Colorado River...Texas

Next stop: halfway between Houston and San Antonio, a little town called Columbus.  We stayed at Colorado River RV Campground, another Thousand Trails campground.  It seems that the $3/day upgrade for 50amp power is pretty standard in Texas, as it was repeated here.  (So is the $5 fee for package delivery...)  However, the difference was that this campground DOES allow dogbone adapters, so we were just fine on the 'free' 30amp site we had apparently booked.  We were able to get a site right on the river...but the river was pretty low so we couldn't actually see it from our campsite.  The banks of the river were quite steep and a couple stories high...made me think of the other, better known, Colorado River that carved the Grand Canyon (absolutely NOWHERE near the same scale of course).

Our campsite at Colorado River

Unfortunately this was the first Thousand Trails campground I've ever been to where we didn't have a sewer connection.  We're used to this of course in public parks and can adapt to be fine without sewer, but it was a bit disappointing because I wasn't expecting a problem getting a sewer connection.  The next site I booked in San Antonio had warnings all over the booking site about how sewer sites were first come first serve, no guarantee, but this Colorado River campground had no such warnings, so I didn't even realize they had non-sewer sites until I pulled up the map the night before.  

The good though - this was a pretty neat campground in that most of it felt almost like a scout camp to me.  There were two small RV camping areas and one tent area, but MOST of the campground was just wide open area.  There were a couple of playgrounds, picnic tables scattered around, a pool, minigolf course, etc., but the VAST majority of the area was just open fields - with the corresponding deer at dawn and dusk!  They had a couple of nice wide flat hiking trails (much better for our mountain bike abilities!).  So I liked the overall feel of this campground.  I'm also thinking that a fire ring at Texas Thousand Trails is common....we hadn't seen it at any Thousand Trails campgrounds before Texas, but here again, just like Lake Conroe, there was a fire ring.  

A small sampling of the deer roaming the campground fields

This campground really was basically in the middle of nowhere, so there were no major attractions to see, but we had fun exploring more of the roadside America types of places.  While we drove around, we just really felt like we had finally found the 'real' Texas.  Everywhere we drove in this central region we were surrounded by cattle ranches with ornate metal entrance gates.  We passed a couple of livestock auction-looking places.  We also saw a LOT of small and sometimes sleazy looking 'land' real estate agent buildings that reminded us of all these types of businesses you see taking advantage of poor farmers in movies...hopefully it's not as bad as that in real life!

First on our tour of roadside America...we drove nearly all the way to Austin to Berdoll Pecan Farm.  They had an adorable massive squirrel out front of the store ('largest squirrel statue' I believe), a pecan/pecan pie vending machine (!!), and a store with all sorts of pecan based goodies.  We bought pecans of mixed flavor and popcorn...so good!  I recommend them if you tend toward nut purchases for gifts!

Giant Valentine's Squirrel!

24/7 Pecan Pie Vending machine!!

Next we stopped by one of the painted churches in the area.  They're pretty scattered around the region so we only stopped by one, but I feel like we must have picked the best one.  The inside strongly reminded us of a European cathedral - just so unbelievable given the unassuming country church exterior, and the fact that there are 20 of them in this one area of Texas!

St. Mary's Church in High Hill

Our last stop was the Kreische Brewery and Monument Hill State Historic Site.  This was a small little park with nice hiking trails.  The Monument Hill has a wonderful view of the valley and commemorates fallen soldiers from two Texan-Mexican conflicts, including the 'black bean incident', wherein a tenth of recaptured soldiers - those who drew a black bean instead of a white one - were executed.  The ruins of Kreische Brewery were pretty neat to see - so much impressive stonework.

Monument Hill - tomb and monument

View from the Monument Hill overlook

The remains of Kreische Brewery

And a last honorable mention roadside attraction - we drove by FreBo Ranch, right outside the entrance to our campground, several times and saw all sorts of neat animals, like zebra, buffalo, and some kind of small antelope.

Zebra!

