SEPTEMBER 18, 2014
IT’S TIME TO GO…WE’RE HEADING TO TEXAS.
We’re spending the winter near San Antonio, in the Texas Hill Country.
It’s dawned on us gradually during the last few days here in northern Montana. First, we noticed that some shops and restaurants are already closing for the season. Then we heard that the road traversing Glacier National Park was impassable a few days last week because of snow. Next, we recalled that the guy who owns the orchard where we bought apples told us that winter could arrive any day. We’ve heard that the Elk are moving down the mountains to lower ground. Bears are eating voraciously and getting ready to hibernate. And of course, it’s begun getting noticeably colder. Winter is coming!
WINTER’S COMING! Having spent our entire lives in sunny Southern California where seasons come and go without even a measurable change in the weather, we’d sort of forgotten that we’re in northern Montana, where winters are extreme. It gets cold here…really cold. Bone chilling sub-zero cold. In fact, we met a girl today who said that last winter the temperature got as low as 20 degrees below zero! This is where there are snow drifts and snow plows and they put salt on the roads. At this time of year, folks don’t camp and go sightseeing in their RV’s…they winterize ’em and store them until Spring.
We don’t know a thing about dealing with winter weather. I don’t want to drive in snow storms or on icy roads. If I were to find myself in 20 below zero weather, I couldn’t even wear shorts. It’s time for us to get out of northern Montana and pick up the pace a bit as we head to our winter home this year in the Texas Hill Country.
Remember the Alamo…
We’re cancelling our plans to visit Yellowstone and abbreviating our plans for some other stops en route to Texas. We’ll leave here in the morning and drive south. Our plan now is to spend about a week in Billings, and then head south though Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. We’ll probably arrive in San Antonio mid-October.
It’s also dawned on us that we’ve been essentially “on the move” for more than a year now. We’ve traveled almost 9,000 miles, explored eight different states, burned well over a thousand gallons of diesel fuel and learned for the time being to call our RV “home.” We haven’t stopped for more than a few weeks in any one place during the entire year. It’s time to get to a nice spot in a warm climate and stay a while.
IT’S TIME TO GO…WE’RE HEADING TO TEXAS.
