MAKING NEW PLANS IN GEORGETOWN, TEXAS

After a wonderfully relaxing stay with the Bartees, we are back at Jim Hogg Park in Georgetown, north of Austin, planning our next moves - back to the west. What happened to our Memphis trip, you ask?

During our travels in Texas, we have learned from The Weather Channel (our good buddy) that April has more tornados than any other month, and that May is second. We have learned that the U.S. has already had twice as many tornados this year as an "average" year. We have learned that "tornado alley" encompasses every state we planned to visit in the remainder of April and in May. Newly educated, we decided now is not the time to head to Memphis via Little Rock, Arkansas, then back across the plains to Denver and South Dakota.

Our new direction is back to the west, to our ex-hometown of Sacramento, to visit family and friends. Odel will travel by plane from there to visit his daughter and her family in Maryland, and we'll schedule appointments with doctors and dentists.

Georgetown is a good place for planning since we have cell phone service AND broadband internet access here (great for checking weather along routes under consideration). We also have easy access to the services we need before we head back into the wilds of west Texas.

This photo captures the flavor of our day perfectly, as we made not one, not two, but THREE trips here today: groceries at the HEB in the background at 9 am; fueled up Jules II at 4 pm; and a trip back to the HEB to use the fax machine at 5:30 pm.

The rest of the day was spent online (plane reservation) and on the phones (medical appointments, an appointment in Albuquerque for minor maintenance on Scoopy, and begging for the last available site in the only campground we like in that city). The weather here was cloudy, warm and blustry, so spending the day on "administrative" tasks was not so bad.

We will be out of touch again for a few days (at least) when we leave here tomorrow morning. We're spending the next two nights moving west through Texas on I-10, then heading north into New Mexico to stay at an Escapee park we have never visited, The Ranch in Lakewood, New Mexico (north of Carlsbad). After a couple nights there, we'll head up to Albuquerque. That will be the decision point for the rest of our route to Sacramento... northerly or southerly, depending on the weather.

Quite a change!