Caught Up In The Moment

We're pedaling through miles of  open land at the LBJ ranch. Just us and a couple of herds of  meandering cattle and skittish deer and antelope.  It's a storied land in Stonewall, Texas, visited by the dignitaries and movie stars of my youth.

I keep reminding myself that I'm actually here, here on the ranch, when suddenly, around the curve, I see it. The House. The Texas White House.

We park our bikes and queue up for a guided tour inside the house. Inside history. I'm so excited.

Our guide, a park ranger named Ben, who knew Lady Bird personally, leads us to the porch.

And there they are. The rocking chairs.

The ones I clearly recall from my youth. The ones in the famous picture of Johnson and Nixon.  We walk by and I yearn to touch those chairs.

The first room we enter is LBJ's office, with period pieces from the '60s, the phones, typewriters and a new  gizmo called a remote control for the TV. I'm time traveling. 

Suddenly, I smell cigarettes. Just a whiff. And I see ashtrays on all the tables. I know LBJ smoked incessantly, but could the odor linger nearly 40 years later? Hmmmm.

The ranger feeds my curiosity by saying often, at night, when he's locking up, he feels something in the room. And he thinks about all the powerful people who passed through here, about the Kennedys, Nixon, J. Edgar.

When the tour ends, about 25 minutes later, I'm still back in the day. And I want to thank the park ranger for taking me there. So I walk around the corner and find him, smoking a cigarette, crashing my time machine.  

I giggle privately, and head back to today, where odors don't linger for 40 years and where my bike awaits the ride home.

Face to Face With A Longhorn

We're hiking along a circular trail through wildflowers, grasses and cockleburs to see "The Johnson Settlement." It's in Johnson City, Texas, and it's where President LBJ's grandfather and great uncle started their cattle droving business during the Civil War.

Before our walk, I'd read where the boys made a fortune off cattle they never owned. They'd find unbranded cattle wandering the Texas plains, herd 'em up and move 'em on to market in Kansas. Along the famed Chisholm Trail.

Easy money.

The wandering cattle came from herds belonging to ranchers off fighting the war. No one was home to herd up and brand the calves, so the babies just grew up on the land, and wandered right into the hands of entrepreneurs like the Johnson boys.

Legal, but still, easy money.

So I'm thinking about those cows and the boys who just whisked them up and sold them, when we walk into a clearing and, voila, the settlement. We find a log cabin, some barns, a windmill and ... Wow! Two Texas longhorns. Within spittin' distance!

I've never been this close to a longhorn. I'm so close, I could touch them. So I try.

I walk up to the fence, and the black and white guy looks up. I whistle, snap my fingers and put my hand through the fence. And I talk friendly. "Here, boy. Here, boy."

Look! He's walking toward me. Man, those horns are huge! So long!

My dog Jacob, a large standard poodle, steps back away from the fence as the steer gets closer.

"It's OK, Jacob." I assure him.

Then WHAM! MAN! The longhorn slams his left horn right through the fence, and whacks Jacob on the side of the face. Jacob yelps (more startled than hurt) and backs off. I don't back off and WHAM SLAM, the longhorn tries crashing through the fence at me. He maneuvers those massive sabers deftly and bangs my arm briefly as I jerk it away.

Now Jacob and I both jump away from the fence. And the longhorn settles down.

I notice that as long as we keep our distance, he keeps his attitude peaceful. So we keep a big distance.

As we amble far away from the longhorn and through the rest of the settlement, reading historical makers and peering into doors, I start thinking about those Johnson boys. And if they ran across longhorns like the one we just met, then I'm thinking they earned every penny they got.

A Colorful Dog Tale

I'm waking back from the laundry room at Padre Balli Country Park (Padre Island, Texas) and see a tiny, 40-something woman zigzagging across the RV park.


She's not much taller than a bar stool and is trailing a monstrous white dog on a thin wire leash. The dog's weight is so mighty he waddles, and the woman can do little more than follow in his meandering path. Which is heading right for me.

I say "Hi."

The dog stops walking and this woman starts talking. Fast. About how she was going to do laundry today, but noticed I was busy at mine, so she went grocery shopping instead. Yaddada Yaddada.

I'm enjoying her manner of speech. She's from Houston and her words roll one into the other, liltingly. It's lovely. Each well-formed word morphs into the next quickly, without hesitation, without corruption.

When she stops, I want to hear more, so I ask about Mr. Waddles, who must, I think, be quite old.
Never did I expect this story:

          Storm, his name, is a 9-year-old wolf/huskie mix trained in Afghanistan as a munitions sniffer. He saved lots of lives there, and got a Purple Heart.

          After his military service, he was used in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and helped locate the bodies of 133 people. His owner, a U.S. Army Colonel, is friends with Donna, her name, and gave her the dog when he could no longer take care of him.

         And, Donna rattles on, Storm's not fat nor does he waddle because of his weight. His skeletal fame was altered, she says, as a pup during munitions training. He was walked on a short, tight lead, that held him back so he could feel trip wires. So, he learned to waddle.

It's getting dark, so we part with plans (that we broke) to have coffee in the morning.

Now, I don't know how much of this is true. I can't confirm a thing on the Internet. But I do know Donna and her husband love this dog, and use his image as their company logo. So I took a picture of the logo. That much is true.

Mystery Finds Me

My mind's all a-flutter with the history and the humor I find in Comfort, Texas (pics).

The small town is just a chapter in the state's storied Hill Country, a huge, beautiful landscape that billows west from the San Antonio/Austin megalopolis like a deep, refreshing exhale. That breath is full of little towns, big ranches, ghost towns and nearly empty places. It's populated with people, longhorns, a gazillion goats, some camels, buffalo, antelopes and what game hunters call "exotics."

But Comfort has more. It has a mystery. Involving me.

First I find the history: We park Otto in front of a burned-out stone building that has "Peter Ingenhuett" barely legible on the nameplate.

Then we walk past other buildings so old and so well preserved, they're on the National Register of Historic Places. Each building wears a badge of Historic Places honor, along with a plaque detailing why. It's like the whole town's preserved, and, unfortunately, partially empty. For Sale signs hang on building after limestone building -- the town's first blacksmith shop, first saloon, first this or that.

I see where Peter Ingenhuett was the town's first postmaster, and owned a lot of property. His name appears on lots of the plaques as well as that burned out building.

Then I find the humor. A barber shop near the end of the street bears it's own badge from the "State of Mind 'Histerical' Committee." The plaque reads: "On March 2, 1836, Texas declared her independence from Mexico ... and this building was not here yet."

I laugh. Read the sign again. Laugh again.

And then, the big mystery.

I look down on the ground and at my feet (on a windless day) I find a folded, 8-by-10 piece of paper singed around the edges. Like it survived a fire. I pick it up. Open it. And find it's an original shipping order, dated June 16, 1925, for 4 bundles of galvanized pipes for $600. For PETER INGENHUETT!!

This is an original document. Worthy of a place of honor in this town's museum. What's it doing at my feet? On a windless day? When nearly the whole town is closed for Easter?

I look around and there's no one here. Nobody. Just me, Allen and this historic document. So I scoot up the street to the open-for-business antique store across from Peter's burned-out place and ask: When was the fire? Thinking, maybe, last night.

Five years ago.

So, I wonder, as I walk slowly back to Otto, where did this scrap from the past come from and why did it find me?

Egg-citing Enough, for Easter

I'm standing in line at Walgreens to buy AA batteries when I notice the unusual heftiness of the man in front of me.
He wears a muscle T-shirt (popular down here in Texas) that stretches over his pot belly. The tiny drugstore shopping cart exaggerates his girth. And then, in that cart, I see a dozen "eggs." Not really eggs. But something I've seen marketed greatly over the past week or so, labeled "Cascarones."

