Corpus Christi, 1. Bust, 0.

It's the end of the line.

My dad sent me an email this week titled, "Are you out there in America somewhere?"

Yes, but just barely! Check out the Google map at the top of the blog. I am at the tail end of an island off the coast of Texas, in the Gulf of Mexico.

I've been here for a week. I have been holding off on blogging as I absorbed the fact that, as Siri says in my beloved Apple Maps, "You have reached your destination."

There are many things I like about Texas. One of them is that everyone is really friendly. The guy driving the town shuttle bus here pulled over when he saw me walking with groceries. "Climb aboard! Where are you headed? Free of charge!"

Another example: at a gas station outside Austin, I stood in line after sitting on a pile of cat hair.

"Hey!" said the guy behind me. "That's a lot of pet hair on you!"

He was just making conversation. His tone wasn't judgmental, or even particularly curious. He just had the thought - cat hair - and then spoke it aloud. In a companionable way.

So it's been fun being here.

Last week I was in Austin, enjoying one of the few big-city RV parks that is actually in a great urban neighborhood. Pecan Grove RV Park is on Barton Springs Road, right by Zilker Park (where the Austin City Limits festival is held). You know it's cool because Matthew McConaughey keeps his Airstream there.

Being in Austin, for me, is like watching a Wes Anderson movie or reading Pride and Prejudice. I feel warm and at home, and also delighted by what kindred spirits are up to.

Running on Town Lake just south of downtown, everyone has a medium-sized collie/shepherd/pit bull/lab mutt. Hey - I love shelter dogs, too!

I walked past a bar with a beach volleyball court out back. Hey - I'd play beach volleyball!

The flagship Whole Foods is here, with a breathtaking bulk foods section. You can choose from 12 different varieties of heirloom beans, 3 types of curry powder and some truly delicious dark chocolate covered roasted almonds. Hey - I... you get the picture.

The dome of the Capitol building, viewed from the ground floor:

Tomorrow I am headed back to Austin for a few weeks. I may continue on to New Orleans and points east; I may head back west; or I may just park in Austin for a while. The blog may be dormant for a bit. If you'd like to stay up to date without reloading the page daily and driving yourself mad, you can sign up to receive updates by email. Just add your email address to the box in the upper right hand corner of the blog.

Thank you, everyone, for reading. I have treasured your emails and comments in response to the blog. It has meant a lot to me that you took the time to follow along!

Days 44-51: Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico

Over the past 24 hours, I lost 6,000 feet in elevation and gained 30 degrees at night.

Hello, Texas.

But before that -

A week ago today, my mom and I got up at 4am to see the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. We ate green chile and bacon breakfast burritos in the pre-dawn cold. Here are some fiesta photos, courtesy of my mom - our guest photographer this week.

A good photographer can make any place look beautiful. Just yesterday, the New York Times had a cover photo of a beach in Mogadishu that made me think - hey, I'd go there.

Santa Fe doesn't need the help.

With its trademark adobe and red brick buildings, turquoise-trimmed windows, and fall colors, every block would make a great picture.

Ironically, then, I have no good photos of Santa Fe.

I was too busy drinking coffee and enjoying my mom's company.

At Tent Rocks National Monument, we scrambled through narrow canyons and admired the minaret rocks.

If you're ever in northern New Mexico, check out the mineral pools at Ojo Caliente. You can coat yourself with mud and bake in the sun, then dip in iron, soda and arsenic pools. Yes, arsenic! Flirt with danger..

Now I miss my mommy. I will have to soothe myself with migas here in Austin.

Days 37-43: Arches, Mesa Verde and the Pinto Bean Capitol of the World

When you see the pictures in this post, you will not empathize at all with the following statement:

This week was kinda boring.

I mean, relatively.

With my mom flying into Albuquerque today for a week of exploring New Mexico (yay!), I found myself killing some time in the Pinto Bean Capitol of the World (Dove Creek, Colorado) and Santa Fe National Forest this week.

Despite having 3-4 days worth of compelling stuff to do in the past 7 days, the pictures suggest enough beauty to fill 10 days. Or more.

