MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Our Christmas Flag

See the bird in the tree limb?

We were hearing a tap, tap, tap and could not figure out were it was coming from. Then our friend said she saw a bird knocking out a hole in the tree right behind our rigs. We think it is a sapsucker, which is a type of a woodpecker. Cute little thing.

Mr. Brown Pelican

We had a turkey dinner Thursday and left overs Friday with our friends Rick and Gail.  Since Vel didn't get to cook a Turkey on Thanksgiving, We decided to do it now and it was delicious!! When we all went grocery shopping for the turkey, Vel brought the tape measure, so we would get one that would fit in the small oven that we have. She had to crunch up the aluminum pan a little, but it all fit!
Last night the campground had a little get together with everyone bringing snacks, that we went to. Today they are cooking the ham and the rest is potluck. We will also go to that! We definatly are not starving down here!
Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!

Keeping Busy

PVC bike rack

 Well, I made my PVC bike rack for the pick-up. But it will also work just sitting by the rig. When it's in the pick-up, the back wheels will go in the rack and the front tires come off and the forks fit inside the U shaped pvc. I tried it out and with a few bungies, it will work great.
    I took a few pictures of our site, it's in the new area of the park. We like it!

We drove over to the beach the other day, hardly anyone was there and it was a nice day.  Everyone must be out shopping for Christmas.  We saw Santa shirtless!, along with his elves!!

Beach Christmas decorations

We drove around town the other night looking for Christmas lights. We found a few, but not alot. The full moon with the Town's Christmas tree across the bay, was a very pretty sight. The picture just doesn't quite show how cool it was.
I can't believe we've been here 3 weeks now, time has gone by so fast. 
Yesterday, we cleaned the carpet, and today after grocery shopping, I washed and treated the pick-up. There is always something to do! 
Later-M

Full moon with Lighted Christmas tree across bay



new bikes

 Well, we did it, we bought new bikes. We want to do some light trail riding and with what we had, just wasn't for that. So, with a trip to the "big city", we came back with a couple of cheaper bikes. We thought about finding some at a garage sale around here, in fact I went out to one, but they had been sold. The problem with that is, since we are so close to the gulf, the salty air is very hard on the metal. What we would find, might be so rusty, it would be hard to get to a good working condition. We sat down the other day and treated our new bikes with rust resistant sprays, hopefully that will help preventing rust.

Maybe what we should of done, is bought one of these 4 passenger bikes, that way the dogs could have a seat, too.  Ha Ha!!

Now I have a project, to build a bike rack for the back of the pick-up. Yesterday, I went to Lowe's to buy some PVC pipe for the idea that I have.  If it works, I'll post a picture.....Later -M

Home base



  We have been at our Home Base for the winter, now for over a week. It's nice to be settled for a while.
We are anxious to go bird watching,  kayaking, beaching, geocaching and just hanging out. ( oh yeah, of course, eating!!)

Ready to go kayaking

One of the first things we had to do, was clean the rig and pick-up. They were filthy after our traveling.  The weather has been mostly nice, with a couple of cool days and a couple of hot days. The weatherman said that the kids needed their winter coats, the other day, because the temp was going to be in the 50's. I get a kick out of what they think is "cold"! Later, M

Next Stop

Staying by the bay

Our next stop was by the Marina in Palacios, TX. We were able to watch the fishing boats come and go, they also have a company that was building barges. We could see the welders  and cranes working on the barges. From what I've read, they make one barge a month.

Building Barges

Palacios is the shrimping capital of Texas. So, of course we had to try it out. We found a local restaurant and I had the catfish with shrimp and Vel had the Coconut Shrimp. Mine was very good and Vel's was excellent! The best coconut shrimp I've ever had! Very reasonably priced, too.

Another beautiful sunset

Coming back in

Good Food!

Yum

Double yum

Docks

We found a couple of geocaches, while we were there. They also have a very nice seawall park, that was fun to drive through. It was kind of a quiet little town.-Later M

Down by the water

Our view from our back window

Site #2

After we got off the ferry, we drove through Galveston. Hurricane Ike came through Sept of 2008 and we could see some damage still, but they look like they are almost back to normal. It  looks like a fun town to hang around, maybe next time.

Relaxing spot

We arrived at our next destination, our spot  almost right on the beach! We loved this spot! It's a Motel/RV park. The owner built it right after Hurricane Ike, so it's only about 2 years old. He gave us our choice of sites. Site #1 is the most popular and the most expensive, so we took Site#2, in hopes no one would take #1. Which they didn't and we had a great view!!
We turned our chairs around, so we could just marvel in the beauty of the Gulf and listen to the constant roar of the waves, soooooo relaxing!

How can you beat this?

Turn chairs around-Have morning coffee-How relaxing!

 We wanted to try the local fare, so we went to a recommended eatery.  Vel got the shrimp/chips and I got the fish/chips.  We did take-out because we wanted to bring it back home, so we could take in more of the view.  Both were good.

