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.