MayTexasDay

Texas IS big!!! I will give any Texan that! We’ve been here a month and have just touched the surface. Texas is also hot, humid and rainy; these cowboys drive fassssttttt down the freeway which everyone of them is under construction. I knit while Ty drives and I have knitted the same row 6 times because of errors made while driving down the freeways in the rain, construction and fast drivers.

Blame Texas for this lengthy blog as there is a lot to see and journal.

Cindy John McCue Michael Ouellette Fred Hilde Ouellette

Lots of good visits with family and friends!

In Austin we met John and Cindy McCue – who lived in Clarkston many years ago and John and Ty worked together. They now reside in Dustin FL just bought a Class B (van) and are on adventures of their own.

Then met nephew Michael Ouellette in Galveston for dinner one night. He looks terrific, sadly Stephanie (wife) unable to join in and the kids are teenagers so that speaks for itself. Michael is such a good nephew that he remembered we always camped with Schnapps so he presented us with a bottle. Good job Michael!

And while in Waco we got the chance to spend 3 days with my oldest brother Fred and wife Hilde. Just can’t spend enough time with family and we treasure every minute of it. What really surprised me is that Fred is an amazing cook as he made us this wonderful hot shrimp salad for dinner. My mom would be really proud of him! They have a lovely home in Waco out in the sticks and with a beautiful garden that Hilde obviously works very hard on and Fred mows the 1 acre of grass. It was really great to see them, sit and talk and talk and talk.

Parked on wrong side

What is wrong with this picture?

Site 6

Guess it has been a while since we had to back into a space and I have to admit Ty did a terrific job for not backing in for 6+ weeks and the space was so tiny too. But he managed to just glide right in. Good job, unhook Wanda from truck, start to hook up all the utilities, but wait – all the hook-ups are on the other side of the rig, that is not normal. Double checking the numbers on the electric outlets, everything seemed in order, we were in site 6; looked at our neighbor and his hookups were on the left as should be. How does the numbering system go? 5 space 6? Oh gad, we parked into the neighbor’s driveway of a permanent trailer! Had to re-hook Wanda to the truck, unhook all the hoses, take out the chalks and position her into site 6. We always have a hit of Schnapps when we set up camp, so this time we did two! Ty still had to congratulate himself on the great backup job (both times!).

Big Bend National Park

Trinketstobuyalonghike SheepherderHouse bigbend BBhikeandlocalhouse RioGrande

What a must-see place if you haven’t. Right on the US-Mexico border (talk about a wall!!!), hard to imagine that anyone, let alone anyone without electricity (for air conditioning) lived here; but they did! The beauty of the rugged mountains, the desert terrain and just the desolation of it all just had us in awe. Lucky for us it was rainy (spotty at most), and cloudy which kept the temperature down and made the desert flowers pop! Early days it was the sheepherders that populated the land. At the beginning of one of the hikes it was like the “gift shop” came to us as all along, maybe the first ½ mile, were caches of beaded items all along the rocks with tin cans that you put your money in. Thank goodness I have NO room for any of that stuff as I am a sucker for it! Lots of good hiking here.

Campground FULL

Please, if you are a camper and you made reservations some place like at National Park or State Park and you can’t make it; PLEASE cancel your reservation. I tried for 6 months to get into Big Bend National Park but the campground was always full. We decided to take a ride into the campground on a Saturday afternoon and the sign says FULL but as you can see it is empty!! And all of the sites had reserved tickets on them for Apr 30-May 2 but nobody there!

CampgroundFull

Layover in Del Rio

Quick 3 day stop to get oil changed – bet you didn’t think about having to do that did you?

Very Mexican town and what does Ty do? Orders all cheese pizza which was not very good. I ask you, do you go into a Fish House and order steak?

While we hung around waiting for went to the International Reservoir that shares waters with Mexico. Besides the water, the area is known for the Cave Dwellers living in 7000 AD, leaving behind their story via pictographs. Unfortunately, caves were off limits on Mon-Wed, can’t even hike down there. However, it was 99 degrees that day. So we found a really cute city park to hang out for the day doing absolutely nothing.

Fredericksburg

Tourist town for sure, with a German heritage draw. Countryside is beautiful rolling green hills. Packed with people – no masks even indoors. We were not comfortable being in town, even had dinner in a german restaurant which was outdoors but packed.

Instead, we spent our days touring the area as there is a lot to see.

RideThruPark LBJ elem school animalsonLBJ AirForce one half LBJbirthhome LBJ Cemetery

Lyndon B Johnson was born, raised, lived and is buried in Stonewall; part of the eulogy at his funeral is the pastor is quoted as saying “Lyndon has gone full circle” referring to his spending his entire life in Stonewall. Decided to ride our bikes since it is only a 10-mile tour but it took us 6 hours (2 hours of actual bike time) because of the many stops to read the signs, tour the various buildings and of course there is a winery which we had to stop at for lunch and a little liquid quencher. Learned a lot about LBJ and his life on the ranch and the use of his home as the “Texas Whitehouse”.

