Easter Sunday

16 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by wyndes in Personal, Randomness

There are many nice things about my current campground (aka my dad’s driveway), but not the least of them is that there was a chocolate bunny waiting on the kitchen table for me this morning. Happy Easter!

I feel the tiniest bit of guilt that it didn’t even occur to me to send my own kid a chocolate bunny, but he probably would have been very surprised and maybe even skeptical if I had. I’m sure he wouldn’t worry that I was poisoning him, but he would definitely wonder about my inspiration: I was never much good at the candy holidays. Or rather, I was never much good at remembering the candy on the candy holidays — I’d be perfectly happy to be cooking him a nice Easter dinner, it just wouldn’t come with sugar attached.

Last night, I had dinner with my whole family, missing only my own kid. My brother and SIL and his two kids were visiting FL and my sister and her kids live here, so the ten of us went out for pizza. It was definitely a belated birthday celebrations: balloons and flowers on the table and I, at least briefly, wore a tiara celebrating my 50 years. Everyone filled up on delicious-looking pizza, except for my youngest niece and me — I don’t know what M’s inspiration was, but I knew there was gluten-free chocolate cake waiting for me. And now there’s lots of leftover chocolate cake waiting for me. 🙂

On Thursday, I went to Universal with my brother and his family. Universal has these express tickets, where you can pay extra (on an already expensive day) to shorten the lines. I’d say skip the lines, but in fact they sell so many of these passes that you’re still in line, just not for hours. But my brother got two of them for the kids, with the idea, I think, that the kids would go on all the rides together.

Good plan. Except M wanted to spend more time at Diagon Alley, so H and I took the passes and went off and rode roller coasters together. After lunch, we met up with the others at Hogsmeade, and went on the big Harry Potter ride over there. Unfortunately, H and my SIL were really not feeling well, so at 2 or so, my brother took them back to the hotel, and M and I took the express passes and played.

And played. And played some more. Twelve-year olds have a lot of energy. I can’t say that we did ALL the things, because I don’t do rides that spin, but we came as close as we could manage by about 7:30 at night. Spiderman, Hulk, the dueling dragons, all the water rides… we got completely soaking wet, ate ice cream, got a henna tattoo (for M), bought candy in Hogsmeade… had a really good, classic theme park sort of day.

Yesterday, I really deserved to sleep late. Or maybe spend all day sitting by a swimming pool. But instead my dad and I washed the van, put air in the tires, I took care of email and bills, and then I took my nephew and niece Pokemon-hunting. Poor H, who is going to remember Universal through a blur of nausea, at least got to put a Pokemon in a gym in Lake County. I hope it lasts for more than a day or two.

I still haven’t figured out the next stage of my travel plans. I’m hoping that Serenity gets her fixes sometime this week, which means I should be deciding where I’m headed next. Georgia? South Carolina? Beaches or mountains? North Carolina? There are so many places I’d like to see, but I’m still really tempted to just find someplace to sit still and write, write, write.

Hometown minutiae

13 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by wyndes in Boring, Personal, Randomness, Yoga

≈ 4 Comments

I had weird dreams last night: the kind that are not so disconnected from the real world as to be impossible (no flying, no spaceships, no monsters) but that are mystifyingly implausible. In one of them, I was taking on the responsibility of raising the infant of a friend’s son. I woke up from that one trying to figure out how I was going to change diapers in Serenity — the actual logistics of storing diapers and wipes and clean cloths and that kind of thing, and was both relieved and a tiny bit disappointed when I woke all the way up. I’m obviously not going to be raising any children while living in a van, and I can’t imagine how I would end up being the person responsible for that specific imagined kid, but I do like babies. The other dreams are all a lot less vivid now — can’t remember a single detail — but all had that same sense of taking on impractical responsibilities that don’t belong to me. At the time, they were mysterious, but looked at in the cold light of day, it’s more obvious to me where my brain was wandering.

This morning I went to yoga with my dad. If I had dreamed that ten years ago, it would have been mystifyingly implausible. If I had dreamed it two years ago, it would have been surreally unlikely. As it was, it was very fun. I haven’t been able to do real yoga at all while living in Serenity. I have about twenty different video classes saved on an iPad, but it’s too small inside to even do a good stretch, and outside… well, there’s uneven ground, dirt, heat, bugs, observers — a bunch of things that have disinclined me to make that choice. Going to a class reminded me of how much I love it, though, and how great it feels. The instructor suggested putting my mat on a picnic table and doing it there and I really ought to try that. Observers to be ignored, of course.

Right now I’m parked in my dad’s driveway, one of my favorite camping spots, looking forward to a quiet day today and a busy day tomorrow. The last few days have been busy-busy, with lots of stuff that realistically I could have done any time but somehow I saved until I was back in central Florida. Example: after more than eight months, I finally went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and bought small bins that fit inside the medicine chest. When I opened up the medicine chest this morning, nothing fell out on me. It was so exciting! Why I didn’t do this somewhere along the way, I can’t say. Some tasks still feel like things you should do at home and central Florida still feels like home. I wonder how long that feeling will last?

