./`./` "I heard some wise man say
that every dog will have his day;
he never mentioned that
these dog days could get so long..."
We spent the past week waiting for a hiring decision at work that will significantly impact my career, only to find out about quarter to five on Friday that the hiring manager would rather meet Monday morning. *sigh* At this point, I know I've done everything I can and ultimately I can't control the outcome, so RDB and I settled in at site #110 in Brazos Bend State Park to get away for the weekend, trying to make sense of it all. Y'all, career politics are Greek to me. παιχνίδι αναμονής.....
Saturday morning we took a long walk around the camping loops in the park, chatting about Jeeps and overlanding and Casitas. Yes, we love our fifth wheel, and yet, we'd love to have a smaller rig, too! We continued the conversation on our way into town for lunch at a crazy (and I mean crazy) cafe and then made our way over to the Fort Bend County courthouse to walk around and take a few pictures.
RDB and I both had a surreal moment walking up the steps to take pictures of the building's historical plaque. The stairs of this 113 year old building are so well worn that you can immediately feel the concave granite underfoot. Well worn, but still effectively serving a purpose. Kinda like my heart these days.
On our way back to the park, we stopped off at the George Ranch Historical Park. We've driven past numerous times (since we've camped at Brazos Bend numerous times) but today made it a point to drop in and do a little exploring. I'm so glad we did because they had the grounds around one of the two historical houses laid out with hundreds and hundreds of pumpkins and gourds. It was GOURDS-geous. ;-)
We only toured the 1930s George Cattle Complex and House, since we were there just an hour before closing, but we certainly want to come back again to visit the rest of the grounds (there's a mile-long paved road to walk along) and the 1890s Davis Victorian mansion - perhaps when the weather turns cooler, or the next time we're back at Brazos Bend (I know, I've said it before: so much to do around here and so close to home!)
Saturday night found us resting back in the camper, enjoying cranberry bubbly and watching Despicable Me 2. We heard from Mr. Miata (my name for our Houston Miata Club President) confirming that we would be available to sweep a run for the upcoming 2022 Miata Club Round Up next week and asking if we could join a Zoom planning call Sunday night. Oh, and I've officially become the Club Photographer for this event; I asked Mr. M if he minds that it'll all be from my iPhone: "Beggars can't be choosers," he said. Ha!
We ended the night with a round of our usual three questions (What was good today? What was funny? What are you thankful for?). It may seem a simple thing, and I may not always remember what our answers were, but those three questions every night keep me grounded in the moment. And being in the moment is important right now.
It was a rough night's sleep Saturday night, though, as I couldn’t get my brain to ‘turn off’ and found myself awake and worrying nearly every hour. I finally fell fully asleep around 7am, only to wake about three hours later, still frustrated. It’s hard to rest when there is so much uncertainty about my job, something I’ve loved for 17 years, even as much as I love camping. It’s almost impossible to come to terms with what is happening right now (and sorry to be so vague - there’s just not much I want to share until I know what tomorrow brings). Needless to say, I'm trying to keep my Worry Less playlist on repeat this weekend.
Sunday morning we went for another long walk in the park, this time taking advantage of one of the many trails that BBSP has to offer. And I'm so glad we did!
Half way around one of the lakes there is an observation tower, several stories tall, that gives you an incredible view of the prairies and wetlands that the 5,000 acre park boasts. It was startling to see the high water lines from the flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2017; I'm a short 5'4" and you can see that I would have been completely underwater and then some!
The walk around the lake gave us a chance to really enjoy the wildlife that the park boasts about - turtles, frogs, lots of birds, and of course, no trip to Brazos Bend would be complete without an alligator sighting; and this time, it was one of the best yet! From the tower view, we could see several people gathered around a corner of the pond, so we made our way down to see what it was....
While there, we met Rick, a park volunteer and explorer-extraordinaire. You could tell he was passionate and knowledgable about the park, the wildlife and the surrounding area. He shared his website with me and I can tell we both enjoy writing about our varied adventures. I really enjoyed his page on Spoonbills (we saw one on our walk, too; such cool pink birds!)
As we stood there chatting, another LARGE gator ever so quietly lifted his head out of the water. It was incredible how stealthy he was - we'd been talking for a solid 10 minutes and never even knew he was there.
It's such a beautiful park; you can totally understand why people can spend decades exploring and enjoying the place.
We cleaned up a bit and had lunch (we brought salads with us from our fav place, Salata) and then jumped in the truck for another adventure down to Bazoria County to get a picture of their historical courthouse. Or well, courthouseS, as they have more than one!
And there were other neat things to check out there in Angleton:
I've driven past this statue of Steven F Austin at least a hundred times going back and forth to the chemical plants down in Freeport when I used to travel for work. It was cool to finally have a chance to stop and check him out!
The weekend felt years-long as we packed up to head home and the sun began to set. As I finish up this blog post, it'll be just a few more hours of the waiting game before I know what my future holds at work. I wish we could shine some light on what's waiting around the bend....
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