“Sometimes,
the road less traveled…is less traveled for a reason.” Jerry Seinfeld
Carol writes: It had never been our plan at the outset of this
life on the road to spend the summer in the southern part of the country known
for scorching deserts in the southwest and high heat and humidity in the east, but that’s exactly where we had been living
the last three months of our new lifestyle.
We had left Colorado at the end of April to spend some time with our
daughter in Clovis, New Mexico. After
that visit, we had planned to reverse course and head to Oregon and Washington
State for the summer. However, news of our
daughter’s knee surgery, which was now scheduled to take place in San Antonio
at Brooke Army Medical Center in early August, necessitated a change of direction. We were told she would require a “responsible
adult” immediately after surgery and then for a period of several weeks to help
her with daily activities while she was in a rigid knee brace that would allow
no weight bearing whatsoever on the affected knee.
Hmmm…In a matter of weeks we had sold our home of
25 years, we had just embarked on a nomadic life-on-the-road in an RV, and we had willingly
left the comfort zone of our life in Colorado.
In spite of all that, we firmly insisted we would still qualify as the “responsible
adults.”
FREDERICKSBURG, TEXAS
So, there we were--heading to San Antonio, with a
tentative arrival date in early August at a campground within sight of Brooke
Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston.
We had enjoyed our days in Fredericksburg, had met very interesting
fellow campers, and took plenty advantage of what there was to see and do. We especially enjoyed one of our rare
opportunities to take a hike to the top of a massive granite dome at Enchanted
Rock State Park, with its bountiful desert landscape of prickly pear cactus
that we loved so much.
The view from the top was worth the climb!
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At sunset we watched a fascinating emergence of over
a million Mexican free-tailed bats as they left their daytime home in an old
railway tunnel and headed out for a night of feeding.
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In spite of the midsummer heat, we got in a day
trip to a farm that cultivates wildflower seeds.
Only a few fields were in bloom this late in the
summer, but they were lovely.
And finally…we couldn’t leave Texas Hill Country
without sampling a little of the local wine at Grape Creek Vineyards. The opportunity to experience a winery tour
that ended up in the tasting room where we could pick six tasting selections
was the selling point for our choice of Grape Creek.
For us, the oppressive summer heat of Texas had
proved to be a challenge for any outdoor activities, but thus far our motorhome’s
three rooftop air conditioners had kept us cool and comfortable indoors…until
the day toward the end of our stay in Fredericksburg when, out of nowhere, we
suddenly heard a loud, worrisome banging sound coming from the roof at the back
of the coach in the bedroom and bathroom area.
After a quick check, Al concluded that we were no longer getting cool
air out of any “zone 3” (rear air conditioner) vents. Uh-oh!
After a conversation with Entegra Technical Support,
we decided it would be best to skip the week we had planned to spend in Austin
and head directly to San Antonio, where there was an RV repair service that
could do on-site repairs at the campground.
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
Skipping a visit to Austin meant that we would be
at our San Antonio rendezvous with daughter Megan a week early--and that was no
big deal--until suddenly the date of surgery was postponed for two weeks. Time to “make lemonade out of lemons” and
take advantage of seeing more of San Antonio than we thought we could…
Over the next several days, we watched as the
temps hit the triple digit mark, and then some!
Thankfully, we had a nice campsite with one
precious tree for shade.
As promised, a week later a new air conditioner arrived
and was installed on site. We were once
again totally cool and comfy. When the
cover was removed from the damaged unit, we discovered that two of the bolts
holding the fan/motor unit had loosened and one had sheared off, sending the fan
unit cartwheeling inside the cover, thus causing the pounding sound we had heard. Thinking back to a horribly bumpy stretch on
I-10 sort of led us to an understanding of how events had probably played out…
There are a lot of things to see and do in San
Antonio!
For
a start, the lovely greenhouses and display gardens of the San Antonio Botanical
Garden,
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with remnants of an
ancient aquifer system on the grounds.
A
day of tubing on the Guadalupe River, a very popular and much-loved Texas
tradition…
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Those who are really into tubing know to tie the
group’s tubes together and add an extra tube in the middle for lunch and “cold
drinks.”
Dinner
at the San Antonio River Walk
Note to self for next time: Don’t do the River Walk until the sun has
set. The river is below street level,
resulting in no breeze to speak of, and it is sweltering at this time of
year. Notice the pained smiles you see on
our faces in the pic above.
To date, we are very pleased with the convenient location
of our campground on the grounds of historic Fort Sam Houston. The hospital looms large on the south side of
our campground. Termed BAM-C for short, this
medical facility has a long tradition of treating our country’s most severely
wounded warriors. Some consider it to be
the crown jewel of military treatment facilities.
Slowly, but surely, the weeks were passing
by as we waited for the day of surgery. Besides playing tourist, we kept
busy with workouts at the gym on ‘Fort Sam’, took advantage of the pool on
super-hot days, and Al even got in a couple of rounds of golf. On his last round Al scored his best game
ever since his postgraduate days in Monterey.
Best to savor that game for a while…
History fans that we are, for our next
blog post I have saved what we think is the best of San Antonio .
“Problems are only opportunities
in work clothes.” Henry J. Kaiser