I also bought a new garlic press. When I still had a house, I had three garlic presses, and I decided I didn’t need them when I was getting rid of things. It’s the one kitchen item that I have regularly looked for, not found, and — with regret — remembered that I thought I didn’t need. I thought I might have kept one in the storage unit, so I looked when I was cleaning it out on Saturday, but nope, I truly did get rid of all three of them. I’m going to have to make something with garlic really soon to try the new one out. Maybe salad dressing for dinner tonight.

I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be in central Florida. I’d hoped I’d be able to head north next Monday, but Serenity still needs some warranty work done. The sink in the bathroom is broken (again — 3rd time) and the heated tank system is falling off. So I’m busy making fun local plans for next week — Pokemon hunting with a friend one night, visiting another friend at her childhood home for a couple days, lunch with a third friend — but also trying to decide what makes sense for the three weeks between the time the van might feasibly be repaired and when I need to be back in Florida.

Three weeks feels like forever — that would have been a great stretch of vacation for me ten years ago, certainly sufficient to have any kind of adventure, up to and including driving to the Grand Canyon and back again! — and not nearly long enough. What I really wish is that I could find a place that I love to settle down and finish Grace. But I suspect I could easily spend three weeks just trying to find such a place. If it weren’t so hot here, I’d just stay in Florida. And maybe I’ll do that anyway, but I’m having to run the AC for the dogs most of the time, which is not my favorite thing. Decisions, decisions!

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A happy birthday

09 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by wyndes in Food, Movies, Personal, Serenity

≈ 9 Comments

On my birthday morning, I woke up around 5AM and it was cold enough in the van that I decided I needed a comforter, so I pulled it out, unfolded it, snuggled down — and then Zelda came and snuggled under the covers with me, tucking her head into my shoulder and lying on her back so that I could rub her belly. I love it when she does that. Really, truly love it. And that’s pretty much how my birthday went.

Jumping back in time, R arrived Thursday night in time for dinner at the Bistro, the fancy restaurant in the retirement community where my parents live. We hadn’t planned on going but that day they won a gift certificate for it, and reservations were available that night, so away we went. When we got there, I was waiting to be seated when my dad said, “I think you can figure out which one is our table.” It was the one with balloons and presents. I was surprised, charmed, and pleased, which was fun. On Friday, of course, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all (although I still would have been charmed and pleased — I like balloons and presents!), but it was fun to have that surprise factor.

Dinner was terrific, as it always is there. It’s not just a good restaurant by retirement community standards, it’s a good restaurant by any standards. But the fact that it’s a small community and the waitstaff all know the patrons really does make it exceptional. Instead of helping me find a gluten-free option on the menu, the cook made a modified sauce for my meal. And they all sang Happy Birthday to me along with a candle in my ice cream, but it wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as it usually would be, because I’ve chatted with most of them before and they all know my parents. It was just nice. It felt very celebratory.

In the morning, I got to feed R breakfast — the third-best commonly-available yogurt (IMO), fresh blueberries, and my homemade granola. He approved. Since he’s the first person to try my granola except for me, I was pleased, although realistically, it’s not like he would have told me that my granola was terrible on my birthday. Or any day. But I think he really did like it, except maybe for the dried blueberries, which I’m not so excited about either.

Afterwards, we went off to a hardware store to buy a part to repair damage I inflicted on Serenity the day before by trying to go under a roof (yes, stupid! but we are not dwelling on that, it is what it is), and to Starbucks to collect my free birthday treat. And we stopped by Goodwill, too. It felt so cozy to be running errands with my dad and my son. Like snuggling with Zelda in the morning, it was the kind of everyday that I don’t get everyday and so appreciate all the more.

For lunch, R and I ate roast beef rolled with horseradish cheddar cheese, a little mayo, and arugula. It is a perfect taste combination, one that I just discovered recently, so am still enamored with.

After lunch, we went to Beauty & the Beast. I’d suggested a few different options to R for my birthday activity — a Segway tour of Mount Dora, kayaking, thrift-store shopping, or the movies — and the movie won. That movie is pretty close to a sure thing: enjoyable for all ages, impressive eye candy, fun and nostalgic, and we all liked it.

For dinner, we were intending to go to a pizza place with good gluten-free options with my sister and her kids but they were unfortunately all sick, so we went to Bonefish Grill instead. I had the special of Georges Bank scallops on parmesan risotto, which the waitress was told was gluten-free. Honestly, I don’t believe it on the gluten-free part — I asked, but I expected to be disappointed, and I was surprised when she said it wasn’t — but it was absolutely delicious. I don’t even care if I’m paying for it on Tuesday & Wednesday. I will tough it out, knowing that it’s a gluten-reaction, and it will have been worth it.

I had a little bit of a low point in the afternoon, when I was getting dressed for dinner. I’m not sure why, really. Maybe it was just low blood sugar. But I was really missing my mom. I adore my stepmother (and I know she reads my blog, but it’s true and I’d say it anyway!) and I’d had a really nice day, but… I don’t know, I just wanted my mom. I went into the kitchen to get a drink and my dad had picked up the mail and left a card for me on the table. It was from my aunt and uncle with a very generous gift, but an even nicer message. I had to go into the bathroom and cry, but not in a bad way at all — it just felt like my aunt gave me an immense long-distance hug at exactly the moment I needed it.