Mr. Burly leans over to the cashier and they exchange a few words in Spanish. Gracefully, he dips his bigness out of line toward a pyramid -- and I mean TALL pyramid -- of these "eggs" and stacks four dozen under one massive arm, then two dozen more in his hands.

These "eggs" aren't still food, because they aren't refrigerated. But I have no idea what they are or why this large man needs dozens of them.

So, when it's my turn at the cashier, I ask.

She tilts her cute little teenage head and smiles a timid little smile.

"They have confetti inside," she says. "We crack them open on each other's heads."

Crack 'em? Heads?


"It's fun," she raises a shoulder to her ear, and giggles, then confides: "Especially on someone who doesn't like their hair messed up."

Crack an egg on my head? Cover me with confetti? It sounds like fun, especially if I get to watch a bunch of giggly kids go a'crackin'.

But, I say to the cashier, "I never heard of such a thing."

"Really?" Her little mouth turns pouty and her dark brown eyes become saucers. "Well, I'm from Michigan and we do it there. I thought everyone has Cascarones."

The great cultural divide of youth.

I remember thinking everyone ate peanut soup on Thanksgiving, got apples in their Christmas stocking and had to hunt for their Easter baskets.

So I guess it's a Mexican thing, because Corpus Christi has lots of Mexican Americans and my cashier is Mexican-American, too.

And as I drive home, I see makeshift egg booths popping up on street corners, selling the decorated, filled eggs for less than  $2 a dozen. And Easter is just a few days away.

At home, I Google "cascarones" and find even Martha Stewart knows how to make them. And although they have Italian roots, they're cracked open mostly on Mexican heads. At Easter. For luck.

Perhaps I'm the only one who didn't know ...

A Sea Turtle Adventure, Well, Almost

I'm sitting on the beach reading Agatha Christie's "The Moving Finger."
But I can't concentrate.
Up the beach, about a quarter mile, I see two Turtle Patrol dune buggies and a handful of people hanging out. Just hanging out.
I turn back to my book.
Starting in April, the Turtle Patrol volunteers down here at Padre Island National Seashore drive back and forth along a 20-mile stretch of beach looking for momma sea turtles to come ashore to lay their eggs. When they find a momma and subsequently her nest, park rangers come and pluck away the eggs, carrying them to an incubator where, Lord willing, the eggs hatch.
When the eggs hatch, the babies are reared to a young age then let lose into the Gulf of Mexico.
I look up again and wonder. Is there a turtle?
I turn a page. But, obviously, Agatha and her mysteries can't hold my attention because I'm watching what I think might be a sea turtle sighting. Catching, collecting, or whatever.
So I tuck Aggie in my beach bag and walk up to the crowd.
What I find is no turtle, but, frankly, it's almost as good. I find a young park ranger, in his mid-twenties, bubbling with excitement because today he spotted his first girl around noon and ended up collecting 101 eggs.
I don't think I've ever seen a 20-something man smile that big or that long. He's absolutely giddy. So we ask him lots of questions, about his momma turtle (a returnee ... she was tagged in 2009), the condition of the sea (turtles like it windy and it's very windy today) and the quality of the water (any oil out there?)
He avoids the oil question.. "We were told to just say 'no comment' when asked about the oil, the tar," he says.
"But why?" I ask.
In case, he says, someone from the media sneaks in for a quote, or an undercover agent from the oil company is out checking on what's being said about them. It's just safer, he says, to have no comment.
Hmmm.
Last year the park rangers told me the tar I found on the beach was naturally occurring tar, up from the ocean's depths.
This year they say "No comment."
A mystery.
Now where did I put Agatha ...

Nancy To the Rescue

It's after midnight and it's time to shower and brush my teeth.

I open the door to the women's washroom at Padre Island National Seashore and I see movement. A fleeting movement. On the floor. Not the kind of movement caused by the wind picking up a paper towel someone left behind. A skittering kind of movement. By something small and low to the ground.

Oh, gee. There's a critter in here. I follow the path of the skitter, pushing open the door of the first toilet stall. Nothing.

I move on to the second stall and place my palm on the door. I'm not afraid. This thing won't launch itself at my face.

So I push. And there, I see it, zipping under the divide into the third stall. A crab. A ghost crab actually. And he's no bigger around than a tennis ball. He's quite flat, though. And transparent gold.

And scared. And totally out of his element.

These guys come out at night (ergo the ghost name) and hate the light. So this poor thing must be in a panic.
And I know I have to save him. Because earlier today, a family triumphantly killed a rattle snake. Killed him. Why? Because he lives here. Where they decided to visit for a while. He wasn't threatening anyone. He was sunning himself. Where they could see him. And that got him dead.

So I didn't want them to see Marley's ghost (yes, I named him) dead. I also didn't want Marley to meet the 17 junior high school students from a Montessori School in Dallas, who are sleeping on the beach. Imagine the screams! And it'd get him dead, too, just like the rattler.

So I get Allen and he holds the bathroom door open (he's standing behind it, hiding) and I get to rustling. I move to the rear of the washroom, further inside than where Marley is, and bluster my way toward the door. He skedaddles (sideways ... that's his forward) away from me, just like I hoped, and and now he's almost free. Then ACK! He ducks behind a couple of crumpled up paper towels, under the sink, way in the corner.

That means I have to crawl on the floor, on my hands and knees, and get my hands within inches of Marley's pinchers to pluck his shelter away so I can rescue him.

I need tongs, or a pole. AH! I have my toothbrush. And my toothpaste, which is longer than my toothbrush.

So I kneel, crawl and reach, using the end of the toothpaste tube to crunch down the paper towel and drag it away.
Poor Marley. He's flattened himself into the corner and is now the size of a quarter. And he's not moving.

So I get my bath towel and flick it at him several times. Now he's mad.

Out comes those pinchers and he scissors the air as he runs away from me, toward the door, out into the night, to freedom.

Yea, Marley! He's alive and free.

A Great Dad and a Great Air Show

We're at an air show. With lots of macho Texans wearing their cowboy boots, sporting their tattoos, standing tall with sultry women hanging off their arms. And lots of families with kids, Vietnam Veterans. Current military men and women in combat camouflage.

This  is a big show, one  that celebrates the 100th anniversary of Naval aviation and thunders through the sky above the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station. And it's free.

We're watching amazingly skilled flyers recreate the sounds of World War II as they motor about the heavens in B-25 bombers, a Curtiss-Wright sb2c (its nickname is flashier - Helldiver), and the bentwing Corsair. We're awed as the massive hulk of  Fat Albert (a Lockheed-Martin c-13ot Hercules) lifts itself skyward slowly, without groaning.

Barnstormers entertain and frighten us as they loop-de-loop and engage themselves in screw-driver turns across the skies, cut power and  nose-dive toward Earth.

Contemporary fighter jets wow us with speed and sound.

Momentarily, I'm just as entertained by the family in front of us. The dad's model-perfect, and stand more than 6-feet tall. He wears a white muscle T-shirt and baggy, dusty bluejeans that tumble out cowboy boots. He sports a tattoo of Frankenstein on the rear side of his upper left arm and a tarantula opposite it on the right. He's sucking a lollipop and -- this is what's so entertaining -- he's sitting in his little boy's stroller.


Yup. This hulk hunk of a man is wedged in a kid's stroller. Just sitting there, watching the show, sucking on that sucker.

