HOUSTON…HOME BASE FOR A COUPLE OF MONTHS

Friday, October 30 – Our destination on Wednesday was Beaumont, Texas. Due to a forecast of rainy days along the Gulf Coast, we had changed our plans of spending time at several of our favorite Gulf beaches and decided instead to make a dash to Houston. We called the Elks Lodge in Houston and discovered all the paved sites were full until Thursday so we decided to stop for a night in Beaumont, Texas. The Elks Lodge there has six sites.

Marsha’s day of nightmares…bridges, bridges, bridges.

By the way, Louisiana did not surprise us by repairing I-10 while we were gone! What a disaster! That road has been a mess ever since we first traveled to Texas back in 2007. We've tried several other routes through Louisiana but haven't found any road in much better condition.

We had another goal and that was to get the 5^th wheel inspected. Texas recently changed the licensing requirements for trailers. If it weighs over 4,000 pounds, it must be inspected before renewing your license plates. We had already renewed our license plates on line. Since our trailer was out of state, the inspection is waved until you return to Texas. Our hope was to get the inspection completed before arriving in Houston and getting all comfy in our site. We sure didn't want to hook-up and pull-out in a couple days only to get inspected.

Searching on the internet we found Trailer Hitch Depot on the feeder road of Interstate 10, the route we would be taking in Beaumont. We called to confirm they could do a 5^th wheel inspection and headed in that direction. It was an easy in and out stop. Although we had to wait around about a half-hour for our turn and to complete the paperwork, the inspection itself only took about two minutes . All the fellow inspecting did was check that all lights worked, and that the vehicle was properly registered to us via the Internet. We paid our $7 to Texas and were on our way.

Unfortunately, upon reaching the Beaumont Elks Lodge, we were disappointed. They only had one site available. It was muddy due to all the rain Texas has been experiencing and was going to be a challenge to get situated into. After discussing it for about one minute, we said the heck with it and chose instead to drive the additional two hours to Houston. We were disappointed with the Beaumont Elks environment and can't recommend it as a nice over-night stop. Maybe it had something to do with all the rain, but they do need to do some house cleaning around their lodge, in our opinion.

We had a little battle with the Houston traffic (It was 3:00 and rush hours begins early in this metropolis.), so we skirted around the city on I-610 to the Houston Elks Lodge, which is actually in Stafford, TX, a suburb located on the south side of the city. Since all the concrete sites were full until Thursday, we pulled into a gravel/grass site to hook-up electric and water for the night. We did move over to Site #7 Thursday morning.

Our favorite site, #1, won’t be empty till the middle of the month.

Looking right.

Looking left.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!