We stayed in TX for 2 weeks and 2 days. I decided it just wasn’t working after I started reacting to all the bedding and towels. The hot tub and pool were salt water and I reacted to them to some degree from day 1. The hotel was very understaffed, so the weekends were absolutely crazy. The staff really pulled together and did a great job with what they had, but they were really limited especially with housekeeping. Unfortunately that doesn’t work for us because if a room doesn’t get cleaned for more than three days in a row we can’t stay in it. The last time we needed to switch rooms, they didn’t have enough cleaned for us to get a different room so we went to the sister hotel next-door.
We have been using the hot tub and pool at that hotel the whole time because our hotel had a hot tub that was broken. The hotel was really nice, but I reacted to all the towels and bedding so I was in a bad place by morning. We decided to leave the hotel so we scouted other hotels in the city, but I was really struggling with the outdoor air so we decided to leave.
Thankfully the first hotel we checked once we left worked. We stayed at that hotel for two nights. On the second day I drove up to another town through the hill country of Texas to go to Walmart. That was the other town we were potentially going to check the night before as our back up plan, but it was definitely worse than where we were staying. I was so tired driving through the hill/ranch country that I actually had to pull off the side of the road and take a nap. I never figured out what I was reacting to, but it was the same area. Once I got back to the hotel I decided the air there wasn’t all that great either so we decided to head back to Florida the next day. There was a visible haze in the air. We’re not sure if it was the Saharan dust storm dust or if it was smoke from the wildfires out west, but I was reacting to it. We are on day two of our drive and have about another 12 hours tomorrow.
This trip to Texas was our first experience with some thing Erik Johnson talks about. He always boils his water before using it both for showering and laundry because he’s had bad reactions to water before. I really think a big part of why Texas didn’t work for us this trip is because I was reacting to the water. Even as we were leaving yesterday, we stopped at Subway to get food and I had felt good up until turning the water on to wash my hands after using the bathroom, and then I felt bad again. Thankfully since leaving Texas, I haven’t reacted to towels or bedding in either Oklahoma or Mississippi where we stayed last night and tonight.
The goal is to get on the road early tomorrow so that we can get in at a semi-decent time tomorrow night.
Safe travels! That is really cool you figured that out about the water affecting you! The hazy smoke seems to be covering almost the entire country right now, so gross! Our air quality is in the moderate zone even though we are very far away from the fires.