Six kids swirl around him, playing ball, gigging, plopping down on a blanket. He breaks his skyward concentration easily to offer up a juice box. Another kid gets a sippy cup. He unfolds one of his long arms and hooks in his little boy,  smears suntan lotion on his face, then lets him go. He tends to those kids just as easily as he sits in that stroller.

I need to stop staring. It's getting rude. So I take a picutre (above) to remember the scene, and look up again and enjoy the show, the one up there in the sky.

And it's a big one. We stay for hours.

A Boating Adventure Captured from Shore

I'm sitting in my lawn chair next to Otto, our motorhome, reading. Now and then I look up to watch the waves curling toward shore at Padre Island National Seashore. It's really, really windy with lots and lots of waves.

Actually, I'm looking up a lot, because I don't like the book. It's a real crime story, "The Innocent Man," written by John Grisham, who usually writes fiction. I like his fiction better.

So, I'm looking up a lot, out of boredom, out to sea, watching the waves. And suddenly I see something I've never seen in the three winters I've spent here. A sailboat. And in this wind?

It looks odd, like it's spinning, or something. So I drop my book and grab my binoculars.

Yup. It's a boat. And it's spinning. Not wildly, but it's dosey-doeing with the waves. And its main sail is flapping, not billowing, and it looks like another sail is dragging in the water.

What do I do? This boat is in trouble. Holler help?

I run to the camp host (a boater); he's not home. I remember campers from Colorado Springs, Lin and Andy, who kayak a lot. So I run to their motorhome, where I find them inside, writing in their journals.

When I say "There's a sailboat in trouble," they leap out of their motorhome and, as if rehearsed, assume different roles.

Lin grabs a marine VHF radio and tunes to Channel 16, the international distress channel, while Andy snaps up his binoculars to assess the damage.

There's no cry for help, Lin says, holding the transister-sized radio over her head and bobbing around, hoping for good reception. Andy climbs on top of his picnic table and focuses in on the boat.

He says the sailor's lost his jib (the big sail I saw flapping), but he's fashioned a much smaller sail behind it (probably the one I saw floating in the water earlier). And he's righted the boat to sail evenly.

We watch as the boat continues north and applaud the sailor's skill. He's got things under control. No need to call the Coast Guard. Crisis averted.

Excitement over. So I head back to Otto and see that awful non-ficiton book, its pages still flapping in the wind.

Beach Environmentalism 101

It's Man vs. Nature. Guess who's winning.

We're sitting at the beach at Padre Island National Seashore watching two men, a dump truck and a backhoe make a mess in the sand. They've already shoveled seaweed (mixed with a lot of sand) into mounds, much like Northerners plow the snow in a paring lot. And now they want to move the mounds. So they've brought in the big guys to haul 'em off.

Three, four, five times the backhoe dumps the weed mixture into the bed of the truck (spilling a lot in the process). Then the truck drives its cargo of beach stuff off the beach (I don't know where it went from there), all the while more seaweed rolls in with the tide.

It's what happens here every year, this carpet of seaweed 10-20 feet wide. It's no surprise that seaweed clogs the beach from March through June. It's just what happens.

But people don't like it; tourists complain; local businesses suffer because who wants to play in seaweed.
So Man battles Nature.

After dinner, we return to the beach, and it's quiet. The big equipment is gone, but its scars radiate and undulate out from the remining heap of seaweed and makes the whole thing look like a giant octopus sand sculpture. Or the real thing, washed ashore, just not ready yet to die.

I also see big ruts in the sand. Deep, cavernous ruts. I had heard earlier that the dump truck had gotten stuck and had to be towed out. Makes me smile. Because it's like nature getting back at us for for our impatience. We can't wait for her to do her job of cleaning up the beach, of drying out the seaweed, then blowing it apart wth her fierce wind, thus scattering the remains throughout the dunes.

No, we go in with our metal shovels and deisel-powdered, 10-wheeled trucks to cart the stuff away. So she sucks us in. And then stands by to watch as we squirm our way out.

She's giggling right now. Because she's winning.

An Evening At The Water's Edge

We take our coffee and walk to the end of the boardwalk, about a dozen yards from the ocean, where pelicans and seagulls fish for their evening meal.

The sun's setting and I realize we've lived here for more than a month, and this is the first time we've done this. The first time we've had our evening coffee on the beach.

And it's peaceful. We're alone. Except for the wind. It's pretty strong and we suspect it'll get stronger.

We sit on top of a picnic table and watch the pelicans crash into the gulf, fishing. First one, then another. And a woman walks by.

She stops to chat. About birds. We see a V-line of birds fly by and a lone cormorant brings up the rear. The woman delights in this. We talk birds and dogs and in the midst of our conversation another couple drops by. They pull a picnic table alongside ours and sit there, along with us, watching the pelicans dine. We talk about kayaking, RVing, coffee, islands and New Orleans.

Soon, the first lady leaves and is replaced by a man, this one with a dog. We talk dogs, rescues and the wind. We're suppose to get 7-foot waves tonight, he says. Unusual. For here.

Soon, two more people walk up from the beach and I notice the sun is gone. And so is our coffee. And so is our peace. Because it's more like a party out here. Because where it was just me and Allen a few minutes ago, is now all these people, along with the birds, the waves and the wind.

Next Time, I'll Pass On The Mud

Gee, I'm hot.

Dripping with sweat after a two-mile walk on the beach with our dogs.

I climb into our motorhome and turn to sit when Patty walks up.

"I've been looking for you for an hour!" she whines. She's a minute of a woman, with short curly reddish hair, a deep tan and barely a wrinkle. And she's smoking.

I met Patty late last night, at the bathhouse. She was brushing her teeth when I walked in and she was wowed by my hair. (So she says.) She loves my hair. (So she says.) And, she says, she has just the product I need to keep it beautiful during the day. She'll bring some by in the morning.

She also managed to tell me, in those few moments together, standing in the restrooms, that she's 60 years old, from New Hampshire, and is staying with an elderly couple (in their 80s), who are leaving on Sunday.

Well, it's now Saturday morning and that's why she's been looking for me. To fix my hair. (Or so I thought.)

So I go outside, sit at a picnic table and cringe. Because Patty scoops up what she calls mud from a little pot and scrunges it into my hair. I hate this.

I'm sweating and sandy and sticky and now this woman smears mud in my hair. (I now look like the" Flying Nun," only too heavy to take flight.)

Patty yabbers the whole time she's scrunching and poofing my hair. (Why did I agree to this?) About the things she wants to see and do here in Corus Christi. About how she has three more days before her plane leaves and how she needs a place to stay because her friends are leaving in the morning.

"I guess," she whines, "I could stay in my car."

Bingo.

I think this woman wants to bum a bed off us. I think she's trying to butter me up through my hair.

"Yes," I say. "Lots of people stay in their car."

Mostly, I can tell the difference between a person in need and one in greed. And Patty, I think, guesses I can, too. Because she leaves soon after I fail to offer her a place to sleep.

But she's coming back later, she says. And I'm going to wash out my hair.

Not Your Average Day Shopping

(Leah, This one's for you.)

My grocery list is small. Only 10 items and I'm out of the store, on my way back to the beach.

Allen drops me off near the front door and we both see a jaw-dropping sight: a gazillion and two high school kids (actually 220, I learn later), all wearing blue shirts and many grabbing shopping carts to head into the store ahead of me.

Yes, it's a monster grocery store.

I grab my own cart and follow them inside where a sea of blue spills everywhere. Except in the fresh veggies and fruits, where a dozen or so older people stand and stare.

As do I.

What I see are kids having a great time, shopping for groceries. Laughing, rushing here and there. Checking lists. Being very polite. I notice an adult wearing the same blue shirt that says "Plano East High School" on the front and "Spring Break 2011" on the back. So I ask. What's up?

