Duck, NC

Monday - This is the view from the upper deck (this suggests the existence of a lower deck) of the Atlantic. There is a walkway out to the beach and I think I’ll be venturing out there later. I may have to do a Zoom session out here…

This is looking north. Nothing negative I can say about it. Thank you to Bridget’s brothers family for the opportunity and invite! We are here for a wedding at the end of the week. 

And, I guess, streaming shouldn’t be an issue…

After picking up some groceries, we went to Duck Donuts. No pre-made donuts here! They are made-to-order. 

I couldn’t resist a maple-salted caramel with bacon topping. It was delicious! Probably way too much sugar.

I'm out of the lower deck getting ready for a test. The WiFi signal is decent here though not quite as good as in the living room. On this deck level is the unheated pool and the hot tub. I just turned up the temperature from 95°F to 102°F. It should be ready in a couple of hours.

Nice place for a Zoom call test session! It was too sunny and warm on the upper deck at least for the morning session.

Irving, TX

Saturday - Today we drove to Dallas as we fly out tomorrow morning to Virginia. We are actually headed to North Carolina but the closest airport was Norfolk, VA. The destination meant that the “best” flights were out of Dallas which was a six hour drive from Hondo. By “best” I mean direct, only one flight. If we left from San Antonio, we would’ve flown west then change planes before heading east. This was simpler. The picture is one of the really nice rest areas. This one is between Waco and Dallas. 

We will be trying out a new car rental option on this trip called Turo. Car rentals have gotten very expensive. We are renting a car from an individual rather than a company. When we were in Florida, Dave and Ginny rented their car through Turo and they have used the service multiple times. And they reported good experiences every time. 

The handy restaurant to the hotel was the Red Lobster. The standout dish, for me, was the crispy brussel sprouts. Fantastic dish. I need to figure out the recipe. 

Sunday - We are sitting in the airport with multiple weather delays. Almost two hours so far…

Thunderstorms came through in the early morning hours. At least it cooled off. Only 64°F this morning. 

Here is why the flight is delayed. This is our plane route from Austin to DFW. It needed to wait for an opening in Austin as well as the weather to clear in Dallas. This is cool website. It gives me something to do while cooling my heels in an airport.

If nothing else, the WiFi at the airport was really fast. But I still don’t care for flying…

We met some friends for dinner in Norfolk then drove to Duck, NC. This is crossing Currituck Sound on a bridge on our way to the beach house.

Back in D’Hanis - SKP

Wednesday - Muggy but not too hot, yet. It's still only 11:30am but I'm not going to complain about 75°F! The low temperature was 69°F so the rear A/C was left running. The park is emptying out so maybe the AT&T cellular bandwidth will stay reasonable. The morning test session seemed to go fine so I volunteered to lead the afternoon test session.

There were still occasional audio glitches but it seemed to work and didn’t interfere with the test. After my positive experience with Starlink, I’m tempted. 

I tried "fried chicken" in the air fryer. Less than satisfactory results. It was okay, it did have a crust, but no where near as good as pan fried chicken.

Thursday - Another warm day today after last nights low temperature of 70°F! It doesn't feel as humid today as it has on other days. I signed up for the early test session but the candidate rescheduled for next week. Oh well…

I dropped off an Amazon return at the closest UPS store which was most of the way into San Antonio. I took the Ural and it was a pretty warm ride and right around 100km round trip. Lots of traffic. But not too many Ural riding days left before we head north. The A/C in the RV felt pretty nice!

Friday - Speediest results aren't quite as fast as it was yesterday morning but good enough to participate in testing. It's another muggy day with both temperature and humidity in the upper 70s. It's overcast so not horribly hot sitting in the sun. We are packing up, getting ready to head out to the Outer Banks in NC. I have not been there before and really looking forward to visiting Kitty Hawk. 

Mustang Island SP - TXSP

Monday - We will miss our friends as they begin their summer road trips. I believe that they are roughly traveling together for a while until mid-summer. Last night, I had dinner with the Marx’s at a seafood place in Port Aransas. I was finally able to get a decent amount of oysters which is one of my favorites seafood items.

There was wind and showers this morning again. One thing to remember about the coast, it’s always windy. Since we didn’t need any more water, I went ahead and repacked the hose, regulator, filter, and water softener. We arrived with the SeeLevel fresh water level at 51%. I’m guessing that this is about 70 gallons. We are still at 20% which is around 30 gallons. We even ran a load of laundry this morning. 

By noon we had new neighbors on both sides of us. The site on our passenger side is a primo site due to all the extra space from the electrical boxes. Unfortunately, they have yappy, small dogs but we are leaving tomorrow morning heading back to Hondo.

We had dinner at Grumble’s Seafood Co., the same place I had dinner yesterday with the Marx’s. Oyster po’ boy. Delicious!!

Tuesday - Today was a travel day back to the SKP park in Hondo/D’Hanis. It was just under 200 miles. We arrived back around 1pm and within an hour we were all set back up. The RV ran great.

I went into Hondo today to pick up my birthday freebies from Starbucks and Whataburger. Not a lot but the price is right. There are still a few more freebies but they don’t need to be collected today.