We woke up at six am today to begin our adventure. Months ago, we decided to buy an RV and a truck to tow it across the country with our two kids to see as many national parks and birds as we possibly could with two kids under five.
I would call today a success
With the help of two grandmas and a grandpa, we got our house clean and ready for our renter to move in tomorrow. Without too many tears, we hugged our goodbyes, loaded our kids in the carseats, and prayed that everything was stowed safely in the RV.
We were reasonably sure it was. After all, we had gone camping in it before… once. Last week. And it went mostly fine. What was the worst that could happen?
The drive itself was less than pleasant. It was a drive I’ve made quite a few times. IH 35 North to Waco is less then spectacular in my book. Strip malls and future suburbs cut into the gently rolling hills that tested the cruise control of my F150. With fuel economy around 10 mpg (less than half of what I’d hoped for ( sorry/not sorry for the LOTR quote)) we made it to Waco after about two hours.
Most of our campsites have been selected by my darling Raquel, but this one I had chosen (you should be very impressed) due to it being a good way off of IH 35 and being on the North side of Waco, closer to the Mammoth National Monument that we’re going to see tomorrow.
We pulled in about three o clock, managed to back in without smashing into the tour bus parked across from us (my first back in at an RV park! Yay!) and tried to turn on our electricity to mollify the camp host that we were in fact competent. I had warned her that we were not:
Me: Can I please have your easiest site? This is literally our first time going out with this RV.
Shelly: You got it, hon. I’ll put you in my favorite one.
Unfortunately, even under Shelly’s guiding eye, I could not get the RV to power up. I mean, the lights were working, but the AC and fridge were most definitely not.
Shelly looked at me like the newbie I was, then checked my cord for scorch marks. I did not know that being checked for scorch marks was a thing. We were clean. Both of us stood there a moment, not at all sure what to do until the smartest woman I know lifted up the panel and noted that the braker was in fact tripped.
“Oh, uh… most of out sites don’t have brakers,” Shelly said sheepishly, then flipped the braker, and thus breathed cool air into our RV.
Ha! It wasn’t my own incompetence at all!
We went into the RV triumphant, until Raquel saw what I had noticed when I entered to turn on the AC: that the contents of our RV were not in fact, safely stowed. The oh-so-fancy sliding metal storage rack installed by a previous owner had ripped out of its mooring, and spilled its contents all across the back of our oh-so-fancy RV.
Not cool, even though the RV was now on and getting cooler.
I herded the boys outside to look at a spider, and drank a well-deserved beer for driving my first 100 miles towing a 31 foot beast of a trailer while Raquel tried to figure out what to do with the overblown spice rack.
Her decision? Rip that sucker out. It was attached to the thinnest piece of plywood by little more than spit, anyway. Did she like the spice rack and specifically mention it when we bought the RV? Yes. Does it feel silly to have to demolish something on day 1? Absolutely. But here we are, with a sliding metal contraption we no longer want.
The RV cooled down, we wandered down to the Brazos.
Bird of the Day
On our way down to the Brazos River I spotted a yellow warbler. This banana bird is yellow with brownish streaks that make it look like an overripe banana. They’re not terribly uncommon, but I find them pretty and they’re one of the few warblers you can find in central Texas in the summer. A great bird to see to start our trip!
Past the warbler we saw some of the usual suspects: cardinals singing, chickadees saying that onomatopoeic name, an eastern phoebe bobbing its tail. I also tried out Merlin’s new sound ID feature on a familiar chupping call I heard from some brush, and was pleased to see that even with my kids making a bit of a racket, it was able to pick out the call as that of a Northern Mockingbird. Cool feature. Hopefully it will be quite useful in the north, where I am less familiar with the locals and the sounds they make.
Down at the Brazos, we swam and found incredibly well preserved raccoon tracks in the mud. Leo and Xander both screamed bloody murder when we made them climb out of the river, though eventually they calmed down, and Leo vowed to go on a track hunt the next day.
Today I learned
If I let my kids play in a body of water, they will never have ‘enough.’
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