The answer makes me smile.

All these kids are members of the Plano East High School Marching Band and are in Corpus Christi this weekend for the state competition. They rode in three buses for eight hours to stay in condos that have kitchens, but no food.

So, the kids came up with an idea. They formed teams and plan to do the Iron Chef thing to feed themselves and their band leaders and chaperones. The winners get to be, well, the winners.

The menus? I noticed a lot of macaroni and cheese in those carts, hot dogs and pizza. Pepsi. Cereal. Oh, yum.

I grab my 10 things and head to the front where all 25 cashiers stand ready. As I head to the door, I see a blue wave rising. Let the competition begin.

Fish Tales and Adulthood

I'm visiting the Texas State Aquarium alone today. I go where I want, when I want. And as often as I want. Well, not really.

I'm dodging two classes of high school kids on a field trip. And one group of junior-high school girls and boys. The tweener girls all dress alike, gather in gaggles and giggle. The tweener boys walk into walls.

The high school kids blend naturally as coeds, and they carry school papers with lots of blanks for them to fill in, so they crowd around signs, tanks ad docents eager for answers to pencil in.

I hang on their periphery, enjoying them enjoying themselves. Until I come to the seahorse exhibit. And then I merge with them. I become a teen again.

We (me and three high school girls) seek out ghost shrimp and seashorse in an interactive exhibit that has a plastic bubble inside the tank. One at a time, we can crawl under the tank and stick our head up inside that bubble to become one with the seahorse community.

The girls go first. One at a time. We giggle and chat as they scramble down onto the floor and then pop up inside that bubble. And we take pictures. And giggle some more. Now it's my turn.

I get down on the floor and scoot, not scramble under the tank and, and slowly rise, not pop, until my head is partway inside the bubble and a distorted watery world unfolds along with a faint odor of chewing gum.

My legs cramp and I'm bent in such a way I can't breathe too well. Enough.

I lower myself slowly to the floor, then use a granny handle to lug myself back up outside the tank. Where I discover I'm alone again. They left me.

Memories of teenage angst assault my psyche. And they make me smile, because now I'm all grown up. And I no longer need to adapt, to change in ways that make me melt into the crowd.

So I'm happy to be alone again. To go where I want, and when I want as just me.

A New Favorite Place To Dine

I love Thai food.

We've driven past the Bangkok Star Restaurant on Padre Island, Texas, many times and each time I yearn to turn in. But Allen prefers steak, hamburgs and french fries, so we don't swing in for Thai, Chinese or even Italian very often.

But today I'm alone, and it's lunchtime, and I want Thai. So I pull in. Park. And go inside.

It's small inside. So I feel huge. Vast. Immense.

There's a petite outer room with a wisp of a bar and cash register and a small inner room with a few tables. A tiny woman, perhaps from Thailand, asks me to follow her into that inner room. I do, and I feel like Madame Maxime (for my non-Harry Potter fans, Mme Maxime is a half-giantess).

My tiny Thai seats me at a little table for two, against the wall. I place my purse on top of the table next to my plate and I'm cramped. The waitress hands me a menu and as I begin to study it, a man, a very big man, who resembles  John Goodman/Fred Flintstone, walks over to me and stands right next to my elbow.

How can I pretend he's not there? He's huge! He much be over 6 feet tall and his belly's so big, it flops over his belt. He's wearing a navy blue shirt (tucked in) and tan shorts and sneakers. His short, curly blond hair is scraggly, as is his day-old beard. What does he want?

I look up (and up) and he says, "Let me move your purse to give you more room." I half go to grab my bag because the great dichotomy between him and her screams at me. But I let it go. And he moves it across the table, to the chair on the other side.

And thus begins a perfect meal.

He's my waiter. Who knew? And he's a genuine delight. He pulls up a chair to explain the restaurant offerings and reminisces about the Pad Thai he enjoyed in California. He's serious about tending to my lunch. I tell him my favorite Thai food and he searches the menu until he finds the right fare.

I order, and soon, I'm enjoying  veggies and tofu dressed in a full-bodied peanut sauce over steamed rice.

My waiter leaves me alone to dine. And I feel not so large anymore.

An Adventure in Flight

We're on our bikes in the parking lot of the Malaquite Visitors' Center on Padre Island National Seashore.

I see about eight cars and 5,000 seagulls. Well, maybe not 5,000, but so many they form a massive ground colony and they all face south, into the wind.

Allen skirts this cacophony of screams, squeals and squawks; I pedal toward it; it's like a tracking beam drawing me in. I'm 10 feet away. Five feet. Three feet. Then, silence. And in milliseconds, WOOSH. The gulls take flight.

And then they do a startling thing.

Instead of flying away, heading out to sea, where it's safe from me, this wave of gulls transforms into a cyclone, swirling around me, rising barely a foot above my head (well, maybe six). Quietly, they swirl round and round, like a protective escort as I pedal away. But they don't let me go. They stay right with me, swirling, swirling, creating an airborne whirlpool.

I want to fly with them.

Then I look down. Splat. And I see another. Splat. Bird bombs. I duck. And they soon tired of this game and fly away, back to their Tarmac roost, to face south again. And I pedal back home.

Another God Sighting

The signs scream "Christian Family Restaurant Open 24 Hours," "Floyds" and "Praise God." One towers over the restaurant in Corpus Christi, Texas, and another covers the length of the roof.

So we go in for lunch. Looking for God. And inside confuses me.

Allen smells old cigarettes and it's dingy. I see no trappings of faith. Big or small. No Bibles, pictures of Jesus, or scripture napkins.

A dour-faced woman waits on us, then argues with the cook, where we can hear, about the amount of bacon Allen has ordered. (Which is a lot, and the cook doesn't understand, I suppose.)

I notice that most of the 15 other customers sport tattoos. No one dresses well -- at all. And some look scary. One man's bears a huge Iron Cross tatoo -- on the front of his neck. Another wears a sleeveless T and a dirty bandanna over long dirty hair. He fidgets. A lot.

This is no church super. But it could double for lunch at homeless shelter.

I ask my waitress about the God thing and where it is. She smirks and says her boss bought the restaurant from someone else and that's all she can tell us because she doesn't know any more.

OK. Simple enough. New owners, and now no God.

We pay our bill and head out the door. That's when I hear something special. Something sincere. I hear a woman's sweet voice say confidently, "Have a blessed day." THERE IT IS! There's God. It might be a small amount of God, but it's God.

So I say back, without turning around, "OH! You, too." And she replies, "OH! Thank you."

Later, I Google the place and find nothing about the history or new owner. A few random diners posted good food reviews. And then I find this little nugget, on a coupon: Floyd's Christian Restaurant uses its revenue to feed the homeless.

So if this is still true, then THERE GOD IS. In a very big way.

Pretty Gets You Places

Our motorhome's bedroom window stays open a little or a lot. There's no closing it.

It's been that way for nearly nine months now. And neither Allen nor his best RV buddie Louie can figure out how to fix it.

They spent a lot of time looking at it. I know this, because I saw them. Both standing there. Looking at it. Trying to figure out how to fix it. They leaned back on their heels, crossed their arms over their chests and shook their heads. I've since figured out this means "What a shame. It can't be done without a whole lot of trouble. And we don't have the right tools."

So now, nine months later, it's urgent we get it fixed. We're in Texas, in the spring. The mosquitoes and flies are coming.

So we head to the nearest Camping World and I ask for help. Well, I try to.

"We have a 2007 Navin J and we need the rear window repaired," I say to the woman behind the counter.
"No we don't," Allen corrects me, and he's smiling. "I told you, it's just the round crank."

