Camping Near the Ocean

I thought about calling this post "Camping on the Beach," but to be completely accurate we didn't *actually* camp on the beach...we camped back behind the dunes where they had power and water.  Still, we could clearly see the Gulf of Mexico from our windows!  This last stay was at Sea Rim State Park, a small park on the Gulf more or less due south of Beaumont and 10 min from the closest tiny town of Sabine Pass.  

This is a better view of our campsite...

...but this one kind of shows the ocean.  It's really there if you zoom
in to the background...the thin blue line on the horizon.

When we departed our previous site, the state park was still advertising that they had no water after the storm, so we completely filled our fresh water tank before leaving our previous site.  When we arrived, they informed us that they did finally have water, but that they had a boil water advisory, so we just used our fresh tank for water until the advisory cleared (it cleared the second day of our stay but we didn't find out until the 4th day...we were fine either way).  Again, living in an RV has its perks during disasters!

Unfortunately, we had a little bit of an incident with a concrete pole at a gas station on our way here...we didn't even feel it or realize we'd done it until we parked the RV, but we managed to put a sizeable dent in one of our basement doors.  Fortunately, Aaron is very talented and even on the road managed to pop the dent out and repaint enough that it's not too visible from the distance.  It's a bummer after all the time we spent repainting the RV in the fall, but all in all the damage is pretty minor, we're lucky.  And we've learned our lesson that any time Aaron feels that the fit is tight at all I need to be outside helping him navigate!!  We'll properly flatten the panels and repaint once we get back to the farm in West Virginia.

The original dent and blue paint transfer

Clever wooden device to put pressure on the door to pop out the dent

Finished product - the dent is basically gone and with the touch
up paint you can't really tell its dented from a distance

Back to our travels...the state park was so remote that we had basically no signal for our Verizon phones.  It would fluctuate between no signal and 3 bars without us really moving at all, so we just didn't try to use the phones.  Fortunately for Aaron's internet fix, AT&T's signal was adequate enough for our cell-based data service to work.  This was a neat stay in that we felt well and truly isolated from everything.  We took daily walks/bikes/drives on the beach (yes, you can drive on this beach too!).  Aside from a trip to the grocery store and a trip to Lowe's we didn't really make any excursions outside the park here, we just relaxed with our view of the ocean.

Walking on the beach

Driving on the beach

Biking on the beach (in the ocean was staged...I cycled back 
and forth over and over for Aaron to get this perfect shot
with the waves...mostly we stuck to the sand)

Sunset viewed from inside the RV

My favorite of many birds we saw at the park - a red winged
blackbird

One downside here...the bugs.  During they day things were fine, but at dusk the bugs came out in SWARMS.  At first we thought they were mosquitos, but after killing about 15 of them and realizing only one had smashed into blood, I googled...turns out we were mostly plagued by midges, commonly mistaken for mosquitos.  I took a close up of the midges...couldn't actually get a mosquito to land on our window to take a picture.  Most of the midges had fuzzy antennae and a curvy body.

You may have to zoom in to see all the little tiny dots...we
thought at the time that they were mosquitos, but after further
research I'm pretty sure they're midges

Definitely a midge

One of the more interesting parts about this stay was all of the oil activity in the area.  We literally drove through the middle of an oil refinery on our way here.  We could see oil drilling platforms on the horizon while we were on the beach, and found what appeared to be a scrap oil rig graveyard in Sabine Pass.  It was fascinating to watch the steam and the flame towers and all the interconnections at the refineries.  It was surprisingly beautiful to drive back them at night - because the oil refineries are mostly pipes and platforms, with few walls, all the lights on all the landings made the refineries look like Christmas trees all lit up at night.  Unfortunately I couldn't get a good picture of the nighttime lights.

Literally driving through the oil refinery

Some abandoned (?) or scrap (?) platforms in the water next
to Sabine Pass

Oh and one last thing...we learned more about the local term 'washeteria'...I'd seen this a few places in Texas, and assumed it was some Spanish version of laundromat.  I was totally wrong.  Turns out that there was a local laundromat chain with the name Washeteria (pronounced like cafeteria), and much like Kleenex for tissues or Xerox for photocopies, the brand name was adopted by southern Texans to reference any laundromat.  The original chain no longer exists, but the washeteria name is still used on signs where in other parts of the country I would expect to see the word laundromat.  Learning more about common life outside our norm!

