On to Big Bend National Park

Will had some work todo and it was too far to get to Big Bend all in one drive so we came to be in Fort Stockton.

It was the biggest town on our route to the park and we thought it was bigger than it turned out to be.

Will got his work done and we survived some extremely windy days.

Tucker got some good walks in their city park.

Around our campground there were some cool metal sculptures. There is also a large metal Fort Stockton sign which was cool but you couldn't get to a good place to take a picture it was really only visible from the highway.

The campground seemed to be a lot of oil workers but it was quiet and there were good stars.

We saw a few shooting stars here as it was the first day of the Gemenids Shower.

Now we've passed the front gate of Big Bend and are driving into the park.

We only have one choice of areas to camp so we head right there.

Actually we have two choices in the same place, we could have services but be camping in a parking lot or camp here in this area with no hookups.

We can run the generator during the day so we choose no hookups and opens space and the view!

We got setup it was nice and warm during the days. However it would drop into the 20's overnight! So the furnace and the batteries were working hard.

But this being the dessert when the sun would rise in the morning it would go from 25 to 60 degrees in less than an half hour.

After we got setup we drove around the park a little to get our bearings.

One of the most decorated caves I've seen.

Our trip to the coast had been a detour from the vague 2 or 3 day ahead "plan". We ended up getting back on that route and drove to Uvalde TX (The Honey Capital of TX) for an overnight at a Walmart.

We didn't actually do anything there except get our shopping done and walk Tucker.

From there is was a reasonably short drive to our next destination the Caverns of Senora.

The caverns have their own campground and we arrived there before lunchtime. It isn't a busy time there and we had to either take a tour in 20 minutes or risk not taking one till the next day so we and basically swallowed some sandwiches before the several hour tour.

In the evening we were visited by a lot of deer, not a surprise since they have a deer corn dispenser.

 Pretty big buck we saw. The campground was only about 10 or so nice sites and some other sad sites. (But they are renovating it as we speak).

We read campground reviews online a lot and really you can't count on them at all. This place got crap reviews but it is really nice and peaceful.

But there is no wifi and very spotty phone service so people hate it

The cave tour was a little odd or maybe it was just our guide. It was just us and few other people.

Still the formations are amazing and there were more of them any other cave I've been to.

The pictures don't really do them justice. And they have some formations you don't see very often one called "helectites", which are formed when there is water pressure behind the formation.

They can grow up, down, left, right and even curl around in funny ways.  

hThis is a private cave and it isn't huge passageways and I am surprised at how good the condition of all the formations on. One could easily touch and ruin them but they haven't been.

Seeing as how we had already been to Mammoth Cave this trip we almost skipped this cave but my Sister-in-law said it was worth the trip and not like other caves. She was right. If you are in the area totally check it out.

Beach front Camping

After being in the big city for a while it was time to switch gears and we headed to Padre Island National Seashore.

There are some 60 miles of beaches there you can camp on and with our National Parks pass it is free!

We didn't know what the driving was going to be like so we only drove about 1.5 mile our the beach to a spot where our nearest neighbors were far enough away.

The weather was warm and we barely ran the furnace at night so we had plenty of batteries for 3 nights on the sand without bothering with the generator.

We also had to head into town so not parking too far down the beach made that easier.

We had dinner with a friend of Will's from highschool and her husband who happen to live nearby. It was fun and we ate great food at a local place.

That was one trip to town the other was to get an oil change for the truck. We couldn't get right in so made an afternoon appointment and went to the local Aquarium which was OK, they are expanding it more than doubling it's size but for now it was only OK, And it was very expensive to boot.

The car got done it took a lot longer than expected but it got done and so did our shopping.

Camping at the beach is amazing, it is so quiet and peaceful.  At night the stars were amazing and we spotted a satellite and a few shooting stars.

We also had a campfire and smores! I think that was the first fire of this trip!

Now that the trailer was un-hitched we took a drive much farther down the beach about 20 miles in total. They tell you any car can make the first 5 after that 4 wheel drive only.

Actually the first 20 we all fine for any vehicle and then the sand started to get softer and we didn't want to risk getting stuck so we turned around.

We also filled a few bags of washed up trash a volunteer had provided us with.

Relaxing on the beach was fun and Tucker liked the birds.

We went back to the visitor center and took a birding tour with some volunteers and saw some 36 odd species of birds. It was pretty cool and in a van which was nice, they provided bird books, a checklist and a binoculars and it was free.

We would totally come back here to camp again maybe for longer and maybe further our the beach.

A few days in Austin, TX

Austin is a very popular city these days, perhaps too popular. I am told hundreds of people move here every DAY!  In a lucky break I find a coupon for a RV park that is close to downtown for $19 / night weekday rate which is crazy considering it is a nice park with a pool and all the amenities.

