Martha Waters (Krueger)
Time to update again:
First off . . . Congratulations, Sally & Jesse. You are to be commended. That doesn't happen a lot nowadays.
For the month of October, 2013, I traveled, supposedly, to national parks, BUT the parks were closed for 2 of the weeks I was camping out of my minivan, so I visited different sites than I had planned on visiting, but it was all good. Went thru 8 eastern states that I had not visited before: KY, OH, WV, PA, VA, MD, DE, NC, & TN. I am glad I saw lots of scenery in each. I always try to avoid the big cities cause they aren't as pretty and as quiet as God's outdoors. :) The 3 highlites were the Creation Museum in KY (8 miles from Cincinnati), Shenandoah NP in VA and Cumberland Gap district in VA TN & KY. (I sure did learn lots of geography on this trip; I guess those geography lessons in school just didn't stick with me.) I don't suppose I will go east again, unless I travel with someone who would want to visit that direction. Tho I found many beautiful sights & places, I also noted that there were more people and more traffic and shorter mountains. So next, time I plan on a national parks tour, I will probably go out west. (Altho my brother & I are in the beginning planning stages of an RV trip to Alaska for a month in Aug-Sept. [First tho. got to buy a newer used small motorhome.} [Does anyone know of one for sale?] (And has Anyone done something like that? Need pointers)
In Dec., I spent 3 days in FM for Christmas with family (and remembered why I moved from there with all that slippery snow on the streets and not good walks on the slippery sidewalks.) Then I rushed home [Ozarks] repacked the van for camping and headed to southern Texas to see what the old people do down there in the winter and to perhaps escape the cold, since friends bragged about how warm it is down there. NOT! Rainy & cold. Got down to 34 degrees one night sleeping in the car in an RV park where friends were staying for the winter. (They offered a bed in the RV, but I like sleeping in my own bed and not bothering others with extra laundry.) Most of the time it was in the 40s & 50s day or nite.
I took a day trip to Lauredo, TX, and walked across the bridge to Mexico, as I wanted to see it after 40 years. It was more crowded, had hardly any of the tourist shops that it used to have, and I didn't see other gringos. I wondered about that. But I had a nice 4 hrs, walking, talking (always like to keep my Spanish fluent) eating, and shopping. Everyone was friendly.
When I returned to TX, I drove to Zapata, to visit more friends who spend the winters there, and when I told them that I spent part of the day in Nuevo Laredo MX, they excitedly told me that that was NOT the place for gringos as it had drug cartel shootouts and trouble. (I wondered why I didn't see other gringos.) Ah, well, it was a nice visit as far as I was concerned.
I cut my stay shorter than I planned due to the weather not being normally warm and also I had caught a cold. So I came back to the "warm" Ozarks--well, at least my home is warm.
I don't think I will go anywhere in Feb., but, maybe, if it stays cold ...I may try AZ. It seems to be warmerout there, and with more sun according to the weather reports. I just don't know anyone there, but I reckon I would soon get acquainted. In March, I hope to go to Colorado to a Christian conference and then look around, depending on the weather. God bless you.
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