How We Got LIT

~

We shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually — their paths were laid that way, as you put it. ~ J. R. R. Tolkien

~

~

Picking up where I left off in There and Back (But Not) Again, we left Oregon in mid-December of 2010.

~

~

We  raced (well, as fast as we could on the narrow two lane roads in a 32 foot Class A – towing) across the Siskuyou’s just hours ahead of a winter snow storm.

~

~

We made the 1300 hundred mile drive from Gold Beach to my sister’s home on the outskirts of Tucson in 2 days. There were warning signs all along the way.

~

~

Even the names of the tiny towns made us wonder if it was foreshadowing?

~

~

After spending a wonderful Christmas with my Sis in Tuscan (our first in over 20 years) we set out for San Antonio.

~

~

… or so we thought. We headed toward San Antonio. We had campground reservations. We hadn’t’ been living in the RV for a year. We kind of stuffed things in and hit the road. We planned on using the “Just get to Texas and we’ll call you when we have something” time to organize, stock up on groceries, water etc..

~

~

We drove 755 miles and stopped the second night in Junction, Texas where we dropped the U Haul (on purpose). 😉

I forgot to mention we’d given the Saturn to my son,  bought a 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee with 200,000 miles on it while visiting Heidi’s son in MN.

~

~

We were told we couldn’t tow the Jeep, so we rented a U-Haul ramp thing and pulled it through the mountains. $900 later, we dropped it in Junction at a U-Haul spot

~

~

We got an early start, heading for San Antonio to begin the wait. I hopped in the Jeep and we drove the last stretch of our trip separately – sort of…

Heidi wrote about that day so I’ll link to her post instead of rehashing it all: Car 54… Where Are You?

To summarize:

• Heidi and Henry took off in the Class A down Interstate 10
• I followed in the Jeep
• 57 miles later, we pulled over to check directions to the RV park
• Heidi and Henry took off in the Class A
• I didn’t follow in the Jeep
• Eventually Heidi noticed
• The Jeep battery was dead
• Heidi called 911
• We didn’t know where we were so they couldn’t find us
• I walked a quarter-mile to find a mile marker
• It began raining –
• The guarding company called while H was talking to the 911 operator
• Heidi called Jamie back while waiting for the police
• We had a job that day IF we could get to Tilden before dark
• A police officer found us and jumped the jeep
• He told us to follow him to an auto parts store
• He raced off across the grassy median
• We didn’t have time to get Henry
• We left Henry locked in the RV on Interstate 10
• We got a new battery in Kerrville
• We got lost trying to get back to Henry and the RV
• We found Henry and the RV
• We took the VERY bumpy “short cut” the auto parts folks suggested
• We didn’t have any food or water
• We left Henry in the RV in a church parking lot in Jordanton
• We went to Pleasanton in search of supplies
• We left Walmart and went the wrong way
• We lost Jordanton altogether
• We lost Henry and the RV for the 2nd time that day
• We found the RV and Henry
• We called Jamie for directions
• We lost the phone signal
• We found our 1st gate,outside Tilden, in ankle-deep mud in the rain
• We had a 20 minute set up/training session
• The training was: Here’s the clipboard, wear your vests, do what I did
• We had no phone and no internet
• We had no water (J. didn’t set it up right and we didn’t know how yet)
• We had no septic (that would come a couple of days later)
• We had no clue what we were doing… or why 😀

~

~

And there you have it. We now think of things in terms of  LBT – Life Before Texas and LIT – Life In Texas. We’ve been living LIT for a year and a half now.

But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on — and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. ~ J.R.R> Tolkien