01-10MAR10 - Austin, TX (via kinder, la & livingston, tx)

After enduring four more days of rain at the beginning of March in Houma, we got back on the road Friday, 05MAR, enroute Albuquerque, NM. We are heading to Albuquerque to attend a RV Rally scheduled for 22-25MAR. Having a couple weeks before the Rally, we decided to make a few stops in TX. As always before getting to TX we stopped at the Coushatta Casino in Kinder, LA, where Dan won $15 & Corrie won $20.

Saturday we made it to TX and stopped at Escapee World HQ in Livingston, TX, for a couple of days. See our BLOG about the Escapees RV Club and becoming Texans back in 2008. Monday morning it was off to the DMV office to complete the process of becoming Texans by finally getting Texas plates on our Toad.

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2008/04/27mar-02apr08-livingston-tx-we-werent.html

http://www.escapees.com/

Tuesday morning we headed to Austin, a town we had driven around many times but never visited. Enroute to Austin we stopped at Sodolaks Country Inn & Steak House in Snook, TX, for lunch. Sodolaks is famous for the invention of chicken fried bacon. That’s right, deep fried bacon topped with white gravy. Also you can get the traditional chicken fried steak, chicken fried chicken, as well as a complete 10oz sirloin dinner for $9. We split a chicken fried steak burger, along with the chicken fried bacon, bacon, bacon. As we continued on to Austin we ran into a roadblock in the form of low bridge! We had just made a left turn onto a county road when we saw a sign warning of a low bridge with a clearance of 11ft 8in. Unfortunately the warning sign was after the turn, not before, when it was already too late. Dan believes our RV is only 11ft 5in, but we didn’t want to risk it and pulled onto the shoulder, disconnected the Toad and made a three point U-turn.

After detouring around the low bridge we finally made it to the outskirts of Austin, set up camp and headed downtown to explore. First stop was the Congress Ave bridge to check out the supposed largest urban bat colony in the country. The bats migrate from Mexico every spring to spend the summer under the bridge in Austin. There are even boat cruises that will bring you under the bridge at sunset when the bats take off for night time feeding (umbrellas are optional). Since it was early spring, there were only a couple of hundred thousand bats on hand instead of the usual millions.
From there we headed south on Congress Ave to check out the “funky” area of Austin known as SoCo. Check out the below BLOG for Dan & brother-in-law Tim’s adventures at the Continental Club last spring. Unfortunately the Club was charging $7 a person cover, so we walked up the street to get a slice a pizza before heading home. On the way home Dan spotted a restaurant called Juan in a Million (or as Corrie says - One in a Million) and remembered that he had seen this establishment on the Travel Channel & on the Food Network.

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2009/03/05-24mar09-kerrville-tx.html

http://www.continentalclub.com/Austin.html

http://www.juaninamillion.com/

So the first thing the next morning (or in Dan’s case, anytime after 0900) Dan headed back to Juan’s to get their world famous breakfast taco grande. This breakfast meal is big enough for three and is filled with potatoes, eggs, and bacon, bacon, bacon. After only eating half of the taco we headed back downtown for walk about. First stop was Whole Earth Food. If you know this store, you know they always have free samples (including wine!). Dan figures if we went around the store three times and sampled all the free stuff each round, we would get a free breakfast including apple smoked bacon, bacon, bacon! Then we headed to 6th Street which our tour book said was old town Austin full of boutiques & shops. It was definitely filled with the older buildings of Austin, but we didn’t see many shops; what we saw was many, many bars & nightclubs. Turns out this is THE nightspot area for Austin and is wall-to-wall live music venues & dives! One interesting thing was that every establishment had an ATM machine on the sidewalk right next to the front door. Why? – because they want cash only for the cover charge; but once inside, you can use credit cards to run up your bar tab!
From there it was back to SoCo and the Big Top Candy store, so we could sample chocolate covered bacon (bacon, bacon, bacon!) and an egg cream. One constant theme(?) we noticed throughout Austin, was stores selling items dedicated to the Mexican/Hispanic celebration of “The Day of the Dead”? We are not sure if this a organized effort or just coincidence; but there are numerous shops selling decorated skulls, death masks, skeletons, etc, all used during the festival in hispanic countries. After several hours of walkabout, we headed back to the RV to rest.

