Corpus Christi sightseeing

We left Livingston yesterday and traveled south to Lake Corpus Christi State Park. We were only on the road for 10-15 minutes when Highway 59 was completely shut down by an accident. We sat in our truck in essentially one spot for an hour. We were very happy we had a 5th Wheel attached after about 45 minutes of waiting. Unlike the rest of the unfortunate "waitees", we had our own personal bathroom attached to our vehicle. Nothing like using the facilities in the #1 lane of the highway!

When the highway reopened, we continued our trip south, traveling straight through Houston as we went. Houston was quite impressive to see, even if we didn't stop. Great skyline and typical Texas freeways with good signage. We have noticed that Texas puts the freeway numbers not only on the large green signs we are all used to, but on each lane as well. This makes navigation much easier, as one can make sure they are in the correct lane.

We arrived in Lake Corpus Christi State Park around 4:00 p.m. This is a great park with large spaces for RVs and an awesome view. This morning we found some beautiful little birds flying around the trees right outside our dining room window. One bird was a red cardinal and the other was a gorgeous green and yellow bird ... don't know what species. We will try to get pictures tomorrow morning.

Today we headed 35 miles SE to Corpus Christi ... WOW! Another beautiful gulf coast city. This one has around 250,000 people though, so it was much busier than Galveston. We got there around lunch time and found lots of traffic -- it felt like Bay Area traffic. We were glad our trailer was back up the road! Anyway, after doing a little shopping and eating lunch, we went down to the beach and found dolphins! Lucy ran around in the sand and we took tons of pictures. I know you are shocked about that! We have only taken somewhere around 2,000 pictures so far. Praise the Lord for digital cameras! The sun was nice, but it was COLD! Although the temperature was in the 50s, there was a cold wind that just went right through you and made it feel much, much colder. We were freezing by the time we got back in the truck.

We continued driving and ended up on Mustang Island and then in Port Aransas, where we again boarded a ferry back to the Corpus Christi area. We have never been on ferries before, and here we have been on two in fewer than two weeks! Awesome! We had a great time today -- looking forward to church at Calvary Chapel Coastlands in Corpus Christi tomorrow. Then on to the San Antonio area on Monday.

Adventures in Galveston, Louisiana, and cooking??

So much has happened since my last post. On Friday, January 22nd, we decided to take a trip down to the city of Galveston. We had been watching the weather and decided Friday was our best bet for nice weather. We were so thankful this turned out to be the case. It was a gorgeous day and we were absolutely amazed at the beauty we saw.

Galveston and the surrounding area is absolutely breathtaking. We took hundreds of pictures and fell in love with the area. We saw a bit of remaining damage from Hurricane Ike, and almost every building appeared to have a new roof, but all in all it wasn't anything like we expected. The sights of Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico left us wishing we weren't leaving Texas so soon. Truth be told, we have really enjoyed our time here and will miss it.

Sunday I decided to take the plunge and make Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon recipe after watching the movie Julie and Julia again. It took a significant amount of prep time and even more cooking time, but it was well worth it. As the Julie character says in the movie, "Yum!" We were thoroughly impressed and I was proud of myself for the successful completion of this dish. It looks hard, but it isn't ... just time consuming.

Today (Tuesday the 26th) we decided to skip town again and do some scouting around the area, and again we found a nice day to travel. We headed southeast to Port Arthur and then on into Louisiana, finally ending up in Lake Charles. The actual destination was none of the sort ... it was only an excuse to see another state! The bayous I have heard about all my life on the news and in country music were beautiful and quite different than anything else I have seen and are home to an amazing variety of birds. I could easily become a "birder"! In addition, we both had the experience of riding a ferry in our truck! We didn't expect that but it was totally cool.

We went across several very high bridges and actually saw more damage from the hurricane here than we did in Galveston. We also saw the remaining mess from the recent collision of an oil tanker and a barge. The massive cleanup effort is well underway.

It's late and I must get some sleep. We are leaving on Friday and we have a lot to do over the next couple of days. Later ...

