Spaced Out

We spent a couple of nights on Galveston Island at the state park and did a quick day trip up towards Houston to see the NASA Johnson Space Center. With the space shuttle no longer in service this place has slowed a little, but they have a very interesting museum and tram tour into the campus to see behind the scenes. We also got some time wandering around the new Saturn Rocket on display. Very astonishing how very complex and incredible it is. Like the the shirts say "It's not rocket science, well, actually, it is"
Also had a film presentation on the International Space Station, and another on Curiosity's Mars exploration. Lots of hands on displays, visit to cockpits, chances to try to land the space shuttle in flight simulators, much more. Mission control here is still monitoring the space station 24/7 and in the main work area there are working on new rovers and equipment for more missions. Very exciting stuff and we wish there was more funding for all the space programs. So glad we took the time to do this.

Beached

Yeah, kinda like the whales. I can understand why they just want to lay there on the warm soft sand. We have gotten another dose of the big sand suck. Still on Padre Island and it is warm, the waves are hypnotic. The beaches are nearly deserted. The water is 67 degrees. The temp is 84 and a light breeze. Shore birds are everywhere. We can do a lot of this. Eat, read, sleep, repeat. Sorry for all of you suffering the wind and heavy rain at home. It is just a distant memory for us.

We have noticed that our bikes are getting a little rusty with all the salt air so we decided that we don't care about trying to protect them as much anymore, and took a long ride up the beach. A good 8-9 miles round trip. All on the hard packed sand near the waves. We rinse our bikes in the outdoor shower when we return and spray the chains and gears with some good quality product we got at the bike shop. We are glad that we bought less expensive bikes so that we can use them, and even use them up if that is what has to happen. After all, isn't that why we have them? It was great fun and we got to go a lot farther than we ever could have on foot. We ride the 3/4 mile to the visitor center some days to use our phones, as service is better there, but mostly we are doing nothing. And yet we still seem to be busy. How is that?

We are working on some of our neighbors to get solar panels and have some interest now that we have a demo up and running, but it is hard to get these non-conservation minded, oil rich resource Texans to think about it, and also hard to compete with the cheap Chinese imports that you can get on ebay. We hope to find more willing folks when more snowbirds arrive.

It is time for us to do our two days out of the park every 14 days, so we decide to head east and see some more of the coast. We feel like Padre island is our 'home base' and will be back for more soon.

Back to the Beach

After our work getting done (including a windshield replacement ... the crack was growing) we spent a lovely afternoon with Nel's parents at their beautiful house in San Antonio.

I wish I had taken a picture of the fabulous meal ... but Sherry is an expert at brisket, and a November lunch on the deck in the shade was such a treat. We are liking this Texas climate, off season, but don't think we could do a summer.

So we headed back south to the heat and beach again with a quick overnight at Choke Canyon State Park, were we are definitely NOT ever going swimming. Then back to Padre for a few days, but we bailed out of there when the winds whipped up with another cold front (60). We are getting to e wimps. We had a lot of internet service need to deal with upcoming health care changes and tenant issues, so a couple of days at Mustang Island State Park, just a few miles from Padre, with its free wifi and good cell service was just what we needed. Tides have been high with this last storm so it was good to be off the beach and behind a dune for a couple of days. And it gave us a chance to catch up the blog and check 
in with folks at home.

We are now dealers for Zamp Solar, in addition to AM Solar, and we have a couple of portable suitcase systems to pick up from UPS on Monday. Looks like we have two buyers back on Padre and Steve already spent a few hours doing a consultation for another camper who made a DIY mess out of his rig. It is good to stay put for a while and do a little business.

 We plan on spending the Thanksgiving weekend on the beach and will gladly exchange our turkey dinner for some more grilled fresh shrimp or tamales.
We hope you all enjoy the Holiday too!

Texas BBQ

Heading back north again on our way to get our repairs completed and we are ready to try some of the famous BBQ's. And boy are we happy. We go to Lockhart and camp for a night or two and hit some of the most famous places for lunch. First is Black's, been there since 1932. Oh my god, this brisket is delicious, melt in your mouth, fall apart, smokey good. Fresh homemade sausages, smoked over the same hardwood coals. Pork ribs that fall off the bone. You buy it by the pound and they put it on butcher paper and then get some side dishes if you wish (beans, cole slaw, etc.) and go find a table to sit at.  But it is really all about the meats. We filled up and then needed to skip dinner. Actually needed a nap, and still didn't want dinner.
We walked around Lockhart a little to help settle our big meal and were impressed with the pretty courthouse and all the really beautiful old homes that were built long ago in this small town. Some really spectacular places of brick and stone and big wide porches on pretty tree lined streets. Other than the 105 degree summers, this would be a nice place to live.