"I know honey," I smile back, to placate him. Then say to the woman behind the desk, "The window crank ..."

Again, Allen interrupts. I giggle. "It's not the crank, it's the whole window that has to come out. I know this. I worked on it for hours." He's still grinning.

"OK, honey," I smile, daggers this time. And turn back to the sales desk where now two women have stopped to help me.

"We need ..." then argh! It's him again. Talking. I laugh! They're smiling.  I shake my head.

Allen stomps on every comment I make (but sweetly, smiling and grinning) or tries to finish my sentences, all the while talking to me, not the people behind the counter.

Before our rift gets serious, Mister To The Rescue moseys out from behind the wall to save the day: "Hey, is the rig here in the lot?"

"Yes," Allen and I say, in unison. Of course.

"Let's go take a look."

Out he and Allen go and I stay back at the desk, with the two women. "I need estrogen!" I say, melodramatically.
With the guys out of earshot, one woman says, almost conspiratorially, "Is he always like that?"

"Well, sort of, I guess, but not usually this bad." I come to his defense, a little. I have to. I'm his wife.

And her reply? Egads, that's awful? Shame on him? How could he? Doesn't he know to wait his turn? Doesn't he know that it's rude to interrupt?

Nope. She says, with twinkling eyes, "Well, I'd a slapped him in the face if he JUST WASN'T SO CUTE."

A Meeting With Four of God's Children

Our meeting is brief.

Me and four young college women (Bethany, Lauren, Emily and Stephanie ... I tease that their initials spell BLES. And that I am BLES(sed) by their company. They laugh.)

We intersect in the campground at night at Padre Island National Seashore, as we amble to and from the washroom. I rarely see such young faces here amid this sea of beautiful winkles and luscious gray hair. But it's spring break up North, and these kids, well, really young women, drove south to celebrate, about 1,300 miles, from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, because one of them found this beach on Google.

Google didn't tell them only old people play here (and are in bed by 10.). The hipper, edgy crowd parties up at the county beach (Padre Balli Park beach), or down at South Padre Island, so I tell them, because I figure youth needs youth to refuel, to revive.

"But we don't want to be a part of that crowd," the taller one says. Her name is Stephanie. Because, they all explain in various ways, they embrace Christianity, and don't want to drink or party. So they came to this beach, a national seashore with no boardwalk, no hotels, no bars, (but lots of retirees) to enjoy nature and to get a tan. But the sun's not cooperating, so their plan is to pay for one at a local tanning booth tomorrow, before going home.

We laugh and talk. I tell them about my life as a Christian and how much I like to play with other Christians. And what we do to play. And I answer their questions about living in an RV for months, traveling with large dogs. And I tell them how most of us retirees had careers, like teaching, editing, writing, dentistry, bookselling, computer technology. And we talk marriage, God and friendship.

We soon wave goodnight and good-bye, and off they go.

The next day, I head into town to shop. And when I return, I receive such a surprise: A handwritten note from each of them, all on a sheet of notebook paper. With words like "thank you," "grateful," "fortunate," "blessing" and "love." And "Jesu Christ."

I cherish the note. Take a picture of it. Then just stare at it and smile. I am BLES(sed) indeed.

A Walk to Remember

We're walking the dogs on Padre Balli Park beach off the coast of Corpus Christi, Texas, and it's nothing like we've ever seen before.

Oh, we've been here before, on this very beach, and accept the novelty of dodging four-by-fours as they barrel down the sand.

But today, it's different.

It's spring break. And we see kids, lots of kids, big and little, everywhere, They're dotting the beach like seashells and chattering like seagulls. And we see lawn chairs, tents, cabanas, grills, dogs, a horse, more dogs and more tents and lots of trucks.

The beach is a wagon train of cars and truck, a carnival of people, some way out in the ocean, others just two feet away from each other. Dancing, singing, laughing, eating. The crowd is enormous. Vibrant.

And everyone, it seems, wants to pet our dogs, play with our dogs, ask questions about our dogs. They crowd around us, like a celebrity sighting.

Our dogs, of course, love the attention. And I do, too. We play with some kids; chat with some adults. But Allen, our introvert, might hyperventilate, so I suggest we head back to our RV and wait for the evening, when everyone's gone home and the Super Moon promises to bathe the beach in moonlight and we can walk in private. Maybe take a few pictures.

So, right after dusk, we leash up the dogs and head back out to the beach. Where we are shocked to see something we've never seen before: a nighttime crowd at the beach, with campfire and trucks, people everywhere. Dancing, singing. Or just staring at their fires.

Lots of 20-somethings drive in, dressed to impress and I watch as they park, then head up the pier, where there must be a popular bar just out of sight, where I can't see the fun.

I ask one of the guys, "Hey what's up on the pier?"

"Fishing," he says. "They're really biting tonight."

"Wait," I stammer, "There's no bar up there, no nightspot to hang out in?"

Nope. Just fishin'.

Wow. All those 20-somethings, on spring break, taking dates to a fishing pier, to fish.

Again, it's nothing like we've ever seen before.

Some People Can Sure Talk

I'm in a nail salon in Corpus Christi, Texas, getting a pedicure because I'm tired, hot and my feet hurt.

The salon owner waves me over to a chair next to a little woman in her 40s with impeccable taste in clothing, jewelry and hairstyle. I must have sat on her on button, because as soon as I'm down, she starts talking:

1. Her name is Patricia; Patty for short.
2. She's been married three times; is single now, but is looking for No. 4.
3. Buried husband No. 2's mother last week and she REALLY loved Husband No. 2's mother.
4. Loves to wear white. which her grandmother told her to wash in cold water when she uses Clorox.
5. Has lived in Corpus Christi 19 years but hates it because of its diversity.
6. Lived in a Chicago suburb until third grade.
7. Has no pets because she has white carpets.
8. Love the color coral. But not accented with black.
9. Has two pairs of glasses (and she models both), but only one with clip-on shades.
10. Is an "assistant" in a local doctor's office where, if I call, ask for Judy, not Patty, because they know her as Judy. Her full name is Judy Patricia.

And on and on and on.

I keep scooching, thinking if I turned her on, I can turn her off.
Nope.

And then she asks me a question. An unusual one. Even for the pedicure chair: How's my health and what meds do I take.

What? Curious.

Fine I tell her. I'm great. My brief comment gives her time to refuel, and she's off again, this time about her employer, how wonderful he is,  how she can get me an appointment without waiting.

My eyes glaze over. She rambles, on and on and on. I nod and nod.

A pregnant woman with multiple facial piercings and a colorful tatoo the size of Ohio on her leg sits down next to me. YEA!  A reprieve! I turn to chat.

Patty taps my arm. I turn back  and then she says something that stops me cold. "If you need anything from the doctor's office, just let me know. I can get it for you without you having to pay for a doctor's visit. Just give me your cell phone number."

And, she adds: "I'm just saying, a gift certificate for another pedicure goes a long way."

EGADS. I'm stunned. What is she thinking? I could not possibly ... heavens NO! Why, I would NEVER! I CAN'T.

I only have 500 minutes a month on my phone.

The Story of Ruth

I'm doing laundry at Bob Hall Pier in Corpus Christi, Texas, when the Blue Bonnet woman walks in.

I kid you not.

This woman looks just like the lady on the Blue Bonnet label, only a little older, a little rounder. Her close-cropped blond hair tends to exaggerate her blue eyes, which really sparkle.

I apologize for monopolizing the washers and she just shrugs and says she's not put out. She has plenty of time, so she stays and talks.

And totally amazes and confounds me.

