Have I mentioned that Texas is BIG? This morning though, it is all happening right here, inside the Kozy Kamper with Kitty.

O NO! There’s A BEE in the camper!

Time to get out of here so they don’t start a nest in the locker. And yes I let the little feller go free💓🐝🐝🐝

There’s a big banner over the road announcing a rodeo tonight. Too bad I’ll be gone…

It is a secondary water supply for the Houston Metro area.

One of the smallest, most residential parks I’ve been in. Still feel pretty safe, but I did lock my locker for the overnight.

I am also going in a little early to eat dinner at a restaurant called The Well. I tried to look up the Austin City Limits venue but it appears there’s nothing tonight. They’re probably as worn out from that Eclipse as I am.

One mildly interesting new thing this morning is many campground laundry rooms use an App for payment. You click the button, and the machine comes on. I had no idea.

KOA campgrounds are really great. They’re clean, quiet, and in pretty spaces.

I have spent my entire day moving slow. It’s a wonderful way to live! As I doodle around, the shock, awe, and wonder of the Totality keep coming to my mind.

I am still teary – eyed when I think about those moments, 4 1/2 minutes to be exact. This experience will take awhile to digest, I think.

My Lyft ride to downtown Austin has arrived- I’m having an adventure inside my adventure!

I feel safer in a big car these days. Joshua is driving a Lincoln Navigator. The car smells like I am INSIDE an air freshener packet. My drop off point will be the Statesman Bat Observatory! Heres what I expect to see:

Joshua is from Cuba, and all the rest of his family is still there. He says Cuba is a very, very bad place to live, entirely corrupt. Joshua earned the money to buy the Lincoln Navigator by starting in a crappy Toyota. I don’t know if I believe him. I once met a Giant Snail farmer from Ghana in a Lyft. No joke! They extract the slime and put it in cosmetics.

Joshua was good at computer work in Cuba: here is the US he’d rather drive. He’s also a big soccer fan. He’s taking a class to drive big trucks. I hope he does well.

Well, I’m getting a PhD in wrangling travel. Joshua drops me off here, but it’s a bit confusing. Heres what I actually see. My drop off point was at the little red and blue signs.

Not what I expected to see. I decide I’m hungry and head to The Well. I hike up the stairs to cross the Congress Ave bridge. It’s a 10-minute walk, and feels great after all the driving yesterday. We will figure out the bat thing after my meal. Who’s “we”?!! 😄 I left kitty at the camper. It’s just me😍

Dinner is wonderful, squishy, and slow.

More Murals on the way back to the bridge.

We wait.

The bats in Austin are Mexican freetails.

They finally come out!

Good night, Willie.

Good night, Mexican Freetail Bats.

Certainly not eclipse – level awe, but I have a much deeper sense of the fragility of these animal populations. There’s a lot of conservation effort to prevent extinction on a global level. People exterminate them out of fear, as development happens. This is part of how Covid-19 started – overlap between species habitat.

Here’s more about why bat habitat protection helps humans too:

https://www.batcon.org/press/for-future-pandemics-prevention-is-paramount/

Not to mention that ONE bat eats 6000-8000 mosquito- sized insects per night.

My Lyft home was efficient and comfortable.

My little Kitty Bat and I are ready for bed.

This is a place I have wanted to visit for a long time. The Bat population here is the largest, I believe, in the world. There’s a large Conservation effort here on their behalf. I wanna see bats.

I guess if I want to see bats I have to actually get dressed. 😉

I’m stopping at a place called Flower Child for a nutritious lunch. there’s an Apple Store next door- I cannot find my charging cord. Again I blame grandkids. 😎

As I begin the drive to Austin, the weather gets hairy.

Pretty much 3/4 of the drive is like this.

The Austin KOA is nice!

She also said if I hear any funny noises at night it’s just the cattle at the fence. Good to know… I might have been scared of a moo-ing burglar.

She’s growling. Grrrrrrrrrrr

It’s very stormy here today. We are so lucky we had great weather yesterday!!

Here’s what today looked like:

We decide to make an early start into Dallas in case of bad traffic, weather, or any other thing that might interfere with getting the noisy little goblins back to their daddy. So, we go to the Dallas Galleria. It is a Mall, except it’s Texas- sized. It’s gigantic, the size of 3 of our malls.

Even the play area is huge.

We decide to eat lunch at the Grand Lux Cafe.

Finally it’s time to head to the airport.

Kitty and I decide to camp at the Dallas KOA instead of a 3 hour drive to Austin.

It is so quiet in this camper I can her the bubbles in the boiling water as I cook my pasta. It’s a lovely sound.

Susan sent me some pics from the airport:

Goodbye Susan, Odette, and Bernie! I loved our time together and I love you! 😍🥰😘

It is also so quiet in here I can hear Kitty fart.

I betcha we are both asleep before dark. 💚

Luckily, most clouds have burned off. The campground is jammed full, and I’m amazed at the citizen scientists I’m meeting!

We have technology too.

And, of course, our tin foil safety glasses.

The celestial event begins. This has been a challenging trip, but so worth it! Aren’t adventures always full of challenge?

I had a sense of elation as I finally got to see the slow progression of moon passing across sun. It gets darker; we are in a strange twilight. The birds get quiet and crickets start chirping .

We are close.

