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!

Laredo

Tuesday, April 5.  We left Walmart and headed to Laredo about 9:00 this morning.  We only drove 44 miles yesterday, but today will be a little longer.  We had intended to make a side trip to Alamo Village, a little east of here, the movie site where several John Wayne movies were filmed, including The Alamo, but we learned at the Visitor Center that it had recently been closed down.

A unique driving pattern in Texas is that they use the apron of the road to pull onto to let the vehicle behind you pass, even in "no passing" zones.  Usually, any traffic coming at you will move over onto their apron as well.  This is the courteous and customary behavior down here, and the aprons on the road are almost a full-sized lane.  It makes driving the two-lane highways a little easier, and everyone moves along a little quicker.

We were traveling on Highway 277 to Carrizo Springs, then 83 to Laredo.  Highway 83 has been named the "Texas Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway."  We stopped here at a roadside picnic pull-off for lunch, and I talked with a Texas Dept. of Transportation worker who stopped here as well.

He said this immediate area (Carrizo Springs, Catarina, Artesia Wells) was experiencing a big oil boom right now, started about a year ago and was expected to last about 10 years.  (The town of Brundage was just a little east of this area, but he didn't mention it--Collins is probably keeping secrets again.)  We saw a lot of construction traffic and areas where they were putting in tanks and equipment for their service yards.  We also saw a lot of campgrounds that had been quickly laid out to handle the workers for this oil boom.  The DOT guy said these little towns did not have near enough housing to take care of this increased population, so the oil companies had brought in campers for them to stay in.

Another interesting thing about these Texas highways near the Mexican border is that there are usually dirt roads, like frontage roads, right beside the highway (sometimes on the other side of the fence, but not always).  We would see a pile of 3 or 4 tires every so often that they use to drag these dirt roads, looking for footprints from the illegals.  The Border Patrol is very busy along here, and we have gone through a couple Inspection Stations.  They just asked if we were U.S. citizens and if anyone they couldn't see was traveling with us, while their German Shepherd sniffed our tires and outside cargo areas.

One picture I missed today was what I called a "rooster farm."  We passed a place where there were 40-50 little A-frames set up, with a rooster on a tether for each one.  I couldn't figure out what they were until it was too late to take a picture, but Joe told me they were fighting roosters, and that a lot of them are raised in this area.  If we ever pass another one, I'll make him stop so I can get a picture.

We got into Laredo and found our campground (Lake Casa Blanca State Campground) about 2:00.  Our GPS, Lucille, got a little confused so we had an interesting time getting on the right road.  Somehow, she also got on Africanese language too, so that added to the confusion.  I think we actually hit all 4 corners of the clover leaf, but we managed again Not to go into Mexico (it was a little iffy for a while, but there was one more exit before the bridge that took us over into Mexico).  This is another really nice state campground, with electricity, and a big lake.

We rested for a while then ventured into the town.  It reminds me of El Paso, and we managed to get right down by the border crossing, in 5:00 traffic. I found an ad in our brochure so I picked out a place to shop.  It didn't take very long, but they had some interesting stuff.

There were lots of people heading back to the border crossing, and the streets were busy. I was a little anxious to get out of this part of town.

We managed to find our way back to the campground, thankfully.  We are going to attempt to go to a museum right down by the border crossing in the morning, before we leave here for Corpus Christi.  Bridgette has to check first thing tomorrow to make sure Southwest has not cancelled her flight from Tampa to Corpus on Thursday, since they have grounded some of their planes.  She said if her flight is cancelled, she's just going to start driving.  No way is she not going to defend on Friday!

Del Rio

April 4, 2011 - Del Rio, Texas - Joe drove 221 miles yesterday, out of Big Bend and over to this State Park, and we had a pretty good evening.  I talked to one of the bicyclists this morning and she said they were riding from San Diego to Florida, in 52 days.  Yesterday was a lot of uphill riding for them, and she said it was a pretty hard day.  Then they slept in a tent with an outside temperature of 90 degrees.  Does that even sound like fun?????  They were gathering up pretty early this morning.  Here's is the stack of gear by the restroom.

Joe had visions of a Whataburger breakfast this morning, so I woke him up about 8:00.  It was pretty nice outside, a little hazy, about 72 degrees.  We enjoyed our coffee outside at the picnic table, then walked over to the restroom.  On our way back, the wind rose and all of a sudden, we had gusts about 40-50 mph, and the wind just set in then.  Our plans for an early start were stymied as we discussed what we were going to do.  Our intent was to drive to Laredo, which we thought was about 200 miles, with a stop in Del Rio to see what there was in that border town.  We decided to just go as far as Del Rio and spend the day and night there, since the computer showed the winds were supposed to last until 7:00 p.m., so we took off.  The wind was bad at first but as we headed more south, it seemed to not be hitting us as hard.  We only went 44 miles, and there wasn't much traffic, so we made it just fine.

We came up on the Amistad Reservoir, and some more of its boat ramps and recreation areas, which was about 10 miles before Del Rio, as well as the dam, which takes you right into Mexico.  Here's the bridge over part of this very pretty lake, which was white-capping big time when we drove through here.  The Amistad park extends 81 miles up the Rio Grande, 14 miles up the Pecos River, and 25 miles up Devils River.  The Reservoir has 540 miles of shoreline in Texas.

We found the Whataburger Restaurant, right on the main drag.  This is the face of a happy camper.