And the pictures are probably right.

Arches National Park in southeast Utah is a photographer's dream. There are improbable red rock formations, including arches of course, that look lit from within at sunrise and sunset. Delicate Arch is the iconic image of Utah: it even appears on their license plate.

There is only one hike of any significant length in Arches: Devil's Garden. For much of this hike, there is no trail as such. You look for cairns (piles of rocks) set upon rock formations to figure out where the trail is. At times, you cross "fins." A fin is basically a narrow rock bridge that you walk across in 40 mph winds and hope you don't die. Here's the scariest one (I had to kneel down to turn around and take a picture of it, and my stomach still flipped as I craned around to take this picture for you, dear friend).

Utah's scenic highway 211 takes you to Canyonlands National Park, a huge and largely undeveloped park south of Arches. The mix of fall colors and red rocks was gorgeous.

Get ready for a non-ironic Stephen Colbert moment. I am finally learning what is awesome about RVing. It's not parking in a gravel lot with five feet between you and another fiberglass behemoth, cooking outside on a hot plate. It's this: did you know you can camp FOR FREE pretty much anywhere you want in national forests and land owned by the Bureau of Land Management? God bless America! Check out my campsite outside Canyonlands. I expected John Wayne to ride by.

Roadside attraction: a house built into rock in the 1950s.

Speaking of building houses into rocks, let's move on to Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. When I was in middle school, there were organized school trips every spring break. One I never took was to Mesa Verde. So my inner teenager was pretty excited to come here.

In the 13th century, ancestral Puebloans built towns into nooks just below the mesa-top. These towns are preserved at Mesa Verde, which is also a UNESCO world heritage site.

Native Americans lived in the Four Corners area (where modern-day Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico meet) from about 800 to 1200 A.D. Around 1200, ancestral Puebloans moved up from the lowlands to build these towns into canyon walls. Was this due to increasing violence and the need for towns they could fortify? No one knows. But, then, around 1300, they promptly abandoned these towns and moved south.

Looking at these towns, and native American pottery and other artifacts at the Anasazi Heritage Center (where I broke my unofficial 'no museums' rule for this trip), I felt humbled by the sophistication of these cultures. Portraits taken of native Americans in the 19th century suck your gaze in. These people were clearly not to be trifled with. I would like to learn a lot more about these cultures.

And that's good, because I haven't felt moved to learn anything for weeks.

Days 30-36: The Colorful State

(Please don't forget everything I said about Wyoming in my last post. It is a wild, distinctive place that I hope you will check out. And yet..)

Laramie is a dreary city in southeast Wyoming. There doesn't seem much to do besides eat fast food until you're morbidly obese, or experiment with meth. Though I did see a CrossFit.

Driving south on highway 287 from Laramie, you begin to notice little pops of red rocks coming out of the ground. These rock-sprouts are strong willed, insouciant. Who gave them the right to pop up like that? How did rocks start to rise up from the earth?

Shortly after the first red rock sighting, it's like someone flipped a switch from Ugly to Pretty. Scrubby hills give way to tree-covered mountains.

Welcome to Colorado.

I spent a few days in the greater Denver area, catching up with friends. I won't tell you too much about Denver, because big cities are kind of off limits for this blog. The places in-between are the ones I'll focus on. Let me limit myself to one photo and one piece of advice.

First, the advice - if you ever find a great job or fabulous significant other in Denver, definitely check it out. 300 days of sun per year, fabulous network of bike trails throughout the city, your usual cool urban stuff, and beautiful mountains all around. Here's a shot from Denver's Cherry Creek bike trail:

But (friends aside!) my favorite part of Colorado wasn't the Denver area. It was the mountains west of the city. OK, so you have heard of Vail, Breckenridge, Aspen, Telluride. I knew these places as ski resorts, and had no idea if driving through in October would be anything special.

WOW. I was blown away by how beautiful it is up there. There are a bunch of scenic drives that wind through old mining towns, deciduous and evergreen forests, and mountain lakes. You are more than 10,000 feet above sea level, so some of the tallest peaks in the continental US look like hills.

