Is Covid still screwing up your plans…?

We are back in the Rio Grande Valley for the winter. To celebrate we broke out the crystal and toasted to a hopefully good winter stay. We stayed at Isla Blanca RV Park last winter while were hiding out from Covid. We were also able to have our first two Covid vaccines here. Last year everything was shut down pretty tightly and thus it was a great location for us to ride out the unknowns of the Covid pandemic.

Fast forward a year later and nothing much has changed on the Covid front. We wanted to stay at Isla Blanca again hoping to be able to see what it was like to be here without a pandemic but alas, not much has changed, at least not for us. While many here in Texas have grown tired of the pandemic Sharon and I still respect the might of Covid and are staying pretty close to home.

That said we do have a few outdoor places we have enjoyed, as we did last year. We often hike at the Convention Center’s Laguna Madre Nature Trail and we often visit the deck at South Padre Island Brewing Company. Before the omicron variant of Covid hit the USA we were just beginning to feel pretty comfortable visiting some indoor places and being around a lot of people.

However, when the omicron variant reared its ugly head and proved to be much more contagious we began to retreat from both indoor places and people once again. Therefore here we are in South Padre Island one year later doing basically the same things we did last year when things were much more unknown.

While some will say we are crazy not to just live our lives and not worry about getting another version of the “flu” we have different feelings. While we both realize the disease is not extremely deadly it is the fear of having the symptoms for a lengthy period of time as the many who now have Long Covid. In addition, Sharon’s having survived breast cancer along with several previous bouts of pneumonia over the years have her really wanting to avoid covid.

I actually can't imagine what it would be like to not be able to smell or taste. So much of our lives revolve around food, drinks and the culinary delights in the many towns we visit. We both can’t even imagine not being able to enjoy two of our precious senses. That alone is enough for me not to take any unnecessary risks.

In the meantime we are enjoying our daily routine of walking the beach together  (weather permitting). so the photos today will be of some of the delights we see with our eyes and enjoy with our ears. Two other senses we value greatly…

NOTE: We are currently in South Padre Island TX until March 1st…

Estero Llano Grande State Park and Exit Plan Update…

There are several state parks down in the southern tip of Texas and we like to visit these as much as possible. We always purchase the annual Texas State Parks Pass because it allows us to in free and also has some free camping perks. All of the State Parks in Texas are unique in that they are home to species of flora and fauna found nowhere else in the entire USA.

One park with nice trails is the Estero Llano Grande State Park which is part of the World Birding Center. We like this park because we  can enjoy a hike while also birding.

Upon arriving at the park visitors walk right up to the visitor center adjacent to a small wetland pond. Every time we have ever visited this park this pond is covered in ducks, mostly Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and this visit was no exception.

We stopped to check out all the waterfowl even spying a couple of Shoveler ducks, one of Sharon’s favorites. Also, while watching the ducks we noticed that they were becoming a bit nervous so I scoured the sky and discovered the reason why… A Peregrine Falcon was soaring high above which alarmed the waterfowl below.

We spent the afternoon hiking and birding at the park and reflected on how we have always enjoyed exploring different parts of our beautiful country. It is opportunities such as this that we know we will greatly miss once we are no longer on the road. Hopefully we will find a place conducive to our love of the outdoors which will fend off the boredom we fear in our next non mobile lifestyle.

And to provide an update on our progress of figuring out what the next chapter of our lives holds for us… alas, not much new has happened on that front. We still don’t know what we will do or where we will end up but we have eliminated a few more states and now only have 17 on our list. We are now focusing on towns in each of the seventeen states so I would assume things will not happen much faster.

We do our research independent of one another so it will be interesting to see what each of us found once we compare notes. Thankfully we have plenty of time for this decision as there is nothing “forcing” us to decide immediately such as health or finances. As long as that remains the case we will simply plug along and continue researching then perhaps begin visiting towns on our lists to see if any place feels like home. For now home is still wherever we are parked which currently is in South Texas….

NOTE: We are currently in South Padre Island TX until March 1st…