In unhappy maintenance updates...our check engine light in the RV came on in Houston and the heavy duty code reader we ordered finally came in while we were here.  We appear to have a problem with our transient suppressor.  Unfortunately the code reader arrived at the end of the day Saturday, it took us until Sunday morning to perform the diagnosis for the error code, the one diesel parts store open on Sunday in the greater Houston/Austin/San Antonio area didn't have the part in stock, and we had to leave our campsite Monday by noon.  We discussed our options and decided to risk the drive to our next campsite in San Antonio, where we'll have 7 days to find the part, replace it, and see if we need to fix anything else.  (Our other option was to attempt - no guarantee - to extend our reservation at Colorado River by a day paying full $100+ nightly rate instead of free, attempt to get the part first thing Monday morning, work on it all day Monday and hope we finished in time and didn't discover any new check engine codes that needed fixing to trigger the same process the next day...lots of 'ifs' in that process, lots of rushing stress, and considerable extra cost.)  Not to leave you hanging, I'm writing this from the next site and we did make it...more details to come!

That's our bedside lamp turned upside down in an attempt to 
illuminate the lower half of the engine as we worked on 
troubleshooting into the night

Houston-ish

Next stop on our Texas journey: the greater Houston area.  Although there is a nearby Thousand Trails resort, we arrived in Houston on the Martin Luther King Jr holiday weekend and it had no availability.  As a result, we had two campgrounds to the north of Houston - the first was Spring Creek County Park, and the second was the Lake Conroe RV Resort Thousand Trails campground.

Spring Creek Park ended up being an absolutely wonderful stop, much to my surprise.  It was free and small (only 8 sites), so I had very low expectations.  However, we had full hookups (water, electric, AND sewer), a flat concrete pad large enough to easily accommodate our RV, and even our own personal trash can (most campgrounds require you to lug your trash to a central dumpster).  The sites were close together, but I expected that based on the pictures I found online, and really, for free full hookups, that's a very small price to pay.  The park was pretty sizeable, with your standard city park things (playground, baseball diamond, etc.) plus a disc golf course and an archery range!  Lots of unique looking picnic tables with grills, lots of open area to run around, and a few hiking trails.  SO nice!  We tried to extend our stay, but they were booked solid - no surprise!  Harris County has several free parks in the area, and if they're all like this...wow.

Spring Creek Park Campsite

Our next stop was not as wonderful.  Lake Conroe RV Resort was a little farther away from downtown Houston, so it took longer to get places.  They're the first Thousand Trails campground we've been to that doesn't accept USPS package deliveries - I had hoped to get our mail forwarded here, but will have to wait for the next campground.  They accept UPS and FedEx but only if you fill out a form first and pay $5 per package.  They also charged us $3/day for a 50amp site - with no option to just camp on a 'free' 30amp site because they don't allow the 'dogbone' adapters.  As a 50amp unit we have the potential to use more electricity, and the 50amp sites looked nicer in general, so I'm not against the $3 in principle...but the fact that the booking website made no mention of the cost nor the fact we couldn't camp on a 30amp site with our RV made me quite annoyed, because sitting there at the entrance gate we weren't really in a position to say no we won't pay and turn around and find another campground.  So, overall, they just really seemed out to nickel and dime you at this place.  So that's the bad.  The good...we stayed in the 'B' loop of the campground, which was pretty new and had *mostly* level VERY wide concrete pads.  They had just redone their laundry room, so there were a lot of new machines with the ability to pay by credit card, always nice during this coin shortage.  I met some really lovely people at the laundromat, including a widow who told me about how she went and bought a 37ft class A RV that she drove all over the country for 10 years after her husband passed away...amazing to me as I'm terrified to drive our RV!  The best feature of the campground was the lake access in the back of the park, which would have lovely sunsets on less cloudy days.

Lake Conroe Campsite

Cloudy sunset at Lake Conroe

Our major outing while in the area was a day trip down to Houston, where we visited the 1940 Air Terminal Museum and Space Center Houston.  The 1940 Air Terminal Museum was pretty fun, it was interesting to see how the original Houston airport planned for just two airlines and though that would be enough!!  One of the coolest things there was walking out to see one of their parked airplanes...right on an active taxiway!  We watched a Southwest airplane take off with no physical barriers between ourselves and the airplane...a rare experience for non-airport personnel post-9/11!

1940 Air Terminal - on an active taxiway!

We spent the afternoon at Space Center Houston.  The tram tour that allowed us to see some of the active training areas for astronauts was pretty cool.  The most interesting exhibits to us though were in the 'Independence Plaza.'  First, we got to walk inside one of the actual airplanes that ferried landed space shuttles back to the launch areas.  Then we got to walk inside a mock shuttle used in gliding tests (it never made it to space).  Finally, we got to see one of the actual SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets!!  This was especially cool since we'd seen the Falcon 9 launch at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

In front of the airplane carrying the mock shuttle

Real used Falcon 9 rocket!!

