Sheep Guarding Llama

Sunday. Today is crazy hot. While officially it is just eighty eight this morning, it was a “feels like” ninety seven day. And that was still this morning, it just kept getting hotter and hotter.

Emily and I were both exhausted yesterday, so were not up for getting up and getting going early this morning. Although we should have, because it was so brutally hot that we couldn’t take it for long today.

We had hoped to leave by nine, but Emily could not find her letter board that she had been planning to use for the shoot (because her mother hid it in her craft room.) So that cost about an hour (and did not make for a happy Emily.)

We finally got out the door and started with a quick trip to Donuts, Tacos, and Kolaches, our old stop, and picked up breakfast. The owner, as always, remembered us and commented on how old Emily is now. We said that we were headed off to Paris soon, as that is where the owner is from originally.

From there we drove down to Galveston to use the same beach that we had used last time. When we got there, we really realized just how hot it was. We did what we could, but were dying from the heat in no time. And it took a long time to change the letter board between pictures, which made standing in the bright sun that much harder.

We did as much as we could then ran back to the van and sat in the air conditioning for about twenty minutes. Then we ran out and shot some more. Then back to the van. Then some more and gave up as it was just too hot, we couldn’t keep going. Thank goodness I had thought to put on sun screen this morning or it would have been really bad for me. While we were there we got over three hundred pictures taken (plus over one hundred yesterday) and I got a little bit of video to use for some testing with the Lumix to see how it should do for travel stuff.

We shot until around one thirty then drove back to the house, stopping at Sonic on the way back for some cold drinks and ice cream cookie sandwiches.

While back at the house we did a bunch more pictures for another hour or so. We have loads of stuff now to use on the Instagram account.

It ended up taking us till around four thirty to finally get the minivan loaded and to get on the road. We made our now obligatory stop at the Carl’s Jr. on El Dorado before leaving town to make sure that we could get some Beyond Burgers as they are harder to get in the Dallas area. We will be going two months without them shortly, so we need to eat them while we can.

The drive home went fine. We have Mia the dog with us. She was sleeping in the third row all of the way and did really well.

We picked up Taco Bueno before getting to the house, so dinner was all taken care of. We watched some Voyager, then some travel videos. Kat came over as well and hung out.

Saturday. I got to sleep in just a little this morning. Surprisingly I managed to get a real night of sleep on the air mattress with Dominica. Normally I struggle to sleep on that because it doesn’t breath. But my watch tells me that I got a good night’s sleep.

I’ve been doing a little DuoLingo and MangoLanguages practice to learn some Greek before we go. Boy is it hard, though!

I got up around nine which meant only about three hours before the party officially got started and we were outside with things more or less underway in about two. The sun was out in force today, but it was still super humid. So we were all incredibly hot outside. The pool proved to be super popular today. Paul and I both got pretty sunburnt. The girls had a blast in the pool, they were in easily eight hours! They got to meet Drew’s girlfriend’s daughter Sophie who is nine and they became good friends and she spent the night for her first ever sleepover which was really cool that they got to do. She was so excited for a slumber party.

We had a fun time, but it was super exhausting with all of the sun and heat. And we swam and ate way too much today.

Tomorrow Emily and I are heading to the beach in the morning to do a few hours of photo shooting for the vlog (that isn’t out yet.)

We were exhausted and went to bed pretty early tonight.

Friday. My last day at home alone. And just six days until we start traveling for the summer. That is coming up quickly! Especially with two days of that time being in Houston, there are no weekend days in Dallas left for me until August! (That is a little weird to think about.)

I got some good sleep last night. Going to bed early was definitely the right choice. I got over three hours of deep sleep, according to my AmazFit, which is way more than I usually get. I was in bed for basically nine hours. That’s hours more rest time and more deep sleep than usual. Not sure why I was feeling so tired, but for whatever reason, it caught up with me.

It’s cooler in Carrollton today. And a light drizzle. Overcast.

An acquaintance of mine, a friend of a friend in Nicaragua, was in a car accident two weeks ago and lost her job because she cannot come in to work. Her insurance wasn’t enough to cover food and medicine, she is in a wheelchair now. So she needed exactly the amount of money that I had for my birthday money, so that’s what I bought for my birthday. I had to run to Western Union to deal with that this morning, so while out I treated myself to some donuts over on Marsh.

Today was a very busy day, so much to do before leaving for Houston tomorrow. I am only in Houston for one night, but it is still a lot of time away and there is so little time before we leave for so long, which always stresses me out.

I worked and got on the road as soon as I could. It was around eight when I left the house. I stopped at the Carl’s Jr on Route 20 at the Luv’s Travel Stop and grabbed a Beyond Burger before driving on south. Overall the drive went fine. The roads were pretty clear and the weather was good. It is going to be a busy weekend for sure.

I got to the house around one in the morning and went straight to bed. Everyone was already asleep. The party is at noon tomorrow, so it is going to be a very busy day.

Thursday. One of my two days at home alone. It is so rare that I get these now. I hate having the kids be away, but I really appreciate the time to myself.

Everyone was up and out the door at four thirty this morning so that they could get through Dallas before rush hour hit. And get to Houston after rush hour. It is such a horrible drive if you end up hitting either one of them.