Time for morning walk

The dogs loved the beach, so many new smells.
We reluctantly had to move on, but we will definitely try to get back! Later-M

Visitor

Ferry Ride

New Homes on Bolivar Peninsula

 We did not want to drive through Houston with the rig, because it is crazy busy traffic. White knuckle stuff!! So, since last year we took the northern long route above it, this year we are taking the southern route. 
Along the way on the Bolivar Peninsula we saw the remains of what Hurricane Ike didn't leave behind. It blew through here in Sept of 08 and from what I've read, wiped out up to 90% of this area. Wow, how sad!! From what we can tell from the road most everything is cleaned up and new homes have gone up. There is a few places that look like they are just waiting to be rebuilt, like on a holding pattern.  Some places have rv's sitting in empty lots, that use to have homes, or partial homes. I'm sure it's a slow process for some.


My Guess- Hurricane Ike destroyed this one



Our Ferry Ride! Getting on..

On the southern route, we need to get on a free ferry to get over to Galveston, TX. I was a little apprehensive about this at first, but after I researched it a little, I felt better.  I read a couple of other blogs and they said that it was a piece of cake. Also, it can handle 8 -18 wheelers, so why should I need to worry!

On the ferry!!

Actually it turned out to be kind of fun!  There were workers there to help me roll in to my lane and not hit anyone else. Once I got on, I thought I looked pretty small, compared to the ferry!

Not much room-I bet I upset a few people by blocking their view!

The ride is 2.7 miles and about 18 min. long. Vel got out and roamed around a little bit. When it was time to get off, they let the other side go first and then the row to my left. Then right after we got off, I was able to pull off to the side and let the people behind me go ahead.  I also turned my propane tank back on,(for the fridge) because before they would let us on, we had to turn it off.

Meeting another ferry

Time to get off

Then we drove through Galveston ( with Glen Campbell's song ringing in our ears) and on down the road to our new favorite camping spot! (more on that next time)-Later-M

Post Thanksgiving

Where we spent Thanksgiving

 We spent a quiet Thanksgiving in Kinder LA.,at a very nice casino. We stuffed ourselves at their Buffet, about noon. Then we vegged out the rest of the day.  But, we did manage to walk the dogs a couple of times! 

One way to transport your Smart Car

Downtown Beaumont TX

Next place we went was to Beaumont TX. They have a nice downtown area, but there was hardly anyone around!  We found out later that everyone was at the shopping mall area in another part of town, when we went on our quest for some good Texas ribs!  We got our take out ribs and got the heck out of the traffic!  We also ventured down to Port Arthur, TX, their downtown area was quit desolate, I think between the Hurricanes and the economy every business left. It was quit sad looking!

Full RV Park

Since we were in Texas, I asked the gal at the front desk where the closest H.E.B. was, she gave me a map and off I went! (H.E.B.'s are real nice grocery stores) I found it and it turned out to be a Plus store, which means it has about everything you would every need!  So, it took me about as twice as long to go through it! Doesn't take much to thrill me! Later-M

Change of plans

Mandeville LA Trailhead

Back in Louisiana our original plan was to go to New Orleans for a day. But, since we've been there and done that a couple of times (Before and After Katrina) we decided to check out the Northshore area of Lake Pontchartrain, instead.


We found out that Cafe de Monde has a shop in Mandeville, so we set out to find it in our touring.  Along with a few geocache's!

Mandeville Trailhead-Tammany Trace

Our first stop was at the Mandeville Trailhead, It has a Cultural Interpretive Center. It  is along side of the Tammany Parish's Trace, which is a 31 mile Rails to Trails conversion. You can run, walk,cycle,blade or even bring your horse! The Trailhead is also where the community has a Farmers market every Saturday.

Lake Pontchartrain

 We had a couple of geocaches to find along the Lake Pontchartrain north shoreline. They have a beautiful park along it and across the street are alot of nice homes.

Home over looking  the Lake

The Cafe de Monde coffee and beignets!

It was lunch time but we had to find our beignets first!  Cafe de Monde is the original French Market Coffee Stand in New Orleans and now they have a few outside the city in the surrounding towns! Hooray for us!!  Well as you can see we found it! We had to have their Chicory coffee to go along with our beignets! It was all wonderful!  The French Acadians (Cajuns) brought these two wonderful things to the area, if you want to read about it
http://www.cafedumonde.com/main.html ,here it is.

Covington LA-downtown

We drove over to Covington  and then over to Abita Springs. They are both neat little towns.

Abita Springs LA-Pavilion

Trail at Foutainebleau State Park

We headed back home, as we had a few of geocaches in the park to find. We headed out on our bikes and found the nature trail. Very heavy with folage, I love the spanish moss hanging!  The trail connected up to the Marsh boardwalk. We were there just in time to see a beautiful sunset!  We saw signs that warned against feeding the aligators, but we didn't see any, only a few birds.

Marshy area at Foutainebleau State Park

Sunset at the boardwalk

We are glad that we didn't go with our original plan- as we love to explore new places!  One thing we are finding out is, we may need better bikes. What we have are collapsable bikes, and they are basically for just tootling around. Since Vel's knees are brand new, we may be able to do more than just tootle, the nature trail was a little to rough for what we have, so we'll have to see what we can figure out.
We want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!! -Later-M