This is our last stop in Texas - now we begin the long trek back to Florida.

Rushing through South Central Texas

After our extended stay in the Boca Chica area, we had a lot of ground to make up in a short time.  I mentioned previously that our intermediate sites in south central Texas - Goliad State Park and Brazos Bend State Park - both closed due to utility issues from the winter storm.  We had planned to spend 8 days at these two parks; 5 of these days were used up hiding out at Park Place Estates, and that left us 3 days without reservations to get to our last reservation near the Louisiana border.  We made two last minute reservations for the first time pretty much ever (usually we plan things at least a month in advance) and brought our final Texas stay forward a day.  As we pulled out of Park Place Estates, the sun was out for the first time in a week and things were lookup up!

Our first stop was at the Rob & Bessie Welder Park in Sinton, TX.  They were under a boil water advisory, so we loaded up with fresh water before leaving Park Place Estates.  Surprisingly, even though this was a city park they seemed to have semi-permanent residents in the RV park - they even had mailboxes!  The park's facilities looked largely abandoned - I assume due to COVID - but the municipal golf course on site was quite popular.  There was a lot of open area, picnic tables, and a couple of playground areas.  Most interestingly, they had a horseback riding arena onsite.  Simple, full hookups, and easy access to the main route we were taking through that area of the state, it was perfect for our overnight stay.

Fun entrance to the park reflecting the horseback riding area

Campsite at Rob & Bessie Welder Park

Even though we were only here overnight, we took a drive down to the nearby coast and walked at Sunset Lake Park, a pretty stretch of ground between Nueces and Corpus Christi Bays.

Sunset Lake Park

The next day we continued our travels along route 77 to our next convenient stop at Tee Pee Motel & RV Park.  This is one of the old roadside attraction motels with tepee rooms, renovated in 2005.  Giant arrows were embedded in the ground all around the site.  It was a pretty fun setting, but the condition of the roads and buildings suggests that they haven't done much for the place since 2005...  Still, the hostess was friendly and the campground was tremendously convenient to our route.  There were lots of permanent-looking residents at this park as well.

Our campsite at Tee Pee RV Park

Closeup of one of the arrows in the ground, with the tepees
in the background

While here we drove into the nearby town of Wharton and visited their local claim to fame - the dinosaur park!

With the dinosaur

A HUGE perk of this RV park was that they were on their own well system for water, and thus were completely unaffected by the municipal water issues plaguing most of Texas.  We were able to fill up our fresh water tank here in preparation for our next stay...where they were completely out of water due to the winter storm.

Starships and a Winter Storm

We spent about a week in Boca Chica, the southernmost tip of Texas.  We were routinely within a mile or so of the Mexican border as we drove around exploring the area, and passed through a couple of border control stations.  Our first 'campsite' was at Magic Valley RV Park, conveniently located just off the main highway from the Corpus Christi area.  The park was fairly vacant, and when I talked to one of the residents he said it was largely because so many of the Canadians didn't winter here this year due to COVID and the resulting travel restrictions.  The park had a nice laundry room and overall was a decent stay, though this same resident had his complaints.  Our second spot was at Park Place Estates.  This was a nicer park with more and nicer facilities and more residents - but it was still pretty empty.  Fortunately both of these places accepted discounts from our membership with Passport America - the Boca Chica area is full of high priced RV parks (by our standards), many of which are restricted to 55+.  I think both of the parks were adults only, so we're lucky we didn't have kids or we may have had to find a place at a more expensive park.  We saw signs saying "Welcome Winter Texans" all over the area - must be a popular snowbirding destination!

Magic Valley Park Site

Park Place Estates Site

The highlight of our trip here was a visit to the SpaceX test launch facility.  This was super cool since Starship 10 was sitting on the launch pad and Starship 11 was visible inside the open hangar doors.  Unfortunately the weather was a bit cloudy - our first sightings of Starship 10 showed it above the clouds - but it was still just really awe-inspiring to see.  We budgeted six days in the Boca Chica area just in case a launch was forthcoming...but the incoming winter storm destroyed that opportunity.

In front of the launch facility

Starship 10

Starship 11

The SpaceX facility is really pretty much in the middle of nowhere.  Just past the launch pads, the road ends in Boca Chica Beach.  We stopped and took a quick picture, but again it was too overcast to do much.