Visit with Greg, Janelle and Jackson in Magnolia, TX

A lot has happened since I posted last. We have explored the nearby area a bit more, including walking around our very own town, Livingston. Notice the pictures I posted; it is a small but friendly eastern Texas town. The weather has improved, at least as far as the temperature goes. It was almost 80* today! We have seen a lot of clouds, some sprinkles, and severe rise in the humidity, but 80 degrees with 98% humidity isn't really all that bad. I am sure a rise in temperature of a few degrees might very well change our perspective! On the other hand, we had better get used to it. Summer in Illinois here we come!

Today we went southeast about 1 1/2 hours to visit some friends, Greg and Janelle Bright, and their 2 year old son, Jackson. We have known them for a very long time -- we attended First Baptist Church in Modesto for years where Janelle's father, Wade Estes, is the pastor. Greg and Janelle are good friends with our youngest son, Joe and his wife Daunielle.

We had a wonderful time visiting with them, and I have to say, their little guy Jackson is very well behaved and absolutely adorable. He speaks more clearly than the vast majority of 2 1/2 year olds. As an example, I was in the hall and Jackson was in his room sitting on his "big boy bed". He called at me and very clearly said, "Would you come here, please?" Is that not just the cutest thing? Of course I had to comply and went into his room to view his toys, and more specifically, his toy helicopter (like his daddy flies). It was hard to leave ... Greg and Janelle were most patient with us "old folks" taking up their time.

Our Town - Livingston, Texas

Old Town Nacogdoches pictures

Nacogdoches

Yeah, I wouldn't have known what that was either! Well, I do now -- we visited Nacogdoches, Texas today, apparently the oldest city/town in Texas. We decided to take a ride late this morning north of Livingston to the city of Lufkin's mall. We had a couple of things we wanted to look at and Livingston is just too small to find them around here. We went to Chick-fil-A for lunch ... we are learning to really like their sandwiches. Anyway, the Lufkin mall was a little, well, smallish and we were done before we wanted to call it a day, so we continued north for a bit more and came to Nacogdoches. We had a nice ride and I got a few pictures of their "old town", but we haven't downloaded them to the computer yet. I will have to add them later. Looking on the map while traveling, I realized that we are VERY close to Louisiana. We will plan a day trip sometime in the next couple of weeks to visit yet another state. How cool is that? Gotta get to bed now. TTFN :-)

We are official Texans!

It's been a few days since I updated, but they have been days full of activity. We arrived in Livingston late afternoon last Saturday. It was still quite cold here through Sunday. As a matter of fact, we didn't hook up our water and sewer lines until today as they would have just frozen over night. Actually, we have found that we can survive for quite a few days with a full tank of water onboard. However, it is nice to have the water hose hooked up now and not have to worry about it.

We found a nice church to attend on Sunday morning (First Baptist Church of Livingston). After lunch we took care of the laundry that had built up over the previous 7 days. On Monday we were successful in taking care of the legal steps necessary to become Texans. We had our truck and 5th wheel inspected, had the 5th wheel weighed, registered both vehicles & received our Texas license plates (added a picture from the Texas website for you), got our Texas driver's licenses, and registered to vote in Texas! We also changed our insurance over to Texas as well. All in all, a very successful day.

Since then, we have been making a point to try to relax and enjoy ourselves while still taking care of things. We even road our bikes around the park today. I am sure I will feel that tomorrow! Anyway, I still have a box full of paper to go through, but since we are supposed to get tons and tons of rain over the next few days, I probably have more than enough time to get it done!

I must admit that it still feels very weird to not be working. We have both commented several times that although we are glad we are here, it just feels SO odd! Eventually I suppose it will become normal. Take care everyone ... we miss you!

It's COLD in Texas

First two pics are Texas - note the speed limit-80! Third picture is New Mexico.