After we fueled and I drove back to check out the campground we thought we might use (we didn't, it was kinda junky, so we are spending our first night on a Walmart parking lot), we stopped at the Visitor Center and then drove back to the Amistad dam area.  We didn't have our passports with us, so I told Joe I did not want to end up in Mexico.  The road over the dam takes you right into Mexico, but we managed to not get on it.

Brenda, here's what a Texas Billie Boat looks like.

We drove back into town and found the San Felipe creek and dam, which was pictured in one of the brochures we picked up at the Visitor Center.  The San Felipe is the 4th-largest springs in Texas, and they have made a pretty park where it flows through town.

There is a canal that joins this spring, and there are waterfalls from both the spring and the canal.

We stopped at a Mexican restaurant for lunch, but it must have been too authentic for me, because I didn't think it was that great.  The salsa, however, was HOT!  After we drove around the town a little more, we went back to our campsite (Walmart parking lot) and relaxed (read) for a while.  The temperature stayed in the 70s all day, and the wind was intermittent, it was a relaxing afternoon.  We finally walked into the store and did a little shopping.  Tomorrow we will try to make it to Laredo.

From Big Bend to the Pecos River

Sunday, April 3, 2011 - Yesterday evening about 7:30 we made our last scenic drive in Big Bend National Park, down to the Boquillas Canyon.  The village of Boquillas is right across the river, and the Mexicans bring their native wares over here to try to sell them.  Since it is illegal for them to cross the river, they apparently just leave them and hope for the buyers to leave the money for them.  Since it is also illegal to buy anything from them, I don't imagine they get much business.

You can see the village from our viewpoint, and the brochures say that sometimes a Mexican serenades the American visitors from a sandbar in the river.  We didn't see anyone when we were here.

We slept much better last night, with air conditioning again, even though this campground is not much more than a parking lot.  But it had electricity!

But a roadrunner came by this morning.

And 3 coyotes also came by.

We got an early start today, finally, and were on the road at 8:25.  Every time we met an RV heading down to Big Bend, Joe yelled, "hot, hot, don't you know it's hot."  We saw some Border Patrol activity before we got outside the park, but don't know what was going on.

We are headed toward Del Rio, but the campground we have picked out is about 40 miles before that.  We checked the weather for Del Rio today, and it is forecast 93 degrees, with 78% humidity.  Oh, yeah.

We finally got out of the park and headed East.  We got to Langtry about 12:30 and toured Judge Roy Bean's place, which has a Visitor's Center in front of it.  Judge Bean, also known as the Hanging Judge, made this place famous during the years when the railroad was being built through here.

The saloon burned down once, and when he rebuilt, he also built a separate building as his residence, which he called the Opera House, trying to get Jersey Lilly Langtry to come perform in Langtry, the town he had named after her.

They also had a very nice cactus garden here.

We ate a quick lunch in the RV here, then headed on down the road.  We crossed the Pecos River and camped at the Seminole Canyon State Historical Park, which is only about 1 mile passed the river.  This picture is from the bridge on Highway 90.  The river is a very pretty green color, I haven't learned yet where the color comes from.

This campground is just right off the road, very deserty (not a tree in sight), and it is 96 today. They have guided tours of hikes through the canyon, but we'll skip that.

After dinner, we drove down to the River at one of the Armistad Recreational Area boat ramps.

The water felt pretty good, we probably should have jumped in since we are hating this heat.

On our way back into camp, we came up on 4 turkeys, apparently out looking for dinner.

We also saw two bunnies beside the road.  And we came upon this oven used to feed the railroad workers.

We have electricity at this campground, so we are looking forward to sleeping cool again.  We won't be staying anyplace without electricity from now on, unless this weather cools back off.  Joe was reading about some caves up by San Antonio, and one stays a constant 72 degrees.  Joe said we are going to go find it and just sit inside it all day.  We thought we would have this campground to ourselves, but a group of bicyclists came in (Coast to Coast, I think is the group name).  Their coordinator (or whatever) came through in a Penske truck and drop off gear at about 15 sites.  Then as it got closer to 5:00 p.m., several other RVs pulled in, so I'm guessing this park is nearly full.

Big Bend - Day 2

Saturday, April 2 - We did not sleep well last night because it was so warm (hot), so this morning we moved over to the public campgroound which has electricity, and we have our a/c cranked!  We took a 140-mile drive in the car today, over most of the roads accessible by car.  Big Bend looks a lot like Arizona, so although it's pretty, it is not that impressive to us, especially since it also has Arizona's heat!  I think the heat wave that hit there Thursday/Friday has arrived here.

We drove all the way down to the Rio Grande River, but it is pretty small and shallow at this spot, the Santa Elena Canyon.  They do rafting trips through this canyon, and in fact, we saw some people on rafts, but one guy got and walked and the water was only about knee-deep in the middle of the river.

This Canyon is pretty and it looks like the river turns here, and cuts through these steep canyon walls.

There is a hiking trail here too but we didn't think we could stand that much exercise.  It was near 100 degrees by now.

We did see another roadrunner, but no other wildlife.
We stopped at the Chisos Basin Lodge, which is a higher elevation, and the temperature was back down about 85.  We had lunch here while I posted my blog from yesterday.  We had a nice view from the lodge, and there is a rock formation called the "window" which gives views of mountains beyond.  It's hard to see in this picture, but it was a pretty view.

On our way back to the campground, we had a view of this very pretty ridge, which I could see from my kitchen window at the campground we were at last night.

When we got back to camp, the car registered 101, but it had been as high as 102 a few minutes earlier.

This is way too hot for us.  Tomorrow we are heading to the Seminole National Historic Park near Del Rio.  We surely hope this hot spell gets ahead of us.