journal entry #3,198

Friday January 14, 2011
Port Lavaca, Texas

The weather remains cold and by cold I mean highs in the low 40s. Today there is overcast as well. The wind has died. That's good. Because of the cold windy weather we've been doing a lot of hunkering. And when the 300 square feet of living space gets too small, we've been driving. And not near the surf of the Gulf. The land sure is flat and you really notice it when you drive through nothing but plowed fields with a house or out buildings every half mile or so. I miss the mountains and the big views. This flat land is almost claustrophobic because it's obvious how much of our world is sky and how little of it is land. If that makes sense. There are lots of hawks hunting the plowed fields and there are lots of geese and cranes in those plowed fields too. The houses are mostly crumbling from their encounters with hurricanes. Most of the small towns have many lots with concrete floors where once there stood a building. We agree that neither of us would be comfortable here during hurricane season. 

Matagorda is a cute little coastal town. A big tall bridge takes us out to Matagorda Island and we drive to a collection of vacation homes and condos and then the beach. It looks just like Padre Island except for the shells. Here they litter the beach and many of them are keepers. Hilldog runs like a wild dog and we groove on the surf. There's not much better than a beach. Maybe petrified sand dunes.

end of a decade

My goodness, here it is almost the end of September. The summer has been a busy one and now fall promises to be even more exciting. I'm calling it the season of transition for more reasons than one. Not only will the landscape be transitioning into the dark and cold of winter with very little in the way of vegetation, Dick and I will be transitioning. Our decade of sweet life as full time "trailer trash" is coming to an end. We've ordered a manufactured house for Birdwood and it will be here in just a few more weeks! Our indoor space will suddenly seem vast. Our outdoor space will go from summer to fall to winter to spring if we choose. For ten years we've skipped winter for the most part by driving south and living in the deserts of my beloved southwest, the tropics of Florida, the exotic Texas Gulf coast and a little touch of Southern California's glitter. The older I get the less I like cold weather. I AM liking the thought of a new house and the promise of driving south again after the smell of that new house gets old or my bones get too creaky.

the building site