One of these small towns is Leadville (forgive the poor photo quality):

In Gunnison, I went for a run and spotted a few places I'd love to live:

Turns out I'm not the first big city person to want to live in this part of Colorado.

Finally, a rant about iOS6 and Apple's horrid new version of Maps. These days, I am a Maps power user and Apple's garbage has thrown me for a loop. In the past week, Apple maps has:

1. Suggested a route through 100 miles of Forest Service roads, instead of main highways.

2. Siri has barked at me "Turn right onto I-70 East." Then, 30 seconds later, "turn left on I-70 West."

3. Let's not forget the basic design flaw that you can't easily see the next step that's upcoming in the directions. This means that you don't know which lane to get in - which is a major bummer in a 29' vehicle in a big city.

And yes, Tim Cook, you CAN use Google Maps or Bing or whatever instead. But when you are using maps programs in a browser, they will reload whenever you open up Safari - and if you are out of cell range, you are SOL.

Until Apple is shamed into giving us back Google Maps, I'm using a great new Maps app I found:

Days 27-29: The 44th State

The fall colors are blowing up in Estes Park, Colorado.

Estes Park is a town northwest of Denver surrounded by Rocky Mountain National Park. I'm writing you now from a Starbucks on a river with yellow aspens and crimson-leaved trees on its banks.

Here's how I decided to come to Estes Park.

Walking out of a yoga class in Jackson Hole a week ago, one woman said to another, "See you next week!"

"Actually, I won't be here," said her friend. "I'm going to Estes Park next weekend."

"Oh, I love it there!"

"Me too!"

So, assuming the yoga ladies would have good taste, I came. And they did. But before I jump to Colorado, let's linger in WYOMING.

If you breeze through Wyoming on I-80, heading between California and the northern Midwest, you will believe that Wyoming is a barren wasteland of dead brown golden hills, punctuated only by Burger Kings and industrial sites.

Not so!

Promise me that the next time you go through Wyoming, you will do your best to get off I-80 and take a two lane highway.

South of Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park, there are some lesser known (but lovely) national forests. The area between Jackson and Pinedale has rushing rivers and abundant cheap campsites. Wide open spaces!

What appears ugly and barren from the interstate seems vast and colorful on a highway. It is so ungoverned. There is an undercurrent of fear (especially in a 16 year old motorhome) because breaking down in an area with no cell reception or services would be a major bummer. But the fear turns the beauty sublime.

The landscape here is more like a palette than a collection of distinct objects like mountains, trees, etc. As I drove, my mind was racing to name and remember all the colors so I could remember them the next time I have a room to paint! Moody stormcloud purple-gray. Parched sagebrush. Faded yellow grass. Washed-out sky blue.

In Saratoga, Wyoming, I saw the first road requiring river-fording that I've seen north of the Rio Grande:

Houses on the North Platte River in Saratoga.

A cattle ranch on the scenic Highway 130 through Medicine-Bow National Forest.

More details on Colorado to come. But first, I had to give Wyoming its due.

Days 24-26: Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Hole, WY

After a week of sunny, smoky days, rain has come to western Wyoming and Montana.

The shops in Jackson Hole have handmade signs in the windows: "Thank you, firefighters!" I'm sure most people here will be glad for a few days of rain and cooler temperatures.

I am not one of them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not fan of forest fires - but when your life revolves around hiking, cooking outside, and parking your home on dirt patches, rain is kind of a bummer. Oh - and don't get me started on the roof I still need to re-caulk and my miserable windshield wiper blades.

Speaking of life outdoors, I'm getting a little burned out on it.

Grand Teton National Park is gorgeous right now - brilliant yellow and orange aspens in front of steep mountain peaks - but I could hardly be bothered to take photos, let alone hike. Instead, I raced to the gravel patch of an RV park to read Harry Potter by the pool on the last day of summer sunshine. That was Day 24.