After dinner, I got a couple more presents — an induction cooktop and an immersion blender. Yep, the longer I live in Serenity, the more complicated I get with the cooking. But I’m looking forward to playing with both of those toys. I miss making soup and the induction cooktop means I can cook anything outside. It’ll be like setting up a little outdoor kitchen. Yes, there is bacon in my future. Also soup. Lots of soup, I hope!

On Saturday, R and I went off to a matinee of Your Name, an anime that I’d seen a review of somewhere. When I first mentioned it to him, he rejected it, thinking I was talking about some other movie, and I’m so glad I persisted, because it was amazing. Not in the popcorn movie sense of Beauty & the Beast, where the movie is perfectly straightforward and not likely to cause any tension (although I did shed a tear when Mrs. Potts was searching for Chip at the end). But it was captivating and interesting and… I think the review said something like “go see it and when you’re done, go see it again” and yeah, that was pretty much what I felt like doing. Instead I waved good-bye to R and went off to spend the next three hours cleaning out my storage unit.

Alas, rats had gotten into the storage unit. Or is that yay, rats got into the storage unit? It was much, much easier to let go of some of the things that I’d been holding onto — linens, blankets, stuffed animals, even pictures — when they were covered in rodent droppings and/or chewed on. The woman at the storage place let me use the dumpster, probably grateful that I wasn’t yelling about the damage. I also let go of two boxes of books, a lamp, and most of the remaining kitchen items, although they were dropped off at Goodwill. I’ve got four bins, a cedar chest, a chair, and a small table left, and I’m hoping to move all of them up to my brother’s basement. Sometime this week I will see how the cedar chest fits into Serenity, because it’s the big issue. Beyond those things, I’ve got some pieces of luggage and a vacuum cleaner left to figure out. And three paintings. But I’m really close to having simplified as much as I ever hope to. And it only took me a year longer than I wanted it to! A year ago today, in fact, I was looking around the house debating whether I should try another garage sale and feeling pretty wiped out after the two previous days of selling. It’s amazing how there’s always more stuff to get rid of.

As a combined result of birthday presents and cleaning out the storage unit, I spent a big chunk of the evening and today reorganizing Serenity. I was prepared to let go of the kayak. Instead, I let go of some clothes, some dishes, some containers, and a blanket. And it doesn’t feel over-stuffed. I think I have it organized enough that all of things that I want are accessible to me. There’s still some stuff I’d like to do — I’d like to get bins for the medicine cabinet, so stuff doesn’t always fall out on me, and maybe the same for spices. And it’s funny to see how my use of space is evolving. With every passing month, the kitchen supplies take more room, clothes and entertainment get less. Although I guess the kayak counts as entertainment and it gets a lot of space. But I was thinking of the cupboards, not all the storage.

Anyway, this is a long, rambling post and probably not of interest to anyone but me. But ten years from now, I do want to look back on this birthday as it is right now, not as I will remember it then. We were talking about my fortieth birthday at dinner and it was a reasonably dramatic birthday as they go, so the stories were of C’s broken arm and T’s tears and who had the stomach flu. It was only later that I remembered the fireworks and the calm when it was just R and me, home with Zelda, and I was so glad to be just us again. This birthday was very nice, most excellent, and ten years from now, I really don’t want to remember it as the weekend when I crunched Serenity and rats invaded the storage unit. It was a weekend of many treats, much delicious food, cozy family time, and both nostalgia and joy. A happy birthday, indeed.

Edited to add: I can’t believe I forgot this already. I can see this will be a process…

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Mount Dora

05 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by wyndes in Boring, Personal, Randomness

≈ 11 Comments

The word breathtaking is a cliche, but the sunrise was so lovely this morning that I only realized I was holding my breath when I started to run out of air. I suspect it wasn’t me finally breathing that made the heron fly away — at the same time Zelda pulled the leash out of my hand and rustled through the leaves — but I was sad to see it go. Then it settled on an overhead branch and annoyed a squirrel, making me laugh. A day that starts with incredible beauty and laughter probably has no place to go but down, but I’m going to be more optimistic than that.

This is my birthday week — I turn 50 on Friday! — so I’m being really nice to myself. Or trying, anyway. I decided to give myself a present every day. Socks on Sunday. On Monday, I got my “Nevertheless She Persisted” t-shirt from Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, which I decided counted. Yesterday, I set out to buy hair ties — yes, I’m not being elaborate in my gifts to myself — but my dad bought me a gluten-free butter pecan cupcake, so that was my present instead. Today, I don’t know. I’m really hoping to get some writing done, but… well, I guess that’s how I’m not being nice to myself. I’ve been really beating myself up about not getting more done over the past few days, like that’s ever done me any good at all. But I am going to endeavor to find some way of being nice to myself today. Maybe it’ll be the hair ties.

I did manage to add an email subscription field to the blog. Right there, over on the left hand side, above the mailing list subscription, you can enter your email address if you’d like to get email notifications of new posts. Personally, I would hate that. An RSS reader, like feedly, lets you subscribe to lots of blogs and read them at your convenience instead of having notifications pile up in your inbox. But I’ve been informed by relatives and people who try to follow posts on Facebook that I could make it easier for them to find new posts if they could subscribe, so subscribe away. I do warn you, though: I am not going to feel guilty for cluttering up your email by writing multiple posts in a week if I have lots of things I want to write about. On your own heads be it!

