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.
February 19th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Hi Rich, Ironic about the cold; those TX people are always giving the rest of us grief about how nice it is down there. 🙂 I enjoyed your BB log. We spent most of our time on the other side, along the Maxwell. You will appreciate how far BB is from repairs. One Sunday night(2:00 AM, we were tracking bats) we blew a hose and lost all our cooling water while headed down the Maxwell. I clamped it off and luckily had enough water to refill. If I had not been able to fix it, we might STILL be there!
Try to stay warm! We still hope to get up to Lafayette, IN to compare notes.
Lee Benson, near Carthage, IN with 11 degrees outside
February 19th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
I don’t quite see how you get your Netflix. Do you have them sent to a friend who then forwards them on to you? Doubt that you could keep changing your forwarding address from the house you sold in Vermont and I doubt that Netflix would send DVDs to General Delivery.
I love Netflix and have accepted the fact that I will have to give it up if I go fulltime.
February 19th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Rita, our mail goes to a PO Box in our hometown. The Post Office will forward it for you (they have a new service for this) or you can use one of the many private mail-forwarding services. We have our mail sent to either General Delivery in the next town we are visiting, or a friend’s house. Both work fine. There’s no need to give up Netflix just because you are full-timing — we’re proof!
February 24th, 2006 at 8:32 am
Seeing the Valentine’s cake reminded me of a Magic Chef tale my aunt shared with me. As the original owners of my Overlander, she & her family happened to be camping in Colorado during the occaision of one of my cousin’s birthdays.
Knowing that a birthday celebration is not complete without a cake, she had the foresight to pack a box of cake mix. Unfortunately, their campsite failed to post any “Follow the corrections for high altitude cooking” signs, and the cake did not come out looking as nice as Eleanor’s.