Wrestling an Octopus

Greetings from Fredericksburg, Texas.  We had a lovely night at camp in Big Bend National Park with some beautiful tropical colored small birds and cottonwoods all leafed out already.  Our trip down was better than the last time we traipsed through Fort Davis (five inches of half-inch hailstones) although the wind we battled on the way down finally caught up with us and stayed all night.  This is the picture of the clouds as the sun rose on our way out of the park this morning.

Despite our best intentions, we seem to be dashing up and down and across Texas just in time to let the cold front winds catch up every night.  This is now the third day of this back and forth race and it is getting a little tiresome.  Each day has been just a little bit windier and driving today was about a 35  mph crosswind with gusts up to 45 and we agreed it felt a lot like we were arm wrestling an octopus.  Lane management was a big challenge, but as our brother Jim said at the outset, "Keep the greasy side down".  We got here fine, although Cheryl is now drinking a few glasses of wine to get rid of the tension in her shoulders and brain from all the white-knuckle driving.  Tom, OTOH, has no problem with "ground turbulence"  because he has "experienced worse flying in thunderstorms and lenticular clouds and this only moves in two dimensions".  Well, OK.

Fortunately, we have two nights planned here in Fredericksburg, so we are gonna let the storm move right along without us.  Tomorrow we will relax a bit, sightsee in town, do some retail therapy and head to Driftwood,TX  on Tuesday.