So our daughter entered a story-writing contest and won not only $5,000, but they also made her story into a short film and showed it at the 2024 Austin Film Festival in Austin, Texas. A HUGE honor! So off we went!

We took I-10 both ways in hopes of bypassing the horrible roads in Arizona off the 40. Well, it was a little better, but not much, and a super boring drive as you can tell because I took almost no pictures!

This was too funny. Not the exact spelling of my name, but close!

The RV Park was in Downtown Austin, and you could see the beautiful downtown area from the RV. What a great find.

The Film Festival was so much fun. Red carpet kind of fun!

We all had Lone Star Badges, which got us into all of the showings, plus parties and panels. We met some of Hollywood’s elite in the process…mostly producers and directors. The owner of the winery that held the contest just loved Nikki and her story, which was a thriller named Amongst the Large Pines. Nikki was in all of her glory and it was a very exciting and proud moment for all of us.

After the festival, Nikki and Elliott and his parents headed home and we headed to Caldwell to see our close friends, the Bocks.

Our trip was not without a few problems haha. To memorialize, our windshield got cracked by a flying rock in New Mexico. We got it fixed by the nicest man in Bryan Texas. Here’s a shout out to him and his shop. We were kind of in a hurry because we didn’t want the chip to turn into a huge crack and this is the only shop that could even see us that week. He did the repair while we waited in the RV, and it took at least 45 minutes. It’s quite a process. Then he only charged us $30. We were so thankful to him. Besides the windshield crack, we locked ourselves out of the RV in Austin and it took Good Sam 2 hours to get someone to break in for us, and by the time we got home we had a flat rear tire. But we made it!

We arrived in Caldwell and it was like we had never left. We do miss our friends so much. It was a great time in their beautiful home, on their beautiful county road.

We always travel with Chucky and his Bride, so here’s a picture of them. I think I told the story many posts earlier. Pepper loves them. That’s my Tupperware Tumbler in the photo lol.

Heading Home…Stayed in Fort Stockton for the night.

New Mexico, we stayed in Deming.

Arizona…we stayed in Tonopah…yuck.

I don’t know what’s wrong with that state. It has horrible places to RV camp on the I-10. The wind blew 100 mph all night. We got up early to get a head start out of there but hit super high winds with thick dust and torrential rains. We had to pull over to wait out some of the weather. It was scary.

Mixed drinks helped at night. That’s a swizzle Donna gave Gary LOL.

Home sweet home!

Yes California is annoying sometimes, but it’s always great to get home after a long trip. Until next time…