As we were leaving our second campsite, we got another livestock-on-the-road experience...this time with sheep!  I guess this is a Texas norm?

Sheep on the road leaving from the campground.  They appeared
to be on leads that allowed them access all the way to the road.

Our last experience is one of those 'so this is normal around here' moments.  I noticed that the road leading to the campsite here had the same 'name' as the road leading to our previous campsite...farm to market road.  This seemed too much of a coincidence, so I looked it up.  Apparently a farm to market road is an actual road classification in Texas.  It seems to be much like a county road or state road I would have expected in other states.  The program creates decent quality roads to link rural areas to urban areas, which is great for us since we'll be driving our monster of an RV on several roads like that to get to our campgrounds in Texas!  Very cool, and another item for my list of neat things I've learned about different areas of the country while traveling.

Texas at last!

Our final drive into Texas was exciting in and of itself!  First we spent over 18 miles driving on the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge across the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge.  For whatever reason this was a surreal experience for me, and although 'ground' (very wet swampy ground) was always below us, it brought back strong memories of driving along the Overseas Highway to Key West.  It was somehow fascinating to spend such a long time driving with nothing to see but swamp and more bridge.  I tried to capture a photo.

No matter how hard I tried I just couldn't quite capture the
feeling, but hopefully you can get an impression of the
neverending bridges in both directions.

The other exciting thing was much less surreal and much more ha-ha...as we were driving along I-10, quickly approaching Texas, I noticed a slowdown on the map due to an 'object on the road' (according to Google).  As we approached, we saw several police cars and officers out of their cars...chasing a cow.  I couldn't stop laughing, and somehow it seemed a very appropriate welcome to Texas.

You may have to zoom the photo to see
that the police officer is chasing a black cow.

Once we finally reached Texas, we stopped just over the border in Lumberton, where we stayed at Village Creek State Park.  I went ahead and purchased a Texas State Parks Pass when I booked our first state park in Texas - at only $70 for the year, it is going to more than pay for itself as it waives the per-person daily fees required at every state park (even when you have a campsite reservation!) AND makes the second day of every campsite rental half price.  So now in addition to giving us lots of cheap (and hopefully beautiful!) state parks to camp at, it allows us to hop in and out of the gazillion other parks in Texas for quick hikes or bike rides without thinking about fees.  Hot tip for anyone else thinking of an extended stay in Texas 😎.

Our campsite at Village Creek State Park

Texas sticker on the map!

The campground at the state park was fairly small and all the campsites were close together, no privacy to speak of.  However, the sites were clean and well-equipped and the bathhouse seemed nice.  There was a nature center with an informative ranger and some interesting local wildlife (particularly a siren and an amphiuma - creepy creatures).  The small park had several hiking and biking trails and a canoe launch.  

I made the mistake of trying to bike down the main trail marked as a bike trail...OOPS.  Turns out these are true mountain biking trails.  We've been biking on shared hiking/biking trails all along the Gulf coast without difficulty as they were all flat, on firm un-rocky soil, surrounded by trees that don't have roots that poke up from beneath the ground.  So I started on this trail without a care...only to find we're out of the coastal plain and into deciduous trees with projecting roots and all sorts of slopes and gullies along the terrain.  Later I found out I was on a 'moderate' biking trail...no good for a mostly road-biker like me!  The next day Aaron and I took the trail marked 'leisurely'....this took out the gullies and slopes but kept the roots and added in sand traps.  We have a long way to go before we're really ready for mountain biking!

Attempting to pass through a sand trap

Difficulties aside, the trails had some nice views of the creek and the sloughs that fed it.

Village Creek

One of the sloughs

We spent another day driving down to nearby Beaumont and seeing the sites there.  Turns out the Beaumont area started thriving in the early 1900s due to the discovery of oil at Spindletop with the Lucas Gusher in 1901.  This oil discovery launched the American oil industry, several of the major oil companies we still know, and a boomtown in the area.  We went to a recreation of some buildings of the era at the Spindletop Gladys City Boomtown.  It was interesting to see all the old buildings and the businesses that were necessary for an oil boomtown to function the way it did - including various ways to barter and lease areas of as small as 1/64th of an acre for prospectors to put up their own oil derricks.  The photos in the museum of the area at its peak were incredible, with oil derricks crowded all up against each other.  It was said you could walk across the whole field of them without touching the ground, they were so close.

