Our winter wandering has begun. We drove down from College Station on Monday afternoon and are set up for a month here in Stella Mare RV Resort on Galveston Island. We stayed here last year for a month and enjoyed our time. (We have also booked it for two months at the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025.) We look forward to spending time with our Daughter and Grandchildren and getting reacquainted with our favorite birding spots along the Upper Texas Gulf Coast. Marlene is really excited about getting some fresh shrimp and other seafood.
Wintering is a fact of life for Full-time RVers. For me, we either winter up north, where I hunker down in our rig during lousy weather, or we go South and continue to enjoy the RV life inside and outside. We do the latter, joining the tens of thousands of Winter Texans in Galveston and the Rio Grande Valley next month. This is our second winter in the RV, so I have much to learn. This week, I am sharing what we have learned thus far and a few challenges we still face. But I know with absolute certainty that wintering is part of the challenge and adventure of our wanderlusting lifestyle.
The RV is the full-time RVer’s primary home. Some may rent out their house or have a house sitting empty somewhere. But most do not have any other place to live. This requires that the Full-timer find a way to get through the winter. Many join the "Snowbirds" in Texas, Florida, California, or Arizona. A few will settle-in for the winter in colder climates. Others will stay on the road. I greatly respect those who remain on the road and winter "up north," but I am not inclined to join them. For me, full-time wandering through winter is an opportunity to stay warm and take the opportunities that staying in place for a month or so has to offer. The wandering is not so much a wandering from place to place as it is a wandering through the holidays and wintertime.
Why do we do it? This is an easy answer. I DO NOT LIKE COLD WEATHER! I am sure that you are not surprised by this. I have often mentioned that I want to spend the rest of my life chasing 70 degrees. You can be assured that if I find myself in 30-degree weather, it is either a mistake in planning or an unavoidable and unfortunate circumstance. We are well-equipped to handle 100 to 20 degrees but prefer to avoid the two extreme 20-degree ranges on both ends.
I am unsure how we will handle staying in one place for so long. This year, we plan to spend a month on Galveston Island with the family and then move down into the Rio Grande Valley for January and February. Over the last year, I have discovered that I get itchy feet after a week in one place. I grow bored with the same-old, same-old that arrives after about a week. My challenge will be to see if the benefits of staying put will offset the wanderlust. I will explore what it means to wander through time when wandering through space is impossible. Some full-timers resolve this by heading South of the border and wandering around Mexico and Central America in the winter. I am not quite ready for that much adventure. So, while escaping the cold, I will explore a different type of wandering.
This wandering will allow us to take care of our annual maintenance on Koko and Nakai. Minor repairs can be addressed, and upgrades can be explored and completed. This year, we will get new shoes for Nakai and rotate Koko's. We are also looking at minor repairs and upgrades with a tech in Galveston whom I trust. We are exploring ways to better insulate and ventilate Koko and increase our safety and comfort.
We will also use our time to do some needed maintenance on ourselves. While in Galveston, we will head to the Houston Medical Center for our annual exams and tests. This usually involves a couple nights in a hotel in the Med Center and back-to-back exams and tests. Unfortunately, we will have other tests that will require a drive into Houston. But spending the rest of the year on the road is worth it. While in Brownsville, we will have two months to take care of other things like eye exams. This makes the sedentary life more palatable. It will make life on the road that much better.
A third opportunity that wintering allows is the ability to rest up. We love our traveling, but it does take a toll on the mind-body-soul. The constant thinking about the next stop and the unknowns on every trip wear on my spirit. The stress is more than made up for by the travel. But it still wears on us. We love it, but we are completing our 7th decade and do not bounce quite as well as we did 10 – 20 years ago. Our winter hiatus offers us time to kick back and let our body-mind-soul get back in touch with each other. I will read, write, explore, and relax. My greatest challenge will be getting out and walking to avoid gaining weight. This is especially true as we check out the local cuisines. But I digress!
If you are curious about how we choose a spot for winter, this map will explain. I am a “hothouse orchid” when it comes to climate, so the Plant Hardiness Zones offers an excellent way to choose our wintering site. I prefer the orange tropical zone but can tolerate the two zones above it. The ideal place is Southern Florida, but we would join the 100,000 other Snowbirds, and, if you remember, I prefer to avoid crowds, too. Plus, the site fees in Central and Southern Florida are astronomical. The extreme Northern Gulf coast would also be possible, but I am no fan of the Deep South, and the weather is very susceptible to "surprises." California is perfect, but way too expensive. I would love Arizona, but Marlene is not a big fan of extended stays in the desert. This leaves Texas. I grew up on the northern edge of the zone we prefer, but the weather is prone to "surprises" there as well. Thus, we are left with the Gulf Coast. Fortunately, Marlene loves the beach, and we have family there. This isn't rocket science. We will enjoy our coastal lives on Galveston Island, in the Coastal Bend, and in the Valley. Next year, we are even considering Northern Florida. Stay tuned.
