Laredo to Corpus Christi

Wednesday, April 6 - Posting the blog last night was rather inconvenient.  Wifi was available up by the campground entrance, inside and outside the entrance office, but apparently you had to be fairly close, and there were no picnic tables to set up at.  We didn't get up there until after they closed, and after trying to sign on from the car, I ended up having to sit on a lawn chair just outside the building, in the dark, catching up the blog.  That was about 9:30 p.m.  But the campsites at this park are very nice, they are just 1 1/2 miles back from the entrance, too far for the internet signal. The temperature got up to 86 yesterday and today appears to be about the same, so that's not too bad.


This morning, we ventured back into Laredo (foolishly) to try to find two places we had picked out to tour.  The first was the Lamar Bruni Vergara Environmental Science Center Natural History Exhibit Hall on the campus of Laredo Commuinity College.

Now we know this college is old, because it was founded the year I was born.  However, in addition, it is on the site of Fort McIntosh, established in 1849, and many of those original structures are still used, both for housing and classrooms.

After making a couple circles through the campus and fighting the students for parking spaces, we asked around and finally found the exhibit hall, which was supposed to have mating alligators (Joe was interested in that concept - I guess they haven't covered this on the Discovery Channel yet).  But we only found a single alligator, so not much happening in that pen.

They did have some small alligators, I never did see the sign to see what kind they were.  And some fish in a tank with side windows, and a few other exhibits.

This is a ring tailed coatimundi.


Finally, we left there to head to our other attraction, the Republic of Rio Grande Museum, which was right downtown near the Border Crossing.  This didn't work out so well.  After turning the wrong way on a one-way street (and getting honked at), Joe turned onto another stree, which also was the wrong way on a one-way street, and traffic was heading at us.  So he cut across the other lane of traffic and pulled into a parking lot, which happened to be the police station, to get turned around,  Finally, we got on a street going the right way and it was blocked with road construction, forcing us off into the only direction that wasn't one way, which took us right down to the border crossing building again.  We really did not want to end up in Mexico, so we finally gave up and headed back toward the campground.

We got on the road about 12:30, with Corpus Christi as today's final destination.  Somewhere along the line in the last few days, we developed a whistle above the window on the driver's side, and it is driving Joe crazy.  He thought he might try to fix it with duct tape, and I'm pretty sure somewhere in this coach we have duct tape, but we can't find it.  (Would you believe on our trip to Alaska last summer none of us had duct tape!).  But I know we bought some since.  Anyhow, he finally pulled into a parking lot and tried putting scotch tape on the little vents around the windows, where the water drains. And we drove on down the road, but we still had the whistle.  I'm practically climbing on him as he's driving, trying to find a stream of air coming in.  No luck.  So when we got into Corpus Christi, he pulled into the first Walmart and we bought some duct tape.  He taped around the door this time.

Back on the road, we only have about 10 miles to go, but he wanted to try to find the leak so he could fix it while we are sitting here for the next 4 days.  But, no success, the RV still whistles.  Not sure what he's going to try next, but I really hope he doesn't silicon the whole door and window shut!

We got to the campground right after 5:00.  This is the same one we stayed at last year when we came down for John's defense, one week after we retired.  And I spent the evening doing laundry.  I talked to an interesting young lady from Switzerland at the laundry (she said she and her boyfriend didn't even have that many clothes with them when she saw my 4 washers full).  She and her boyfriend are here traveling for 2 years.  They quit their jobs, came over to Canada, bought a truck and 5th wheel, and are touring North America. She worked at a bank and her boyfriend is an IT person.  She said Texas is about 15 times the size of Switzerland.  This is their 3rd trip to the U.S., but they intend to return to their country and find new jobs when their travel money runs out.  She spoke very good English and talked a little about the problems in her country, which are very similar to ours (crime, immigrants who use the system but don't pay anything into it, language issues [there are four different languages spoken there]). She thinks this country is amazing and is excited about all there is to see (Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Death Valley, Yellowstone, Yosemite, etc.).

John and Bridgette are due in around noon, if their flights are on time.  I imagine Bridgette might be a bit nervous until she gets through tomorrow's presentation, but it will be good to see them and spend a few days with them here.

10:30 a.m. Thursday - Bridgette just called.  Southwest canceled their flight from Houston to Corpus, so they have rented a car and are driving this last leg.  It's about a 4-hour drive, so we are meeting them at the airport so they can turn in their rental car.  The stress continues to elevate for Bridgette as more roadblocks come her way as she tries to prepare to present her dissertation tomorrow.  But she is determined!