January/February 2021
Will We Ever Learn?
Another lesson on the realities of winter in North America
We were reminiscing a couple of days back. Twenty years ago this coming Halloween, we left our home in California on a motorcycle, pulling a tent trailer and heading east. We knew it was a bit late in the year, and that we might be facing some colder weather here and there as we wandered east, but we said “Ah, pooh, no problem, we’ll just stay south and we’ll be plenty warm.” Well, baloney of course! “Staying south” is no guarantee of balmy breezes.
Tent camping in San Antonio, Texas over Christmas, where it was 34 degrees outside in the morning as we sat eating our cereal; you can see how it all ends. By January we’d gotten to Florida and were well on our way to purchasing our first motorhome. Here we are in Guadalupe State Park in December 2001 with our first full-timing rig; goodness we were young.
And now, here we are today, in Texas once again, sitting out The Great Texas Vortex and that 34 degree temp sounds pretty good. We hit a low of 11 last night and anticipate 6 tonight. We don’t seem to learn very well, do we?
So how did this happen? This year, on New Years morning we left Alabama, heading for Florida and what should have been warm weather. We had some goals in mind, including getting Rick a much-needed new helmet for riding the Spyder. The weather did not cooperate, and was quite cold for bike-riding, but we did have a nice day to ride over to the coast to find the right helmet. One job done.
We visited the really nice Escapee park in Bushnell, on the edge of a (partially underground) river that features egrets and other appropriate fowl, as well as knock-kneed cypress trees soggy from the swamp. We have always enjoyed being there, and this time was just as nice. We’d arranged to track down old acquaintances Frank and Annie Cartwright who were going to be there, the second big reason why we’d made the trek over to Florida. A few years back, they had forwarded to us an incredibly big box of useful travel stuff they’d gathered in Africa, to use while we were there; we spent several hours with them catching up and sharing tales from the road.
Leaving Bushnell, we thought briefly of heading further south in Florida, down to the Everglades, but knew we really wanted to start moving further west instead. The alligators would have to wait for another time.
We started back across the Florida Panhandle, spending most of our nights at boat launching sites, always a treat. They lurk along the rivers that feed into the swamps and the gulf, filled with birds and trees covered with Spanish moss. There is always a spot to park up for the night, and one time, on a rare sunny and pretty day, we stayed two nights at a spot, enjoying the locals, both bird-like and those launching boats. Probably the two prettiest places we stayed in Florida were at the Morrison Springs county park, near Ponce De Leon (remember him?) where the Springs flow into the Choctawhatchee River; and a spot where the Aucilla River flows towards the Gulf. We’re not kayakers or canoeists, but we do like the look of these riverine areas.
The problem, however, was a fairly constant lack of warmth.
At the time, the deep south was enjoying (?) a very cold spell and we were displeased. We kept being reminded that for all its virtues, the Tiger remains a three-season truck. In the summertime, we have plenty of solar to heat the house and water supply, run the dishwasher (just kidding), charge the batteries, etc. When we were in Australia for example, we never needed to plug into electricity during the full year we were there. But in North America, in January and February, it’s a fact of life: when your solar is flat on the roof, the sun isn’t up for enough hours, nor does it spend enough of those hours high enough in the sky, to do the damn job. There, I’ve said it and I’m glad. We’re very happy living in the Tiger, but there’s a reason we keep heading south!
But, no whining allowed. We would find some sun and stop for awhile, then move on. Northern Florida is quite pleasant, and we have several friends wandering the parks, hiking in the forests, paddling the waterways and playing with the manatees. Perhaps we’ll return another time.
We continued west through Alabama and Mississippi. It was snowing in Natchez, so we had to stay further south than we would have liked and spent the night in Gulfport. We were getting a bit of sun now, a great change from the cold/dark/dripping waterways. We didn’t get up there to see for ourselves, but the news was speaking delightedly of Mississippi’s new flag flying over their capital, in Jackson. A splendid step forward, for sure. On through the rice country of southwest Louisiana, mostly flooded fields right now, but you could see the occasional plant sticking up out of the water. There were large areas of hurricane damage left from late in the fall, with some houses still in total collapse.
