Blog 3781 – 03.19.2026
One Bite At A Time
Last week, I took a week off from my weekly drives to our property in Bon Wier, Texas. The cooler weather has made the trips here unattractive to my wife so Christmas was our last trip here together. I hope that once the weather warms up for good that she might again want to spend a couple of days and night on the property each week as we did last year from August till Christmas.
As I sit in our Camper awaiting sunlight so I can take a drive around the property in our Polaris Ranger 500 and then work a couple of hours on the roof of our nearby ranch house that we are slowly renovating, I am thinking of the good times that my wife and I have shared together already in this space and the many more I hope we get to.
For the last eight years or so of my career I worked as a third party welding and utility inspector and since my assignments were away from home I spent much of that time living in an RV Camper about the same size as the one that we placed on our Bon Wier property last August.
When I retired in December of 2021 I had hoped that my wife and I could spend our retirement years traveling around the country staying in campgrounds that we had previously stayed in and many more that we had not. Alas, due to my wife’s mental health issues since February of 2022 all those travel plans have been put on indefinite hold. Having acquired some timber property adjacent to some than my son owns about a hundred and fifty miles north east of Houston in Bon Wier, Texas, I started driving to it each week and spending a few hours preparing a campsite for our new twenty foot Trail Light Camper that I bought used from a friend that I had met in Indiana while working there. I had in mind to live full time in this camper someday in the event that I out live my dear wife.
I do not think that Linda Lee would ever want to leave our home in Houston for the East Texas Piney Woods permanently. Still I thought the farm girl in her would fall in love with this place as I did the first time I walked it with our son. Last August after I had the RV Camper all hooked up I convinced her to come see it and she loved it especially the stars in the middle of the night and the long walks and rides through the woods. In October last we were able to secure an almost five acre long abandoned ranch to the north of our timber property. The two trailers that served as a residence on the place are only a hundred feet or so from our campsite.
Since October, my wife, and I, along with our son when he can get away have been clearing trees from around the house and have begun trying the restore and renovate of what we hope to turn into a fine ranch house. It is a big project but we are tackling it like the ole How Does One Eat An Elephant analogy – One Bite At A Time.
The sun will be up soon. I hear the birds singing outside. I wish Linda Lee was here to hear them sing. Maybe she will be soon.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David James White
High Hopes
theencouragingword 