Funky Texas Traveler

Be a traveler, not a tourist. Dig deeper, learn more.

Port Aransas post Harvey

How-Port-Aransas-is-surviving-Hurricane-Harvey Port Aransas post HarveyPOST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS- READ DISCLOSURE FOR INFO.

I drove south this past Wednesday with Joe Holley from the Houston Chronicle to see how Port Aransas post Harvey was faring. 

Admittedly antsy as I rode the ferry, I worried about my friends and favorite places in this beloved Texas town.  My anxiety ratcheted up when I heard from  a very good friend who didn’t want me to post on social media that I was headed down there.

“Please delete your facebook post. The last thing the poor island needs right now is people down here who aren’t part of the clean up.”  If I could have reversed direction in the ferry line, I might have done so but I am so glad I didn’t.

My friend’s frustrated reaction was completely understandable.  I should know.  My home in Houston flooded a few days before when Harvey paid us an unwelcome visit.  But I was compelled to come down.  Port A has always felt special.  As Dan Solomon said on a recent Texas Monthly blog, “People from all over Texas have strong, tender feelings toward the town, and have long used the place as a getaway from their day-to-day reality. “

[Read more…]

signature Port Aransas post Harvey

My Breast Cancer Experience – A Month at MD Anderson Cancer Center

POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS- READ DISCLOSURE FOR INFO.
My-breast-cancer-treatment-journal-690x400 My Breast Cancer Experience - A Month at MD Anderson Cancer Center
By Zereshk (Own work) GFDL or CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

One of the scariest experiences you may have as a newly-diagnosed breast cancer patient is entering a cancer center for the first time.  Hopefully, this post of my treatment experience at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston helps make you more comfortable.  Also, check out five steps to take before you start treatment.

Twelve days after diagnosis, I was at MD Anderson Cancer Center at 6:30 in the morning, lugging CDs and printouts of my health records and facing a full day of evaluation, prodding and filling out forms. My cancer center was experimenting with a new patient protocol.  You had the option to have everything done in one incredibly long day, or you could return for multiple days of appointments.  Since I lived closed, I went with the one day plan. 

My time at MD Anderson Cancer Center begins

Before dawn on September 25, I was parking in the near-empty parking garage under the Texas Medical Center, a separate entity within the city of Houston.  Mexico City has the City of the Dead.   Egypt has the Valley of the Kings.  Houston has the City of the Sick, officially called the Texas Medical Center.  MD Anderson Cancer Center is one of TMC’s most visited destinations. [Read more…]

signature My Breast Cancer Experience - A Month at MD Anderson Cancer Center

Breast Cancer. 5 steps to take before treatment

POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS- READ DISCLOSURE FOR INFO.

breast-cancer-5-steps-to-take-now-if-you-have-it-690x400 Breast Cancer. 5 steps to take before treatmentYou just joined the 1 in 8 sisterhood of women who get breast cancer.  Before you head down your treatment road, here are five steps I discovered helped me mentally and financially. 

To make your looming cancer journey a little less threatening now’s the time to compare this trip with something in your past that was initially unfamiliar but you quickly adjusted to.  Maybe a new job or going to college far from home.  For me, it was summer camp.

There are similarities between the way you felt as a kid when you got dropped off at summer camp the first time and the way you’ll feel entering a  cancer center as a patient for that first appointment.  Just like camp, you’ll be out of your comfort zone, make new friends, sometimes cry late at night, be embarrassed, disoriented, be required to do different things and have different things done to you.  As a kid, you probably asked some of the older girls in the hood about what to expect at camp. 

Consider me an older girl in the hood and this post an idea of what to expect at “cancer camp.”   In addition to the five steps to get you started, here’s a link to exactly what I went through day by day in treatment.  I’ve tried to be as complete as possible of the treatment post to help you feel more comfortable about you may be facing.  That makes the entire story a long post.  You can read the journey here when you are ready.   Right now, I suggest looking over this list of things and actions that helped me most. [Read more…]

signature Breast Cancer. 5 steps to take before treatment

Dan Pecore, Port Aransas boat builder

Dan-Pecore-Port-Aransas-boat-builder-Texas-Scow-Schooner-500x280 Dan Pecore, Port Aransas boat builderDan Pecore, a Port Aransas boat builder, is bringing the only Texas scow schooner back to life.  Pretty life-changing for a city kid from  Houston who moved to Port Aransas years ago to raise a family.  While Dan was growing up in Houston’s museum area, he’d spend weekends on his family’s farm.  In the country, this city kid discovered a serenity from working with wood, specifically old wood.    

How did Dan become involved with boats?

Dan especially liked the weathered posts from the stock pens and their imperfections –  all worn down and sometimes stained by urine and cow shit. He told us  he seemed to be able to feel the years and changes the old wood had watched.  Sometime later on Port Aransas,  he started to build beautiful things from the scraps of aged lumber – jewelry boxes, furniture, keepsakes. 

And then Dan began looking for pieces of old boats, specifically dismantled sailboats from places like the Chesapeake Bay.  He refashioned that wood into projects, using the knots and the holes to lead him.   And in time, he started to build wooden boats. 

Texas Scow Schooner project

Dan-Pecore-Port-Aransaas-boat-builder-momentos-500x280 Dan Pecore, Port Aransas boat builderIn 2015,  Dan hired on to lead a team to complete the construction of the only Texas scow schooner that now exist anywhere.  He has thrown himself into the project with the passion of affair with a stubby, squat beauty that will eventually be called the Lydia Ann.

The balance he has created in his life by building keepstakes, resurrecting the Lydia Ann and reading Rumi is being tested by Hurricane Harvey.  Good luck and traveling mercies, Dan.

 

signature Dan Pecore, Port Aransas boat builder

Port Aransas and the Texas Scow Schooner Project

Port-Aransas-update-Texas-Scow-Schooner-survives Port Aransas and the Texas Scow Schooner Project POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS- READ DISCLOSURE FOR INFO.

Hurricane Harvey blasted Port Aransas but unbelievably the Farley Boat works and the Texas Scow Schooner project looks untouched.  These two historic gems reach deep into the roots of Port Aransas to make you appreciate how difficult it was to build a thriving town on this spot.  I’ll give you more background on the Farley Boat Works next week.  This week, it is all about the replica Texas Scow Schooner named Lydia Ann,  which was to be completed and ready to sail by the end of the year.  With Harvey’s visit, who knows when she will hit the water.   Here is where to find the latest update on the Lydia Ann.

Boat survived but boat builder’s house not so lucky  

Even though the schooner survived, I drove by the home of the man who is leading the project to bring her back to life and my stomach dropped.  The beach house where friends and I visited Dan Pecore months earlier to learn his background and the schooner’s history now looked like those long-abandoned adobe dwellings you see in Terlingua.  No roof or windows, just exterior, and interior walls.   Even more worrisome, I haven’t been able to contact Dan, but I’m hopeful a passion this strong will overcome one little hurricane. 

A Beautiful Texas Butthead

Dan finds every inch and curve of the Texas Scow Schooner a thing of beauty – perfectly proportioned and shaped for her function.  But when I first saw it, I thought it was kind of small and squatty.  Someone had called her a “Texas Butthead” and that description fit. [Read more…]

signature Port Aransas and the Texas Scow Schooner Project