Looking back on our time in Texas, we really did enjoy ourselves, even if we were coping with weather too much of the time.  Leaving San Antonio, we took a chance it would be nice and went northeast to Nacogdoches, the oldest settlement in Texas.  Harder to spell than to pronounce.  All of East Texas is nice and it was a nice old town, set in pine trees, with Stephen A. Austin University there.  We will go back; actually, we already have gone back.  We had arranged to have mail sent to us there, and so we circled around and came back several days later to pick up what had arrived.  As is the usual problem, most of it hadn’t.  Getting mail is a pain in the rump.  It takes forever to be sent, and regardless of how far ahead you try and plan, the postal service is not at your…..  We had to leave a forwarding address (in Florida, near Tampa – our next specific destination).  But yes, Lynn, the pills did arrive.  And no, Jason, the package of mail did not. 

While waiting for mail, we retraced our steps back across farm and cattle country to the San Antonio area, going through the Crawford area, which had beautiful roads, unlike the rest of that part of Texas.  I guess Governor Bush wanted to be able to get from Austin to his ranch without disturbing his lunch.  We also went through the self-proclaimed Horned Toad Capital of the World.  Unfortunately, the impression that made was not long-lasting, because already I cannot remember which town it was!  Then up to Dallas (I’m afraid my impression of Dallas is unprintable; I don’t like big cities in general, and Dallas brings out the macho in all male drivers).  Ultimately, we ended up back at Nacogdoches before heading across the border into Louisiana.

Crossing the border, we ended up in Natchitoches, the oldest community in the Louisiana Purchase (established 1714).  TOTALLY COOL.  A place to settle down and get comfortable.  We were on a mission to get to Florida, so didn’t stay long, but it has lots to recommend it.  All along the river the old buildings have been renovated, and the morning we were wandering around they were already hanging baskets of pansies on the bridges; spring comes early to that area I suspect. 

I have to admit I didn’t see all of the city I would have liked; unfortunately Rick was using that spot to calibrate his new compass.  So we went down a street, stopped and wiggled the thing; then turned ninety degrees down another street and did more wiggling.  You get the picture; all the streets, of course, were several hundred years old, in lousy shape (read: bumpy as hell), narrow and totally unsuited to what he was doing.  I’ve been promised a return trip with a tour on foot.

If you can picture Louisiana as a comfortable armchair, we went down the back and then across the seat.  As you get further down (and all across the bottoms of Mississippi and Alabama as well), the country is very similar:  high water table so the bottoms of trees are wet and there are bayous every little ways, Spanish moss hanging as you get further east, junky forests, and most interesting to me, tons and tons of low fan palms as underbrush alongside the roads.  I thought that was very odd.  Maybe they were planted at some point.  Oh, yes, and roadside stands selling boiled peanuts (actually, listed as “p-nuts”) either plain or Cajun style.  And even though we didn’t stop in New Orleans, there was lots of Cajun music on the radio as we rode along.  We really enjoyed that, even if it was kind of hard to understand the announcers.  And it was a relief to see something besides Texas license plates.  My theory is that there really aren’t that many Texans, but no one else ever goes into their state.  One of my habits as we ride along is to see where the cars are from that are passing us by; I got pretty tired of those Texas plates by the time we go out of there.

Another fun thing for me when we’re on the road is to have signs come up all of a sudden that are for major roads that go off to cities in whole other states, way far away.  We were close to Baton Rouge and there was a turnoff for Jackson, Mississippi; that sure made me want to take a left and see where that road went!  Another time. 

The Louisiana folks are lousy drivers (surprised?), showing little regard for us; but the people we have talked to have been delightful and kind.  Maybe the ones we talk to don’t drive.  This has been true everywhere, by the way.  People find out what we’re doing, and how we’re getting around, and they are endlessly helpful.  They think we’re cool.  Some will comment that they were in California once (one, a waiter, had been in the National Guard at Fort Irwin out in the desert – in July; he did not have happy recollections of his experiences); most think we’ve come from Mars, as we stop in these little towns. 

Having scuttled through Mississippi and Alabama, we marched across the Florida panhandle and are now wandering around Tampa.  We arrived the day after the Bucs lost their playoff game and the coach being fired.  And now Miami has lost their playoff game; Florida (or at least the portion that cares) is plunged in gloom.  But the oranges and grapefruit are plentiful at the roadside stands, and so are the strawberries.  That was a surprise.  I haven’t tried any yet, but plan to do so soon.

Okay, now for all you alert people who want to know (inquiring minds???) why we traipsed around Texas and then scuttled straight for Florida (and also, WHO’S ‘ARVEY????), here you be:  we decided to proceed on to Plan B, or cooler (read: very cold) heads prevailed, take your pick, and have purchased a motor home…

We always knew that the motorcycle and tent trailer idea would only carry us for a limited time and that sooner or later we would move on to a hard sided RV of some type.  For those of you who greeted our announcement of how we intended to travel with raised eyebrows – all of you very politely thank you – you were right.  We found that even when the weather wasn’t obviously bad, we spent so much time wondering, worrying and amending our planned itinerary due to its continuous changing that we realized we had really given up a lot of the freedom we were looking for.   After spending approximately 30 nights out of the last 40 in a variety of motels, and eating out almost constantly, we decided to throw in the towel.  Between cold and rain and wind, there are simply too many ways for the weather to interfere with the enjoyable use of a tent or tent trailer.  Even when we might be perfectly comfortable in the tent – you should have seen us, watching DVDs on the lap top with our ceramic heater working away at our feet – we still had to come out sometimes, and all too often the weather intruded on the experience.

The last week of our travels around Texas was spent looking at both new and used motorhomes at various locations.  The quick dash to Florida was partly to catch a break in the weather patterns moving eastward along the gulf coast, and partly to get to Tampa in time for a large RV Show.  In Tampa, we went to dealers looking at the few coaches we were interested in and settled on a used 1999 Safari Trek.  This was one of the three models we had narrowed the field down to by this time.  As usual we were going somewhat against the grain of the mainstream marketplace.  We really wanted something small – under 30 feet long – and without the slide-outs that have swept the RV marketplace over the past few years.  This portion of the market is pretty skimpy these days, but we found three vehicles that we felt would be big enough to work for us, but no larger than necessary. The Trek was always on the list and ended up being our favorite.  ‘arvey, a cockney contraction of “Harvey” of course, is at least our current name for our new “RV”, and may make it onto a personalized license plate someday.  He is 26’ long with lots of space inside due to his use of a bed that comes down from the ceiling for sleeping and back up out of the way the rest of the time.  He’s way cool.  We’ve also bought an enclosed cargo trailer to carry the Gold Wing, but unfortunately must sell the new tent trailer as we have no way to transport it even if we wanted to keep it.  It is a wonderful product and was great for camping when the weather was cooperating.  We’ve posted an ad for it on the Gold Wing web site and will need to sell it before we leave Florida in March.  For now, the RV dealer is storing it for us on his lot, and a fellow winger we met at the trailer dealer has offered to keep it for us if needed.  We haven’t taken any pictures yet, but will soon.

The last two paragraphs were written by Rick, the technical one.  Back to me.  Our new home is cute and snug, perfect for us.  We are just delighted with the change; probably should have used more common sense in the beginning and bought the little beast to begin with.  But no, not us!  Anyway, as the commercial says, we “are now free to move about the country,” and that’s exactly what we plan to do!  As soon as we get a few last details taken care of on ‘arvey, What are we going to do next?  We’re off to Disney World! 

Rick and Kathy

See more photos from 2002-2003

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