Boca Chica Beach

Our other major outing here was to Palo Alto Battlefield Historic Park.  This was the site of the first major battle of the US-Mexican War.  Interestingly in terms of military history, it was also the first time mobile artillery (aka "flying artillery") was a large component in a battle - the Mexicans had expected a normal hand to hand (or hand to horse) battle, but the superior artillery of the US army and its agility made it a very different battle.  The battlefield is well preserved, with flags outlining the positioning of the two armies.  This made it easier to envision the activities of the day...although the full impact of the battle is just unimaginable.  The Mexican forces suffered heavy casualties.

Sample artillery on the US side of the battlefield

Flags delineated the two front lines.  It was hard to see the 
American flags while standing at the Mexican flags, and
you can see from this picture how very far away even the next
flag in line is (it appears as a dot on the horizon).

Unfortunately, the last days of our trip were hit by the coldest weather Texas has seen in over a decade.  The lady who lives next door to our campsite said she'd been coming to this park for 27 years and had never seen anything like this weather before.  Just our luck!  We looked longingly at the Orlando temperatures during this time...  Fortunately we started out the cold spot at this most southern tip of Texas...as good as it could be.  However, we were slated to move on before the weather improved.  We had our next site booked just north of Corpus Christi, at a state park where we'd be farther from the coast in in the midst of trees (aka, much less wind), but further north so 7-10 degrees colder at night...we were looking at 18 and 10 degrees F.  What to do??  At the last minute the forecast updated to include snow on our travel day, so we extended our stay in Park Place Estates by another two days and cut our next camping trip short.  It ended up costing a bit of money but way less than causing an accident due to high winds and snow while driving 3 hours north.  

Icicles hanging from our awning

Ice-covered car

Ice-covered RV

The morning of our revised departure I tried to call the state park to check conditions...and no answer.  Fearing the power was out at the state park (and seeing online that the headquarters and bathrooms were closed), we extended our stay at Park Place Estates AGAIN...later we found out the state park was out of power and even later we saw the whole park was closed (from the booking website it looked like it extended almost a week - they must have had damage), so we definitely made the right decision...again.  Even so, starting that evening our park started participating in the rolling blackouts the rest of Texas was already enjoying.  We'd lose power for 2-3 hours and then gain it back for 2-3 hours.  The next day we heard that our NEXT state park destination was closed as well...and then we scrambled to find a couple of overnight stays en route to our final destination in Texas...a state park that has managed to remain open through all of this (though just as I was going to post this I looked and they're suddenly out of water...hopefully that will improve over the couple of days it takes to get there...).

Aaron's solution to see if the power came back on while we were
running our generator...plugged into the power pole

The milk aisle at the local WalMart

At this point I'm feeling very grateful that we're in an RV right now...this has given us the flexibility to alter our travel plans to be where the ice isn't, and the RV is designed to be off the grid, so our propane heat and refrigerator kept going despite our loss of power.  We were also able to disconnect our external water hoses and operate off our fresh water tank the couple of nights that the temperature dropped into the 20s...many people around town had burst pipes, as evidenced by a ridiculously crowded pipe/plumbing aisle at Home Depot!  During the daytime blackouts we were able to enjoy solar power from our solar panels.  I'm grateful for my handy husband who fixed both the heater and the refrigerator in the past few months and installed our solar panels a year ago!

Here's hoping we'll get the famed warm winter Texas weather moving forward!

Lake Corpus Christi

Our latest stop was at Lake Corpus Christi State Park, about 45 minutes north of Corpus Christi, Texas.  This state park had full hookups!  We had a pull through site here (meaning we didn't have to back in), and it was pretty cool that all spots on our loop were pull through parallel to the road, so that each RV received a pretty private view of the woods.  Getting out of course you could see your neighbors' fire pits, but looking through the windows we only saw our own personal patch of grass and trees.  The fire pits and picnic tables were very oddly aligned here - some sites had the two right next to where you would park your RV, but most sites (including ours) had the pair offset to be at the joint entrance/exit driveway between sites.  Aaron and I had different hypotheses on this...Aaron thinks the area used to be a day use/picnic area, and they kept the concrete slabs with picnic tables as they were when they added the campsites.  I think maybe they used to have shorter sites and expanded the site lengths to allow longer RVs (which are more common now than historically) but did not reposition the tables.  I guess we should have asked a ranger!

