Texas...

We leave Texas more baffled than we would have expected. It started all so stereotypically – cowboy hats, boots and that larger than life southern drawl but it hasn’t really panned out like that after our month long journey in the USA’s 2nd largest state.

It is true to say that Texas is big… very BIG, dry, dusty, flat (mostly), with endless dead straight roads where the perspective offers a shimmering, hypnotic infinity, distorted only by an ever present heat haze. However, scratch below the surface and the almost universal image of Texas as the iconic representation of all things American is just too simplistic. In the Rio Grande valley in December you are more likely to find a Canadian Snowbird or a Mexican drug runner than a Texan!



The remote south and western areas of Texas hide an uncomfortable truth from much of the rest of the USA. The rugged, quiet (and often mountainous) Rio Grande river border is stunningly beautiful but an increasingly unsettled area as the USA comes under attack from drug cartels across the border in Mexico. We heard gunfire everyday (and night) over Christmas at Laredo but everyone tells you the same story – stay on the US side and you are safe – DO NOT go into Mexico! So we didn’t, although we did go within a few inches on a couple of occasions.

The border is the river and at this time of the year you can walk across and illegal immigrants often do. Up until 2002 you could walk across the border – have lunch – and return virtually anywhere. Now the penalty for crossing and then re-entering illegally is 1 year imprisonment!

However, the more significant and subtle attack on the USA from my point of view is the creeping Hispanic influence – most people here are of Mexican extraction and Spanish is the language of the majority of the people in south Texas. The US may have taken Texas from Mexico in 1848 but from what we have seen that may not be the end of it!

Jane has just read the above and said “What a load of pretentious twaddle” - Don’t you just love her!

So after a month in Texas where have we actually been…

We made our way down the Gulf Coast to Galveston Island, Brazos Bend (near Huston), Lake Texana, Lake Corpus Christi, Padre Island, Mustang Island, Kingsville (largest remaining cattle ranch in Texas), Rio Honda for a bit of walking and birding (what us Brits call bird watching :). Then we travelled West along ‘the Valley’ (Rio Grande river valley) from Brownsville to Mission. We camped at two, 500+ private ‘Winter Texan’ full facility type RV resorts. More like an OAP rally and not really us in this hot and heavily developed few miles… but excellent for a bit of Christmas shopping!

Then North to Falcon Dam, Lake Casa Blanca (Laredo, Christmas) then further North to Garner State Park (Concom) and on to Seminole Canyon (New Year).

From Seminole it was West on the 2nd Jan into Big Bend National Park. The park consist of 800,000 acres that includes an entire mountain range and looks likes God’s playground with every geological anomaly you could wish for and a night sky that you could only imagine. It’s a remote park, we were alone for most of the time – not even radio here, no mobile or internet… in fact we did not have any electric or water hook-ups either. We didn’t see any bears or mountain lions – just as well because it’s bad enough when the coyotes start howling (at dusk). It was a good feeling to be able to lock the RV doors and go to bed…

From Big Bend, North again along the Texas Mountain Trail – Alpine then Marfa where we spent all night at the Marfa Lights Viewing Centre watching the unexplained lights. Not sure about aliens but it spooked the RV to the point where the battery died and we were then stuck at the centre alone the following morning – another story.
Finally Fort Davis in the mountains (dinner at mile high Indian Lodge) and the following day a trip to the McDonalds! McDonald Observatory - 7,000 ft, mountain top site to visit worlds 3rd largest telescopes and attend a ‘Star party’ that evening. Amazing – cold, as the party was all outside but included viewing the night sky through several large telescopes… from Orion’s nebula and star nurseries to Jupiter and her four moons – just one word - amazing!

What were our favourite bits of Texas?



Jane…

it had to be Big Bend – clean, clear air, unbelievable night sky and incredible mountain vistas including our hikes to Hot Springs and Santa Elena Canyon in the warm winter sunshine.









Mule deer at Fort Davis (including one particular doe who was keen to have tea with us) and road runners – beep, beep… zoom!

The pictographs (rock paintings) at the Fate Bell shelter in Seminole Canyon.










Den…

Big Bend’s remoteness, little one horse towns and McDonalds Star Party… naturally … Oh and driving the 10 ton tank, 13 miles down the mountain in the dark afterwards in a clean pair of trousers and bicycle clips!






