Wednesday, March 30, 2022

An Unexpected Overnight in Pattison, Texas

The dominoes are really starting to fall! With our previous Austin sit running from March 15-21, we were stoked to find another in The Woodlands (just north of Houston) running from March 22-26. Those points are only 2.5 hours apart, so it was the perfect opportunity to double-dip on Texas. We left Austin at 8am on March 21st and headed east to Pattison; with an open night between the sits, we'd booked an Airbnb to fill the gap. Why the early departure on a pet-sitting off-day? Well, Sonia's job -- not-so-ironically at Airbnb -- requires her to plug-in at 9am California time (11am Texas time), so we needed to position her ahead of that start. We moved in the morning in this instance, but we've moved at night in others. Sits which start and end on weekends are easiest since we can move around without workday constraints, but it's a fun logistical challenge to piece everything together around the days and driving distances.

Among the Airbnb options on the northwest side of Houston, we were drawn to the Pattison property because it featured three dogs, two cats, two horses, and.....wait for it......FOUR tiny donkeys! There was no way we were gonna pass on an opportunity to live it up with livestock! 

We reached Pattison at 10am, turned into the driveway, and climbed into the RV where we'd be spending the night. Some might think that an RV would be kinda shabby, but this place was bomb! The owners had curated the space beautifully, and they'd even left us two homemade red velvet whoopie pies as a welcome. Armed with a glass jar labelled 'donkey treats', we ventured into the yard to meet the Eeyore relatives. Friendly and adorably don't begin to describe the braying quartet!

Sonia spent the rest of the day working while Dorian blogged and birded. Hosts Todd and Laurie returned home from work at 5:30pm and -- after informal introductions -- broached the approaching weather; with overnight tornados forecasted, they invited us to spend the night in the main house if the weather deteriorated to a dangerous point. That wonderful gesture put at ease, and we spent the next ninety minutes hacking around with our hosts in their huge backyard. They let us drive their Mule utility vehicle, showed us how to handle a zero-turn mower, and saddled us up (well, sort of) on one of their horses. It was super fun for city slickers to play country cowboys for an afternoon! 

ATV "Mule" Ride


Dorian riding Maggie, the horse

The overnight hours featured serious lightning, thunder, and wind, but we were spared tornados and survived the night in the RV just fine. Y'all were probably hoping we had some amazing survival story of riding donkeys to safety ahead of an approaching funnel cloud, so we're sorry to disappoint on that front. Instead, we tell this story to highlight how animals lead us to two wonderful humans, Todd and Laurie. The animals/pets give us the motivation to explore America, but the people we meet along the way will ultimately imbue our adventure with its most indelible colors. From whoopie pies to horsey rides, Pattison was the perfect stopover as we extended out pet-sitting adventure. Our only regret? That we didn't remember to snap a picture with Todd and Laurie - doh! So instead, here's a video of us feeding the donkeys.



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