Amazing too we want to stay 5 or 6 days and they tell us we can only stay 3... but we checked back in the morning and go the extra days even the weekend all for the 19$ rate! Major score.

The visit started off with Will doing some work the first day and I met up with my friend Dan who recently was one of the hundreds of people to move here.  We caught up and walked around the funky hood and the river. We also made plans to have lunch the next day.

Austin is a funky little city and you can tell a lot of people are new here. Specially since none of them know where they are going which is bad because traffic sucks. There was not a single time we drove somewhere that we did not pass an accident.

Still if you didn't have to commute it seems like a nice place to live. Very lively and not at all like other places in Texas we've seen.

We also will be meeting up with my brother and his wife to see their new Airstream and truck which they just picked up.

Once Will's work was done we had to finish it with a trip to Staples for some printing and shipping.

Here is our trailer in the nice park! One plan we had was to visit Franklin BBQ a famous BBQ place that recently had a short TV series on PBS. The line to eat there is legendary and on weekends you have to get there by 10 or there won't be any food left by the time you get in the door. We went on a weekday in the off-season at around 10:15 and were told we'd eat at 12:30 and there would be plenty of brisket left.

Dan and his girlfriend Diane met us there for lunch and we further caught up.

The brisket was amazing and I got two ribs to try but the brisket was the main event!

We also ate at HomeSlice a great Pizza place. We were told to get some breakfast tacos but that never worked out.

My brother ended up camping at a state park not to far from us so we went out there for a hike and lunch.

His new trailer is pretty nice! Similiar to ours but with some nice upgrades here or there.

We also went out to dinner with my brother which for me didn't turn out too good as I came down with something aweful 1/2 way through the meal.

Not sure if it was food poisioning or what but it passed by the next morning.

Tucker got a long walk around the river and a few trips to the local dog park all of which he loved.

Everyone tells us how much Austin has grown, and it seems like probably too much too fast. Still it is growing more we know 3 sets of people who have moved here in the past year.

We took a tour of the State Capital which was pretty cool after walking around the downtown a bit.

Our neighbors are very enthusiatic about Christmas. They had a truck full of decorations setup around their RV. I guess they were in town to shop for some more at a local Christmas Market.

We like Austin except for the traffic but I would come back again to eat some more delicious food and hangout.

A few days in Houston TX

On from the sad town of Beauxmont to the big city of Houston.

We camped rather close to the city in the general area of the NASA facitily. Our second NASA stop of the trip.

At Houston there is a museum but more importantly real stuff you can go tour.

Althoug the process is complicated and we ended up there on a holiday weekend so it was extra crowded.

Basically you can take 3 bus tours but they all got to one place plus the rocket park. (which doesn't have much except a Saturn V like we saw in Huntsville). They system is over complicated and annoying if you want to see all three.

Luckily we sign up online via my phone for certain timed reservations which turn out not to be true reservations but just let you cut the line for the next bus leaving.

The top picture is a brand new mission control room (opened today) where they monitor the space station.

That was one tour New Mission control. Above is the training facilty where they have mock ups of parts of the station for on earth training and trouble shooting. That was tour number two.

The final tour was the Original Apollo Mission Control room. Which was the coolest since the guide told some stories and had funny stories. That flag on the right has been to the Moon!.

They need to re-vamp the tour because seeing all three took hours and each is really only 15 minutes plus the stop at the Rocket Park which you can skip and we did. They do have VIP tour which sounds great but the need to booked weeks in advance but you get a private tour of all these places plus some more stuff. If it wasn't cold and raining I probably wouldn't have cared that much.

The museum also had a lot of good real space ships and equipment, I always like the real stuff. They had a great exhibit all about the space program that really showed how NASA built a little more and more capabilities each mission from Mercury through Apollo.

Another fun off the beaten track tourist thing was this old 1940 Air Terminal at the airport (I know surprise we visited an airport!)

It was pretty cool although we couldn't go up in the town as it was filled with junk.

It had some fun displays of the old airlines that flew through the terminal.

The best part however was the museums hangar. We had to walk down the street to it and a nice guy let us into the hanger and showed us some of their planes in the museums collection.

He was really enthusiatic and I think happy people were there for the tour. Plus he is allowed to take us out onto the tarmac to watch planes at the modern airport take off and land. It was cool to be standing out there watching planes. He actually didn't want to leave as it was his favorite part too. Eventually though his boss came down the tarmac and he was in trouble because two more people wanted to get in the hanger and he wasn't there to let them in.

I forget what it cost but it was totally worth the stop.

We also went out for Tex-Mex in Houston and also out to watch the Patriots game on sunday.

We also went to the Natural History Museum downtown which had the most amazing fossils I have ever seen. And a hall of rocks, minerals and gems that was really impressive.