Port Lavaca

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Last Weekend On the Beach :(

Friday was a much needed down day for me. The most exciting thing I did was drive into Port Lavaca to pick up my mail and some avocados.

I also checked out all the car washes and decided that none were convenient enough to get into with the rig for me to spend money at them. I really want a nice big wash area that I can pull in and out of without having to unhook. I’ll keep my eye out for such a place as I head out on the road, really needing to remove the salt spray from both vehicles and to buff out any rusty spots. Moya is also asking me for a wax job, so I really want to find a place where I can wash at my leisure.

When I got in, I spent the bulk of the rest of the day watching the DVDs that my friend had sent while cross-stitching and going for strolls along the beach to enjoy the crazy beautiful weather. What a tough life I lead! 😀

I have a weekend-long project to do, so my last couple of days on the beach will be sedate. I am sort of thinking of going to the saloon for a beer and dinner tonight, but am not particularly stuck on the idea.

The weather is slowly growing less pleasant as heavy clouds are rolling in and the wind is picking up, so Monday will definitely be a good day to get back on the road.

I play to roll out between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. I’ll be getting gas here on the beach as a final gesture of goodwill to the community. I did the math and it will be only $10 more for a fill here than in town, so it’s not a huge extra expense for me, plus the gas station is super convenient as you can pull in then circle around the building.

I will be detouring into Port Lavaca to get propane since I am completely out on board, do not want to have the fridge off for long, and the Port Lavaca propane place is super easy to get in and out of with a long rig even if the entrance is rutty.

After that, it will be about three hours to Von Ormy, just outside of San Antonio (I’ll be doing a post about the RV park once I’ve had a chance to check it out). I can check in as of 1PM and want to pull in as close to that as I can to get my full 22 hours on FHU!

Some of the chores planned for Monday afternoon and evening and Tuesday morning:

– hose down my black tank from inside with my high pressure hose attachment;

– vacuum the entire rig (the dust from the beach as been an insurmountable foe);

– reshine the floors as the the sand I’ve been tracking in despite a mat has been very hard on them;

– give my batteries a good soak on shore power (I’ve been getting a full charge by late afternoon all week, so I’m not desperate for charging right now, thankfully!) and recharge anything that needs to be recharged.

Late Tuesday morning, I will move into the no service area.

I don’t have much to do to leave on Monday, so I won’t even think about departure until then beyond making sure there’s plenty of room in the back of the truck for the propane tank.

I’m ready, not eager, to go.

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Lots ‘o Seafood

L beat me soundly at shuffleboard this afternoon, then we headed into Port Lavaca for one last meal together at Bayside Seafood. Thank you again!

This time, I did not want a deep fried meal, so I chose their grilled platter. It didn’t include the stuffed crab I had so enjoyed the last time, so L insisted that we add the stuffed crab meal meal to our order. Boy was that a lot of seafood!

My grilled plate was incredibly delicious and I’m glad I went with that instead of my original idea of having just the crab. It came with a big piece of delicately seasoned catfish, three big toothsome shrimp, three juicy scallops, a few oysters, dirty rice, and a nice big mound of veggies (squash, onions, broccoli, and red pepper). I do have to say that I have decided I do not and never will like oysters. Or rather, I’ll eat oysters if they are on my plate, but I am not going to seek them out.

The stuffed crabs were even better than the last time! I wound up taking one home with half my catfish and a pile of fries, so I will have a nice lunch tomorrow.

But we weren’t done. L insisted on my ordering dessert if I wanted it and the ‘Turtle mousse cake’ had caught my eye. It was just the right size to end the meal with, especially after L had a sliver and deemed it not be to his liking as he is not a big chocolate fan.

I feel replete, but since I did not have a ton of batter and grease, I am not stuffed!

I’m so glad that I’ve had a chance to partake of the local oceanic delicacies this winter.

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Cabin Fever

Today was a bit of a down day. The weather wasn’t great and the wind picked up in mid afternoon. I witnessed my wisp of a neighbour open her house door and literally fly out of the rig, holding onto the door for dear life! When I had to go out a few moments later, I made sure to exit through the cab!

It’s rare that I have a day where I don’t know what to do with myself at home, and this was one of them. I worked on my book, did some housekeeping, played my recorder, and tried to sit down with a movie and some embroidery. Nothing kept my attention.

