November 16th through December 6th, 2024
Our home base is in Texas, and we find ourselves spending time there pretty often. We traveled east through Texas earlier in 2024, and we were heading west and back to Arizona for the winter in the fall. We spent only one day in Natchitoches (it's pronounced like "Nack-A-Tish" for some bizarre reason), Louisiana on our way into Texas, and we regretted not finding more time to spend there. The campground was really nice, and the town was so cool. They were getting ready for a huge holiday celebration, and it we missed it by a week. There was even a big wedding next door the evening we spent there, which made everything festive.
The reason we chose that location was so we could spend an afternoon at the Cane River Creole National Historical Park. We really enjoyed our visit wandering through old buildings (including an old general store with many original items from it) and through the lovely grounds. The history of cotton plantations in that area is a bit depressing, but it's always good to learn more about that time.
We were taking a weird path through Texas so we could visit our home county to start the process of changing our names. We were getting married soon and wanted to take Margot's mom's maiden name, Montgomery. Because it wasn't associated with our marriage, exactly, we had to do just regular name changes. In Texas, that means we had to file some paperwork, get a background check, and petition in front of the court. Understanding the process and how to complete it proved to be very difficult (even the workers sent us to do the wrong things and go to the wrong places.
First, we had to drive an hour to get fingerprint cards to submit. We drove around again to get a background check started after getting some instructions from a county representative, but then it turned out we didn't need to do that (just a bit of wasted money and time). We have our paperwork filed, and we would have to wait a few weeks for the background check and a scheduled court date. We'd have to get back to Livingston to go to court.
We did get to visit our "home base" for a bit, which is always nice. We didn't have to disconnect the trailer, which is good for just a six-day visit.
When we were driving around all day, the Jeep was complaining about its air suspension. We went to the Jeep dealership and noticed one corner was much higher than the others. We'd bent the arm that holds the suspension leveler, so it was confused about what level actually meant. We had it straightened and planned to have the arm replaced. What a day!
We also had a plan to see Nyree in Dallas, so we headed a little north on our way west. We stayed in Arlington, a southern suburb between Dallas and Fort Worth. We really liked the area, but the campground was a bit weird. We had to weave our 72 feet around and through a few spots and accidentally swiped a mail truck just a bit with the trailer. It scuffed paint a bit, but no real damage was done to us or the truck.
The next day, Nyree came to our site and we played Swoop. It was a blast! We had to hurry near the end so we could get to Dallas for a DIFFA fundraiser at Hamburger Mary's. The three of us had never been to a drag show, and we had a great time. We got to meet a bunch of Nyree's friends and went to her house for a bit before heading back to Arlington. Also, we had such a great time that we forgot to take pictures most of the day.
Like many of you, we got sucked into the Black Friday sales. We hit Eddie Bauer pretty hard this year, but at least we're looking good, right?
We spend Thanksgiving in Arlington (Nyree went to Oklahoma to spend it with her family), and this year we took it easy. We often go out to a restaurant that has a Thanksgiving meal served, but it's almost always disappointing. Instead, we ordered everything on Amazon and picked it all up at Whole Foods. Easy!
We only had one National Park to visit -- we drove down to the Waco Mammoth National Monument to check out some dinosaur bones where they were found. There was a tour by a guide, and it was very interesting. We enjoyed the day just getting outside and learning some stuff.
On the way back we stopped at a Buck-ee's because we'd never been. It was huge! There were a million people there, it seemed. We wandered around the store and ended up buying snacks. We're always on the road -- we can always use more snacks.
Our last stop on the way out of Texas was in Monahans, a town in the middle of west Texas on I-20. This is oil and gas land, and it wasn't fancy. But it was friendly. The campground was called a resort (it wasn't), and though we left a voicemail on our first day we never got a call back (there is no office). We booked a pull-through site where we wouldn't have to disconnect the trailer, but our site was too short. We had to disconnect and found our own place to put it. The weather was dreary, so we didn't do much when we were there. This is not a destination, but it was fine.
Texas is such a big state, and it takes a long time to get through it. But we made it and headed off to New Mexico. Texas, we'll see you in 2025!
