a return home

The drive back to St. Louis took two days from Brownsville with a quick overnight in Corpus, then a stop the next day in San Antonio and lunch in Austin (Texas, of course). We drove as long and as far as we could that first full day. Don had said that he would come down and help me drive back...ergh. No. Thank you anyway. Instead I flew my older sister down from the 'Lou, picked her up at the small airport in Harlingen (sp?) and then drove out to the Island, that would be South Padre, where we ate a wonderful lunch before driving north to one of my favorite beach access points. The day was gray and windy. We walked barefoot from the car and picked up shells.

The drive across North Texas, through Dallas and up into Oklahoma passed without much drama. The RV got pretty darn good gas mileage and always started. It was late when we stopped that second night. The sun had set, it was dark and we were both tired. Once we found a good, and cheap (!) little park, somewhere north of Dallas, we pulled in and I set up camp. Setting up camp for an RV takes no time. After that we settled in and began the next day's drive before the camp office opened. I put the cash owed into an envelope and off we went.

Miles and miles can go by without much notice, lunch was late and taken in Joplin, at Panera. How lovely it was to finally reach the outskirts, the southern reaches, of the suburbs of St. Louis. There was still light in the sky when I pulled the RV into my younger sister's driveway to park, for a long, long time...