Two days later we were heading out of town and stopped again at Kruez's BBQ (since 1902) for another try. Still good, but we like Blacks better. So,we will continue to screen these places for any of you that plan on coming this way. It is our civic duty to be sure you don't waste your time and money on second place establishments. You can thank us by sending your donations to our "Eat the Meat" fund.

Lockhart Texas Courthouse

Padre Island

South of Corpus Christi and about 150 miles from San Antonio lies the longest undeveloped stretch of barrier island in the world. This national seashore is 70 miles of sandy beaches, flower covered grasslands, and tidelands. It is one of the most important US nesting beaches for endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtles, and is globally important for migrating birds. On one side is the Gulf of Mexico and the other side is Laguna Madre, one of only six hypersaline lagoons in the world. All this and a beachside campground with cool water showers, flush toilets, and only $4/night. And if we want the real beach camping, on the sand, it is free. So we have settled in. But, it is not quite paradise for the first few days. The temperature is 94, and the wind is blowing, feels like the fan is on the furnace and you are standing in front of it. Oh, and did I mention the humidity? That is a literal wet slap in the face.

Full moon rising over the gulf

Since a  cold front was coming into the Texas Hills our escape to here was to avoid the really cool temps, but as it approaches out first night the pressure gradients are getting squeezed and it is close to 95% humidity. We are sticky. Our clothes are damp. It is hot. We sleep fitfully on top of our blankets with all windows open and a wind blowing about 20 mph through our van and we are still too hot. I wake at midnight and it is down to 89. I wake at 2 and it is 84. I wake at 4 and it is 79. That is the low of the night. We stagger up in the morning and I say OK. I can do one more of these nights and then we will need some air conditioning if this continues or we need to leave here. But the next day the weather turns and cools off and by afternoon it is 65 and has a wind chill that sends me looking for my jacket buried somewhere in a closet. Two days of clouds and then it really is a paradise.

Back to 85-90 during the day and 65-70 at night. We are in shorts and t's and sandals morning til night. We spend 10 days here laying in the sun, reading, walking the miles of beaches and visiting with other campers. Got our hammock (thanks Jennine!) set up under a shade shelter on the beach during the day and take our chairs out to the water's edge. We are here for the rising of the harvest moon over the water, the meteor showers, and a fly over of the space station. Night skies are dark and it is warm outside. What a treat!
Town is only about 18 miles up the island where the causeway comes in and there is a HEB store (like a  Whole Foods/QFC like superstore) and a few miles farther away is everything else a person could need. We stock up on fresh shrimp, meat to BBQ, fresh tamales, veggies and cool drinks every few days. Only downside is the blue man of war jelly fish that keep us wading only and not swimming, and the very poor cell service. Even with our new booster antenna it is still spotty. But we did manage to get a call out to the truck repair shop and re-schedule our installation date so that we could stay on the beach longer.

Texas Hill Country

Actually, it is much prettier than we anticipated. We spent several days at the large and very nice Garner State Park where folks are still swimming in the river and we rode our bikes around and spent time in the shade of the oak trees. Still hot here, in the high 80’s in the days and at 70’s at night. Went exploring up to Kerrville for the night. It seems like ATT is dominant in a lot of areas so we are having poor cell service. Better when we are near the major highways but very poor in the hills and state parks unless we are near their visitor centers or antennas. Most of the state parks are broadcasting free wifi in some areas. Nice if we are close by or can park near it for a while. 

Lots of rolling hills and gated ranches and grassy oak tree hills. Lots of 'ranches' everywhere. And a lot of wildlife ranches. Big fences. Don't think this is to "protect" the wildlife, think this is to keep them in so they can shoot them for sport.  Did you know that there are nearly as many lions, kept as pets in Texas, as there are in the wild? Interesting.

We stop in Bandera, supposedly the cowboy capital, where we walk around the Winthrop-like (except it is the real thing) town and stop in at the famous Old Spanish Trail restaurant for a Tex-mex lunch. The decor is  John Wayne oriented (we are close to the Hondo River) and the waitress asks us “what y’all would like”. My enchiladas were velveeta-style cheese and onions rolled up and then the whole mess covered with chili con carne with beans. Hmm… not impressed. It was ok, but I guess I am spoiled with loving the real ‘Mex’ enchiladas. Maybe I need to try this again somewhere else? Or maybe not.

