We are in Texas - Ye Ha!… after a couple of cooler nights we decided to make a run for the Mexican border and the Valley (Rio Grande river valley) to become ‘Winter Texans’There is a complete industry made up of people like us, known as Snowbirds – RVers from the frozen north of the USA going south to hide from the worst of the winter. Texas loves RV's and welcomes Snowbirds with open arms (and open cash registers) making them all honouree ‘Winter Texans’. We have not yet got to the centre of the Snowbird migration (south of Corpus Christi and along the Rio Grande eastern valley) but this area looks more like our Christmas location.
So far we have resisted getting the cowboy boots, chaps and hat (Stetson) but are already feeling a bit out of place when filling up at the gas station. Texans are a pretty friendly lot but not keen on vegetarians… ‘I knew a vegetarian once… welcome to cattle country son’ : )
We have continued to travel along the Gulf Coast though Alabama (Mobile) then into Mississippi (Gulfport) and Louisiana (Lake Fausse Pointe). The things that stick in our minds are wet lands, hundreds of bridges (very long bridge on route into New Orleans) and hurricane damage. Hurricane Katarina may have been in 2005 but the damage in some areas was total and everything, literally everything is either lost, wrecked, waiting for repair or new. The state park we stayed at experienced 146MPH winds, inches of rain and a huge sea surge and had only just partially opened after loosing all of its buildings, infrastructure (roads, power, water etc) and over 8000 trees… this area was just one giant building site.
From Louisiana we crossed the Texan border and on to Galveston Island… where we watched the sunset over the lagoon with the pelicans fishing from our bedroom (no not the pelicans fishing from our bedroom, us watching the sunset from there….) and moaned about SatNav Suzie.SatNav Suzie? Mother named her when she nearly lost it in the Blue Ridge Mountains ‘recalculating’ herself to a standstill and finally giving up totally lost. Well Phyllis, she is still up to her old tricks. Don’t get it wrong, Suzie is a fantastic tool and we would not be without her. She gets it right 99% of the time but that 1% can be scary.
En route to a fairly remote State Park in Louisiana she took us down a 20mile dirt track. Even at 15MPH it virtually shook the RV apart. The continuous vibrations for over an hour turned the milk in the fridge into butter fat… another 5 miles and we could have scooped it out with a knife! Then yesterday we were happily driving towards the bridge over to Galveston Island when we were forced to stop in a queue with some official looking guy asking us to make sure our LPG (Propane) was switched off? The first we know about what is going on is when Suzie who had been silent for the last 20 miles comes out with… ‘board ferry’ ???
In the valley of the blind, the one eyed man (or woman) is king : )
En route to a fairly remote State Park in Louisiana she took us down a 20mile dirt track. Even at 15MPH it virtually shook the RV apart. The continuous vibrations for over an hour turned the milk in the fridge into butter fat… another 5 miles and we could have scooped it out with a knife! Then yesterday we were happily driving towards the bridge over to Galveston Island when we were forced to stop in a queue with some official looking guy asking us to make sure our LPG (Propane) was switched off? The first we know about what is going on is when Suzie who had been silent for the last 20 miles comes out with… ‘board ferry’ ???In the valley of the blind, the one eyed man (or woman) is king : )
Finally… ** Happy Birthday Ronnie **, gone but still in our thoughts and hearts...
Take care - stay warm.
Den and Jane