Spindletop Gladys City Boomtown

Afterward we headed to the park outside the fire museum, where you can find the world's largest working fire hydrant.  There are two larger ones in North America but they are not functional.  This hydrant was gifted to the fire museum in 1999 by Disney upon the re-release of 101 Dalmations.  It was a fun little park and picture.

World's largest working fire hydrant

Tickfaw State Park & Baton Rouge

We just enjoyed our first campsite in Louisiana at Tickfaw State Park.  This park is about 45 minutes east of Baton Rouge.  The park was awesome!  We had a very private campsite (as were many of the sites on the outside of the camping loop) with a wooden deck to keep us away from the swamp.  There was an awesome bathhouse with a clean and well equipped laundromat.  They had tons of bite-sized hiking/biking trails, many (all?) with boardwalks.  The whole park was just well maintained and beautiful.  

Our campsite at Tickfaw State Park

Louisiana sticker added!

Now, the downside is that the highest the temperature reached while we were there was around 55F.  We bundled up that day and biked the longest trail in the park, which was quite fun despite the cold.  We also went to the nature center to watch a video on the park and look at the exhibits inside the warm building - fortunately the only other soul in the center was the ranger, masked in one corner of the center.

Biking on the River Trail

If you look closely you can see me on the far side of the river

The other days we did some birdwatching from inside the RV - saw several cute fluffy songbirds and this handsome fellow.

Woodpecker at our campsite

We drove into nearby Ponchatoula for groceries.  It was a beautiful town!  We saw some true mansions on expansive grounds, complete with fountains.  As we drove around, I noticed a pattern we had seen a little of in Biloxi - houses, even nice expensive ones, that had uncovered cinderblock pillar foundations.  We learned at our last stop at Beauvoir that historically homes were constructed on stilts even in dry areas to help with cooling in the hot summers; or since the whole area is swampy, perhaps it is that or just to keep the foundations out of the moisture, or maybe both!  It was amazing how prevalent it was.  I got a representative picture of the cabins at the state park.

Cabins on cinderblocks

On our last day we drove into Baton Rouge - it was too cold to enjoy the way we hoped to, but we drove down to the Mississippi River, took a picture with a sculpture that occasionally sings (not while we were there) and drove by the old state capitol, which looks like a castle!

Sculpture on the river walk in downtown Baton Rouge -
the Mississippi River is in the background

Old State Capitol Building

This area was pretty nice, and we were sorely disappointed that it was too cold for us to stand being outdoors to enjoy it more.  Perhaps we'll return some day.

Watch out for the Plants in Mississippi!

Next stop on our way to Texas: Biloxi, Mississippi.  We stayed at Parkers Landing, just off of I-10, while we were there for 4 days.  Parkers Landing was very convenient to the interstate and we had a site at the end of the park with a view of Parker Creek, which was nice.  In a sign of the times, my initial impression of this park was a little negative as I was stressed that the park host wasn't wearing a mask when I went inside the office to check in.  However, after I got over my stress and looked around, the owners really have made an effort to beautify their park, with plants and decorations all around.  The sites did have cracking concrete pads and drainage issues, but overall the park was decent looking and we had full hookups, free cable, and free wi-fi.  The picnic tables at each site were brand new and they had fire extinguishers mounted at every other site - not sure if this was a local regulation or their own ingenuity.  We did note that the 'back' campground (there were two sections to the park) consisted of all waterfront properties and had a much nicer overall feel - but those sites were more expensive.

Campsite at Parkers Landing

This being our first ever stay in Mississippi, I got to add another sticker to our map!

Look at that Mississippi sticker!

Our first outing in the Biloxi area was the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge.  The refuge itself is a decent size but it only has two short hikes available.  I was interested in the C.L. Dees Trail, which is known for its carnivorous plants.  It seems that we didn't go at the right time of year to see the plants in all their glory, but we saw several different species leftover from last season or in their early stages of growth this season.  The coolest thing was to look out on the fields filled with pitcher plants - I've never seen so many together, and I didn't know they grew as big as they do!