Because of his schooling in a “one roomer”, LBJ was very instrumental in establishing the Head Start program, Civil Rights Act, just to name a few but much centered around education

 

LBJ was a humorous sort of guy and his favorite thing to do was to drive his guest over the “damn” that he built to get to their home. There is a back way, but he loved to see the expression on his guest faces when he drove thru the water!

drivethruwater Trinity Lutheran Church

Looking for the LBJ cemetery we rode our bikes into Trinity Lutheran cemetery. The pastor came riding up on his bike and wanted to know why we were in cemetary as he doesn’t get many tourist. After explaining he wanted us to see his church (which also is the church LBJ worshipped at) and mostly the stain glass windows that a passerby created for them, took no payment and left no name.

Luckenbach

Luckenbach Pickers Luckenbach Tx PickerSign

Here is a fun place! Stumbled upon this place looking for a winery and it turns out it was “Pickers” night so we stayed (served only beer in cans). It was a warm evening; music was fun; it was an enjoyable evening. Luckenbach established in 1859 (established means you have post office) and set Guinness World Record for most pickers at one time: 1868 pickers. Now that must have been some crazy music.

Enchanted Rock

Gets its name from glow it has at night, which we never saw, but they say it is from the reflection of the moon on the dome rocks. Don’t know might be some ‘licker involved here. Anyway, we hiked up the rock to some beautiful views. This dome is likened to an iceberg with just the tip protruding up and underground the rock is larger than Manhattan.

Texas Road Stop Texas Capital Austin Santa Ana oil rig Cindy John McCue

Austin – Texas Capital

Got out of Fredericksburg and headed for Austin; along the way, stopped at rest stop which is typical for back road Texas and disappearing fast. Bought some jerky. Capital tours are back on! Didn’t stay long in Austin, but long enough to ride around Lady Bird Lake (10 miles), tour capital building, eat at Texas Chili (we had chili of course, no beans) and overnight visit with friends Cindy and John McCue who were passing through. Austin has the worse homeless situation that we have seen so far on our travels. There is legislation to banned camping in the city and while this is being debated, they have closed down most public restrooms especially around the lake. Which only makes the situation worse since these people are bathing in the lake and using the surrounding bushes for you know what. Terrible. Capital building had same architect as Colorado and Michigan capitals. Very similar structures. Of course, what would Austin be if not for the very first oil rig, Santa Ana, to be forever remembered. When it blew, it created Austin. “Texas Tea”

PadreIsland Solar jellyfish

Padre Island

What a beautiful campsite we had! So excited we were going to “sort of” boondock which means we will fill our tanks with water and use solar for power. Not everything goes as planned. Due to flooding, the parks fresh water was polluted so we could not fill our water tanks. That meant we had to go out and buy 10 gallons of fresh water, get 10 gallons of non potable water for our pooper and take cold showers in the rest room which has showers to wash but do not put in your mouth. Okay, we can do that. Then we had 4 days of torrential rain and when it is not raining it is cloudy and we depend on solar which ain’t happening with no sun. And of course, no wifi. That pretty much sums up Padre Island stay. But it was cheap, 7 bucks a night.

Geography lesson: PI is a barrier reef sitting off the Guld Coast protecting the shoreline of Texas. Does a very good job (as we witnessed during the storms) however, it is also the convergence of currents coming in from the east and west. Resulting of depositing tons, and I mean tons of trash!! Never saw so many bottle caps, flip flops and boobs. Huh? Yes, as the picture shows boobs. Now come on – who loses their boobs? Ty and I did our part and collected trash everyday using the provided trash bags handed out by the visitor center. The neat think about this island is you can drive on the beach for 60+ miles – we drove 5 miles.

Houses Glaveston Tinman

Galveston

Another barrier reef, Galveston Island, however the current of trash bypasses this area and leaves a clean beach. The town of Galveston is historic for the hurricanes that sweep through leaving destruction is its wake but out of that comes beauty. We toured the town and looked at all the old houses that owners have lovingly restored and painted in all sorts of colors. The house style is referred to as Queen Anne style. Also, Hurricane Ike roared in an took out most of the Live Oaks on the island and what the homeowners did with the stumps was to have them carved out into sculptures. We saw about 20 of them.

Of course, what would be a trip to Galveston if you don’t go down to the water’s edge for fish and oil rigs. Yup, quite a combination. Unfortunately, the downtown strip, The Strand, is nothing but tee shirt, quick stop bars and cbd stores appealing to the younger crowds.

Finally, the end of this blog

We spent our last days in Waco visiting with my brother Fred and wifey Hilde. Watching the baby Purple Martins in the bird condo they have. Also, we have a new animal visiting every night for a tuna meal.

We are not done with Texas yet but as I write this have no idea where we will be heading and we have to move out of this lovely campsite on June 2.

Not yet…One Last Thing

My Trek bike of 15 years and 1000+ miles finally laid down and died. The Gulf salt air, and the pounding rain rusted out the chain beyond repair, the brake cables broke off, pedals clunked as they turned, seat is torn. So I got a new bike LIV a bike design by women specially for women. I love it. However, now I have to get Ty to put my bike on last on the bike rack so if in the event someone decides to “need a bike” they will need Ty’s.

LIV Quirky stuff