In other boring business things, I’m going to start adding Amazon affiliate links to the bottom of my posts. If you start your shopping at Amazon by clicking on an affiliate link, I’ll get a percentage of whatever you buy for the next few hours. The items don’t have to be related to anything on my site or my posts. So if you read a post of mine and think, hmm, maybe I should buy some hair ties, and go to Amazon and while you’re shopping there, stumble across a really good deal on a $600 vacuum cleaner and buy that, Amazon might give me $6. That would be nice for me and more to the point, it would make my blog a much better tax deduction. Yes, I did my taxes yesterday. No, I probably shouldn’t have done my taxes during a week when I was trying to be kind to myself. So it goes.

I’m actually not at all down about turning 50, although this post does sort of sound like I am. My brother (aka Best Brother Ever) has given me a fantastic birthday present, which I will collect in May; R is visiting me this weekend so I get to spend time with him; and honestly, everyone should turn 50 feeling so good about how they’re spending their life. I think I’m just frustrated today that I have too many things I want to do and not enough time to do them. And I’ve wasted too much time on things that don’t really matter, like, why, oh, why, are the two Subscribe buttons different sizes and how can I make them be the same size? Answer: no idea, no idea, and I could have spent three hours writing a book instead of trying to figure it out.

I think I will go bake some more granola, walk the dogs again, admire the incredible beauty of the park I’m in (Trimble Park, Mount Dora), and then try to settle in to writing some good words on Grace. Because at the end of the day, those things will make it a very good day.

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Best of March 2017

01 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by wyndes in Best of, Serenity, Travel

≈ Comments Off on Best of March 2017

Twelve campgrounds, six states. March was a busy month! And it’s a challenge to choose what was best because I enjoyed so many of them so much. Galveston Beach, where I said I would happily live, didn’t even make the top three. Neither did Matagorda Bay, which was number one in February.

But March has Kolomoki Mounds. I’ve been paddling, had easy three-mile walks with Zelda, wrote outside with the dogs at my feet, climbed the mound and admired the horizon, tried to envision life as it was a thousand years ago, appreciated beautiful sunrises and sunsets… It’s a great view, a great site, a beautiful campground, even nice showers. The one thing I’m not so excited about with Kolomoki Mounds has absolutely nothing to do with the park: my allergies hit “take a pill, already” levels yesterday and so I’m kind of feeling drugged out and slow and sleepy. Which is better than yesterday’s burning eyes, itching, and congestion, but still not a thrill.

Plus, March had Arkansas and Lake Catherine. I think appreciating a place is partly based on what it is, partly on what you bring to it, and partly on when you’re there. I was in Arkansas at so the right time. There were so many incredible purple flowers. People whose gardens bordered the road had beds of irises, all in bloom, a wash of purple across the bright green of leaves and grass. In one place, wisteria was growing wild, in full bloom, and it reached high into the sky. On trees, of course, that were probably not all that grateful to have a predatory vine twenty feet up their trunks, but still, it was stunning. I was driving by and there was no place to stop so I couldn’t take a picture, but the color was so surprising that I hit the brakes hard and then had to be grateful there was no one behind me. Also lilacs (I’m pretty sure) in bloom and violets growing in the grass. And Lake Catherine is forever going to be associated for me with the sound of the laugh of the little boy in the next-door camper — that unrestrained gurgle of joy. If they hadn’t been my neighbors… well, I’d still be smiling at the memories, but it wouldn’t be the same smile.

In a different month, either of those (these?) two places could easily take the top of the list. But I’m going way back to the beginning of the month and giving the best of March 2017 to Palmetto State Park. In a month of so many good days, so much serenity and joy, the day that I spent at Palmetto still lingers in my memory as perfection. (Except for the mice. So almost perfection, I guess.) I remember it in colors of green and gold and red: the fun of exploration; the beauty of the wildflowers and the tree humming with bees; the thrill of hopping along stepping stones; the warmth of sitting in the sun with a snuggly dog in my lap; the satisfaction of writing well.

I’ve been living in Serenity for eight months now, and they’ve flown by. They’ve not been un-stressful. Things have gone wrong, it’s been a huge adjustment, and I’m still working all the time to figure out how to live more comfortably in such a small and mobile space. But March as a whole feels like the month where it all came together, where an awful lot of the time I lived in a continual state of awareness, acceptance, appreciation, and anticipation.

In other words, happiness.

Lake Catherine State Park, Arkansas

19 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by wyndes in Campground, Grace, Randomness, Serenity, Travel

≈ 3 Comments

I’m sitting outside, computer in my lap, both dogs roaming around in the piles of dead leaves around me. The sun is shining, there’s a cool breeze off the lake blowing wisps of hair into my face, the birds are incredibly noisy, and I am feeling supremely content. The only improvement in my mood would be if I could write myself through this stupid scene in Grace. Actually, the major improvement in my mood would be if I could finish Grace and move to some other project, but enough said about that.