We are now off to New Mexico for a flying visit and then into warmer Arizona as we attempt to out run a cold front (freezing day and night in the mountains and high plains of central USA) Even if we can put up with the cold for a few days the RV's water system can't!

Cheers

Den and Jane X

Christmas Day 2010

In the end our Christmas day was much like any other year…

phone calls to absent loved ones, too much food, drink and sunshine : )

Cup of tea, presents opening in bed, a walk around the lake,









detour to the local church,









Christmas dinner, odd glass of champagne.



We watched the sun go down with the Christmas tree slowly taking on the role of providing the warm glow. Then a bit of a picky tapas tea and that carefully selected DVD – Inception. It was excellent – one that we need to watch twice… just as well as we don’t have that many and there is only so much Mexican radio anyone can take.

Then bed listening to the fireworks (Mexicans across the border we assume)





Christmas – DONE!

Thank you for your Christmas greetings and messages. It was great to get so many emails and to speak to the children (bless ‘em) and family.

We are thinking about you all at this special time.

On the 27th we go further north (Garner State Park, Cocan, Texas) and then on the 29th off west to Seminole Canyon State Park (Constock, Texas) for the New Year including a tour of the renowned? Fate Bell Shelter - ancient Indian pictographs (cave paintings to us).

Jan 2nd 2011!! will see us venture into the mountains (Big Bend National Park, Fort Davis, Guadalupe NP etc) and a rather cold awakening we think – jeans and socks are washed and ready.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Den and Jane X

Our Christmas Day 2010 ?

**** MERRY CHRISTMAS ***
and a HAPPY NEW YEAR ***

So you have the turkey, telly (Strictly Special – damn!) and that old Bond movie to watch in front of a warm fire with a few flurries of snow to help complete a picture postcard Christmas. Our Christmas is likely to be a bit unconventional this year – but to give you an idea of our options for the festive period...
Watch the sun go down – again!

Decide if it is shorts or jeans and socks… only joking it’s ALWAYS shorts : )

Look at the picture of when we met the Queen on her visit to the US

Get into another argument with Lasko (long story) about Den’s age

Try on our Christmas hats and pull our Christmas crackers (all handmade as neither is available over here)


Feed the local alligators

Do yet another page for the blog – haven’t we got anything better to do?

Visit Mr President… he was out last time

Pretend we are interested in when the last Space Shuttle is actually going to take off


Marvel at how cheap the Chinese can manufacture stuff (everything) for the US markets… take our amazing $15 Christmas tree for example

Open our presents under the Christmas tree…

Try having a Christmas chat with anyone in the US… without getting into an argument about the Obama Health reforms.

Watch that old Bond movie we bought in the $5 bargain bucket at Wal-Mart’s

Pray that the RV’s little Combo oven and Dr Who’s tardis both operate on the same fundamental principles governing time and space

Go swimming in the lake - not another 'gator pun :(

Go to Wendy’s etc and watch any waitress’ face when you order regular coffee… with the 'SUPER size me' culture it's only 10 cents more for large - only an idiot orders anything regular.

Ride our bikes – without a Queen sing-a-long “We like to ride our bicycles’…

Microwave that ‘Betty Crocker’ Festive Eggnog and Pumpkin Yuletide cake mix – scary!

Drink cheap Californian Champagne and toast your good health

Do our laundry and make out that it is all part of trimming up the RV for Christmas?

Invite the Mexican(s) that have just appeared, in for a glass of sherry… we are only 3 miles from the border and yes Chris you are right - Laredo is bandit country!

Make ourselves ill by eating another piece of that bloody huge Key Lime Pie Jane insisted on buying… I said it was too big for our little freezer (he was wrong!).


What we actually did… sorry but you will just have to wait until Boxing Day for those pictures

Have a wonderful Christmas Day - Cheers! Jane and Den

SatNav Suzie goes ‘Off Road’…

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 : )

Finally… ** Happy Birthday Ronnie **, gone but still in our thoughts and hearts...

Take care - stay warm.

Den and Jane

Florida – the Sunshine state… done!

