Koehn family journey

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

We made it to Grandma's


We made it to Grandma's
Originally uploaded by chriskoehn.
It took three days just to thaw her out.

longhorn


longhorn
Originally uploaded by chriskoehn.
Rainer seems less than thrilled. Perhaps he's a vegetarian..

bull boy


bull boy
Originally uploaded by chriskoehn.
at the Fort Worth Stockyards.

beach bike ride


beach bike ride
Originally uploaded by chriskoehn.
along the beach at galveston Island S.P. Texas

gulf sunrise


gulf sunrise
Originally uploaded by chriskoehn.
Over the gulf, galveston Island State Park, Texas

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Everything's bigger in Texas

They say everything’s bigger in Texas, and that seems to be correct, and it’s not necessarily always a good thing. We drove in to Dallas late in the afternoon on the fourth day of the new year. Our destination was sister Kimberly and her fiancé Keith’s town home in the shadow of DFW. Dallas and its suburbs goes on and on and on, a low rise retail sprawl, where the auto (or rather the pick-up truck) is king, one drives 20 miles for groceries, and 45 minutes is the average commute. There’s more pavement here than one can possibly imagine or ever come to know in a lifetime. Freeways are constantly being rebuilt, widened, improved, and added. People- at least I suspect they are humans- are encased in their cocoons, zipping around, isolated from each other, participating in the greatest F.U. contest on earth, as near as I can tell.

We enjoyed our visit with Kim and Keith despite the traffic. We did city things while there: took the boys to the Medieval Times spectacle, went for bike rides along the river in Fort Worth, went mountain biking in Grapevine, went to a rodeo and for a steak dinner in the old Fort Worth Stock yards, went to the hardware store (several times) in search of bits to fix various Airstream casualties, such as the water line we froze and split in Virginia last month. We shared their desire to leave DFW- but we acted on it after 5 days, whereas they have a while to stay there yet.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. When I last updated we were headed to Charleston SC. It was the week before Christmas. Sorry for the long silence: I needed some down time.

Charleston is the quintessential southern town, with an old town and old money dating to the 1700’s, beautiful parks, Spanish moss, good seafood, and de facto segregation. We toured a few WW 2 era ships, including the impressively huge aircraft carrier Yorktown, permanently docked in Charleston harbor. We took a ferry to Fort Sumter and learned all about the important role this fort and the city of Charleston played in the Civil War. It was nice to find some warmer weather and sunshine. We all enjoyed thawing out for a few days.

We drove from Charleston to Aiken, SC, on the Georgia border, for an overnight visit with Uncle Tom and aunt Kathy White. While too brief, our time there was nice. Aunt Kathy cooked up a storm, Tom and I went in search of a heat lamp to ward off the predicted sub-freezing temps and their possible effects on the plumbing, and we got a short glimpse of this genteel southern town.

Christmas was to be at Grandma Dottie’s in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. Our goal was to make it from Tom and Kathy’s in a day and a half with only a sleep stop on the way. We did our first (and hopefully our last) overnight in a Wal Mart parking lot south of Memphis, leaving what should have been a four hour drive to Grandma’s the next day. Unfortunately mother nature had other plans. A winter storm blew in, bringing first ice- turning I 40 in to a windy skating rink (we quickly chose a parallel state highway in stead), then snow. Southerners really have no clue about how to drive in snow and many of them readily admit it. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to deter them from trying. The drive ended up being one of the worst I’ve ever made, lasting 10 hours, most of it in four wheel drive, dodging abandoned cars, those about to be abandoned by their hapless drivers, and police officers without the sense God gave a rock: one was responding to an accident and chose to park his squad in the middle of the two lane highway at the bottom of an ice covered hill, and stood next to it watching as we fishtailed down the hill, cursing him loudly as we slid past. We finally arrived in Hot Springs Village in dire need of alcoholic beverages and with a barely recognizable Airstream ice cocoon. On the plus side we did have a white Christmas.

It was good to unwind into Grandma Dotty and Grandpa Gary’s house for a while. The boys got to spread out their toys, reacquaint themselves with some we’d sent there in anticipation of this time, and generally enjoy all the comforts of a regular home for a while- not to mention the hospitality that comes with being at Grandma’s house.
Kim and Keith drove over from Dallas for a few days around Christmas. Brad, Susan, and Alex chose not to make the drive, as Susan is pregnant (!!)- a wise move and one we wished we had chosen in hindsight (not the pregnant part..). Grandma Nona- Ruth’s mom- took the train down to join us for a few days as well. Amtrak is such a disappointment: the train was 2 1/2 hours late arriving (scheduled for 4:30 a.m….) and nearly the same amount of time late to pick her up again in Little Rock (scheduled for midnight). Nona reports that the bathrooms were entirely unusable and filthy. I have become used to the punctuality and efficiency of European trains. I find the lack of funding in our country for this critical form of mass transit shameful.

We stayed in Hot Springs Village for nearly two weeks, and by the end of the time I think everyone was ready for us to move on with our adventure. Dallas here we came.

I’m writing today, January 16, from Guadalupe State Park, Texas- about 30 miles north of San Antonio in the Texas hill country. We came here to visit Ruth’s niece Heather, who teaches school here.- and to experience this pretty part of the Lone Star State. We made the 5 hour drive up from Galveston Island on Thursday, after enjoying the balmy weather and beaches of the Texas gulf coast for a few days. Galveston Island State Park was nicely situated, spanning the skinny island from the gulf beach to the salt marsh separating the island from the mainland. Bird watching was great (and we’re told even better during migratory periods), the boys enjoyed the beach and collecting sea shells, and we could ride our bikes to Jamaica Beach for groceries and hardware (still working on the burst city water line..)

Rainer has had a cold, most likely caught from grandpa Gary over Christmas. Ansel avoided it entirely; Ruth warded it off with vitamin C- and I seem to have come down with it. This is our first real bout with any kind of illness on our travels. Not much different that being sick at home really. I’m grateful for the opportunity to lay around for a while, with no pressing business or schedule, in the hill country sun, looking at live oak and cactus.