On the Edge of Tomorrow's Texas

As I sit on the edge of tomorrow's Texas, I battle the writing of this thing.  For some reason, the upcoming changes are too powerful to want to dwell in yesterday's memories.  But, knowing I will one day want to remember the road in between one home and another, it is worth the jotting down of details.  And that is what I have done in this entry.  So bear with scatterbrained thoughts, knowing, I sit on the edge of a huge massive change...and the small details are just clutter-dust in comparison, but they deserve a moment, so here goes...

Nashville:

Despite a hollering child that didn't enable me to sit in the front seat more than a literal moment at a time, the trip to Nashville was mostly smooth.  We had scouted out our "neighborhood Wally World" home ahead of time, and pulled in, myself a bit fazed. You see, there is nothing calming about the gut screams of a babe, but you know, it's just a part of it.

Following lunch, we headed out to the street to catch a bus into downtown for the evening.  We were met with a character of a woman dressed in layers of white (including a towel around her neck) who was full of "Lord bless ya's" for Danforth and advice about the bus system.  Notably, she was also carrying a 5 gallon bucket and wiped the bench with an alcohol wipe before I sat down...huh. People are just great.

I have to admit, I was a bit on high alert...in my "have been secluded in the Northern hemisphere for one too many consecutive years"...as I wrongly assumed most people were suspicious and up to no good.  It took me a bit to settle into the fact that,

1. Two young people with a baby are not your average target for crime and thievery,

2. City's are full of all kinds and spectrum's of human beings that come in every form, character, and type, which leads into point..

3. Nobody gives the littlest care about you for eating carrots and grapes on a bench with a map of the city in hand (pointing to a tourist who brings their own food..? I dunno, it's a dumb thing to be embarrassed about, I admit), there are a lot odder things one can find another doing (So Corey reminded me)

So once I finally settled into the fact that we were only as odd as my mind allowed myself to think, I could start to take in the scenery of a pleasant evening out on the town.  We stumbled upon and into a full out concert and hot wings fest in the central park where, it seemed, was the place to be.  We wandered around until security discovered (and we with him) that we didn't pay our way in and needed to leave...such is the wonderful blissful ignorance of not knowing.  We appreciated the music's echos through the city skyline corridors, in the "Country Music Capital" of the US, though quite glad it wasn't twangy tunes echoing through the city at that particular moment.

Which by the way, as a reminder to the journey south, imagine; stepping into the full blown scent of leather..comes a store, completely dedicated to...cowboy boots.  In every. size. shape. color. and price (some up at $400 range).  And the fact that it wasn't just there to make us laugh..was also quite astounding.  People just love the leathery goodness of such things! The place was packed.

All in all, over a period of two days, we had a complete Nashville experience.  It began with a delightfully energetic Southern Gospel service in a tiny brick church, and left us with memories of impressive street performing children, biking across neighborhoods and downtown street corners, an extended rest in the wonderful park and Parthenon replica view, all under the blanket of a perfect sun's warmth and breeze to accompany it in harmony.  Of course, it goes without saying, there were plenty of slightly awkward locations for diaper changes and feeds, but that's just part of traveling on foot.

  

Quite content with our Nashville experience...we were ready to head West for a while on over to Memphis.

Memphis:

There are good days, and there are bad days.  And this day in particular was a bad day.  It also happened to collide with one of our longest driving days yet.  Much of it revolves around a certain small person who seems to have forgotten how to put himself to sleep as of recent days, and gets into manic panic states of hysteria and won't be resolved without a solid hour (give or take) of work shushing, jiggling, rocking, singing, swaddling, walking, and the like.  The usual magical-momma-milk to put him into a sleeping coma doesn't even work...leaving me more frustrated than I've ever been.

So holding hands with that lovely picture, is one of a woman (named Meg) trying to doze off for a bit of mid-day shut eye (to make up for hours lost at night with the crying babe)...to only be woken up each and every time to the-unresolvable-baby-syndrome.  Fast forward through the day with that, and with hunger pangs (for a real meal aka fresh living prepared food NOT snacks and dry goods or gushy mini-leftovers), take a few brief pit stops at minor-but-substantial-states-of-ultra-sensitivity-and-tears, and then move onto suppertime, or otherwise known as the-first-meal-of-the-day.  Okay, so I'll paint the scene for what left me sweating and curled up on the floor in sobbing (but mostly quiet) mess.