So we finally leave Florida after crawling over much more of the state than we originally planned. The sun certainly did shine with only a few hours rain and temperatures above 75F everyday and above 60F at night - except for a couple of cold nights. No, you’re right; we were not really expecting any sympathy given how cold it is in the UK right now. We have walked and sunbathed on some amazing beaches often totally alone – where is everybody? Maybe it isn’t cool to be seen on a beach in Florida in the fall? After finally getting a strategy for dealing with the mozzies (the worst bit) Florida has really grown on us in the last weeks. The Florida State Parks offer an oasis – the real Florida (their words). The parks offer a different experience from our previous trip to Disney where everything is possible - including a mouse with three fingers! Both are fun but one is disappearing fast (Florida wetlands at 2% pa) that in time maybe the only place you will be able to experience the real Florida is as part of a Disney experience………..

Lots of wildlife in Florida. We have seen deer, alligators, three snakes and numerous different birds and countless flying things (crickets etc). The more rewarding sightings include osprey, bald eagles, manatees, racoons (bandits), armadillos (sound and act like a tank coming through the bush), tortoise, turtle(s), dolphins and manta ray.

So just to update you where we have been since Cape Canaveral and the shuttle - the damn thing never did take off! Here is our route…

South along the Atlantic coast… Palm Beach Through the Everglade National Park (our 4th NP)
Down to the Florida Keys – Long Key
National Cypress Reserve with alligators everywhere – hundreds of them!
North up the Gulf Coast… Naples, St Petersburg
Then Orlando (RV’s choice not ours)… a long story - it was scheduled for a new Grey water tank but that is now set for Phoenix, Arizona in the New Year.


Lake Kissimmee, Lake Louisa, Manatee Springs, Apalachicola National Forest.
Finally along the Pan handle (Florida looks a bit like a saucepan) St Georges Island, St Joseph, St Andrews and Henderson Beach derogatively referred to as Red Neck Riviera (lots of holiday makers from Georgia – think Blackpool) and finally into Alabama on the 1st Dec

Now done around 5000 miles and the RV is ready for a lube (oil change)

Rather than a detailed and endless overview we thought we would give you a couple specific highlights each and then a joint favourite.

Jane’s highlights’ include…

Dolphins, (two different types) playing in St Joseph’s Bay on Thanksgiving morning.
Manatee Springs – Manatees, nine deer approached us at dusk, racoons and Den racing an armadillo to the toilet block on his bike. (Yes, Den, not the armadillo, was on the bike - he spooked it and it shot off in the same direction)


Den’s best bits…

Night sky - Flamingo Bay, deep in the Everglades. No light pollution, just stunning.
Sunset at Long Key (previous blog) and anything at St Joseph Peninsular beach with its acres of dunes of brilliant white sand that looks just like snow. Opps! Sorry, we mentioned the weather again : ).


And the WINNER IS…

***** Jane’s courgette and feta tart birthday meal *****

Take care. Jane and Den X

What did you do on your 35th Birthday Jane?

As you may know Jane was 35 on the 20th Nov… this year was a bit different from our normal pre Christmas stay/shop/meal/show trip to London.



Although she got your emails (thank you)… the mobile phones don’t work here so she has not yet (21/11) read any TXT’s you may have sent - but 'Thank You' anyway X.









We are at St Georges Island State Park. It’s a beautiful 1 mile wide, 20 miles long sand spit in the Gulf of Mexico linked to the mainland off the North West coast of Florida, not far from Pensacola by a very, very long bridge. Pensacola? think BP oil spill – but no oil here :)







After some present opening (pretty limited this year) we did a 6 mile walk to Gap Point. The sun was shining (78F) and we saw no one - just one boat.










I gave Jane her Birthday card at Gap Point (pic attached) and then it was out for a meal in the evening (my treat).







A friendly Gopher Tortoise did stop to have a shell stroke / tap which was good but apart from that it was mainly sun, sand, sea, pine trees and cardinals (red birds). No alligators or mosquitoes here – well just a few mosquitoes’ and loads of alligators warning signs but that is all old hat now although we did find out that they can run at 30MPH over land for short distances… nothing on how short ‘the distance’ actually is anywhere though :)







The eating OUT bit? Well actually more IN than normal as there is very little on the island… most (4 out of the 5 restaurants’) are sea food anyway… next year then. So Jane cooked here own Birthday dinner - courgette and feta filo tart (very good), champagne and candles followed by birthday cake with coffee and chocolates.


It is the US holiday season with Thanksgiving next week (25th) which they tend to run into Christmas with many people dressing the tree now and working up for all those office parties in December. Not sure where we will be for Christmas but at the moment it looks like Texas – Ye Ha!