Early that evening we headed out again, our first stop was the Cathedral of Junk. This was another of those unique American individuals who collected everyone else’s junk and then started building something out of it. In this case it looks like the spires of a cathedral and therefore the locals call it the “cathedral of junk”. It is located in the backyard in a typical Austin neighborhood, and is not really visible from the street. But once you walk around the house you are almost overwhelmed by structure you see that is literally made of every piece of junk imaginable! There are even ladders and stairs that you can climb to different levels for different viewing perspectives. Dan even convinced Corrie to climb to the highest level for a photo op; the whole time she kept asking if anyone had ever inspected this structure? For some reason Dan just laughed.

From there it was off to “Odd Duck Farm to Trailer” for dinner. This is individual who cooks in a very small trailer; that is fully committed to natural food prepared over a wood fired grill and only has six items prepared every day based on what is locally grown. Corrie went with the grilled quail, and Dan went with the pork belly slider (bacon, bacon, bacon). The trailer right next door is called Gourdoughs donut trailer. And guess what, they have bacon served on a donut, covered in maple syrup (bacon, bacon, bacon)! We’ll have to sample it the next visit.
http://oddduckfarmtotrailer.com/

Our last stop was the University of Texas (UT) campus where we checked out the UT souvenir store where you can get anything you want in UT orange with a longhorn symbol on it. Then we walked on to campus to discover a salsa band playing at the student union. It was a very enjoyable free concert, even with the somber (infamous) clock tower looming over the campus.
It was a world wind two days in Austin, and we definitely need to come back and spend more time exploring. And remember as the local’s say – Keep Austin Weird!

Trivia – What are the moonlight towers of Austin?

01-28FEB10 - Houma, LA (geaux saints!!!)

Soon after returning to our daughter’s, Rebecca, and husband’s, Raymond, driveway Dan had to leave for a short job on the behalf of NCBRT in Riverside, CA. Unfortunately he had to leave on Super Bowl Sunday! Luckily he was able to arrive in California in time to watch the game on TV. The build up to the game throughout Louisiana and even Southern Mississippi was unbelievable to say the least. It seemed like everyone was wearing black & gold, or some type of Saints paraphernalia.
Unfortunately the NFL (which stands for No Fun League) decided that they wanted even more money than they were collecting for authorized Saints merchandise. The NFL decided that the black & gold Fleur de Lis, and the term “Who Dat?” were NFL items and start sending out cease & desist letters to various manufacturers. Louisianans found this very amusing since the Fleur de Lis has been associated with New Orleans since its founding by the French; and the term “Who Dat?” comes from a Neville Brothers song about the Saints from the early 80s which the NFL had no rights to. After Louisiana’s Congressional delegation threatened to “look into” the matter, and the state Attorney General started talking about legal action against the NFL, the NFL came to its senses and admitted that the NFL had no rights to either “item”.

If you watched the game or just saw clips about it on the news, you know how the Saint’s fans celebrated before and after the game, continuing on for almost a week after the game. But here are a few items that you may have missed. First, the hotel occupancy rate for New Orleans for Super Bowl Sunday quickly rose to 99% after the NFC championship game when many displaced Saints fans decided to travel to New Orleans for the super bowl game and the French Quarter party that would follow. The traditional Mardi Gras colors of purple, gold, & green were replaced by black & gold for all of Mardi Gras; and Mardi Gras immediately became Lombardi Gras. Finally, a Saints parade was scheduled, win or lose, for the Tuesday after the Super Bowl and 800K people showed up, making it the largest Mardi Gras parade ever (and one local TV station showed the parade from start to finish for weeks after)!

Meanwhile while New Orleans celebrated the Saints Super Bowl victory, Dan endured four fun filled days in Riverside, CA. As usual he found a couple of unique dining establishments. One was Tio’s Tacos, an excellent Mexican restaurant that served fresh seafood, fresh fruit juice drinks, and much more. Although the food was excellent, the distinctive thing was the courtyard filled with the owner’s unique artwork, including a beer bottle chapel. Another establishment was the Duane’s Prime Steak & Seafood within the Mission Inn. Frank Miller opened the first wing of the Mission Inn in 1903. The Mission wing was built in Mission-Revival style architecture and sought to incorporate different structural elements of the 21 California Missions. Mr. Miller went onto add three more wings to his hotel: the Cloister, Spanish and completed it with the Rotunda wing in 1931. In the main lobby was a very big chair (and we mean BIG) especially made for President Taft (Taft weighed over 300 pounds).

http://www.myspace.com/tiostacos

http://www.missioninn.com/

Dan’s return was just in time for the last weekend of Mardi Gras, so we attended a couple of day parades at our good friends at Remax Reality. For more on Mardi Gras at Remax, see our BLOG entry:

