The Trip June 20, 2018 Day 1 and 2

"When Nana? When are we leaving?"
I had no answer for her. As June rolled along, and doctors appointments were met, an answer would soon be available for my 12 yr. old granddaughter.
 Doctor appointments and labs were being ticked off, the answer to her question was becoming more clear.
June 20th we visited my last appointment; my ortho doctor related to the pain I was having in my shoulders. I suspected rotator cuff tears but the X Rays showed none and if there were tears they might be so small that only an MRI would reveal them. I opted to continue on with Mobic and let time settle this.
"When Nana? When are we leaving?" Carrie's question hovered over me and this time I had an answer. "Now Carrie; we are leaving now!" and we did.
Our suitcases had been packed and waiting in the trunk of the car. I'm a spontaneous sort so I was prepared for a exit that too would be spontaneous and we were on our way.

Six hours would put us in San Antonio where we would spend the night and explore the city the next day. By the time we reached Houston, the skies had darkened and the rain that was forecast was bearing down. It came down in sheets, lightening flashing and thunder roaring, we had to get off the highway. Cars and trucks were exiting interstate to find a safe place to wait out the downpour. I contemplated getting a room and driving on to San Antonio in the morning but the fear of waking to find my car underwater changed my mind. We waited. Soon the rain slowed to a fine pattern of scattered drops. We reentered the highway and moved cautiously along.

Our first night was spend just outside of San Antonio. A Motel 8 was our home for the night. Carrie is a little nervous about my choice of hotels since the trip we made last year and one of our stays left us wishing we had picked a different motel. Arriving at this hotel, I slipped out of the car and into the lobby where I asked the clerk if I could see the room we would be renting. She extended a key and pointed me to the room. Gathering up Carrie from the car, we went to check out the room which was delightfully clean and acceptable.

A little information for my readers on The Trip.
Carrie and I have no specific plans on this trip. We know San Antonio is our first stop but other then that, we have no idea where we are going or how long we will be traveling. One goal is to pay less then 100.00 a night on accomodations  which we accomplished with our stay at this Motel 8. Clean and safe and less then 100 dollars is our goal. The last time Carrie was in San Antonio, she was only three years old.

This trip she will remember.

Up and about, it's now June 21st and we are visiting the Alamo. Pictures and pictures and more pictures. We walked through the old stone structure peering into the rooms through thick walls of rock and crude construction. Soon we exited to the beautiful grounds and walked the paths through the gardens finding our way to a tent where a video was being shown on the history of the Alamo.
The River Walk was our next stop, lunch and then to stroll the streets and visit the shops where Carrie had her hand dipped in wax and then in cold water and back again into the hot wax. After multiple repeats of this process, her hand was removed from the wax and the peace sign featuring her hand form was revealed. This wax hand would have to be kept cool and the challenge was to keep it in the ice chest without being crushed. More on the hand's journey a little farther on. . Later it was to Ripley's Believe It or Not for the remainder  of the afternoon. Carrie got to choose what she wanted to do and this was exactly what we did. Three floors to this exhibit of weird and wonderful, Carrie oohed and ahhed  and kept pleading "Nana, look at this!" and "Ooooh, look Nana!" and I did. I followed her from floor to floor, my weak knees protesting all the stairs. and a few rest stops needed. I should have done a exercise routine before starting this trip.
Late afternoon and we were back in the car and headed west. We talked about California but weren't sure we would make it that far. It was a goal to attain.
Texas takes a while to cross.  500 miles of Sand and sage and ahead before reaching El Paso but before that  was Luling. I've never came through Luling without stopping for BBQ.The ribs, the brisket and the sausage was on my mind  My mouth watered as the sign on interstate declared Luling was just ahead. Soon Luling was but a dot in my back glass as Carrie didn't have the same feeling about BBQ as I do. We kept moving west.
Eventually New Mexico state line appeared and we moved west still. After a long day of driving and a few stops, we arrived in Casa Grande, Arizona. It is now Friday and a good time to take a break before heading to the coast.

Number 1..2018, March

I've been absent. My daily musings haven't been daily and not even monthly. I've lapsed..a lot. I have no excuse for this lapse. As with a diet, once you veer off path, it's easy to stay lost and not find the path back to your goal or as in the case of my writing, my online memory bank.

Now to catch you up. For the past three years, the husband has been home..a lot. Except for 81 days last year when he did a contract job, he has been around the house and that may account for some of my lapse. 

Yesterday I tried to use the weed eater and became very frustrated that it didn't thread as I remembered. I was at my daughter's house to work on her lawn. I haven't done lawn work for almost three years as that has become my husbands' sole domain. In anger, I called home to ask him if he had changed the head on the weed eater. I had to come back home with it and that's when he showed me how to thread it and the weed eater I remembered using the last time I did lawn work was the OLD weed eater. Since that one expired, I had purchased a new one that loaded the string totally different and didn't remember doing this. Should he go back to work full time, I will have to be retrained on all the lawn equipment because it then becomes my job to keep up appearances.

I still get to make the bed and clean the floors and cook. Will the fun ever stop? No. Housework is never ending and under appreciated. Occasionally I go on strike. I Netflix for days while watching the dust accumulate, the bits of debris that collect on the floors, the rumpled bed and the fingerprints on the glass doors. 

Summer is approaching and I'm getting nervous and a bit sad. I'm not a fan of the heat and humidity. Right now we are enjoying our 20 minutes of spring. The azaleas are in bloom, the Easter lilies and the flower beds are ablaze with color. It's time to do some deep cleaning on my car. This is something I do before 'sweat season' arrives. I cleaned out the storage building and neatened it up; another chore done while still enjoying the cool mornings. ....and I have left this posting for almost two weeks!

I'm back. I veered off path again and I'm now returning to this post. I use to be so diligent on posting as was a few of my online friends. We posted daily. I've lost track of Pearl and her postings. She was awesome. Buffalo..another amazing writer has passed on to the great print station in the sky, the exact location unknown. 
Friends and acquaintances, they come and they go. They flit through your life, dancing and whirling with their jobs, families and activities. One becomes involved and includes them and upon their leaving, the niche they occupied leaves a gap in the links of your life. That chain will be filled or that gap will shrink leaving you with memories only and hopefully the memories will be enough. Goodbye Pearl and Buffalo; I miss you both.

I seldom post negative things on this blog but another loss I must mention is the loss of one of my brothers. I won't go into great detail but suffice it to say, the memories of our youth flooded my brain. I still seldom pass a day without thinking of him. Of seven children, he is the first to pass. Our lives as adults were separated by many miles so most of my memories were in that house of seven. I'll miss you always bro!
I started this post in March and here it is well into the month of April. Maybe I'll get into the swing of things and do at least one post a month. I'm done for now.