COLD! Something is wrong here in Texas. The temperatures in Big Bend dropped into the 40s on Friday, a 30+ degree change from the day before. By the time we arrived at Seminole Canyon State Historic Park Friday night it was 37 and the wind was blowing hard. We turned on the furnace and spent the evening watching a movie ("Emma", the Jane Austen story with Gweneth Paltrow) and having a belated Valentine's Day.

This reminds me of two things: First, we stepped up our Netflix subscription to 8 CDs at a time. We love movies and we rarely watch (or can receive) over-the-air TV, so having a choice of movies on disc is essential for those bad-weather evenings like last night. People ask us how it works when we are always moving, so I'll tell you.

It works fine. We have our mail forwarded to General Delivery or a friend's house every week or two, and that's how we get our movies. Having the "eight at a time" plans means that we usually have 3-4 handy at any given moment, and each mail package brings the balance. I try to plan the Netflix queue to include at least two kid movies, two family movies (hard to find these days), and some movies for adults like thrillers. We're Jackie Chan fans, so I've got his latest ("Thunderbolt") here right now.

The second thing I wanted to mention is that we like to be flexible about holidays and birthdays. If our schedule makes an event inconvenient, we postpone it. No guilt, no pressure. We were so busy in Big Bend that we skipped Valentine's Day until last night. With nothing to do in Seminole Canyon, Emma and I worked on making Valentine's cards with glue, markers, construction paper, and rubber stamps. Then Emma and Eleanor made a cake and we watched "Emma" the romantic movie. That was Valentine's Day for us: February 17, 2006.

Valentine's Day 2006 in our Airstream

Now the problem is what to do for the next few days. Today (while driving to San Antonio) we started off at 33 degrees and never warmed above 37 all day. These are the coldest daytime temps we've seen since we started the trip.

It's not much fun in the 30s. It's too warm for winter activities (skiing, sledding, skating) and too cold for summer activities. We're going to have to exercise some creativity to keep busy until it warms on Tuesday. I'll catch up on work and Emma will do some schooling, but then we'll have to get out for at least a few hours. The San Antonio Riverwalk does not seem appealing in the 30s. We are parked in the midst of several historic Missions, so we may attempt them, but if the weather is really abominably windy as it has been, we may resort to doing our shopping and laundry.