HEADIN’ BACK TO HOUSTON…HOUSTON…HOUSTON

 Monday, November 22 – We begin our “Holiday Travels” this morning by heading to Houston. Our plans are to stay in the Elks Lodge Campground. We stayed in an Elks at Gulfport, MS and enjoyed it, so thought we would try it in Houston.....actually it is Stafford, TX, a SW suburb of Houston. If all goes as planned, we will be there for about a month......Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

Arrived after a nice 3.5 hour trip. The Elks seems pretty nice. They have 10 concrete pads with 50-amp full hook-up sites. Nice price too! It was very easy access on TX-59 with plenty of shopping near by....looks promising!

There are currently five RV's in the campground. There were three here when we arrived and one additional one arrived while we were away. We are in one of the end spots. We always try to get the end spot, if available. That way, Bella our cat, has more room to roam around on her leash. One less neighbor too and a little more area for us to spread out.







Elks Lodge from our site.



We went over to our daughter, Kelly's apartment, to visit and go out for dinner. We had a great visit and enjoyed catching up with her busy life. Paul brought home her sweeper. It isn't working, so he took it all apart and found the switch needs replaced. He'll look for a new switch at Radio Shack tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 23 - We are meeting Duane and Louise Wegley for lunch today. We met them last year at Escapees Rainbow's End in Livingston, TX, and have been able to touch base with them several times during our travels. They are Workampers for Escapees and are spending some time relaxing in Livingston before their next assignment in Deming, NM.

We had a great time catching up on each others lives. Duane and Louise are doing great and finishing up their R & R. We had a great lunch at Olive Garden. It was nice visiting with them and we'll see them down the road!

Thank you again Duane for the two cravings you gave us. Duane gave Marsha a cute Santa Claus pin and a beautiful cross. You can see a picture of the cross on their website.

Duane, Louise, Marsha, Paul



After returning home, Paul went to the Office to pay our campground fees and to get his free “out-of-town” Elks visitor beer. It is only $325/month (a little over $10/day) which included electricity. He enjoyed talking to some of the men in the lodge. He then fixed Kelly's sweeper.....replaced the switch and a couple crimp connections.....all for less than $5. She's going to owe me big-time!
We heard that Houston set a record today with the high of 85. It isn’t too tough to live in this temperature in November no less.

Wednesday, November 24 – We did a little window shopping this afternoon at Ikea.  We are considering replacing one of the sofa’s with a chair and footstall and wanted to see what Ikea had available.

We passed this AWESOME looking motorhome.  Somebody did a tremendous job rebuilding this wonderful relic from the past!

 

We went to Lowes to buy a Christmas tree and this is what we found.







Marsha went crazy. It just doesn’t seem like Thanksgiving with temperatures in the 80s.

Paul is getting into the season spirit.



We did manage to wade through all the beautiful flowers and find Kelly a Christmas tree.  Kelly mentioned that we use to wade through snow to cut our tree….now we’re in shorts and t-shirts at Lowes…..lol.

We wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving.

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

LOTS OF R AND R IN ROCKPORT

Friday, November 19 - Another beautiful day in South Texas, so we headed to the beach. Relaxation, reading and soaking up some sun......ahhhhhhh!

Marsha took this picture from the balcony of the pavilion. Yes, that is Paul way out there. See any one else….NOPE!

Does this look like any commercial you have seen on TV?

Marsha got a kick out of a pelican feeding near shore. Those darn things dive for fish almost doing a summersault....making a pretty good splash too! Crazy!

We also saw a crane having a picnic.

Saturday, November 20 – Football Saturday. Ohio State and Virginia Tech won….YEA! Were are hoping that OSU wins next week against Michigan and Wisconsin loses. This will put OSU ahead of Wisconsin in the ranking, and they will go to the Rose Bowl! VT is already the winner of their division of the ACC.

Sunday, November 21 – Started with church this morning; then more R and R. We met a few more people. This is by far the friendliest park we have been in. Most all the parks we visit, we find people are very nice but here they are so nice and friendly.

Attended the ice cream social…lots of socializing goes on at this event. We have enjoyed our stay here. If we fished, it would be a place we could spend much more time.

Tomorrow on to Houston.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you come back soon. Have a great day!

INDOOR PLUMBING, GAS HEATING AND LIGHTING…1877…REALLY!

Tuesday, November 16 – We visited the Fulton Mansion State Historic Site today. 

Built by George Ware Fulton and Harriet Smith Fulton on the coastal plains of Texas. Named Oakhurst because it is surrounded on three sides by majestic live oak trees. The front of the home faces the stunning Aransas Bay.

George was a highly successful entrepreneur and Harriet was the daughter of Henry Smith, a powerful Republic of Texas politician. Together, they created a beautiful and comfortable home for their family and friends, decorated in the highest fashions of the day.

Foyer

The house is furnished with many pieces donated by the Fulton family and with other period furniture purchased to duplicate items listed on the household inventory.

Original light fixture

Gorgeous staircase.

Original Recliner in the Library from Europe.

What unique pieces of furniture in the parlor.

 

The Fulton’s bed where Mr. Fulton died.

It was the first house in Texas to have gas lighting, central heating and running water.  It has bathrooms off each bedroom equipped with flush toilets and bathtubs.

Bath tub

150 yr. old toilet tissue. That’s something you don’t see everyday.

Along with these modern conveniences, the house was built to withstand hurricane-force winds. Poured concrete and pre-cast concrete aggregate blocks formed the basement walls while the upper walls and floors were constructed by stacking and spiking pine planks.

This shows what bad shape the house was in before renovation.

For a cost of $6, you received a guided tour through two floors of the restored home lasting approximately one hour.

There is a beautiful garden to the rear of the home with signs describing the plants and trees found there. The grounds are also home to many of Live Oak trees.