Yesterday I had an urban day in Jackson, Wyoming. Jackson is a little island of chichi in a sea of national parks, where you can find $40 elk tartare and interior design shops selling Pendleton-covered Eames chairs (if you have to ask, you can't afford it).

You can also find over-the-top Western kitsch like the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, which has saddles for bar stools.

I took a pass on the chichi, though I did succumb to the temptation to buy moccasins AND a plaid shirt.

The smoke and then clouds wrecked my Jackson pictures - everything looks gray and moody, like the world through Eeyore's eyes - but here are a few photos for you.

Southwest Yellowstone in a nutshell: fly fishing alongside geysers. (Can't see the fisherman? He's that speck in the center of the river.

Obligatory Old Faithful shot:

And just one photo from Jackson. I went for a run on the Jackson Hole Community Pathways - a really great network of trails that wind through the city and out into the surrounding community along the Snake River. Along the way, I spotted these ducks enjoying their little single-serve rock perches. I like to imagine them crossing the rocks stone by stone, like the path to a Zen temple:

Hitting the road to continue south through Wyoming, destination still TBD. Arches National Park, in southeast Utah? Estes Park, near Rocky Mountain NP just north of Denver? The original plan was Aspen, but I have since learned that Aspen is way too cool for RV parks. Arches and Santa Fe are definitely in my future - still trying to figure out what, if anything, will lie between. If you have suggestions, please let me know!!

xoxo, RV Girl

Days 18-23: Yellowstone, Take One

It's a sunny morning in West Yellowstone, Montana. Forest fires have covered the area from Calgary to Yellowstone - and considerably further south as well - with a blanket of smoke. The sunsets are gorgeous; the air quality is not.

The first day at Yellowstone, I felt lazy and just enjoyed nature through the window as I read all day. The second day, I pushed myself to do a moderate six mile hike but felt pretty wiped. That night, I couldn't seem to catch my breath.

Texting my mom that night, I described the breathing to her. Let me pull up her text: it made me smile and freak out a little, all at the same time.

Sounds like what they call wheezing.

Between the altitude (elevation is around 7000 feet) and the smoke, my lungs began to protest. I rested another day and now am feeling much better.

Ok - scenery time!

Entering Yellowstone by the North Entrance, near Mammoth Hot Springs, the landscape is not immediately endearing. It looks like the Central Valley of California: dead brown golden hills.

Along rivers, though, you see a stripe of green. I love how this picture depicts the change in vegetation:

Here's a distance shot of the Mammoth Hot Springs. It looks like the set of a futuristic 60s space movie. There are several active hot springs on this hillside. Where the hot water dribbles down, there is a thin crust of mineral deposits over squishy land. You cannot walk on the land directly. You have to walk on wooden platforms built over the springs (as seen in the center left of this photo) - or take pictures from a distance, if you can't deal with pushing through busloads of tourists on the narrow walkways.

With 2.2 million acres of park, Yellowstone has several distinct microclimates. While the northern area near Mammoth is hot and dry, when I drove further southeast to the so-called Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, it was much more green. The air smelled piney and fresh: like the Northwest!

I realize that I feel subtly uneasy in these dry, flat, golden landscapes surrounding the Rockies. They are a bit Valley of the Shadow of Death for my taste. My subconscious goes on yellow alert. I feel this sense of relaxation when I get back somewhere cool and green, with plenty of water in sight. Is this a Washington native thing? Do Aborigines, for example, relax in dry landscapes? But I digress...

On the southern side of the Yellowstone River, not far downstream from Yellowstone Lake (one of the largest lakes at this elevation in the world), the trail sits just a few feet above the banks of the river:

Continuing east, you come to the Upper Falls of the Yellowstone:

After a couple of miles and another waterfall, the river is some ways below you. Now you can see why they call it the Grand Canyon!

The canyon walls are decorated with sunset pinks, oranges, and a hint of violet. You cannot quite see the colors as vibrantly here as they are in real life.

Next stop: another day or so in Yellowstone, then heading into Grand Teton National Park (which borders Yellowstone to the south) and Jackson Hole.