Still mostly laid up

We finally broke down and went to the ER last Friday for my foot. I can't say a lot of nice things about the hospital here in Austin, except that I was surprised at our lackluster experience considering how big the city is. Anyway, the doctor was nice and that is a rarity where I'm from. X-ray confirmed that my foot wasn't broken, fractured, or destined for deformity as some have feared, lol. It was just a bad sprain. They gave me some crutches, a prescription for very sought after pain medication that blew away from our table in a gust of wind, and some peace of mind.

Since then my feet have turned all sorts of colors. I think we are making baby steps of progress. I still can't really walk on my left foot but when I do bear some weight on it I just wince a little instead of screaming in pain. That's something, right? Poor Riki is feeling like a true stay at home mom without much of my help. He definitely needs a break. It isn't easy doing all the chores, cooking , and discipline. Luckily I'm able to do homeschooling lessons from my bed but we are definitely taking a laid back approach right now. Maybe we needed that anyway.

I've been knitting up a storm...not much else to do and at least I have an excuse to spend as much time on it as I want, right? I'm working on my half serious idea of knitting small items like beer coozies and hats to sell at festivals.

We are still trying to decide which direction to take from here. We are torn between heading to the west coast through NM, AZ, and up the pacific coast or just heading north to the national parks in Utah and Wyoming while Ellery is out of school for the summer. There are a lot of things I would like to attend on the west coast like homeschooling workshops and a very cheap buddhist family retreat but they are mostly in southern cali and I worry with boondocking that it will be too hot and uncomfortable, even if we are used to Florida humidity. It seems more practical to me to go up north for summer and head back down the west coast to the south for fall and winter....even if there aren't a lot of cool things going on that time of year...decisions, decisions.

For now we are looking forward to our first true boondocking experience next week at some BLM lands here in Texas. There is a lake with a meandering stream and it looks beautiful. We are really ready for it after being at an rv park for so long. I know Ellery is chomping at the bit to try some fishing there. Some people  think it's crazy that we don't have a generator or solar panels yet but I figure it like this. We have tent camped for years without hookups or air conditioning. What's the difference really?

I am hoping to hobble my way to a couple of places before we leave Austin like maybe Barton Springs next week. That looks promising....and there is a restaurant/outdoor music venue reminiscent of Skipper's back home that even has a playground. How cool is that? I'm hoping to check that out later this week. If I can hobble to a table and just sit there the whole time I should be okay. Plus, I'm dying to know what the redneck mimosa is on their menu, lol.

That's it for now, folks. We do have pictures from being here but bless his heart, Riki just hasn't had much time to really tweak the photos and post them on here. Maybe that will get done by the time we leave here, haha.