I went to Taco Bueno for some lunch today. Yum.

I was feeling very tired and run down today. I was not super productive. I did, however, do some maintenance on the SD cards that we have for the trip and discovered that we had some of the footage from MangoCon 2017 and some of what we have has audio. Sadly it would appear that much was not filmed, and a lot of what was filmed does not have audio. So what we have is very limited, but at least it is something. I sorted all of that out and got it uploading today. Hopefully that will get posted soon, just two years late.

My new super light (and small) travel tripod arrived from Amazon today. One more shipment coming tomorrow, with the travel 4TB hard drive to put the media on, is all that is left. I hate traveling with only a single hard drive, but we have to be cost conscious and take our chances for this trip. I’ll upload everything that I can as we go to avoid it being the only copy of the media as much as is possible, but that is going to be excessively hard to do in most of our locations.

I went out for a short walk today. Did some camera tests while I was out. It was not a long walk, but it was good to get out some. I really need to walk tomorrow, too. There is so little time before Europe. I need to prep all week if I am to have any hope of being ready in any way. This is going to be one exhausting money, for sure.

I made myself a veggie burger for dinner, I am trying to use up whatever is left around the house. Dominica went out to Carl’s Jr. in Houston today. Of course they are open when she goes. No Carl’s Jr for me.

I watched a bit of Karl Watson today, and some Hey Nadine. I was feeling pretty tired, though. So I did some light work and decided to call it a night at eleven. That’s so early for me. But I just was not feeling any reason to stay up any later.

Rachel and I had been talking about going up to Denton tonight to go to East Side since she needs to run up there anyway to pick up her paycheck. But she didn’t get back to me until I was already in bed. So not tonight.

Wednesday. Today I am working in Tyler, Texas, which is two hours away from the house. So I have a bit of driving to do today. I had considered getting up super early to do the drive before rush hour, but I wanted to sleep so opted not to do that. It is a good day for me to be working in Tyler because the girls have a birthday party in Addison for much of the day and I would not get to see them anyway.

I got up and showered, dressed, and was on the road a little after nine. I stopped at Taco Bell for breakfast to eat on the road, and stopped to fuel up the car before leaving town as well. So it was really more like ten before I was really underway.

It has been a while since I have driven out to Tyler and this is my first time visiting the facility there. The drive was fine, nothing notable. It took about two hours. I noticed that there was a Carl’s Jr at the Love’s Travel Plaza on the way there. I am definitely stopping there on the way home. I had literally searched both Google and Carl’s Jr’s websites to see if there was a shop along this path and neither had said that there was, and yet there it is! Carl’s Jr really needs to step up their game because they have been closing in Dallas and of course they are if their customers cannot find them.

I got to the facility at noon and had a busy, but very good, day. Did a lot of work and was there till probably almost five (they mostly close at four.) I got the things installed that I was there to install, and I got a lot more done as well. Tons of clean up, tons of time working with the managers there, really good use of my day. And a nice change of pace, I really enjoy working on site with clients like this one.

Dominica said that they were under tornado warning much of the day back home. The girls were in the bathroom, shoes on and all ready in case something happened. They could hear the sirens going off. There was a rotation over Lewisville, but it did not develop. The storm moved off to the east.

It was clear (ish) when I left Tyler to drive back west to Dallas along Interstate 20. I wasn’t concerned with the weather, things were looking pretty clear when I got on the road. I made a beeline for the Carl’s Jr as I had been looking forward to getting their Beyond burger all day, and was going to get one to take home to Dominica, as well. It was just starting to sprinkle when I pulled into the Love’s Travel Center. There were a lot of people standing around outside looking at the sky, and no one inside, which I thought was pretty weird, but I really didn’t think anything of it.

The kid at the counter of Carl’s Jr told me that they were closed because of the storm. This seemed pretty odd given that I was just outside and there was definitely no storm. So frustrating as I had waiting all day to get this! And this is the second time that this happened to me in a week! My phone alert for an “imminent tornado” went off as I was getting in the car, but living in Texas these alerts never end, you really don’t think much of them.

So I called and Paul said that I was clear to head west as long as I got moving. The storm shouldn’t get me. So I got back on the road and drove to Canton, where I stopped to hit the Taco Casa there as there were emergency vehicles on the road now, and the rain was getting heavy, and I was afraid of delays on the road. I had had very little caffeine all day, so wanted something to drink in the car. It was a good time to stop.

As I got out of the car I got the “take shelter now” text message from NOAA. But, still it didn’t seem too bad, so I went inside and found the place completely packed with people all watcher the Weather Channel on the televisions there. It turned out that Canton was hit by the tornado as I drove through it and I had missed it by seconds. I looked at pictures on my phone and they looked exactly like the clouds where the tornado crossed the highway. So I had been right next to it and not noticed. Canton was hit pretty heavily, a lot of damage there.

I got a bean burrito while I was there, and a diet Coke and got back on the road. The tornado had already passed through, so no sense in hanging around.

The rest of the drive there was a lot of rain until I got pretty close to Carrollton. So it was a slower drive, almost impossible to see part of the time. It made for a slow trip. It was after seven thirty when I got back. No one was home because they were out picking up the kids from their party. But they got home shortly after I did.

So that made for a little bit of excitement for the day.