in the POD - no photos......

its come to this

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We last left our heroes peering out their dark hotel room window watching the snow fall just outside of Baton Rouge, LA. So many things are wrong with that picture!

By early morning, Tim was not feeling much better. The stomach issues had seemed to pass but he felt like that proverbial bus had made its mark. I quickly headed to the nearest drug store to get any and all provisions to help any potential new flair up of anything! I was a Girlscout! I knew how to be prepared!

Opening the hotel door I found: 17 degrees!, 2” of snow on the POD, and ALL the roads covered in a sheet of ice!!! No kidding. The entire town seemed to have shut down. Semi trailer trucks were parked along all the roadways, the streets were empty and even the one highway into and out of town was closed - blocked by police vehicles at every on ramp! 
Zombie apocalypse?
 Proud of my New England heritage and winter driving expertise I forged on, determined to fulfill my plan. I went first to a Walgreens @ 1/2 mi away. Closed. Well, technically they were supposed to be open at 8 am (it was 8:30 am)…. but no. SO I headed to a CVS. Closed. They were scheduled to open @ 7 am. Soooo I headed to another Walgreens @ 2 mi away. CLOSED! By this point I finally realized that the entire town had obviously declared a snow day. As I headed back to the hotel I spied a Walmart ….. open 24 hrs. I figured those workers were already stuck there for their snow day! 

Sorry…but sometimes you just need a Walmart.

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We showered, dressed, Tim ate some crackers and Pedialite for breakfast (oh boy!), and we headed west to Austin TX! We had to do a big drive around to get out of town because all the highways into/out of Baton Rouge were closed. It was slow going, me and all the semis using smaller state roads to wind our way into Texas, but eventually all was fine. 

I decided we would stay in another hotel upon our arrival in Austin just to make sure that Tim was 100% by morning and that I wasn’t the next to get sick. We made dinner in the POD parked outside our hotel room and carried it into the room to dine. Tim was well enough to eat ramen (his choice) and I had tomato soup. We both slept well. 

And yet, Tim woke not feeling 100%. It was a gray 30 degrees. Ugh.

SO - how did you like Austin?

They are currently rebuilding one of the major arteries thru the city so traffic was a nightmare. There are parts that look rather interesting, however, we never really explored the city…….

WELL, what did you do?

I did 2 loads of laundry at a really nice, clean laundromat!  

Tim went off to find/replace our 2 onboard batteries. Yes, this issue has been quietly tapping us on the shoulder for a few months and Tim noticed that they were slowly failing. These are what keep us charged when camping - especially in spots without hook-ups  as in our next planned stop at Big Bend. Since he was still feeling quite punk and it was cold we figured this was a good use of the already lost day. 3 different stops (purchase, installation, getting rid of old batteries) later - we were back in business. 

Then we stopped in a “park” - at least it was called a park, the Onion Creek Greenbelt. It was close to the battery drop off place and we thought it would be pleasant to have a quiet spot to lay out our plans for the next few days and for me to “de-contaminate” the POD. 

It was such a strange place. Paved roads in a grid, street signs, some toppled, lots of fallen trees, and broken utility boxes every block or so. We then noticed that there were cracked driveways at some spots in the curbs and a few stray mailboxes - to nowhere. 
Those thoughts of the zombie apocalypse came rushing back....
We figured that it had been a community - at some point. Thank goodness for the internet! Seems that the neighborhood of Onion Creek was in a flood zone - well now it is officially a flood zone. It flooded in 1998, 2001, 2013, and 2015. Seems that FEMA eventually bought out all the owners and relocated them. 

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Based on these last 2 days….. I sure hope this is not how the rest of this “adventure” plays out.