Our campsite at Lake Corpus Christi - our private 'party' area
as I call it was on the opposite side of the RV

We drove down into Corpus Christi and did something we thought was pretty unique...an escape room on the USS Lexington!  It is still pretty new and they're working out the kinks (we paid an 'introductory price'), but it was pretty cool to get into rooms on the aircraft carrier that aren't normally open to the public.  Due to COVID we got to do the room all by ourselves...sadly we did NOT win, partially due to a couple of those kinks and I'm sure largely due to having only 2 people in a 10 person room....but still, very fun!

Immediately after our failure

We enjoyed touring the rest of the USS Lexington.  We learned that the ship was used for most of the ship-based scenes in the movie Pearl Harbor.  Additionally, they had the actual plane used in Top Gun up on the flight deck!

Zoom in and read the seat labels if
you need to - it's the real thing!!  My 
matching shirt was a happy coincidence

Another day we drove down to the Padre Island National Seashore - another stamp in my national park passport!  We hiked their one short trail through the dunes and visited the beach.  Most uniquely though, we actually drove on the beach!  They have over 60 miles of beach you can drive on with a 4x4...the first 5 miles are suitable for most vehicles and RVs that want to camp there.  Camping there sounded a little too ambitious to me...I was too afraid of getting stuck in the sand...but it was fun to drive!

Walking in the Gulf

Driving on the beach!

On our way to the national seashore, we stopped by the flagship restaurant for the Whataburger chain, which started in Corpus Christi.  This restaurant had two stories and - big bonus during COVID - outdoor rooftop seating with a view of the Gulf.  Burgers were as delicious as advertised, and Aaron enjoyed their signature Dr. Pepper Milkshake.

Flagship Whataburger "by the bay"

Rooftop dining on the water!

The rest of our time we spent hanging around the state park.  The original facilities at the park were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, and at least one of the original (main) buildings still stands.  There were several great places to look at the large lake, and one little clearing in the forest where they had a bird blind set up.  Cardinals were VERY common throughout the park.

Cardinal as viewed from the bird blind

Hiking on Lake Corpus Christi

Sunset on the lake

Oh yes...and on the ongoing engine saga...it seems to be over!  We had NO problem driving to this park - no power loss on the hills, and the check engine light stayed off.  Hooray!!  I'm very thankful to have a handy husband who can fix these problems even when we're camping away from everything we're familiar with.

Dinosaurs in San Antonio??

We spent a week at Medina Lake RV Campground just west of San Antonio.  What a great spot!  This was a Thousand Trails campground unlike any we'd ever been to before.  The sites were spacious and wooded and set up on these meandering loops that made you feel more like you were in a state park than an RV park.  This is easily my favorite Thousand Trails park to date.  Despite numerous warnings on the website about limited availability of full hookup sites (with sewer), we had multiple options for full hookups and got a large site near the lake.  As with other Texas Thousand Trails campgrounds, there was an upcharge for 50amp service, but here again we were allowed to use our dogbone adapter at a 30amp site, so no upcharge for us!

So spacious!

Sunset at Medina Lake

Another favorite here: the deer!!  This place was swarming with very tame deer.  Apparently the staff feed them.  It was magical to have the deer come so close to us, and watch bucks, does, and fawns stroll by our campsite at all hours.

This little lady wanted my popcorn

Deer deer everywhere!

And what you've all been waiting for from my last post...did we survive the journey??  Yes!!  It was a bit brutal.  I didn't realize it, but north and west of San Antonio is the Texas Hill Country.  As soon as we left the interstate (still 30 minutes from the campground), we found ourselves on narrow hilly roads...fortunately they were still mostly straight, but lots of steep hills.  A side effect of our broken transient suppressor was that our turbocharger wasn't working and fuel flow was not appropriately regulated to the engine...as a result, we CRAWLED over those hills, cresting some at 15mph (on 60mph roads).  Yes, the cars behind us in the no passing zone loved us so much they passed over a double yellow line...  It was extremely stressful, and a couple hills we thought we wouldn't make it over, but in the end we did.  We installed our transient suppressor and checked the code reader and the code disappeared...so hopefully the trip out goes better than the trip in!