My Blue Bonnet woman, Ruth, lives on a 230,000-acre family farm in Nebraska, where she and her husband grow winter wheat, just winter wheat, under a government subsidy program. Her two daughters are grown and gone and don't want the farm. So it's just her and her husband on the 230,000, watching the wheat grow as they try to decide what to do with its future. In her spare time, she creates things.

She paints (oils, water colors, acrylics) and carves things like plates, bowls and little animals out of wood or stone and turkey whistles out of turkey bones (the wing bone, just before the tippy end). And if you buy a turkey whistle from her, she'll scrimshaw a landscape of your state, right on the bone.

She makes jewelry out of stones, sticks and other natural items and create furniture out of willow reeds and weaves pots out of pine needles.

She wants to teach me to weave a pot. I say "sure!" and wonder if she's a figment of my imagination or a real person.

I finish my laundry and we wave goodbye.

As I walk away, I have an urge to run back and pinch her, just to see if she's real.

It's Not How Old You Are ...

I'm walking the beach and a fairly old cocker spaniel starts barking, yelling HI HI HI HI. She gets the attention of her buddies, a young Basenji and an old Schnauzer, who don't bark, but join in the run to greet me.

Problem is, there's a very old woman holding all three dog on very short leashes. And she's sitting in a very old and wobbly lawn chair. On an uneven beach. These are little dogs, but their efforts to greet me topple the old lady over onto her knees, in the sand. It' a scary scene.

This woman is not young.

She's at least 70, and as I watch her crawl around in the sand, trying to stand up, I see her dogs tangling her legs with their leashes. I run over to help. She waves me off. "I can make it," she says, causally, as if she's done this a hundred times.

I watch this elderly woman unwind herself from her dog leashes while on her way to standing up. She makes it. No problem. Then she points to the surf. "Oh, here comes Mom."

MOM?

I look and yep, I see an even older woman doddering up the beach. She's mastered her unsteady gait to the point she dodges waves, sand piles and seaweed successfully while holding treasures in her hand.

"How old is Mom?" I ask. (Am I rude?)

"90."

Giant Steps

Linda and I sit and chat at our concrete picnic table here on Padre Island (just outside Corpus Christi, Texas) about, well, just things.

The guys -- my husband and hers -- circle about our motorhome. Like they are chained to each other, talking to each other, not us. About their RVs  (they own similar models). They point at this door, that window; they get on their bellies and look up at the vehicle's belly.

They bob here and there in constant chatter.

Suddenly, they woosh  past us, within inches of us and Stomp Stomp.  The guys, in two giant speedy steps, clear nearly four feet to light atop the picnic table. Now they talk about the things on top of the motorhome.

They do this without so much as a deep refreshing breath.  They step, one foot after the other, and STOMP STOMP! They land atop the picnic table.

Linda and I gasp. DID YOU SEE THAT? I couldn't do that. THEY JUST STEPPED UP! Hard to believe. LIKE IT WAS NOTHING! I couldn't do that without holding on to something. I CAN"T IMAGINE CLIMBING UP THAT FAAAST! They got up there with no effort. NO WAY COULD I DO THAT.

The guys focus so intently on their project they miss our gasps. They miss our surprise.

And they miss my plan to STOMP STOMP up there, too.

I start a ways back and take a running stomp stomp. AND I MAKE IT! A little wobbly. But HA HA! SUCCESS!

Now what?

There's no reason for me to be up here. It's kinda boring because I'm not talking RVs. And, frankly, I feel stupid standing on top of a concrete picnic table. So, I get down (with Linda's help) and we shrug at the uselessness of my effort.

Then, as usual, my moment up there becomes an  epiphany.

I realize they guys scaled the table effortlessly because it was just a play in their game. They're still playing, and scoring loads of fun.

My effort WAS the game.

New Old Friends

There are seven of us, sitting on the beach, well after dark, huddled against the wind behind upturned picnic tables, enjoying a campfire.

We're laughing a lot. Someone asks if anyone knows the lyrics to the song the Cowardly Lion sings in "The Wizard of Oz." He growls a few lines:

"But I could show my prowess,

Be a lion not a mouse, ..."

Another cuts him off with, "Hey, whatever happened to Kumbaya."

We continue to laugh. Belly laugh. Unencumbered laughs. No twittering or chuckles or respectful tittering.
We laugh with the confidence of old friends, like we've known each other for years. Even though our friendships began just hours ago.

We already know we have a lot in common: We're all living in RVs at the seashore in southeastern Texas. We're in our 50s and 60s. And all of us possess the desires and the means to wait out the winter away from the northern snows.

We share stories from the road (places we've seen, places we hope to see) and pass around a bag of potato chips.
Then the guy who sang the lion song mentions something most profound. He says when he and his wife plowed through their vacation photos recently, they found a million pictures of rocks and a zillion pictures of trees. But no pictures of friends. Like us. People you meet along the way. Who laugh with you. Who enjoy a campfire at the beach.

So, he says, he wished he'd brought his camera.

Me, too.

Just How Clean Is Clean

My new friend Linda and I laugh and giggle at our blue jeans. They are clean. Wink wink. We acquiesce that clean is relative.

"I tell my friends I wear these three days before washing," Linda leans toward me and grins, then winks. I tell her "I can get a good two weeks out of mine!"

"Oh, but ..." she says. I'm missing the point. Clean takes on a new meaning here at the sandy, wet beach, where we're boondocking for a few months. Boondocking means access to laundry facilities is as limited as our access to power and fresh running water.

So, clean means nothing smells, nothing shows and nothing stands up by itself. Even if it takes more than two weeks to do so.

Our girlfriends back home might translate our new meaning of clean into "filth." They'd be offended by our clean. They comprehend the old meaning of clean only. It's the one accompanied by a washer and dryer downstairs and fresh water on command; hot water as desired.

Linda and I chuckle and nod conspiratorially and become fast friends. In our clean/dirty jeans. In this private club of understanding. We share the new meaning of clean. We are of the same school, buddies, partners. We're not offended by our clean. AND we protect our friends at home from knowing about it.

So why, then, when I dress to go shopping with her this morning do I feel compelled to pull on a old-meaning clean pair of jeans?

A Siren In The Sand

A friend tells me the beach is filled with seaweed and I scrunch my nose.


Yuck.



When the beaches on Texas' Padre Island fill with seaweed, they look like salads, and smell like fisheries.


But we have to go for a walk. So we leash up the dogs and head out, only to discover Her.


She's a massive seductress with beautiful brown hair. A mermaid waiting for her wave to return to the sea. She's about 7-feet long and suns hersef with one arm cocked behind her, one knee resting over the other. She's sensual. She's a tease.


Someone saw the noxious seaweed littering the sand and turned it into beauty.


Someone made lemonade.

Sometimes Old Is Suspect

I feel like Mrs.O'Leary and her cow.

I'm making breakfast. Frying bacon in a skillet I bought at the thrift store.

The skillet dates back to the '50s (Allen says the '80s) and excessive scrubbing successfully removed most all the grunge I found hidden around the screws, the handle and the grooves inside the frying surface. It works perfectly well. I enjoy humming along to its buzz/hum. Hummmmm. Hummmmm. Sometimes I hum in harmony.

OK. Bacon done. Pancakes cooking. Four done and four in the pan. When BANG. And I mean BANG!!!!

Allen feels his side of the motor home shake, rock 'n roll. The skillet stops buzz/humming.

OH MY GOODNESS! I've shorted out Otto (our motorhome's name) with my ancient electric skillet.
And then I hear other campers scrambling about. "Did you lose power?" I hear one say to the other. "Yes. You, too?"

Oh my goodness. My skillet is that cow. And it zapped the entire campground.