I finally decided to just head into town to pick up a few things, coming home with all the fixings for a cozy night at home: a pizza, ice cream, and Liam Neeson (I had beer at home!). I had just finished dessert and the movie (Unknown) was getting good when there came a knock at the door. I knew what that meant!

A few minutes later, L and I were on our way to Indianola for a couple of beers and some live music. He’d also been hit by a wave of cabin fever! We had a good time chatting and watching some kids reel in fish. We didn’t stay long, just enough to shake away some of the blues. I am going to have such fond memories of that pier in my old age.

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Trying Out the Local Laundromat

Dirty laundry reached critical mass today. Unlike my friend Croft, I like to wear clothes, so I decided to deal with the huge mountain this afternoon.

While at Walmart, I stopped at the bank in the store to try to buy a roll of quarters. In Canada, I usually get turned away if I’m not a customer of the bank, but I had no trouble here and the lady who served me was very nice.

Armed with $10 worth of quarters, I hauled my three very full garbage bags of clothes to the tiny laundromat a couple of minutes from the beach next to the saloon and gas bar.

I apologize for the quality of these pictures, I need more practice with the iPad camera. 🙂

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This laundromat is a wonderful service to the community. The seven machines (four washers, three dryers) are fairly recent and the building is very clean, missing only a chair to make it a pleasant laundry cleaning environment.

It is pricy, $1.75 to wash and $1.50 to dry. But that’s better than schlepping to a laundromat in Port Lavaca and the $1.50 to dry got everything but my two heaviest skirts dry, even my towels. I hung out in the truck and the hour or so it took to get everything done passed very quickly. My $10 was just enough!

Putting away laundry now is so much more pleasant since I mastered the wardrobe and got my wonderful, still cooing over it, dresser. So I actually got the laundry put away right upon arrival instead of tripping over the basket for a few days. The bulk of it does get hung in the wardrobe and I learned early on in my  adventures to put the clothes on the hangers at the laundromat so that they magically walk their way to the wardrobe and get hung up before they wrinkle. 🙂

Now, in the words of Robin Williams, I’m huuuuuuuuuuungry, so I’m off to cook up that ham steak I got today. First time of my adult life that I make ham at home!

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Walmart Scavenger Hunt

My latest Walmart list was very eclectic, so I knew it would take a lot of time to fill. I decided to wait until I had both the time in an afternoon to go and wander and the need to get out of the rig. This afternoon was the day; the pantry was very bare!

I spent over an hour wandering the aisles trying to figure out where things might be. Hardware? Toys? Electronics? Cleaning Supplies? I found all but two things, a little cabinet for the office and matches, which were not in the camping supplies. So I’m stumped and wonder if Walmart carries any. I don’t mean the flimsy cardboard kind smokers use, but sturdy wooden ones for lighting fires.

One thing I did find surprised me, a three-drawer cabinet that was almost exactly the right size to put in an overhead cabinet in the study to hold paper supplies:

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I wish it was just a little wider to hold the legal sized file folders, but this was a nice find, and was just $12.

I decided to head to ACE Hardware to see if they might have a hardware cabinet for my office. Office desktop drawers are not the right dimensions for what I had in mind and crazy pricy, hence my thought to look at a hardware store. I’ve been storing my supplies like pens, Post-It notes, and highlighters in my desk drawers, which is a really poor use of space. I never know what I have, so I tend to overbuy.

I had a vision of a desktop shallow, long, and low cabinet with tons and tons of drawers exactly the right size for all my supplies.

Kind of like this:

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The drawers are about an inch too short for writing implements, but I can store those things diagonally. Everything else fits perfectly. There wasn’t a single thing I wanted to store in it that doesn’t fit and I even have room for things that I didn’t think would fit (like my stapler). I screwed it to the wall. On a less windy day (ha ha ha ha) I am going to remove all the drawers, take the casing outside, and give it a couple of coats of dark brown paint.

(Thank you Mr. ACE Hardware guy who got the dang thing off a very high shelf and provided a variety of office supplies to test the dimensions while making me feel like a valued customer.)

Now, I have room in my desk drawers for my headset, label maker, scanner, and a bunch of other stuff. This little cabinet was $20 very well spent and is a good use of desktop real estate space!

While at ACE, I remembered to have the truck key copied so that I have a spare… but I forgot the matches. Dang!