Texas
Original source: Texas.htm|
January 17 Our drive through Texas will take about 14 hours of drive time over a few days. This first leg of the journey alone is a 9 hour ride, at night. We left the Las Cruces area around 8 O'clock Thursday evening. We drove from El Paso to Kerrville about 508 miles before retiring for the night. Kerrville is about 50 miles north west of San Antonio along route 10. We rested for a few hours in a 24 hour Wal-Mart before heading to our next stop over. We stayed at a resort in Medina Texas called Las Aves RV Resort along route 16 for the night. Michelle cooked us a great dinner, and did some laundry. I don't know where she found her straight I know I was beat from the long drive. During the ride we spotted a few deer, and even came close to hitting one. Thank You Lord, for your protection around us. That deer was a foot away from being a dead deer, along with a lot of shattered fiberglass. This resort has about 20 of them hanging around. The locals tell us they are everywhere. After a good rest and meal we headed out the next morning for Rockport Texas. JANUARY 18 This next leg of the journey takes us through San Antonio to Corpus Christi, up to Rockport. We followed route 181 out of San Antonio And headed east. This part of the ride is just over 200 miles. So over 700 miles to get from one point in Texas to another, makes me wonder just how many Massachusetts fit inside this big state? And we drove through the middle of it. Rockport is a long the Gulf Coast. The resort is nice and like everything in Texas, it's big about 250 sites. The weather is cool but nice. Low 70's during the day and 40 to 50's for a low at night time. There are two pools, two hot tubs, two club houses. One of each for family's and for the older folks, that don't like to share or kids. I still think we have a good age discrimination case out in the Palm Springs area with all those resorts that were 55 or older only. We are staying in this resort until February 2nd before heading out. Our plans then take us to Louisiana and to Alabama. We have a week to get to our resort in Louisiana from here. So we may just have to stop in Houston or Galveston for a few days along the way. Feb.4 We spent the last few weeks in the Rockport area. While there we explored the area and saw a few cool things. During the first few days there, we went to Corpus Christi and went onboard the USS LEXINGTON. It is a old air craft carrier that is now out of commission. They used the ship for a lot of the scenes in the movie Pearl Harbor. Later that same night after a check of the local beaches we went to a Planetarium to see a show. Although is was a short program it was still cool. We had quit a few days of rainy, misty, damp weather. On Saturday morning we woke up surrounded by water. I stepped out of the RV and stood in about 4 inches of water. We did end up packing it up and moving to another site. The new site is nice, right across from the lake, and fishing pier. After the few days of rain the sun finally made a appearance and we headed to the beach. We drove to a town called Aransas Pass and took a ferry over to the island. Most of the coastline is separated from the ocean by a island. The ferry ride over is free and the other side is well worth the trip. We drove on the beach exploring Padre Island. We had a lot of fun, before heading into Corpus Christi for Chinese Buffet lunch. After lunch we headed back to the beach and drove to Port Aransas Jetty. The Jetty was really cool. Huge ships and boats were constantly coming into the harbor. We walked out to the furthest point of the jetty, and watched some of the fishermen. The walk must of been at least a half mile out into the ocean. We took some really nice photos while there. On the way back we save a sea urchin that was all tangled up in fishing line. We enjoyed the time spent in the Rockport area, and made a few more new friends. On Saturday February 1st we woke to the news of the space shuttle crash. We were told this from someone that came over to pick up some business cards that we had made for him and his wife. Former Massachusetts folk. John asked if we had been watching the news, and were shocked to learn what had happened. Most of the breaking up of the crash is only a few hundred miles away. We will be closer to it on Sunday when we are in Conroe for the week. On Sunday Feb.2nd we arrived at our new resort for the next five days. We are now in Conroe Texas about fifty mile north of Houston along route 45. The resort is nice. It is also a marina. We are right on the lake. The back of the RV is about 10 feet from the shoreline. We can hear the waves crashing on the shore. The area is pretty nice and the homes are still pretty cheap. We found a two story home just a few years old that we really like. It's located in the town of Spring Texas. The home is a 4 bedroom 2 bath 2 car garage with a large fenced yard. All this for just 88,000. the house is really nice and we called a broker to go and check it out. The reason why it is cheap is because of a VA foreclosure. This area is really growing and most homes are selling for 150,000 or more. We are figuring on seeing if we can buy now and sell later kind of deal. There is plenty of work available, so getting a job should be easy. Well we did go and look at some houses. We didn't like the fact that they were in new sub-divisions. The houses were nice but it would be like living in a planned community with fee's and such. We couldn't add on or even paint the house if we wanted too. This area is nice and we may come back to look into living here. The last few days here have been cool and wet. We did get some firewood and had a few good nights of campfires. We got a lot of scrap wood from some homes that are being built in the area. Michelle and I were sitting next the lake watching the fire one night and these huge muskrats, river rats, or what ever they were crawl out of the water and watched us. We don't know what they were, we do know they were not beavers. I know they were HUGE BROWN, BEADY EYED, LONG SKINNY TAILED, RAT LOOKING LIKE CREATURES. They didn't bother us, just freaked us out. We are leaving on Friday the 7th and heading towards Louisiana. We will spend two weeks there before heading onto Alabama and Florida. Texas is HUGE!!! It takes along time to cross it. We will be back in the future. |