Gettin' the Heck Outta Dodge Day 1

warning: series of long, wordy blog posts about to ensue

Since we moved to Texas John and I have longed for mountains and forests - like the ones we selfishly took for granted while living in Oregon. We have been told since we moved here that there are mountains and forests in Texas at a place called Big Bend National Park. Only problem was that it is an 8 hour drive from Houston. This makes it too far for a weekend trip, and any vacation longer than a weekend (for us) is usually spent traveling to see family...

A few months ago I requested time off for the first two weeks of April because John is currently finished with Medical School and is completely free. We were pretty sure that we would be leaving Texas and knew that we could not do so without having seen these "mountains" we heard people mention. So, we planned to go to Big Bend for two weeks. As it came closer and closer our trip became less and less likely...

Problem 1: no dogs allowed in National Park - potential easy fix
Problem 2: lots of stuff to be done in the house
Problem 3: house need to get on the market
Problem 4: fixing stuff requires lots of mooooooolah
Problem 5: trip had not been planned at all
Problem 6: turns out John is done with school, but still teaching and had labs to teach in these two weeks
Problem 7: etc. etc. etc. - mind you Problems 2-4 cause a great deal of anxiety! Turns out - selling a house is stressful?! Who knew!!??

Long story short we decide to stick to our guns and make the trip. But not without tending to all of the above problems first, right?


Scheduled departure April 1, 2009.
Actual departure April 3, 2009 (late afternoon)

"Layover" time spent painting, painting, painting, goodwill trips (two), storage unit trips (uncountable), meeting with realtor, scraping paint from windows, nagging homeowner's association to paint our front door (supposed to be done > one year ago; completed TODAY), potting plants for "curb" appeal, sucking up paint fumes, painting, re-hanging pictures, moving furniture, giving away furniture to friends, oooops don't forget the dogs have to poop and the phone keeps ringing and you are not on your "vacation" that you had planned at all!!! and the tile in the bathroom was ripped up a few years ago and you can't find a match and the patio doors don't open right, and the doorknobs are old and need to be replaced and the toilet in the guest bathroom doesn't flush right and the bathtub in the master bath doesn't drain right and the door in the master bath hasn't shut since we moved in the bleepin' homeowner's association still hasn't painted that bleepity bleep door and SCREW IT WE ARE LEAVING FOR BIG BEND RIGHT NOW!!!!!!

So we did! And it was soooo worth it and soooooo needed! And, the next house we own - we will fix things as they come up (sure we will......said so many times by so many people....)!!!!

We left in such a rush and literally vacuumed our way out the door!! The house looked great. We still had some repairs to do, but it could be shown and it was on the market. Our packing was so disorganized we didn't even bring a flashlight! We didn't have any of our food. We just packed the dogs, some random clothes, and decided anything else we could make do without for 5 days! I didn't even bring a comb or a brush, just a hat!!! (short hair made that less gross)

We hit the road around 4 PM. First stop: Guadalupe River State Park. We got there after dark, took a short night walk, looked at the stars, and breathed in the fresh air. We slept there that night. In the morning we checked out the river. Pretty, but not the rough back woods terrain we love. Picnic benches too closeby and numerous!

Guadalupe River


John and Chester Fording the River

That's all for now folks! Stay tuned for more pictures!