January 14 - Texas aka the little Alaska

Jenn and Rose - Downtown Austin, TX

Lunch with Olga, Rose, Jenn, Ken and

Dewayne (photographer)

Jenn and Ken - San Antonio Riverwalk

Remember the Alamo - Ken, Jenn, Rose

Jenn, Ken and Rose - Luckenbach, TX

Epic Waterpark in Grand Prairie, TX

Rose surfing (indoors)

Perfect forecast (indoors)

Our camper map

Dewayne (Ken’s brother), Jenn, Rose

and Ken - National Museum of the 

Pacific War in Fredericksburg, TX

Rose and Ken on museum grounds 

San Antonio Riverwalk

Rose inside the Alamo

Alamo postcard with armadillo similar to one

that Rose and Jenn saw at campground 

Rose on jump pad at campground 

Dewayne and Ken in Austin 

Rose in front of Willie Nelson statue 

Jenn and Claudia, Jenn’s friend from college

Reunited after 35 years 

Narrow roads with construction and wind

and big trucks

Thank God Ken is driving!

It’s January 14th and we’ve had more diverse weather in the past 14 days than the entire period of August 1st when we started our journey through December 31st. In that latter period we may have had 3 days of some rain and little or no wind. Since January 1st we’ve had windy days with gusts of 55 mph, snow, rain, heavy rain, thunderstorms, nights in the 20’s, and now we are in Texas with an Arctic storm on the way. 

So it’s a COP day otherwise known as a Change Of Plans. We were supposed to have one more night in Fredericksburg, Texas, but instead we are heading to San Antonio, Texas with the hopes of making our Houston campground reservation tomorrow. Our Houston location has already warned us that water would be completely shut off so we need to fill up our fresh water tanks in advance. Our backup plan (one that I think makes the most sense) is to get a hotel room for a few nights. Rose and I are on board but apparently the majority doesn’t rule and since Ken does all of the driving and cold and outside work, he feels that we will be just fine camping. 

As I’m writing this we are having another COP. Just like in that Chevy Chase Vacation movie Wally world aka Six Flags was closed when we arrived. They too had a COP apparently as they were supposed to be open today until they updated Google and their website while we were en route apparently so we met my college friend Claudia for brunch instead of dinner in San Antonio and are now on our way to Houston to stay ahead of this storm. So technically we now have reservations in 3 different cities for tonight.  A hotel room would have been cheaper. Sigh. 

This past week has been great visiting with friends and family. Monday we went to a huge waterpark called Epic with Terria and family who moved to Texas from Anchorage. It was so great hanging out with them in the lazy river and going down crazy slides. Ken’s older brother DeWayne was our tour guide in Luckenbach, Fredericksburg, Austin, and San Antonio. He lives in Austin.

Rose did a drop in gymnastics class that was really fun, a trampoline park visit, and she spent a fair amount of time on the campground’s jump pad. Ken started jogging last week and is now up to 15 miles a week. I did a CrossFit class in Arlington that was tough and was sore for a few days. 

As far as local creatures we saw lots of longhorn cattle and Rose and I saw a plump squirrel with a hard shell and realized it was an armadillo. 

Thank you for the prayers for Ken’s healing, safe travels, and warmer weather. ❤️