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2009/01/14jan-09-houma-la-via-biloxi-ms.html

During this time we (ie Corrie) finished Rebecca & Raymond’s bathroom hallway. As usual, everyone who had seen the before and after, raved about Corrie’s decorator skills. Several times during the month our son, Joe, came over for dinner. One day the five of us (Dan, Corrie, Rebecca, Raymond, & Joe) decided to go bowling. It was funny to see Raymond & Joe try harder and harder, after Dan won the first game and Rebecca won the second. A couple of evenings the four of us (ie not Joe) played “Pictionary”, which is a game that depends on your drawing skills. Funny thing is that the best artist of us all, Corrie, sometimes had the hardest time sketching the clue.

To top off our month, someone in a Chevy Tahoe rear-ended Corrie after she had parked our Toad in the Walgreens parking lot. Corrie was clearly centered between the yellow lines, and luckily was still near the car when the accident happened. We are not sure, but Corrie thinks the lady would have left if Corrie had not walked up immediately after the mishap. Although the other party involved tried to down play it and say it was just a scrape; it ended up costing $1500 and taking three days to repair. Thankfully everything was covered by their insurance.

25-31JAN10 - Kerrville, TX (& brookshire, tx & kinder, la)

On Monday, 25JAN, we departed Corpus Christi for Kerrville, TX, to visit with Dan’s sister, Sharon, and husband, Tim Tompkins. As you probably know we have visited them often since we started full time RV’ing in 2007. Check out the below BLOG entry for more on a previous visit:
http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2009/03/05-24mar09-kerrville-tx.html

As usual it was an very enjoyable time with home cooked meals and reminiscing about past family times. Unfortunately the area was experiencing record cold and rainy weather which prevented us from enjoying outdoor activities, and kept our propane heater running full time. In spite of the weather Dan was able to assist Tim in a renovation project by tearing down the ceiling of the covered patio. This was something Dan has told Tim he would do for the past two years, but finally did it. One evening Tim & Sharon took us to PoPo’s restaurant which is a very out of the way restaurant that has been famous for fifty years for their fried chicken and their massive collection of souvenir plates on the walls.

http://www.poporestaurant.com/home2.htm

After a short but good visit we hit the road on Saturday to continue our return to Houma, LA. As we usually do we broke the return trip up into three days driving. Saturday afternoon we stopped on the west side of Houston. The RV campground we spent the day in had just finished having a chili and gumbo contest; so we were invited eat as much as we wanted of the leftovers. None were as good as Dan’s world famous chili, but it was a free meal!

Sunday morning, 31JAN, we continued west on I-10, enroute to Kinder, LA. Since we needed both diesel fuel and propane, we pulled into the nearest Flying J truck stop. If you have ever stopped at a Flying J, you may have noticed that they have dedicated RV lanes where RV’ers can get diesel, propane, fresh water and dump you sewage all in one place. Unfortunately, when we pulled in the propane tank was surrounded by numerous cars, all with many empty propane bottles needing fueling. Apparently many Texans have been using portable propane heaters to heat their houses/trailers during the colder then normal recent weather and now every one is running low. Since we were low on diesel & propane, we decided to wait in line to refuel. At the end of the day’s driving we stopped at Coushatta Casino in Kinder, LA. Readers of this BLOG know that we almost always stop there before we finish our drive tomorrow to Houma, LA.

18-24JAN10 - Corpus Christi, TX

For a change of scenery and to escape what seems to be a never ending series of rain storms passing through Houma, LA, we decided to head west and south to Corpus Christi, TX. We decided on Corpus because it appeared to be having better weather than Houma, and to visit our friends Linda & Bill Wagner (another retired CG Captain). Our departure on Monday, 18JAN, was delayed when we discovered the right front tire was flat. Luckily it was an easy fix, and the tire did not require replacing. Because of the delay we only drove two hours to Coushatta Indian “Cypress Bayou Casino”.

http://www.coushattacasinoresort.com/

After two more days driving we arrived at the RV park located on Corpus Christi Naval Air Station. NAS opened in 1941, by end of war was largest naval aviation training center in world. Currently basic flight training for all USA Naval, Marine & Coast Guard pilots is conducted here. Also NAS is home to the Corpus Christi Army Depot largest helicopter repair facility in the world. Unfortunately we could only get a RV spot for two nights and then had to move on Friday morning to a “civilian” RV park right outside the main gate of NAS. For the next few nights we would either get together at the Wagner’s or a restaurant to reminisce about our times together in the Coast Guard at Governor’s Is, NY; Ann Arbor, MI; Washington, DC; and lastly as COs in the 8th CG District.