Reaching Texas, we headed into the large forests of the southeastern part of the state, west of Jasper, north of Beaumont. This is the swampy area not too far from the mega-metropolis of Houston, where the Piney Woods meet the Gulf Coast. Logging trucks everywhere on the roads. We headed for a Corps of Engineers campground on Steinhagen Reservoir where we could plug into electricity for awhile. Too many trees blocking the sun for us to get really warm, but we found the sunniest spot in the park and put down roots. Rick got the Spyder ready to roll, and some sightseeing ensued; also enjoyed a brief visit from some new Tiger owners. We were quite happy here, and we will visit again another time. Oh, yeah; we were told that this park was often pretty quiet because the fishermen usually went some place else — “all that’s here are alligators and crawdads.”
By now we’d accumulated some specialized shopping needs that required a bigger city, so we nosed around the edges of Houston a bit, getting things done. The city had grown (surprise!) in the years since we’d last spent time in the area; even FM 1960, a ring road we’d used to good advantage in the past, was wall-to-wall traffic. We beat feet as fast as we crossed things off our list, and headed north of the Houston area to a nice county park in Tomball where we hid for several days while we licked our wounds and caught our breath.
Tomball is enough on the outskirts of the metropolitan area that it’s almost out in the country (ten years ago it was out in the country) and the park is on the edge of a creek that opens out into nice open land. A very nice place to regain equilibrium. We were there for four days, during which a large cat found the cover over the bike provided him with a nice warm windbreak. We had difficulty in convincing him that he couldn’t go with us on the morning we left the park. But we saw he soon found a new home in the wheel well of a nearby truck; he’ll be fine.
After leaving Tomball, we moved on a bit further and settled ourselves into another Corps park sort of midway between Houston and Austin. It’s a nice, quiet country area beside Lake Somerville, with nice views of the water and a couple dozen deer wandering around both morning and evening. We had some nice warm days for sitting out and enjoying the sunshine and working on projects; and were joined by another visitor, this time a fellow we’d met while traveling in Europe. So far, so good. We had gotten ourselves registered for covid vaccinations locally and committed ourselves to hanging around for awhile to see how that progressed.
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And then….. The Big Texas Vortex arrived! You may have heard.
The weather reports became more discouraging and the temperature started dropping; the days grew increasingly cloudy and grumpy and windy; the deer disappeared into the nearby thicket except for brief, quick forays out for food; we loaded the trike on its trailer and covered it up. We battened down the hatches, parked the truck to best deal with the cold north wind, made a quick store run for several-days’ provisions, and prepared for whatever the gods had in store for us…
Last night the temperature dropped to 11 degrees; snow started falling as daylight faded away; and ice started accumulating on the insides of the windows. But all systems were go, no frozen pipes or anything and our great diesel-fired furnace quietly hummed through the night keeping our home cozy. We awoke this morning to mixed sunshine and clouds, with a landscape very white, very pretty, and quite windy. The shore power is working most of the time, with only sporadic outages; we have plenty of accumulated juice in our batteries, and should be fine. We will see what tonight has to offer. The temp is forecast to drop even lower, to 6 degrees if you can believe that, although we understand there should be no new snow. In the end, we went eight days with the outside temp never above 22 degrees and the furnace whispering quietly 24/7. Whew!
Pondering, I am so pleased with all the really good winter weather clothes we have:
- Icelandic sweaters
- ditto from Scotland
- sets of long johns
- knitted heavy sox from New Zealand
- proper boots
…..all of which are safe in our little storage container — in Alabama — because hey, we’ll be traveling in the South for the winter. HAH! We do have gloves and wooly hats with us, and lots of layers of shirts. The game becomes how many layers can you wear and still get in and out the door
But, hey, the adventure continues and the future looks rosy and bright, more or less. We passed a nice Valentine’s day together — our thirtieth — and that counts for a lot; no See’s candy boxes, but plenty of homemade cookies and biscuits so no complaints. The cold weather is expected to hang around for another four to five days and then things should warm back up to normal again and stay that way for as long as we’re here. Of course, who knows what “normal” really means! We’ll let you know in a month or so, at least here in Texas.
Eventually we hope to end up on the West Coast to see friends and family and return to our regular wandering — perhaps late in spring? We’ll stay in touch. In the meantime, keep those mittens handy: it could be a long time before it gets warm again.
Happy thoughts from Rick and Kathy and the Somerville Deer Brigade