Dwarf Sundew

Pitcher Plants

Yellow Butterwort

I'm not sure how well it comes through, but all
the dark looking vertical lines in the field are
pitcher plants

Later on the Fontainebleau Trail

Driving around Biloxi, I realized that its main claim to fame must be its numerous casinos, many of which were right on the Gulf.  We wandered around the former site of the Palace Casino, the building for which was torn away in its entirety during Katrina and 'floated' about a half mile down the coast.  The destruction was remarkable - metal water and sewer pipes and electrical cables completely sheared off and concrete destroyed as the casino was ripped from its foundations.  Now the site is used by the locals for fishing, but we hear an outdoor music venue is slated for the area soon.

What remains of the old Palace Casino site

Our next major outing was to visit Beauvoir, the post-war home of Jefferson Davis.  There was a small museum and library on the site, but the most interesting part of our visit was an hour long private tour of the house itself (private because we were the only ones there in the middle of the day on a work day).  Hearing about the long history of the house, owners, and grounds (Davis was only there for a short bit of it) was fascinating - we had a great tour guide who was an amazing storyteller.  My favorite part of the house architecture was the way it was composed of 3 separate buildings joined at the corners by expansive porches - this way, every room of the house had two outside walls to generate a cross-breeze in the hot Mississippi heat.  Aside from the main entry hall, the house has no interior hallways.

Waiting on the front porch of Beauvoir for the tour to start

An old grandfather clock owned by 
Davis's father, who fought in 
the Revolutionary War, then by Davis
himself.  It still runs perfectly!

After Davis's death, the home and grounds became a rest 
home and hospital for Confederate veterans and their 
spouses.  There is a cemetery on site associated with the
soldiers' home.

And last but not least...well, maybe least...we stopped by the world's largest rocking chair!  This chair is 35' tall, constructed by the Dedeaux furniture company to mimic one of they make in their factory.  I suppose if you read the fine print it was the largest when constructed and now is only the third largest...but it was impressive nonetheless!

Huge Rocking Chair!

Pensacola

Continuing our trek west, we made our last stop in the Florida panhandle at Pensacola RV Park.  Florida is such a long state!  Crazy how long it took us to get out of it.  The Pensacola RV Park was absolutely lovely.  The sites were well maintained and easy to get in and out of, the staff was friendly and quick to address all issues and questions, and the location was awesome for I-10 access.  We enjoyed having a sewer connection, cable, and free WiFi!

Our campsite at Pensacola RV Park

Unfortunately most of the things I had hoped to see in Pensacola were on the naval air station, which was closed to non-military due to COVID.  Normally you can go to the Naval Aviation Museum on the base and watch the Blue Angels practice...not only could we not get to the museum, but even if we could, the Blue Angels weren't practicing.  Very disappointing!  I can't help but wonder what other unique things we'll miss traveling during COVID times...meaning we'll probably need to come back along this route again in the future!

Fortunately Fort Pickens was still open!  This national park is the site of an old Civil War fort (used by the Union in the war), later equipped with significant artillery batteries during World War I.  The fort saw action during the Civil War but not World War I.  The visitor center was closed (so no national park passport stamp for us), but all of the batteries and the main fort were open.  The drive out to the fort was incredible - we drove through a long stretch of road with dunes and water on both sides - and most of the numerous structures were well preserved and open for you to climb on (which Aaron, of course, loved).

That's sand, not snow!

Standing atop one of the batteries looking
out on the Gulf

He HAD to see what was inside...

A cannon atop Fort Pickens itself

Atop Fort Pickens

Our stay in Pensacola was pretty chilly, so we opted not to go out on the couple of bike trails I'd found.  Instead, Aaron changed our transmission fluid (we just discovered it needed changing) and fixed a suddenly broken awning bracket.

Changing the transmission fluid

The transmission fluid dipstick is REALLY long and surprisingly
flexible

Fixing the awning bracket with 
some sort of not-riveter that attaches
to a drill

Our time in Pensacola closed on a sad note.  My Uncle John, who was an integral part of my childhood, who attended all of the major (and most non-major) events in my life, and who was generally just a wonderful, generous, fun, and fun-loving person, passed away on January 3.  I will miss him terribly.

Hiking with Aunt Jane & Uncle John in high school

College graduation

Wedding (my 'uncle' photo - Uncle Walker and my other
Uncle John on the left)

Thanksgiving 2019

The last time we were together in person - a socially 
distanced outdoor gathering in October before we got
back on the road