We will 'wrap up' Florida for good in the next blog. Take Care - Den & Jane.

It's fun exploring new places...

After a while the new becomes common place and you tend to wonder what you did before. What seemed strange, complex or a hassle about packing up and travelling every couple of days has become part of the daily routine. It’s fun exploring new places – a different walk every day – it is also stressful in other ways.. planning, finding and learning all the time. As you would expect all the sites so far have been different but as you travel South (or North now) you notice that the flora and fauna changes slowly… palm trees and other exotics appear for example.
The real Florida is still wet and wild with the Everglades acting as a huge drain as fresh water moves slowly south and out into the Gulf. We were and are still not fans of swamps although the biodiversity is amazing (bird life, plants) the Everglades are full of alligators (lots everywhere, along every bank) some of them well over 10ft long. Much more frightening are… mosquitoes. The locals tell us that this is a low mosquitoes year the wet season (May – Nov) is nearly over and even covered in spray (50% Deet) we have still been bitten to the point where you can’t sleep because you itch from head to toe with huge bumps. These things can bite through your clothes and will even bite you on your face.

As I said you get used to dealing with things on a daily basis however although camping on the Florida Keys coast, 10ft from the sea, is truly amazing… looking out at the sunset colouring a perfectly flat, mirror reflecting sea… we personally have already decided that Florida is not for us. We have stared planning our route North up the Gulf coast and then West into Alabama, Mississippi and Texas.
NB Still about another 2-3 weeks in Florida.

To give you feel for the daily routine…
Starts at around 7:30 with a cup of tea and a scan of the campsite from our bedroom windows… maybe some new people have moved in, some will have already left but sometimes we are alone… just us or maybe a couple of other RV’s hidden somewhere. If you are frightened of the dark (some sites are totally pitch black – amazing stellar skies) and things that go bump in the night (birds, squirrels, er… raccoons… unlikely to be black bears or Florida panthers as both are very shy we are told) then you would probably drive into and straight out of some sites when you see how empty they can be. Although RV’s are self contained with everything you need for life support you can feel very alone especially when the mobile has no signal. It is dark at 6pm now and you don’t walk very far after dark (not when you saw the alligators basking in the lake on the way in : ) Freedom and a sense of adventure is all part of the RV fascination. The open road takes you where ever, when ever but makes no promises about where you choose to stop.

I normally have breakfast while Jane is in the cupboard (bathroom) then we swap over and think about moving on. Jane stowing away anything that can move on the inside and me pulling the external bits – power lead and water hose etc – unless it was a primitive site and then it just checking the pods and vents are shut and the bikes are secure. It is always worth checking for hitchhikers – only lots of ants in the power lead storage pods so far.

Then it’s the ritual check of the internal control panel for the status of ‘the systems’. OK, so there is lot’s to worry about. Tanks that you need fill (fresh water and LPGas). Tanks that may need emptying… Grey - waste water, Black - human waste - don’t ask for details. Plus checking the batteries (coach and engine) charge. You have some additional concerns - the pilot light (the fridge switches to LPGas when on the move), tyre pressure, gross weight… etc It’s like taking your house with you when you go away for a weekend. But just RELAX, you have got nothing else to do all day!

Within an hour of breakfast Sat Nav Suzie asks the question ‘Where to?’ and we are off. If you ignore her she sulks and refuses to help and when she get confused, she is simply dangerous. You need to keep an eye on her and where she thinks you are going.

Finding your planned campground is normally easy… registration and maybe a quick chat with the ranger… finding your actual space and getting into it is a bit harder. It’s easy to run Jane over when reversing – even with the walkie-talkies (ha ha). All that only to find the awning is going to be more effective on the sunny side… the other way round… so round we go again. Then its a level check and the hook-ups… power, water.

Cup of tea, a quick read of the site blurb, bikes off for a quick bit of reconnaissance of the site, trail locations and the general area to see what’s what and where the interesting bits are for tomorrow – walk etc. Time for a glass of wine (weekends only of course : )

If you think this all sounds like you, we can sell you our RV fully equipped (Aug 2011?), complete with everything... including a fibre optic Christmas Tree - another blog :)

The US must be the best place in the world for this type of lifestyle. We have hardly scratched the surface and looking forward to the really big and unique vistas that you get out West (Grand Canyon etc.) – hopefully without the mosquitoes.