https://www.cnic.navy.mil/CorpusChristi/index.htm

Thursday afternoon Dan & Bill headed the USN LEXINGTON, CV 16. This WWII aircraft carrier is now a floating museum permanently moored Corpus Christi. Commissioned in 1943, she served longer and holds more records than any other carrier in naval aviation.

http://www.usslexington.com/

Friday we took the Toad and went on a driving tour (including one ferry boat ride) of the small towns of Port Aransas, Aransas Pass, Rockport & Fulton, TX. Regrettably most of these towns had no real town center to speak of, and consisted mostly of small strip malls selling beach trinkets and t-shirts. The most picturesque was Rockport; and there was the Tarpon Inn in Aransas Pass where the wall is covered in Tarpon fish scales with the name of the fisherman who caught the Tarpon (including FDR).

http://www.thetarponinn.com/

Saturday morning Dan took off on a picture taking safari of eccentric sites in the local area. Sites observed included a statue of Harmon Dobson who started Whataburger in Corpus; the demon of Corpus Christi; the dirty car statue; and the memorial to Selena recommended by Bill.

http://www.whataburger.com/

Selena Quintanilla Perez was a Mexican American singer from Corpus who has been called "The Queen of Tejano Music". The youngest child of a Mexican-American couple, Selena released her first album at the age of twelve. Her fame grew throughout the early 1990s, especially in Spanish-speaking countries. Unfortunately, she was murdered at the age of 23 by Yolanda Saldívar, the president of her fan club. As of June 2006, Selena was commemorated with a museum and a bronze life-sized statue (Mirador de la Florr in Corpus Christi, TX), which are visited by hundreds of fans each week. Supposedly you obtain good luck by rubbing the rear end of Selena’s statue (not that Dan believes in superstitions)?

http://www.selenaforever.com/

Later that morning Dan & Corrie headed to the Padre Island National Seashore for the 1100AM beach walk with one of the Rangers. As always it was a highly informative presentation where we learned that the National Seashore is the longest (75 miles) undeveloped barrier island in the world. Dan thinks it is a good thing that the USA set this area aside for preservation, but a bit sad that other countries haven’t done the same and 75 miles is the “biggest” in the world remaining undeveloped? Corrie then joined Linda to tour restored houses in the Port Aransas area, while Dan stayed at the Seashore to attend another Park Service presentation on all debris that washes up on the beaches of Padre Island. Due to the Gulf currents that converge on Padre Island, objects (man made and natural) are found that have traveled down the Mississippi River and even the Amazon!

http://www.nps.gov/pais/index.htm

Sunday afternoon we got together with a classmate and friend of Dan’s from the USCG Academy, Adan Guerrero and wife Sylvia. Adan was Dan’s “last” roommate at the Academy their senior year until graduation day. Sadly after graduation their Coast Guard paths had not crossed, except on brief occasions. As always it was great to see old friends and talk about old times, and as always the time together was too short. Hopefully now that we have reconnected, we will have longer get togethers in future visits to Corpus Christi.
Trivia – Who was youngest Naval aviator to ever graduate from Naval flight training (hint – it wasn’t W)? What was the Blue Ghost? What family produced a father and son who graduated from US Naval Academy and became four star Admirals (hint – the grandson spent seven years in the Hanoi Hilton)? What is the difference between flotsam & jetsam?

01-17JAN10 - Houma, LA

The first two weeks of the new year have come and went with nothing really being accomplished! We return to Houma, LA, every year to see the kids, but also to get our annual medical and dental check-ups done. And as usual problems (thankfully minor) are found that require more tests and follow-up appointments. This invariably results in delays (ie wasted time) before getting the next appointment.

We (ie Corrie) have been working on remodeling the Rebecca & Raymond’s main bathroom. The project started by just removing the wallpaper, but that damaged the drywall. So the bottom four feet of drywall was removed. But to get the drywall out, we had to remove the vanity and toilet. It was then decided to get a new water saving toilet and tile the floor with the left over tiles from the kitchen remodel. One of the unique features of the house is that there is one inch by six inch planking behind the drywall; definitely over built!












Since we had over two weeks until our next medical or dental appointments we decided to fire-up the RV on Monday, 18JAN, and head to Corpus Christi to escape the torrential rains and visit friends.