Whom should I tell?

We finish breakfast and I ponder our plight. Lawsuits, skyrocketing insurance coverage, our adventure coming to an end. We plug in our generator to test our wiring to see what damage I've done.

Nothing. We're fine. I hear other campers' generators running and they're fine, too.

So I stroll outside and casually ask our neighbor, "Hey, buddy. Any idea what happened to the power?"

"You bet," he says. "See that dangling power line?" He's pointing to a pole about half a block away. "It just up and sparked and snapped. I saw the whole thing."

Not me. IT WASN'T ME! No way my skillet could take down a mighty power line. NO WAY!

I'm off the hook. But what about my skillet? It's in the trash. Just in case ...

Tired, Sore and Still Kind

My husband Allen and our friend Louie are up under Louie's monster RV trying to whack life into the rear jack. It won't retract. That jack is stubborn. Like Louie.

He refuses to quit until he's master of that jack. And that jack resists change. It wants to stay down, flush with the ground here at Padre Island National Seashore, in southeastern Texas. So Louie and Allen (mostly Louie, shown in the picture) whack it, knock it, wrench it and yell at it for hours. Allen offers some supplies, runs to the hardware store for more and gets his  hands a bit dirty in the meantime.  But it's mostly Louie under there, straining, pushing, shoving. 

Now, there's another guy here. I don't know his name. But he looks like Santa Claus on vacation. He has a white beard and white hair. He offers a crowbar, but that's it. He plants himself in a chair and stays there.  Watching. Oh, he offers an  "atta boy" from time to time and he sips his water and reads his book. But he doesn't get up to help.

He sits there and lets Louie do all the work.

He moves his  chair around to stay out of the sun, using the shadow  thrown by Louie's  motorhome to shade his throne. But he doesn't offer a hand to help. He lets Louie do it all.

After hours of strong-arming the jack (and a few calls to a certified technician), Louie (alone under there by now) finally wins, and cranks the now subordinate  jack back up, with us cheering and hydraulic fluid squirting into his hair and down his arm.

Success. And Louie slides out from under there. And now, it's clean up time.

I hand the lazy Santa man his crowbar and he won't touch it. He moves his chin down and his eyes up and  says, "Is it clean?" 

Is it clean???!!!!

I walk away with the crowbar in disbelief.

 IS IT CLEAN?

This man sat in the shade for hours, quenched his thirst, fed his mind while Louie worked furiously on the ground,  got drenched in sweat and hydraulic fluid , cut himself, scratched himself, scraped himself. Stretched his muscles to the breaking point.

IS IT CLEAN???

I walk over to Louie and hand him the crowbar. "He won't take it," I say, nodding toward the Lazy One. "Until it's clean."

"Oh," says Louie. "OK." 

Then this man, worn out, bleeding and sore, walks over to the spigot, and cleans the crowbar without complaint. Without judgement. While I stand there. And let  him do all the work.

Immediately, I hang my head in shame. Why didn't I clean it? Why did I hand more work to this man who's  overtired and stressed.

Because, I realize, I was too  busy complaining about the Lazy One to see how lazy I had become.

Today's lesson: Matthew 7:3: "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?"

  

Salve for my soul

My lips are sunburned.

I push that thought to the back of my mind because I'm in church at the Island in the Son United Methodist Church on Mustang Island (in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Texas) and I need to focus on the Lord. And I need to be kind to the friends who brought us here by being polite. Being proper. Church-lady like.

I'm smiling, singing and worshiping, but my lips are so sunburned, I'm feeling the pain of each grin and all those Amens.

And I can't stand it any longer. Because I'm also hot and there's no air in here. My lips hurt.

So at the start of the next song, I decide to be kind to myself and sneak out the back (I'm in the back row anyway), run out to the car and grab my Carmex Moisturizing Lip Balm for relief.

OK. Go.

I scoot out unnoticed (so I think) and scurry to my car, where I swing open the door and find my purse. With my back to the world and my mind on my pain, I plow through the purse contents until I find my treasure, my little yellow tube of pain relief.

I unscrew the lid and before I even stand up, I smear the analgesic elixir way beyond the confines of my lips. I don't care how I look. I'm finding relief. I'm being kind to myself.

I straighten up as I turn around and a young woman is standing there, thrusting a gallon jug of frozen water at me.
A gallon-sized ice cube.

She's smiling at me. And she says, "Here, hold this. It'll really cool you down. You can even just sit there in church with it on your lap and it'll feel great."

I must have cocked my head or in some way looked incredulous because she explains  she noticed me fanning myself in church, then saw me leave in a hurry. So she figured I was too hot. And she wanted to help. To extend a hand. To be a good Samaritan.

I realize I just received a kindness.

I take the jug briefly and thank her profusely, and assure her I'm OK. The problem is my lips, I say, not my temperature. And we walk back into the church together, where another woman comes to me and lays a gentle hand on my shoulder. "Are you OK, honey?" she whispers.

Oh my. I just got another kindness.

Yes, I tell her. I'm more than fine. I'm full up with kindnesses.

Look, Up In The Sky ...

I'm looking up. Well, we're all looking up, waiting for what must be a most remarkable sight. The International Space Station is supposed to fly over our beach tonight, low enough and close enough for us to see. With our bare eyes.

Six of us stand at the end of the raised walkway within five feet of high tide on Malaquite Beach in southeastern Texas. We can hear the waves crashing against the sand and feel the breeze. We jabber away, about, well, just casual stuff.

We chat as we scan the sky, looking for something moving.

We're standing in the dark at the edge of the ocean looking up for something we've never seen so we don't know what to look for. Except something moving. We stand, chat, crane, watch.

Oh, look. Hurry, look! See it? There's a pinpoint of light breaking though the night sky, down to our south, making a beeline toward, well, up. It's arcing, like a tennis ball lobbed over the net, only it never breaks into descent. It just keeps going up.

Oh, look again! The point of light is now an orb, and it's getting bigger. Much bigger. Man! Look how fast it's going!

It's now arcing overhead and it's huge! It's transmorphed into that little triangular shooter in the original Asteroids video game. Well, it's now arcing higher and away from us and is getting smaller. It's an orb now. No, no. It's a pinpoint again and now, zip, it's gone. Just, well, gone.

Like it was sucked into a black hole.

We're still standing on the walkway at the ocean's edge and we're looking up. There's nothing up there to see anymore. But there's no idle talk, no chitchat, no jabber.

Just ahhs and ohhs and wows.

The Domino Effect of Words

What I said got someone fired.

No, it's what SHE said that got her fired.

Actually, it's Camping World's  laudable zero tolerance for racism that got a woman fired for using the "n" word in conversation with me.

And it all happened -- her words, my horror and her firing -- within two hours today.

Here's what happened.

We need a hose for our motorhome's bathroom, so we stop at a nearby Camping World. Allen wants to fix the broken one with duct tape and Super Glue. I want to spend $75  to buy a new setup.

The saleswoman looks at me and says he (meaning my husband) likes to "n"-rig things (she uses the whole derogatory word). What? I ask? "N"-rig things, she replies. Stunned, because I'm sure what I heard is NOT what she said, I ask again. What? "N"-rig, she replies.

I don't know what that is, I say. "Some say jury-rigged," she replies.

I'm  shocked by her flagrant, unashamed use of the "n" word,  yet I walk away, saying nothing to her. I regret not telling her how awful her words are. I regret I didn't verbally wash out her mouth with soap.

As we leave the store, I turn to Allen and say "I feel dirty." And the only way to feel clean again is to address the situation.

