Who Am I Going to Be Now & Trip Planning

 Location: Hearth of Haynesville RV Park; Mansfield, Louisiana

I'm currently planning a trip that will begin on January 2nd or slightly before since my rent is due on the 2nd. Of course, January trips are really confined to the south unless you want to brave the cold and snow/ice which I don't want to do that. So, my choices are Florida or Mississippi/Alabama or Texas or Arizona/New Mexico. I chose Texas because it feels more like home and that means comfortable. The rough outline of the trip will be to head south, near the town of Sulphur, Louisiana, where I'll visit with my oldest son and his family. While there I'll also make a day trip along the Louisiana Gulf Coast over to Youngsville (about 1 1/2 hours east of Sulphur) to visit with my older and only sister. If you have ever wondered what the Louisiana Gulf Coast/Marshlands look like, you will want to read that future post. After those visits, I'll enter Texas and follow the Texas Gulf Coast down to Corpus Christi before heading inland. I'll make a circle around San Antonio and Austin before heading back to my base camp at Mansfield in early to mid-March. There should be about 20 to 25 campgrounds composed of State Parks and Corps of Engineer Campgrounds. The towing milage will be about 1,700 miles so the distance between campgrounds will average about 100 miles or so. As I start locking down reservations in the next week or two, I'll post about my progress.

This is the preliminary route. I'll firm up the campgrounds with reservations in the next week or so. It is a combination of old familiar places and some that has been on my list for a while. 

My son, Brandon, my grandson Nate and I spent the day exploring Sciport. It was an interesting and learning experience.

After a couple of hours at Sciport and then the Aquarium, we filled our bellies with some nice Mexican food from Pasada's. Good time and good food. 

I've done some routine maintenance on Liberty to get her prepared for the trip. I got her roof sealed up professionally since I didn't want to climb up top. I'll gladly pay a little money to have it done for me. I took care of the main job myself by greasing the bearings on Liberty. It went much easier and quicker than I thought it would. I felt great about getting it done and it only took me two days to physically recover. If you know, you know.

The Trailer Aid did a great job again. If lifted one wheel off the ground so I could grease the bearing using the EZ lube system. If you have a dual axle trailer, you should get one. Be sure to get the Trailer Aid Plus, since that plus gives you the extra inch or so you need. I figure this will be the last time I'll need to do this chore.

A life lesson I learned as a young teenager, surprisingly from a Saturday morning TV show, was, "whenever something major happens to you in your life, whether it is good or bad, you should never ask yourself, 'what is going to happen to me now'. The correct and only question should be 'WHO am I going to be now'. Major life events change who we are. We actually become different people whether we realize it or not. How different depends on how major the life event was and how it affected us. It takes a while for us to adjust to the new us. We gradually improve on the new us to the point where we accept who we are. As you look back over your life you can see different people looking back at you. Perhaps you see the "young and dumb" self before life humbled you. Or the "10 foot tall and bullet-proof" self before you learned there is always someone or something larger than you. The point is that life events change us and those events usually make us look inside ourselves and we re-evaluate who and what we are. The time to process all of this can be either short or long. I plan to get a handle on the new me by the conclusion of the trip. 

This is from Grandparents Day at Nate's school. It was the first one that Kathy wasn't physically at.

Sunrises are messages from God signaling "new beginnings", right?

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.