I started to weep during this part. This emotion was really unexpected. I think it was sheer wonder and awe that overcame me. this will not happen again for 20 years! It’s been a very long time since I’ve cried over sheer beauty and mystery. I think the only other times were when my children were born.

It seemed like divine intervention that Bernie napped for the entire legendary celestial event.

He woke up when the moon was 3/4 past.

Speaking of nuts, here is another way to think about these wonderful, rare events:

Dinner on eclipse day was Mahi burgers. This made Odette very happy.

This is where we will view the eclipse! We had a lovely morning finishing the flag, and it will fly as soon as we arrive.

We found out a couple days ago that inclement weather will be moving through Texas on Eclipse day. It would be pretty ironic if we drove all the way to Texas, and had our eclipse on a cloudy day.

Bill Nye says not to worry, so I guess I won’t.

The Courthouse still had a large Confederate Monument out front. NOT cool, Waxiebackwards.

Note the alien spaceship crashed into the building, and the alien holding a ray gun up top.

Destination Fernwood R V park.

We stop for gas and there’s an awesome ice cream place across the street. Must. Go.

Susan says it’s the biggest, best water park she’s ever seen. I did not see it. I was in the camper taking a glorious nap while they were gone. 😴

It’s pretty windy here in Longview, but quite pleasant . I walk Kitty and pick some little flowers.

We also noticed we are camped on Lavender Lane. This makes me happy. Susan picks even more flowers. This makes me even more happy.

Breakfast, ball, and flag crafting. A sweet morning !

I like blogging. Thanks for the nudge, Chuck. I’m a firm believer in challenging myself whenever possible. There’s a learning process, and I’m making mistakes as fast as I can!

Remember the movie “There’s something about Mary?” We are pretty sure this is snot in his hair.

I don’t know what to expect in Louisiana- I’ve only ever been to New Orleans!

Driving thru Mississippi was a stark contrast to Louisiana. As soon as we crossed the state line, the impoverished roadways were gone!

Poverty point campground is wonderful. There are fireflies winking on and off at night. The stars are very bright in the dark sky. The stars are so bright I can barely see the fireflies!

And, they have these right on the reservoir:

People were fishing right from their cabin porch!!

Our neighbors were very nice. After a good chat she went and got a card, and said they live in Gainesville, if I ever need a place to plug in up there !

This campground is wild and expansive , and still somehow feels quite civilized. There are Indian mounds nearby but we don’t have an opportunity to visit them.

I have decided the first trip with the new camper will be to view the eclipse. My friend, Chuck H., asked if I knew how to create a blog. I think it’s about time I learned!

We are ready to go! After weeks of outfitting the camper and stowing our gear, we are more than ready to go.

Fresh water springs are absolute jewels. I’ll be having a trip built around visiting springs, hot or cold, some day! After swimming, I sit and enjoy the majesty. I imagine Native Americans living here, centuries ago, in health and prosperity.

The first night, we decide to stay on Marty and Paula’s driveway in Lake City, FL. They kindly offered to buy us pizza for dinner- and after a game of Left- Right- Center!

Sadly, we were enjoying so much seeing Odette learn how to play L-R-C we forgot to take photo . The sweet memory, however remains. I feel lucky to have such a kind family.

Today is Susan’s birthday! A birthday lunch at The Bark in Tallahassee is in order!

We arrive at this beautiful place, and decide it is time to start making the flag we plan to fly for the eclipse.

Coe Landing is a beautiful, soft place. And yes, I am laying in the playpen. 😉 Since today is Susan’s birthday, we are having Molten Chocolate cake tonight.

If you want the recipe , let me know.

We linger a bit at Lake Talquin, and I’m so entranced by the sunrise I forget about taking a pic. There are hundreds of birds chirping sweetly, and a mist is laying on the surface of the lake.

We decide to check out the Florida Caverns State Park.

As I mentioned, we decide to stop and check out the Florida Caverns along the way. They start us off with a weird but fun little safety video that had lotsa y’all’s in it. In the video the ranger goes to a lot of trouble telling us to hang onto children so they don’t wander into the cave system. Note the little Homunculus on the lower left of the video. That’s a representation of a child, in North Florida, y’all. Tiny little cave men, all of them.

The Florida Caverns are the only caves one can tour in Florida. During the 1930s, in the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps(CCC) hired boys aged 7-14 to map these caverns. They paid them a dollar a day, plus meals. This work helped prevent families from starving- they were grateful to send these kids in.

I reflect upon a state of being so desperately poor that I’d be grateful to send my children into unexplored caves with a rope and a sketch pad.

The only stalagmite in the entire place we are allowed to touch.

When we arrive at Southwood RV, we are frazzled. The kids were pissed off all day, and the traffic on I-10 was terrible. Even rerouted, it was long and slow. When we arrived, a very nice man named Simon came by and helped us check in. He and Leanne live in a big Coleman right across from us. It has a nice porch and a big red umbrella. Hot showers in their clubhouse were a godsend.

You wanna know why they make babies so cute? It’s so you don’t leave them at a truck stop. To be fair, he seems to have a slight cold. This is probably because he spent the night in wet pjs a couple days ago. More about that later. 🙄

As we depart Southwood, Simon and Leanne stroll over to say goodbye. Even though he looked a little ominous when we arrived, we felt safe and protected in their little park. there are nice people everywhere we go!