My theory of wintering has three working principles. These are only theories and will be tested by our time along the Texas Coast. These are 1) Be safe, 2) Take advantage of available rental discounts, 3) and Use our time well.
Being safe is our primary principle of wandering. My adventuresome spirit ends when danger and threats encroach on our daily lives. We have redundant sources of heat for Koko. But I do not want to push our gas or electric heat beyond reasonable limits. This picture shows a propane splitter that I installed on our onboard propane system that allows us to use a 20 lb. tank from Walgreens when our onboard system runs low. We can refill it without driving Koko to a fill station. This increases our safety when an unforeseen cold snap occurs. I also have redundancy in internet access and other vital systems. Safety also leads me to book our sites a year in advance since the wintering sites are the first to disappear, as we learned last year on Galveston Island. We had to stay at 4 different parks during our two months on Galveston Island because we could not book them far enough in advance. Safety is, and will remain, our essential rule number one!
A second principle we will test is taking advantage of monthly rental discounts. Most RV Parks offer discounts for weekly and monthly rates. Some will even provide a seasonal discount. If the daily rate is $50, the weekly will usually buy 6 and get a seventh free. The Monthly rate can get a 50% or more discount over the daily rate. For the $50 site, that will be a monthly savings of $750. (In the popular areas, the daily rate can be $80 - $120 with a corresponding increase in the monthly rate.) The seasonal rates offer more savings but require three or more months in the same spot. The monthly savings will give us more room in the budget for staying in nicer places during the rest of the year and booking more comfortable sites for the winter. We will see if all this thinking holds true.
The third principle is to use our time well. Wandering demands that we act when opportunity offers itself. During the year, we must put off some projects because they require more than a few days to complete. During the winter months, we can order unpredictable deliveries, take care of medical procedures that require multiple visits, or do some of the things that are easier in the area we are wintering. It is all about using the opportunities that offer themselves. This is a way of being present to ourselves and our time and place. Just as our travels give us many other unique opportunities, wintering does as well. We are not giving up our journey for the winter. We are doing it differently as each moment presents itself. This is the essence of wandering!
So, for the 23-24 Winter Season, we will enjoy our time in Galveston until after Christmas and then move on to the Rio Grande Valley for January and February. El Nino will throw some challenges our way. But we are prepared. We have three months of wandering, and I am excited about the possibilities that await us.
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| A White Ibis foraging for soft squishy critters. |
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| A Great Blue Heron hiding in the grass. |
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| Killdeer relaxing in the mud. |
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| Coastal Scrub |
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| An Osprey checking out the visitors! |
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| An Osprey sounding the alarm! |
Thunderstorms are one of the facts of life along the Upper Texas Gulf coast. Fortunately, I enjoy rainy days! During the Fall, these sweep in with tropical storms and hurricanes, but generally, after December 1st, they result from cold fronts sweeping down from the north that draw storms up from the South. These can be severe. Last year, we were within a mile of a tornado. One such storm came through on Wednesday, making for an enjoyable day of writing, reading, watching Christmas Movies, and being lazy. This year, El Nino threatens to make our winter wetter and cooler than usual. But that's okay. The birds don't mind. Besides, this is the same weather we enjoyed in California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Idaho. It feels like 2023.
We spent the rest of the week doing chores and visiting with the family. We had a Mobile RV Tech make some repairs that were beyond my ability, and I asked him to give us an estimate on installing another fan. Next week, we head into Houston for a couple of days of annual medical check-ups and visiting with friends. But mostly, we will take care of business as we live our lives on the road. I appreciate your hanging with us during our wintering. All I can promise is that I will share our journey just as it is. There will likely be pictures of Gulf Coast birds and perhaps an adventure or two. In the meantime, I hope you find something in these scribblings to feed your soul.
We continue the journey, albeit at a slower pace than during our winter wandering. I look forward to reading your comments and questions on FB or the blog. Enjoy your journey, even in the downtime. I firmly believe that the attentive soul will find joy and gratitude in some measure.
Bob
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