I guess we are still de-stressing. Or maybe it’s just me. After yesterday, I’m exhausted. I just can’t seem to get rested up. Then again other than worrying about the Doctor’s visit I have nothing to stress about. And today it’s just that adrenalin let-down that comes after you worried about something for no good reason. I don’t know. It seems government officials and doctors scare the bejeezus out of me. Has always been that way; I’d like to think it will change but I’m not so sure. I thought that working for the Forest Service might help; and in fact I wasn’t stressed at all going to get licenses yesterday (Bored… yeah. But not stressed!)
Today, we’ll do laundry, maybe stop at the grocery for protein to feed our incoming guests and not much more.
We laid out plans for the next month. they had been floating around in our brain for a few weeks, so it was just a matter of saying, “this is the plan.” That is the nice thing about my morning ritual. I usually rise before Peg; and then I spend an hour, or two, sometimes three reading, writing, thinking about THINGS and IDEAS, not so much people. And when I’m done we get started on our day. By then Peg is awake and hungry and it’s off to the metaphorical races!
We’ll spend a couple weeks at Thomson IL when we leave here — reservations in hand. Then to Central Southern IL for a couple weeks (a week each at two locations). That’s far enough in advance to think now. When the time comes and we actually LEAVE Illinois we have three locations we are considering stopping at before reaching New Orleans. Over the next month we’ll suss out a plan of attack that will get us to New Orleans before December 3.
Our daughter is considering visiting from Dec. 3 through the 13th — or something like that — and that period is sort of roughed out without reservations. We wanted to spend some time at Bayou Segrette SP, across the river from NOLA — figuring out how long to spend on the journey TO the area and how long to spend IN the area are in the air — we want to see how we enjoy the trip. Neither of us has camped in Mississippi — if we enjoy we’ll stay longer. We can always come back to NOLA if we aren’t ready to leave when Kathryn arrives. 
At this point I think it safe to say… we are Texas bound. The plan is to spend time together with her in LA and then bop over to Galveston/Houston for time with the rest of her Texas family. It all sounds wonderful.
That’s about as much as I feel like saying today. Thanks for stopping by and I’ll talk with you tomorrow. 🙂
Embrace Serendipity 
Oh, I hear you on stressing out about doctor visits. I totally get that, and like you, for really no good reason. Glad your plans for the next few months are starting to come together, and I will enjoy following your travels. One thing on our so-called bucket list of places to visit sometime is the Natchez-Trace. I have a friend that has driven it over two different trips and loved it. I bet that doing it in fall months would be amazing with the leaves changing. And after looking into the wildlife refuge that I told you about near Muleshoe, I think we may make a drive there, probably in the car the first time, to check it out, perhaps in November or December when the sandhill crane really start coming there once again. Apparently their population last year was about 50,000, but they have had as many as 250,000 in a few previous years. If the camping facilities there will do for us for a night or two, we may have to give it a try soon. They are trying to get their visitor counts up and have started a friends group for that refuge and a sister refuge in eastern NM. They have had some good rains in that area, so hopefully, their bird populations will be good this year.
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I just have this thing about authority, I guess. Doctors, cops, IRS, there goes the blood pressure.
I’ll be curious to see whether after we get past this next month we will plan very far in advance at all. We do have the meet-up with Kathryn at the beginning of Dec., but our part of that will be easy. All I have to do is be in NOLA on the day to pick her up. And then in Houston to take her to the airport. In between things will work out.
We did the Natchez Trace by car at the beginning of ’13 (January) there are some blog comments about our trip but it wasn’t really a Natchez Trace trip, we were en route from FL to WI and just detoured for 2 days enjoying the ride but not really getting out to ’see’ things. It’s a lovely drive — even in January! Autumn would be priceless.
Part of what I want to do as we move forward is to check the Wildlife Refuge list for states that we are heading towards and see how many, and/or whether they are locations we want to visit at that time. There are some Nat. Wildlife Refuges that really aren’t human friendly. Some are only boat accessible. Some have wonderful facilities for visitors. Others actually have volunteers on-site. We have not been doing that thus far but now that we are NOT in a hurry getting anywhere we’ll see how things go. There are quite a few refuges in TX. With 450+ in the U.S. we have a good goal ahead of us.
It seems each year the bird population at refuges can vary a lot. And camping is usually not on the refuge. So, what to do and where to go can be up in the air — but then it’s always lovely to be in wildlife refuges even if there aren’t any birds to be found; or found in large numbers. 🙂
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I tell the nurse to bring the BP machine with her since it will have to take my BP three times, anyway. The first reading is always high.
If you pass through Decatur, Illinois, on your way, wave to my Dad.
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LOL — To show you the kind of relationship I have with my Doc, the nurse took it once, it was high. Doc came in and took it once — it was still high, she asked whether I’ve been monitoring it and what it’s been I told her the reading as of Friday and she was fine with it.
We’ll be going through Decatur on our way from Thomson Causeway to Shelbyville IL — Decatur is right on our route. I’ll wave really hard!
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