So, when we get back on the road, I track down the e-mail address for Marcus Lemonis, the chairman and CEO of Camping World, and at 1:58 p.m. (Eastern Time) I send him an e-mail outlining my outrage.

At 1:59 p.m. -- I kid you not; a minute later -- he responds with "Nancy, I am horrified by this and will respond immediately.  This is unacceptable. ML"

By 3:15 p.m., I get an e-mail, from the president of Camping World, asking to talk to me personally.

By 3:30 p.m., we're on the phone, and he tells me the woman with the offensive mouth was fired. And assures me there is no room at Camping World for racism. And asks that I don't judge the 4,000 people who work there by the one who now doesn't.

And, he assures me several times, the woman with the racist language got herself fired because Camping World has a zero tolerance for such things. 

I can live with that. I regret that this woman' life got turned upside down because I ratted her out. But I hate even more the insidiousness of racism.

Why Our Friends Won't Travel With Us

We're finally heading to Texas. And we're tired.

So tired in fact, we decide to let our GPS find the nearest Walmart for us to park overnight in the lot. (It's called boondocking; and it's free, convenient and safe.)

The one we're heading to now is in Quincy, FL. We turn off the highway and follow our little electronic travel guide faithfully.

Turn right. OK. No problem.

Turn right again.

Really?

Turn here? Down this dark, potholed road with no shoulders? Down into a blackened abyss?

Well, OK. We trust our GPS, a Tom Tom, we call Thomas.

We turn right, right into a Stephen King novel. It's a dark, dark road that fronts a few ramshackle houses, a burned-out doublewide and several weed-draped driveways. And it's getting smaller. Sandier. Rutted.

"Turn around when possible" Thomas blurts without apology.

WHAT? There IS no place to TURN AROUND. We're in a motorhome towing a car, so we're a mini-train. We can't just TURN AROUND or even back up and we sure aren't going to hop out and unhitch things right here where "Pet Sematary" was filmed.

We lock the doors. Bump along. Slowly. Watch for Freddie Kreuger. Finally, we see something. A sign: "The State of Florida. No Trespassing." Egads! Are we stuck?

No, thankfully, the road shoulders appear, ones wide enough for us to use to turn around without losing our caboose.

So we turn around -- barely -- and head back to civilization, where we turn right and find our Walmart a few blocks down.

Diagonal from the Quincy Annex of the Florida Department of Corrections -- the state pen. Which is where, apparently, we just visited. In the dark dark of night. Thank you, Thomas.

An overnight sensation

 It's a simple request to solve a small problem.

 My husband Allen, the Technofile, the man who packs his own roving Internet Wifi and four computers when he travels, left home without his iPad. The newest addition to his wired and wireless family, his baby, his newest passion lay on his desk back home while he and and I head south for the rest of the winter.

 So we ask our friend to overnight the baby to us, using the U.S. Postal Service, registering it, insuring it and spending $50 for the peace of mind that the package will arrive by 3 p.m. the next day.

Which it doesn't.

So, we wait a few more hours, giving the U.S. Postal Service the benefit of the doubt. Our doubt has limits, so we call around 5 p.m. After crawling through excessive computer-generated options, I bang repeatedly on the phone's "zero" until I get a human voice to respond.

Nope. They cannot find the package. "We'll call you back real soon."

An hour and a half later, we call again and bang through to a human voice.

Nope. They cannot find the package. "We'll call you back real soon." Which they didn't.

In the morning, I check the USPS Internet tracking page and YEA! The iPad has made it to the local post office.
I wait for the call.

I make coffee, sit by the door, read my e-mail, then visit the bathroom. Upon returning I hear the postal truck DRIVING AWAY. I run to the door, throw it open and YEP. There, on the stoop, lay a little brown note saying the USPS TRIED to deliver a package.

I run back into the house and call the number on the little brown note. Again, I repeatedly bang through to a person. Ergh.

A guy answers the phone. I might as well have called McDonalds.

No, he says, he cannot call the truck back. He has no way of communicating with the driver. No, he cannot reschedule delivery for this afternoon. No, he can do nothing until Monday (It's Saturday).
We paid $50 for this service?

How can I, I ask, find out where the truck is? Because I'll jump in my car and catch him!

"I have no way of knowing; call your post office," the unhelpful fellow says.

"You ARE the post office," I seethe. "Give me the number," I ask (rather demandingly). "What's the zip code," he asks, maintaining a distanced calm.

"YOU ARE THE POST OFFICE SO YOU TELL ME!" I say back rather loudly. My voice is quivering. I must get a grip.

He flips through stuff (I can hear it) and gives me a number.

I call and the phone rings for more than a minute, when a woman answers. I tell her what I want (the package redelivered NOW and why I want it). She puts me on hold for 15 minutes. 15 MINUTES.

I hang up and call back, four times before she answers the phone again.

The moment she answers the phone, the mail truck pulls up outside. She's a miracle worker!

I slam the phone down (I do tell her HE'S HERE!) and I  run outside AND THE TRUCK DRIVES OFF!!!!
Is this a circus?

I CHASE HIM DOWN THE ROAD YELLING STOP STOP STOP.

He stops.

I must have drawn lots of verbal weapons because the driver immediately starts defending himself aggressively. SO, I see my box, calm down, become pleasant, sign stuff and take my package.

Drama over.

Next time, FedEx.

Stumbling ahead

And we're off. On our annual adventure.
Without a hitch? I think not.

To get going, we scurry about scrubbing toilets, dusting bookshelves, draining pipes and tending to a million last-minute things (including arming our burglar alarm systems) just to leave our house in good order.

Without water, by the way, bathrooms don't work. We didn't think of that; thank God for great neighbors.
Because our last-minute list expands into hours, we leave late in the day, around 3:30 p.m. and finally head south to Florida to see family and friends. But not yet.

Less than three hours away, we tunnel through sleet and snow and, about an hour after that, we hit ice. Ice forms fast in the great Northeast in winter. Exhausted, after a four-hour drive, we slide into a hotel that welcomes us and our dogs. (No water in a motorhome means the bathroom won't work.)

The dogs, our perfect wonderful dogs, defile the hotel room on sight. One pees on the bedspread and the other poops on the carpet. What? Allen scrubs the carpet and I hand-wash the bedspread, and then we collapse, still exhausted.

In the morning, the weather quiets down. As we continue our drive south, smiling at the pretty blue skies and inhaling crisp, dry air, I spill a full cup of coffee with creamer onto our carpet and one of the dogs throws up on the bed. The vomit soaks though two blankets and two sheets, all the way to the mattress.

So, Allen scrubs the carpet and I scrub the bed.

And we just shrug, and continue heading south.

It's a Murphy's Law beginning to our next great adventure. One to remember. One to chuckle about. Now that it's over.

Overheard in a Thrift Store

I'm shopping in Deseret Industries (the Mormon version of Goodwill
Industries) in Vernal, Utah, when I hear this conversation between a
man (I'd say about 55) and a very young boy (6).
"Well, how ya doing, Tommy," the older man says.
Tommy says, "OK."
The older man continues: "You not kissing any girls are ya?"
What? My shoulders square. I'm on alert for inappropriate something, I
don't know what.
Tommy doesn't say anything, But, Tommy's daddy (I'm guessing) says,
"Be polite, Tommy, and answer Mr. Clark."
"No, sir." I can hear Tommy giggling.
"Well that's good, because you know what happens to little boys who go
kissing little girls?" I lean in, ready to intervene (and I still
don't know why.)
"They lose their teeth."
I can hear Tommy really giggle now. Then he slides into one of those
really good childhood belly laughs.
Turns out Tommy just lost both his front teeth and Mr. Clark knew this
and was giving Tommy a good tease.
And me, too.