In case you're wondering what a transient
suppressor looks like

 

Working through the floor in our bedroom to install the transient suppressor

This stop was FULL of fun things to see and do!  The weather was gorgeous and we made the most of it.  We biked and drove around Medina Lake a bit and were shocked to see how low it was.  This reminded us a lot of the sadly disappearing Mountain Lake back home.  For those who don't know, Dirty Dancing was filmed at Mountain Lake, and during our childhood the lake was full and beautiful.  However, over the last 20 years the fully natural lake has been draining for unknown reasons and is a mere puddle of its former glory.  So we did some research on Medina Lake, and it is a manmade lake that can get very dry during droughts - it was at 5% capacity during the 2010-2013 drought, but swelled to 100% capacity after some strong storms in 2015 and 2016.  A mere year ago it was at 80% capacity...down to 40% now.  So, while the sight is a bit sad at the moment, it seems that THIS lake WILL recover in time.  In the meantime, it was neat to walk all over an area we could easily tell was normally underwater.

This floating dock was in a bad state of disrepair, far from
its original location.  The lake normally fills to the top of the hill

Our first full day we drove into downtown San Antonio to our old friend the river walk.  It was wonderful to return to one of our favorite vacation destinations!  We're not sure if it was due to our January visit (we've never been in January) or COVID, or both, but there were FAR fewer people at the river walk during this visit.  We had NO problem getting an outdoor seat at a restaurant normally beyond crowded.  It was lovely though to have a (socially distanced) outdoor meal largely like all the others we've enjoyed outdoors on the river walk.  We returned on the weekend for another outdoor lunch and the crowds were slightly higher but still much lower than anything we experienced in our previous visits.

Lunch at Cafe Ole

Another view of lunch

Walking along the river walk

At Aunt Jane's suggestion, we drove up to 'nearby' (1.5 hours away) Fredericksburg for an afternoon.  We should have allotted much more time for this trip!!  On the way we stopped by The Coming King Sculpture Prayer Garden in Kerrville.  This was a beautiful spot for prayer & reflection with a 77'7" tall open cross at its center and lovely statues all around.

Near the entrance of the garden

Fredericksburg is a cute little German town, with German architecture and restaurants scattered throughout downtown.  We headed to the National Museum of the Pacific War (formerly the Nimitz Museum, so named for the admiral in command of the Pacific fleet during WWII who was born in Fredericksburg).  This was a large, informative, and overall just very well done museum we were shocked to discover in a small town in Texas.  Aaron's favorite part was the actual Japanese midget submarine (holding only 2 men) housed in the museum - one of five that attacked Pearl Harbor and the only one still intact.  We only spent an hour in the museum but should have budgeted three or four hours.

This is the top of a real submarine
mounted in a wave-like bush to look like 
it is surfacing from under the water

The Japanese midget sub

After the museum we rushed over to the nearby LBJ Ranch, a national park (so I got another stamp in my national park passport!).  We rushed through the driving tour of the ranch itself and got to the visitor center right as it was closing.  All of the buildings on site were closed due to COVID, but we strolled around the grounds and read the plaques on the outside.  We marveled at the hangar and air strips that Johnson installed so that he could conduct presidential business at the ranch.  Apparently he loved throwing barbecues for various dignitaries.  One of my favorite spots was his set of concrete "Friendship Stones" that he had each of his guests sign when they visited his "Texas White House."

Air Force "One Half" (nicknamed by LBJ due to its small size
- only small jets could land at his ranch) at the LBJ Ranch

Friendship Stones

I didn't realize that Texas had a wine country...but we drove right through it on this trip!  Our final stop on the Fredericksburg trip was a local winery offering tastings outside on their patio.  So fun!

Wine tasting at Signor Vineyards

Our final fun outing at this stop was to Government Canyon State Natural Area, where we saw dinosaur tracks!!  Apparently this is the only public park in the US where you can see dinosaur tracks still laying in place where they were discovered.  It was a 2.5 mile hike into the park on a wide flat trail to see the tracks at the base of a cliff.  We looked at them at the base of the cliff and then climbed above to see them from the top - a much better view.  This was so cool!!

The one and only print outside the ropes

Sauropod footprints

Theropod footprints as seen from the overlook

The true test of our transient suppressor fix will be our trip to our next destination...stay tuned!