Arrive at destination, very hungry.  Walk down block in search of fresh living food, sees gas station, hopeful!,...only dead fluffy food and sugar related products, dang.  Return to destination.  Gently move sleeping baby into Airconditioned home.  Sleeping baby wakes. Wakes mean cries. Cries. Cries. Cries. Cries. Cries turn into gut wrenching screams. Mosquitoes biting outside, and inside motorhome, window was left open. Former hunger pangs now in form of emotional brain exhaustion. Insert two hour (or more) saga of "shush jiggle rock sing swaddle walk" to attempt to calm baby.  At some point, baby temporarily calms.  Time to make dinner.  Motorhome is hot, house has AC.  Nobrainer, cook dinner in house.  Bring food inside, look for cooking supplies. Begin to prepare.  Stove has no fuel.  Oh yeah, all the ruckus noise competing with crying baby outside is people working on gas line leak.  Baby cries. Mother cries. Back and forth forgetting items between motorhome and house. Mixed with fuel-related-person walking back and forth in front of motorhome windows (no privacy to even have a good functional cry!) and loud bangs from smashing concrete a few paces further (no brain rest from unnerving sounds either?!). Finally cooking, baby with father.  Sweat, tears, exhaustion, hunger setting in. Cut open to find sweet potato almost rotting.  So much to do, so much heat, so much emotional hunger for a real meal, so much exhaustion from sweaty baby screaming in face all day.  Collapse on floor.

Pray for help.  Back up, with tears and all.  Cutting, chopping, three burners cooking.  Very very hot. Meal prepared.  Meal devoured.  Ready to relax.  Baby finally will eat instead of cry.  Baby still wiggly and awake on verge of cry.  Tiptoe.  Ready to relax.  Oh, I forgot I took sheets off bed, needs to be made. (Bed in motorhome =hot, crawling, hands and knees sort of ordeal).  Fuel people still making the banging ruckus? Police show up, neighbor is causing issues with fuel people on purpose no less!, noises still continue. Baby fussy, eats again, and lays down. Ready to relax.

...........

Wait, that's all?

Okay...enough said.  I'm blabbling.  But I know we've all had days like that.  I'm frazzled and hot, and Danforth is finally sleeping.

Goodnight.

Memphis itself included delicious meaty BBQs, bike touring, a to-scale extremely impressive replica of the Mississippi River (was actually the highlight of Memphis in my opinion), terrible roads, a street known for Blues music legends, and other typical tourist activities like photo ops.

Well, then there's always a ridiculous phenomenon that happens at 11 and 5 every day at the Peabody Hotel. Approximately 250 people gather and fight for seats until there is standing room only, to watch 5 ducks enter and exit a fountain, walk up a red carpet with a literal "duckmaster" and into an elevator, all to orchestrated music.  And this very thing has been happening for 80 years on the dime, every day.  So we gathered in awe to watch the intensity of the air in which people flashed photos at these...yes ducks.  People are just great. Of course, we were among them, more astounded by the people than the ducks, but nonetheless it was a sight worth seeing.



Another wonderful visit with our hosts, and we were off and over the Mississippi to new lands.

Arkansas

Things felt full circle, remembering our odd and eventful experiences of Arkansas back in 2011, as our first-ever adventure as C&M. We considered heading back to our unnamed town of Mayberry but...

We found, upon entering the state, that being within shot of Texas...we lost interest in exploring yet another city, nor did we consider giving it a night's try.  So while we parked precariously in a place where we should have gotten ticketed in Little Rock, Arkansas...we quickly allowed ourselves a 2 hour-ish tour of the place.  We were shocked to find impressive parks along the river with all sorts of goodies that Danforth will be brought to when he's old enough, along with new demands for acclimating to hot humidity.  It was a neat little place, being the capital and all, but the West-bound road was way to tempting to linger any longer.

And onto Texarcana we went. This place is both Texas and Arkansas if you didn't figure it out by the name. (The post office actually has TWO zipcodes?!) Pulling into our paved Walmart front yard for the night, we sweated buckets, cooked a three burner meal in the hot house (bad idea with no AC!), all the while, Danforth screamed in our faces while we tried to ingest the hot food.  As you can imagine, the night, without electricity, meant no fans or cool air...and a very, very, very hot and mildly frustrating night.  But we couldn't help but grin in the cooling evening air, as we sat outside on our "front porch" (aka metal stairs) observing the road that had Arkansas flags on one side, and Texas on the other.   We had arrived, and only one more stop was separating us from our final destination....

Texas

After a rough night sleeping on the border, we headed past the  shady looking "WE BUY GOLD and CASH INCOME CHECKS store" and into the massive hot state.  I spent most of the trip with my nose in RV guides and maps...realizing...we haven't quite dealt with our living situation in Austin yet, and we'll be there in a tiny handful of days.  After a couple days of research and calls, we might have a place several miles from Downtown Austin that we can live/park for several months.  More on that later, once we decide if it's safe and right for us.

So currently, we are basking in the open spaces and air conditioned modern luxuries of my aunt's house in Plano (a suburb of Dallas)...and tomorrow comes.....drum roll..........

Austin.

That's it.  Our rumbling box on wheels might have a long rest after surprisingly getting us to our destination.  We may just start a life in this place, starting from the bottom. But it's good, refreshing, and true to us, and madly terrifying. My stomach has new butterfly inhabitants, as I consider moving to a place I have not yet breathed the air of.  But I am so thankful, knowing full well, God knows and I don't always have to.

Here's to living each day without knowing or worrying what tomorrow will bring,
M