Today has been quite eventful! We headed east on I-10 from our last stop in St. David, Arizona into uncharted territory. We have always gone west from there back to California, but not this time. It was exciting and scary and everything else all at once. This truly felt like we were embarking on our new adventure, and indeed we were/are. We drove through New Mexico (which was just beautiful) and headed into Texas via El Paso. Tonight we are in Van Horn and although we are snug in our 5th Wheel, outside it is well below freezing at 27 degrees. Our little dog Lucy looked at me like "you expect me to do what?" when I took her outside to relieve herself. She is not fond of the cold to say the least.

We have decided to head further south toward San Antonio tomorrow and stay in Kerrville, rather than north to Abilene. They were getting freezing rain and snow today. Of course, we are getting freezing rain this evening too, but why make it worse on purpose, right?

I'll do my best to update tomorrow. We are trusting the Lord and have decided it is all good. This is a good test for us as well as our trailer. 'Bye for now.

Days One & Two

Well, we are on our way. We camped in Bakersfield last night, and we are in Blythe, California this evening (see picture) -- just barely short of Arizona. We were scheduled to camp over the Arizona border, but since that turned out to be impossible, we were able to arrange a night's stay at the Blythe/Colorado River KOA. We took a walk down by the river after setting up and before dinner. It was nice to get out and stretch our legs ... Lucy certainly appreciated it!

One of the biggest challenges we are facing so far is just learning to relax. We have not made it into the "take it easy" mindset quite yet. I suppose it is too much to hope for too soon, but as odd as it sounds, it doesn't feel like we just left yesterday. It feels like we have been on the road for quite a while.

We have had a couple of problems with the 5th Wheel -- nothing horrible, just annoying. As I mentioned before, Wayne had to fix the gas line outside yesterday; he got it done quickly and everything worked great. Today when we set up, he found that there may be a problem on the other side of the trailer with the gas. We opted to wait until we get to Texas before attempting anymore repairs on that particular system. The system is working well enough to deal with it for a few more days. Another issue that cropped up today is with the wardrobe closets. On our very first trip with the 5th wheel a couple of years ago, the main clothes rod fell down and broke. He did a great job of fixing it with a much more solid clothes rod. Unfortunately, we had a similar problem today in the smaller wardrobe closet, so he is hard at work fixing that as I type. I suppose these things will continue to show up as we travel until it all "shakes out" so to speak.

Tomorrow we have a relatively short trip to St. David, Arizona. It is about 1 1/2 hrs past Phoenix east and then south. We have stayed here before and found it very nice. Thursday we should make it all the way thru New Mexico and into western Texas. How exciting!

I need to close this for now as I must begin learning our travel software. I needed it today in the car and I found I had no idea what to do. Wayne has been the planner ... now I need to take a more active role, so here goes ... :-)

Goodbyes are hard!

It is January 3rd and today we said goodbye to our friends at church and more importantly to our daughter Julie and her four children here in Modesto. We said goodbye to our youngest son Joe and his wife Daunielle on Friday. I thought my heart would break and I must admit ... I wasn't looking forward to today at all. I knew this would be tough, but Friday showed me just how tough it was going to be. I know I will get used to it, and I am positive Wayne and I will enjoy ourselves in our new, simplified lifestyle, but at the moment it is all about painful emotions ... even for me (Wayne calls me Mrs. Spock sometimes.). I have done more crying in the last 48 hours than I have done in years.

Oh well, enough about that. We had our first mini-crisis today with our 5th wheel. When we came back from Modesto and turned on the heater, Wayne found that the pilot light would not stay lit. He investigated and found a small leak (outside ... no danger in the trailer) that he will have to repair tomorrow when we get to Bakersfield. Hmmmm, sounds like home ownership again! I am sure there will be many more episodes like this, but fortunately Wayne is handy and should be able to fix most of the potential problems that could occur.

As I mentioned, we are headed to Bakersfield tomorrow ... Orange Grove RV Park to be exact. We have stayed there before and just loved it. The park is really an orange grove, and when the oranges are ripe, one can pick them for free - or course only as much as one would use in a day or two. I am not sure they will be ripe yet, but we will sure find out tomorrow.

No additional pictures yet. We have had our hands full just getting moved in and ready to go. Check back with us again. In the meantime, God bless you all and please keep in touch.

Sue (& Wayne)