it!

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Bear Crossing, Next 10 miles!!!

We are still here in Fort Worth now through Sunday and I will be writing another blog post before we leave all about Cowtown RV Park, the Fort Worth area, and the Dallas area.  Stay tuned…

Happy Trails and Sunny Sails