Yesterday, I left Oklahoma reasonably early and took the scenic drive to Arkansas. The first part was by far the most exciting: the road that my GPS took me down—well, up, really—was a logging road. Dirt and gravel, narrow and steep. It was ten minutes of thinking, “Oh, shit, what happens if I run into someone else on this road?” And then I did run into someone else, two someone elses, in fact!

Fortunately, I was on the side that could tuck into the hill, so I pulled over as far as I could without winding up crunched and they passed by on the scarier side, waving at me as they did. But the adrenaline and the excitement and the… the sheer FUN of the uncertainty was great. I was so worried that the road was going to come to an abrupt end and I would have to figure out how to turn around or how to back all the way down. Backing all the way down would have been disastrous. And then when it let me out onto this itty-bitty two-lane road, which turned out to be the scenic highway, I was so pleased. I stopped at a bunch of scenic vistas and took pictures of clouds. Look, more clouds!

I had just enough glimpses beyond the clouds that it was obvious that it was a really, really pretty road. In better weather. Someday, I will try again.

Arkansas, meanwhile, has been delightful. I emerged from the clouds into sunshine and spring, just as I’d hoped. For a lot of the drive, the woods alongside the road were simultaneously autumn and spring — lots of trees that hadn’t lost their orange and red leaves from fall yet, interspersed with pink plum trees. (I think plum trees.) But very lovely.

Because I needed dog food, I wound up coming all the way down to Hot Springs, and then beyond to Lake Catherine State Park. (Zelda will consistently eat Fresh Pet and their website lets me know where I can find it locally, but it’s not always available within a 50 mile range. I couldn’t find it in Oklahoma or my first stop in Arkansas, Mena, so I kept driving until I did.) The park had one campsite available, because of a cancellation, and it was available for four days, so I took it. And here I sit, ridiculously cheerful.

It’s the sun, I think. Well, and also, the campground is packed with happy families having fun camping, which is enjoyable to listen to. There’s water (surprise, a lake at the Lake Catherine park!), and trails, and people with boats, and kids on bikes and skateboards and it feels like… Spring? Vacation? Joy. It feels like joy.

Last night, I sat in Serenity watching other people’s flickering campfires and smelling wood smoke and appreciating the bare branches of trees against the dark sky with its sprinkling of stars. This morning, the sunrise was golden-orange against the same dark branches. I couldn’t find gluten-free granola in any of my most recent stores, so I’m baking some of my own and the van smells delicious, of coconut oil and baked oats and cinnamon. I’ve got a Verizon signal, but no T-mobile, so my internet is very limited, but I will still be able to talk to R today. The previous campers left behind a rawhide chew, so Z is having a very good time burying it in the leaves, then moving it to another spot and burying it again. All these little random pieces, they add up to happiness.

And now I have to open up Grace and ruin my mood. *sigh. But I’m going to give it one hour, timed, and then I’m going to do other things: a hike, maybe; dragging out the kayak, maybe; making myself some delicious lunch, maybe. Maybe all three!

Shortchanging Oklahoma

18 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by wyndes in Serenity, Travel

≈ 10 Comments

Yes, I am in Oklahoma! And yes, I feel like I should be singing. I wonder how many other people have that reaction? While I was driving, I was thinking about everything I know about Oklahoma (short version: almost nothing) and how strange it was to be in a national forest that I truly had never heard of before. Ouachita National Forest. Spell check doesn’t like that, so maybe I’ve spelled it wrong, but I think spell check is actually just as ignorant as I am.

My plan was to stay at Beavers Bend, a state park recommended by a reader (hi, Kyla!) through the weekend, at a primitive camping site — no water or electric. But when I got there, the park was bustling. So many people! So many cars! I drove slowly through the park, or maybe part of it, trying to figure out how to register for a camping site, but there was no parking anywhere and much traffic. I wound up heading back out the same way I came in, still looking for the camping headquarters, and when I got to the end of the road, I pulled into a forest service parking lot and started looking for a different campground. It really did look like a great location — there was a sandwich shop at the end of the road that had a sign up reading “organic, gluten-free” and I still can’t believe I didn’t take advantage, but even that parking lot was totally full. I’m guessing Oklahoma has spring break this week.

Reserve America had a walk-ins only campground listed that looked a reasonable driving distance away, so I got back on the road and headed north again. My bigger plan was to drive the scenic Talimena Highway into Arkansas when I’d spent a few days in Oklahoma. Imagine my surprise when I drove right by said highway on my way to my campground. Oops. Yep, I am geographically challenged. I hadn’t realized I was as close as I was to my intended final Oklahoma destination. Too long spent living in Florida and California, I guess, where halfway up the state is a long, long drive, and not enough perspective on the bits of map I was looking at.

But I kept going and made it to Cedar Lake. I drove slowly through the campground, again looking for the ranger station, the place where usually someone is waiting to take your money. I didn’t find the ranger station (it doesn’t exist) but wow, there are a ton of horses here. One loop is an equestrian campground and there are probably 30 sites occupied by people with horse trailers and horses. I really love the idea of people taking their horses on vacation with them — it just seems so friendly — but I’m guessing that there must be some horse event this weekend somewhere nearby. If I had internet, I’d try to find out, but I wouldn’t even know how to start the search.