The Texas back roads are narrow and lumpy (a lot like small county roads at home) but the speed  limits are 60mph!! Too fast!! These are roads that we are comfortable driving at 45mph. Luckily there is not much traffic and we can let folks pass us when they come screaming up behind. But lots of dips, and now with the bikes on back it makes us heavier in the back and less balanced and we are tired of the clunking in the rear end, so we decide to stop stalling and go ahead and replace our Mor-ryde suspension that we knew was getting worn out. So a trip to Boerne, north of San Antonio, and parts need to be ordered out of Indiana, and we have a week or so to wait for them. Cold front coming and weather predicted to be nights down into the 30’s. So we are off to wait in more heat and sun and will come back to get the work done later.

Texas Border Skirmishes

Numero Uno:

 
On our way out of Big Bend we finally got into some Verizon cell tower service again, (AT&T appears to be dominant in this area) and our phone was dinging with messages and activity so we pulled over at a wide spot on the road shoulder in this open desert and returned phone calls while we had some limited service. Next thing I know there is a border patrol rig behind us with lights flashing and the guy out walking towards us with his hand on his gun. Shit. Really?? 

So I get out and try to explain to him that we are old, stupid, tourists and did not know that their border checkpoint was only two miles ahead of us. Steve is still talking on the phone to his aunt and the guy hears conversation and is suspicious about who we have in there with us and what are we doing. I am back pedaling and trying to explain that we are just back in communications after a week in the mountains, blah, blah, blah. 

He finally decided that we are harmless and probably not stuffing a bunch of illegal’s or drugs into our closets before the checkpoint and he moves on ahead.

  
We get off the phone and move on to the checkpoint and figure we are going to get the real deal.... tear apart the rig, drug dogs, inspect our undies, see whatever they can find, hours of interrogation.... kind of inspection. 

We are coming from a dead end road, there is nowhere else to go, if we don’t show up we are for sure suspicious, we have no choice but to proceed.  But it turns out the same guy is there and he is pleasant and runs the dogs around us and looks in the back (where we obviously could not hide anybody) and then I apologize again for being dumb tourists from nowhere and we are on our way. 

Creepy … can’t even stop to talk on the phone around here. Big Question is … what kind of cameras do they have and where are they in this flat arid nothing landscape that they even knew we were stopped there? They could not see us from there If we had known we were that close to the checkpoint we never would have stopped.

Numero Dos:

So after that, we look at the maps and saw that we have a lot of miles to travel to the Texas Hill Country and it is getting late so we decide to head to the relative safety of Seminole Canyon State Park campground a hundred miles or so away. It is a few miles from the border, but across the Rio Grande which is in a canyon there. We decide that is a better choice than the nearby National Park’s Amistad Reservoir that has several campgrounds, but borders Mexico and has many ways to cross in the water.  Seminole Canyon is billed as a beautiful place where the Pecos River comes in and there are guided tours of the ancient cliff dwellings down in the canyon.  Sounds good. We get there in late afternoon and camp up on the hill in a scenic site and get a little cooler air breeze. Still hot here (low 90’s) and feeling humid. Supposed to be cloudy the next 2 days. No cell service here either but they have free wifi radiating from a dish atop the bathrooms. Yay. We are able to catch up a little. Very dark skies and we are hoping to see the meteor showers. Night it gets down into the 70’s and about 4 am we hear some kind of distant low humming  and think the guy next to us is running his air conditioner. It goes on and on and on for hours. Finally we get up about 6:30 (time change has us dark until nearly 8 am) and we decide to head out to the free showers and see if there are any meteors. We walk out in front of our rig and nearly bump into a stealth border patrol truck parked right in front of us. That is the “motor” we hear running. This guy has a radar unit in the truck bed on some kind or scissors jack and it is up high and he is sitting in the rig with the engine running/humming and watching some figures move around on a green screen. I am sure his heat seeking device saw us get up in our rig and get dressed. Hope he liked the show. We walk up and Steve says “watch ya doin’?”  So casual. I am ready to scurry back to the rig after our morning’s  incident. The guy says he is watching someone move through the area way off and there are two border agents on their way to 'intercept' him. We said we were going to head down to the showers and asked if that was safe (a few hundred yards at the most) he said yes it was. So off we went in the dark with our flashlights. I was feeling uneasy and made Steve come with me to check the bathrooms and showers for fugitives before I went in, but everything was fine and I felt foolish for being a weenie.  We showered and went back and had our coffee and just before light the rig moved on. No headlights, no taillights …. it just quietly glided away … very creepy.

 Then an hour or so later we talked to other campers in tents and they said that agents woke them up at 4 am in their tents and asked them if they had heard or seen anybody moving through the campground. Yeah … real safe ….that’s it …. 2 in 24 hours ... We’re done with this ….we are out of here. Heading away from the border and this crazy cat and mouse game. I don’t know how people can live with this day after day.