We enjoyed this tour and recommend it to those visiting the Rockport/Corpus Christi area. If you liked to see more pictures of the Mansion, please click here.

It was recommended by fellow bloggers and friends here at the park that we must eat at the Big Fisherman Restaurant. The place is HUGE! On Tuesdays, they sere all-you-can eat Chicken Fried Steak, Fried Chicken Liver or Gizzards for ONLY $2.25. It includes mashed potatoes, gravy and cole slaw. It was delicious. They also serve Margaritas for $1. We had to try that also…very good.

They have an outdoor area with a sign that reads…

The only entertainment this day was the cats

and the monkey.

Before we close, in our last blog we wrote about the Tarpon Inn and the tarpon scales on the wall. We were asked what is a tarpon. Well, here is the answer directly from Mr. Webster…

–noun, plural -pons, ( especially collectively ) -pon.
a large, powerful game fish, Megalops atlantica, inhabiting the warmer waters of the Atlantic Ocean, having a compressed body and large, silvery scales.

In all fairness to our readers, Marsha didn’t know either.

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

HANGING AROUND ROCKPORT

Thursday, November 11 – We took a trip to Corpus Christi today. They are painting the big bridge over to Corpus Christi. Marsha was not happy to see this.

We walked along the Gulf Coast on the Pier area and in Cole Park.

Shore line

Water was a little rough.

Downtown Seawall

 

They have a bit of erosion going on.

Nina – This ship is a replicas of Christopher Columbus ship Nina. It is one of three ships build built in Spain. All three ships toured America in 1992 before coming to their permanent home in Corpus Christi in 1993.

Corpus Christi Marina – a little bit of money here.

We were a little disappointed in the lack of touristy stuff. Really not much to see or do. We will probably return to tour the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier docked permanently at the pier.

We stopped at Home Depot for a couple bolts for Paul and then to the grocery store. We returned home to relax the rest of the day. We did spend about an hour in the hot tub this evening to massage our weary bones!

Friday, November 12 - Laundry day for Marsha, and Paul serviced the batteries. We also had a guy come out and look at our furnace because it won't come on......hmmmmm. Found out we need a new thermostat. That's one of those jobs Paul could have done in our former Sticks and Bricks (home), but being new to the MH Life he wasn't sure how to do it. Easy, so next time he'll do it himself.

Saturday, November 13 – Nice slooooooow day. Got our fill of college football. We were a bit nervous at the way Ohio State and Virginia Tech played the first half but they both came on second half to win BIG.

We have been watching some men down the road work on what we think is the sewer system. What is with all the red flex-pipe every two feet?  Paul believes it is something on the surface (a temporary line) hooked to a buried pipe.  Never saw anything like this???? Marsha’s dad was a Master Pipefitter. Dad…can you figure it out?

Sunday, November 14 – Went to First Baptist Church in Rockport. There is a Lutheran Church here in Rockport but their service wasn’t until 10:30. We like to go early, so we hit the 8:30 service at FBC.

Hooray…the first time we get to see the Cleveland Browns on TV. We have Direct TV and get a New York channel that carried the game. The Browns, with Colt McCoy a former Texas Longhorn, look pretty good! BUT they lost in overtime….BOOOOOO!

The Park had an ice cream social tonight. We had some good Texan Bluebell Ice Cream and met several new people. Everyone there will be staying in the Park until about April. They all were very nice.

Marsha has done it again. She volunteered to get the library in order. She stayed after ice cream and began organizing the books. She said it will be a bit difficult to make it look nice since the shelves are all different shapes and sizes. Her ultimate goal is just to get them alphabetized. She missed her calling as a Librarian!

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

BEACH, TREE AND GATORS

Tuesday, November 9 – We headed to Blue Wave Beach today only to be driven back.  Blue Wave Beach is clean, managed responsibly and has a focus on the protection of human health and the environment. Blue Wave Beaches are litter free, have handicap accessibility, public restroom facilities and swimmable waters. it is the one of a kind, Saltwater, swimming lagoon!

It was a nice and sunny morning, and we had the beach all to ourselves.

 

Nice to sit, read, and nap.

Paul checked out the water temperature....no way was he going in there!

After about an hour it clouded up....darn, no long relaxing day at the beach this time.

We decided to head up to Lamar and see the “Big Tree” aka The Bishop's Tree aka The Lamar Oak aka Goose Island Oak. It is located on Goose Island State Park. The giant Live Oak measures 35 feet in circumference, 44 feet in height and has a crown spread of 89 feet. The Texas Forest Service estimates the tree to be over 1000 years old. It is said to have been a council tree for the Carancahua Indians and for the white men who came after them.

This is the second “big tree” we've seen in Texas. About a year ago, we saw what was called the oldest tree in Texas, located in Historic Columbus, TX.

We then head to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, the Whooping Crane stronghold. The Refuge Complex is comprised of over 115,000 acres. From late October to mid-April, crane families feed in the marshes of this area. Only at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge do North America's tallest birds find an enduring winter stronghold.

The marsh land in the Refuge is beautiful.

 

They have an observation tower for viewing the Whooping Cranes. You are way above the trees.

The view from the top.

We weren’t able to get close enough to get a good shot of the Whooping Cranes. This is the best we could do for the Sandhill Crane.

Here too, pelicans, herons, egrets, spoonbills, ducks, and geese settle. On shore, javelinas, bobcats, and deer wander the oak woodlands. Alligators peer from still water of ponds.

We saw just about all of these including several HUGE Alligators.....in the 16 foot range! Awesome!

Here is a mother with her baby.

We saw a group of gators near where we walked.

 

There's about a 30 mile driving route through the park with numerous hiking trails. The only Texas wildlife Paul still has on his “I gotta' see” list is a big Rattlesnake.

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