I finally figured out that there was a fee station, where you fill out your info and put your money in an envelope and leave it for someone to collect. But this campground is also pretty full. I wound up in a spot that is just big enough for Serenity and sloped. If I had a tent, it would be perfect, because it’s a really nice tent spot. View of the water and everything. But the parking area (as opposed to the tent area) is not level enough to be an ideal camper spot.

And the weather… well, it’s not spring yet. I wish I could stay for two weeks, because it will be spring in two weeks, the hints of it are everywhere. There are violets growing in amongst the trees and the occasional pink flowering tree in full flower. But far more of the branches are barren and gray still, and the sky is overcast and gloomy and I… I am just sick of the rain.

So I only paid for one night here and my new revised plan is to head out tomorrow, drive the scenic Talimena Highway and wind up in Arkansas. A lower elevation is likely to be a little more spring-like, I think, so instead of a few days in the hills of Oklahoma — (Seriously, the hills of Oklahoma? I had no idea, my mental image of Oklahoma is entirely oil fields and plains and scenes from the musical) — I’ll have a week to spend in Arkansas.

And hopefully it will at least be nice enough tomorrow to make my scenic drive a little scenic. Today was so cloudy that at points I was driving through dense fog. Super gray, misty, beautifully spooky, but no visibility at all. If tomorrow is the same, my scenic drive will be scenic only in my imagination. It was fun driving through the fog — I like spooky in most circumstances — but I’d like to actually get to see some of Oklahoma before I leave it.

Sanders Cove

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by wyndes in Campground, Personal, R, Travel

≈ 6 Comments

On Sunday, I was chatting with R and he asked me how I was doing. For some reason, maybe because it was R, maybe because he sounded genuinely interested, maybe just because of the space I was in, I opened my mouth to answer, “Great,” and instead, “I’m really getting tired of camping,” slipped out.

There was a pause. And then he said, ever so politely, “How unfortunate.”

I laughed.

Yes, it is unfortunate to get tired of camping when one lives in a camper. I wrote to a friend recently that I’m one of those sensible campers who, when it gets too uncomfortable, says, “Okay, it’s time to go home now.” Ah, yes, home. That would be right where I am, right? Which at the time was a crowded campground in the dreary rain.

Fortunately, yesterday I left said campground and headed north. I was a little worried about the drive: I’ve been aiming for two hours between destinations but yesterday was five. I shouldn’t have worried. Five hours is actually better than two, I think, because somewhere past two hours but before three, I hit the fun driving zone where being on the road started to feel like an adventure again. I was driving through cute little Texas towns — Athens, Paris — and along roads with real ranches. Also roadkill galore — dead deer, skunks, armadillos. Younger R used to get upset about the roadkill in Florida, but northern Texas has Florida beat by a mile. Or maybe their vultures aren’t as efficient. And so many places with lawn statues for sale! Bugs on bicycles, giant dinosaurs, all kinds of fun stuff. I drove through a town called Canton that obviously has an incredible flea market (on the first weekend of the month), with probably a mile of road that felt like an event waiting to happen. A ghost flea market.

In Paris, I stopped for groceries. Google let me know that I had a choice between two local stores or Walmart, so of course I went to one of the local stores. Wrong choice, I guess, but at least I didn’t need much. The dog food was $16.99 (instead of the $12.99 I usually pay); the only granola that was gluten-free was actually Chex Mix; and I should have read the label on the yogurt before I bought it because I took one bite this morning, and only then discovered that the second ingredient is sugar. Oh, well. They did have these mega packs of meat that I wavered over for a while: $19.95 for four or five packages of different things — pork, chicken, ground beef. If I had a bigger freezer, I might have gone for it. Generally speaking, though, it was not a grocery store conducive to the shopping habits of a single person on a restrictive diet. I bought myself some spice gum drops as a consolation prize and even they were a disappointment. (I can’t remember if I mentioned this before but HEB, another local Texas store, has the best spice gumdrops I have ever tested. They might have spoiled me for all other versions.) It was still fun, though. In the past month, I’ve been to Trader Joe’s, CostCo, and Walmart, because they had things that I needed/wanted. But they’re all alike. Trader Joe’s in Texas might as well be Trader Joe’s in Florida or in California. Wandering around someplace different was good for me.

Post grocery store, I continued north to my campground. It’s my first Army Corps of Engineers campground and what a pleasant surprise. I’m not particularly good at researching my campground destinations. It takes a ton of time, it uses up my precious internet data at an appalling rate, and I haven’t figured out my priorities yet. Does a good view beat a level spot? Sometimes. Is proximity to the showers good or bad? It depends. Most everything feels like “it depends” to me, except space between campers (the more the better) and access to nature. I would never have figured out how nice this campground was from the internet because one of its advantages is that it’s really hilly. The sites are terraced up the hill, so that they all get a wonderful view of the lake. And it’s still winter here! Unlike southern Texas, the trees are mostly bare, with the occasional exception of a white flowering tree that might be a sweet olive. I can’t say for sure, because I haven’t gotten close enough to smell them and it is so cold — 37 degrees when I was walking Zelda this morning — that the smell isn’t carrying on the breeze. Or maybe I’m just too congested to tell.

