ROADTRIP: Day 1, Austin down

As we left on our roadtrip, floods and
tornado warnings rolled in keeping our adventures at bay. We suppressed our
frustration with an impromptu flash flood shower, complete with Dr. Bronner’s
soap, then cosied up in our van and promptly depleted my partner’s laptop
battery watching a Charlie Chaplin film we’d been eyeing for ages.

The film lead to intermittent napping, as
most things do, and when we awoke the rain had subsided so we embarked, ever
so carefully, towards Big Bend.

The rain, though untimely for us, was a
blessing for Texas, which had been in drought for years. The
downpours bestowed numerous gifts, most notably the plethora of bright and beautiful wild flowers which seemed to burst from the soil in celebration.

We moved slowly, at our max 55mph speed,
but saw, with curious eyes, all that was around us. As night fell, so did our
output of energy and we found a field to hunker down in for the night.

The moon
and the stars, likely hidden behind the rolling clouds of passing storms,
neglected to show themselves, leaving us to light our temporary home by solar
fairy lights alone which we’d stapled to the roof of our vouse during
one of our hideouts from the storm.

Slightly paranoid but mostly peaceful we passed
out and thankfully, the storm passed on and away from our tin can of a home.