Corpus Christi and points east

I no longer remember what motel we stated at in Corpus Christi (I don't think it exists anymore) but when we awoke that Friday morning we got hold of a local newspaper and mom started making phone calls about jobs and rentals.

For some reason mom decided not to take us along that day. She either figured we'd get bored while she was doing interviews or she didn't want us there rolling our eyes when she told her "poor widow" stories :-) So we had to hang out in the motel... For some reason I remember hearing MacArthur Park on the clock radio that day. I'd always loved the music but had never paid attention to the lyrics before... I was stunned at how idiotic they were. Metaphor or not - singing about leaving a cake out in the rain is just plain stupid :-)

And while I'm digressing: It was sometime during that trip when Karina took the book out of the dresser in one of the motels and said "Look! It's the story of Holly Bibble!" She explained that Holly had once been a famous Hollywood starlet but time had passed her by. She had been all but forgotten when one of her greatest fans - a wealthy man named Gideon - took it upon himself to travel all over the country leaving copies of her biography in motel and hotel rooms so that future generations would know of her greatness... Have I mentioned that Karina had a strange imagination?

When mom returned to the motel that afternoon she was pretty discouraged. The economy in the area was apparently stagnant at that time and she hadn't had any luck either finding a job or a reasonably priced apartment. That created something of an issue because we already didn't have enough money to pay the motel bill. We spent Saturday exploring the town and trying to decide what to do - and finally concluded that we must be in the wrong place...

There are few things I remember about that Sunday.
First: Mom, Karina and I walked down to the seawall (a few blocks away). It was deserted except for one young man who was going through the same thing we were... No job, no home and no money... We commiserated with him for a while before heading back to the motel.
Second: We had to call dad and see if he would advance us the next month's child support. We knew he wouldn't talk to mom and I sucked at whining so it was up to Karina to make the call. She really didn't want to do it but we didn't have any choice. I remember all of us walking to a nearby payphone where Karina placed the (collect) call. Dad was pretty pissed off (to say the least) but finally agreed to wire the money to the Western Union office downtown. (It was about the only place open on Sunday.)
Third: Mom decided that the best thing for us to do would be to head east to the Edgar Cayce Foundation in Virginia Beach. She figured that her psychic abilities would be appreciated there and they would help us get established and life would be good :-)

Aside: Less than 8 months later Corpus Christi was hit by hurricane Celia. The 160MPH wind gusts destroyed or damaged almost 70,000 homes. If we had stayed we would have almost certainly been affected...

Another aside: After going over the time line in more detail I've realized that we must have left Escondido a week earlier than I had remembered. I've gone back and adjusted the date in the earlier post... And back to the story:

Monday morning (Dec 15th) we headed out of Corpus Christi on interstate 37. We picked up interstate 35 in San Antonio and exited at Waco. We figured it would be nice to get off the interstate for a while and we could save a couple of hours by heading east on highway 31 (bypassing the Dallas area)... Now - we had never heard of Waco before and thought it was pronounced "Whacko". We were quite amused... I remember stopping for gas on the way out of town and the only brand of soda they had at the station was Nehi. We thought that was a pretty funny name too :-)
Historical footnote: As we were leaving Waco we passed within a few miles of where a group called the Branch Davidians had recently established a new compound...

Driving through rural east Texas was rather interesting... All the towns seemed to be stuck in the 1940s or 50s... It was quite a contrast from southern California. We shot some 8mm footage that day. It looks almost like a documentary on Americana. (Unfortunately, the film is badly scratched and grainy so I'm not including any of it in this post)...

After passing through Hubbard, Corsicana and Athens we finally stopped for the night in Tyler, Tx... We were completely unaware that our overnight stay would turn into almost a year...