But my window looks directly west, over the lake. Last night, my neighbors down the hill from me were sitting out around their table, chatting with one another. I felt sort of silly as I kept opening the window to take picture after picture of the scene behind them, because they were looking toward me. But I also wanted to call down to them, “turn around, turn around, look at what’s behind you.” It was the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen in weeks.

No filter, no enhancement. It was really that beautiful.

Last night, I left all the windows in the van uncovered. In most campgrounds, it feels… vulnerable, I guess, to be sitting in the camper with the darkness all around me. When it gets dark, I put the covers over the windshield and front windows, close the blinds on the kitchen window, pull down the shades over the side windows, hang up a magnetic curtain over the sliding door window, and pull the shower curtain in the back. It’s part of the evening routine, usually done before washing all the dishes and taking the trash out. But I didn’t bother last night. Instead I went to sleep looking at the stars in the black sky, between the bare branches of trees.

So this morning — ridiculously early — I woke up when it got light. Not light because of the sunrise, light because of the full moon. Zelda thought it was probably time to get up and it took me a while to convince her that no, we were not going outside in the not-quite-freezing cold to walk. I wanted to say “walk in the dark” but it really wasn’t dark. The light wasn’t warm, it was a cool blue light, but it was definitely bright enough that we could have wandered around the campground without worrying about tripping or running into things.

When we finally did get up, at sunrise instead of moonrise, the moon was still in the sky. So were huge flocks of birds. I have no idea what the birds were, but hundreds of them flew overhead, close enough that I could hear the beating of their wings, like taffeta rustling. They were sort of quacky birds, not cheeping or trilling, but I don’t think they were ducks. As I’m writing, another huge flock is floating down the river. They’re white — sea gulls, maybe? Geese? I’m going to have to try to get a closer look, because I really can’t tell. They’re just white dots drifting along the blue water. The flock this morning was the typical dark spots against the sky, definitely not geese because they were much too small.

Between the sunset, the stars, the moon, the birds, the water — well, and most likely, the fact that it did not rain yesterday and might not today either! — I am, at least for today, no longer tired of camping.

Yogurt and mushrooms

09 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by wyndes in Food, Recipes, Serenity

≈ 7 Comments

I bought a new brand of yogurt at the grocery store the other day — I always like trying new things — but when I ate it with my breakfast granola, I didn’t like it nearly as much as the incredibly good Greek yogurt I’ve been eating. It was really good yogurt, though, just not what I wanted for breakfast. So yesterday I made up yogurt recipes.

Early in the day, I made salad dressing: some yogurt, some olive oil, some finely chopped garlic, the juice of half a lime, a teaspoon or so of honey, and several chopped-up mint leaves. I let it sit in the fridge for a few hours so the flavors would mix, then had it on a salad of green leaf lettuce, thinly sliced cucumbers, radish and red onion. I was expecting it to feel Greek — because of the mint and cucumber, I expect — but I think the lime and the honey made it different. It was delicious, though.

Then for dinner, I made a mushroom sauce to go over steak. I used to hate mushrooms — really, full-bore hatred. I thought they were disgusting slimy things and the feel of them in my mouth made me gag. Even now, I can get a visceral reaction of disgust when I think about them. But I discovered about ten years ago that I liked the flavor, just not the feel, and when I started AIP, my diet was so limited that I really started experimenting with any food that I was allowed to eat. Including mushrooms.

Eventually–maybe about six months ago–they became something I liked playing with. First, I mostly hid them — a tiny bit of finely chopped, sautéed mushroom in scrambled eggs, for example, or a few of them thrown into a stew. Just for the flavor, with no danger of encountering their texture. Then I started trying them raw, in salads. Or in my sandwich substitutes. For example, a thick slice of turkey, spread with pesto, topped with chopped mushrooms, and rolled up. Yum. And finally I graduated to eating them cooked and alone. Earlier this week, I chopped some in half and grilled them with a hamburger. With a little blue cheese dressing, they were very tasty.

Which brings me back to yesterday’s sauce. I sautéed a mix of mushrooms and some chopped up garlic in butter, then added room temperature yogurt, green onion, a little dijon mustard, some dried green herbs (a mix that I think includes parsley and oregano), and a sprinkle of salt, and let it simmer. I let it simmer for too long — as you can see in the picture, it wound up not quite a sauce anymore. But it was crazy delicious. I wanted to lick the pan when I was done. I ate every bite and I wished I had a lot more of them.

I think next time I will skip the steak. Well, and not simmer the mushrooms for quite so long. It would have been absolutely delicious as a creamy sauce over pasta or, since I have yet to find a gluten-free pasta that I appreciate, brown rice.

If you had told me as little as a year ago that I was going to consider eating mushroom sauce over brown rice… well, I suspect I would have laughed at you. I certainly wouldn’t have believed you.

I’ve decided that three nights, four max, is the right amount of time to stay in one place. That gives me two days to enjoy my campsite without needing to think about moving. When I go longer than that, I wind up with a situation like the one I’m in today: lots of cooking => lots of washing dishes => a full gray tank that needs to be dumped. I need to pack up today so that I can go dump the tank, and then come right back here for one more night. It’s not a big deal, really, but it’s a hassle.

And less time than that is really disruptive. In my fantasies of this life, I spent less time planning where I was going to spend the night and more time planning what I was writing. Finding the balance between those two things has been so much harder than I anticipated.

And given that today is going to be disrupted by needing to dump the tanks and tomorrow is going to be a relocation day — possibly with a trip to Trader Joe’s along the way — I should get back to the real writing. So far my grand fantasies of making it through Akira’s return have not worked out, but who knows, today might be the day that it all falls into place.

Galveston Beach

07 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by wyndes in Grace, Personal, Travel, Zelda

≈ 4 Comments

Dead things

It’s a measure of my mood yesterday that I walked along the beach thinking about how beaches are really just big cemeteries. Sand? Just the decayed and crumbled skeletons of sea creatures. Shells? Leftover body parts. Dying jellyfish? Well, you know, dying jellyfish.

I was sort of glad that I’d already read online that there’s no point in trying to save the jellyfish because otherwise I might have felt I should try. But a) they might sting you and b) the conditions that caused them to wash up on shore still exist, so they’ll be back onshore soon even if you do manage to get them into the ocean, so no point. And c) there were far too many of them. I know if I’d managed to save one that it might have appreciated it, but I would have felt overwhelmed by the futility. And probably stung, too.

On the other hand, look — gorgeous beach! Beautiful dying jellyfish in iridescent greens and blues. Big shells — the brown one was the biggest shell I’d ever found on a beach, and the white one was probably second. And the weather’s been crap — I swear, Texas might be the wettest state I have ever spent time in — but the sun came out twice, once at sunset last night, and then this morning for about an hour, just long enough for Zelda and I to have a really nice walk. It’s gone now and might not be back while I’m here, but at least I got to appreciate the sunny ocean for a little while.

My mood has been shaded by the mice. I’m not even sure I can explain how oppressive I find it to be living with something I’m trying to kill. Or to find mouse turds scattered across my kitchen counter. To not know whether mice are running across my bed while I’m sleeping. To never know when I open a cabinet whether there’ll be a mouse inside. To wonder whether my congestion is allergies or the first symptoms of a virus that might kill or bankrupt me. I know, total over-reaction. But Serenity is such a small space. It’s not like sharing hundreds of square feet with rodents. I’ve lived in houses with rats before and it hasn’t bothered me this much. I wonder how much the extremely high-pitched whine of the ultrasonic repeller, just at the edge of my hearing, is getting to me? Maybe a lot. But I’m not ready to give up on them, since the mice appear to be laughing at my traps.

I’ve also been probably out of proportion upset by the loss of Zelda’s duck. For ten years — literally, ten years, since the Christmas when she was not quite two — she’s had one toy that she loves. Every night, she licks it for a while before going to sleep. When people came over to visit, she would find her duck and bring it to them. One year we went on vacation in my dad’s RV and didn’t bring the duck. Every night she searched for it, then stared at me plaintively, asking for my help. We were both so glad to get home to it. It was battered and worn and gross, the fur licked off in places. But it was her lovey.

And it’s gone.

I have no idea how. I imagine a horde of mice carrying it away in revenge for the murder of their leader, but that’s pretty unlikely. I did laundry, so maybe it got caught up in the clothes? But how would I not have seen it in the laundry room? Most likely, I suppose, is that Zelda carried it outside at our last campsite and I didn’t notice. I called the campground — not that anyone would ever have turned it in to a lost-and-found, it would have looked like trash. The guy on the phone was super nice about it and promised to look, but he didn’t call back, so I’m sure he didn’t find it. I am not surprised. But oh, watching Zelda roam the camper, trying to find her duck, just breaks my heart. I feel like such a bad mom. I keep coming up with implausible places that I haven’t checked — like, maybe I put it in the microwave when I was stuffing all the food the mice might want in there. No, I didn’t. A) Why would I? and b) there’s not even enough room for the food in there. Maybe she carried it outside at this campground and it’s under the van! No, it’s not.

It’s stupid, I know. In a world where desperate refugees are trying to keep their children warm, worrying about a dog’s lovey is just ridiculously privileged. But she doesn’t understand why it’s gone and why I won’t find it for her and I… well, I am really sad about it. I understand, I suppose, that I’m projecting all my fears of losing Zelda, that anticipated pain, into her experience of loss now, but intellectualizing the emotion isn’t helping me feel better about it.

On Matagorda Bay, this weekend, we were on the beach when it started to rain. Zelda was off-leash and she started to run. She disappeared into the dunes and I had a long minute of thinking of all the possible things that could happen if she didn’t stop running — would she get lost? Would she run out into the road and get hit by a car? Would she step on a snake? And then she popped out again, cocking her head to the side, like she was saying, “Mom? Could you hurry it up here? We’re getting WET!” I hope that if she could choose, she would choose our adventures of the past seven, going on eight, months over keeping her duck safe at home. And I can’t know if she would, but I know that I would, and that does help me feel better.

Time to write more Grace. Akira’s finally coming home. I have never gotten farther than this part — this is where I’ve turned back and started over again from the beginning several times — so it’ll be interesting to see what today brings. *fingers crossed for new words, not self-doubt.

Wynded Words

~ Home of author Sarah Wynde

Category Archives: Personal