Los Fresnos

Tom and Aggie(our friends and hosts)

Friday party with the neighbors

can you speak Mexican?  LOCO MUCHO

Loader clearing sand from road in So Padre Isl

20 miles and then this  Road just ends(expected)

shrimp boats

So Padre Island downtown 

Hi all,

 I must apologise for not keeping the blog updated, we were having so much fun and doing all kinds of things that by the end of the day we just quit. This may be misorganized but I write as I think. We made it to Los Fresnos, that is just inland from South Padre Island, and where our friends Tom and Aggie live. We are now in Hondo, Texas at a small quiet country Rv park that is really nice. When we woke up this morning ,for the first time, we both agreed that we will stay another day and get caught up with plans, blog and maybe even  get the banjo out for another test drive. So on to telling our story.

We were about 150 miles from our friends Tom and Aggie King and couldn’t not stop to see them so we drove  down from Corpus Christi  .   I had also had been hearing about So Padre Island(SPI) for a long time and wanted to check it out too.  SPI  is very close to them and Tom drove us to the island for a nice tour. I had expected a remote island with a national seashore that you can drive onto the beaches and park you camper right by the water, but what we saw once we crossed the bridge was very tall buildings and lots of motels, retail, restaurants, rv parks and a big looking city. We drove around and saw that and then drove a few miles and came to the beach access where we went onto the beach and there is nothing but dunes, sand, beach, and the Gulf of Mexico. There were a few campers parked here and there within feet of the water. Quite amazing that it’s free and anyone can park and live right on the beach. We continued up the road and after miles there was a large frontend loader clearing sand from the road, where it had been blown in by the wind. Further up the road, it just stops with a huge sign that says “road ends”. From that point it is a national park and no cars.  We had lunch at a authentic Mexican place and we were happy with the food and Marguritas!!

Aggie and I talked about computers and laptops and she decided that since her computer was in need of repairs that she would like to get a laptop so we shopped around and found a great deal  that she purchased and I tried to help get it up and running. I do hope that it stayed  that way , up and running and not to confusing.  Hang in there Aggie!!! Jeff S. wish you had been there to help and do it Right!!

We went to a coffee and donuts at the town hall where they live and met some of the neighbors and Linda won a door prize. On Friday Tom and Aggie’s neighbors  have a cookout and party so on Friday we went with them.  It was a ball!  Everyone brings something  to contribute and the food was amazing. The  beans(all kinds) , cabbage and kilbasi, and cakes were great and the neighbor grilled a mexican meat that is all spiced up and sliced really thin.  (It was a real Mexican party as the neighbors whose house we were at are Mexican).  I have to get the actual name and try it at home. Great food and friends. We played bean bag toss with folks from all over and it was neat to hear them go from english to spanish without even slowing down.  Lots of fun and laughter.  I tried the mexican hot sauce and as a “gringo” I survived. 

Saturday morning we packed up and headed northwest.  Along the route, about 50 miles from the mexican border there is a checkpont that everyone has to stop at. They have dogs that sniff around and guards that ask questions. We had never crossed the border so we were’nt to worried, but it’s still something different.  They asked if we were American citisins (I just love my husband’s spelling!)  and let

us right thru.  Driving thru Texas at this time of year it’s a lot of dry brush and flat barren fields, but the buds are starting to come out and the grass is starting to get green.

Linda now.  Russ is ready to post and right now I have nothing to add.  We are enjoying ourselves, and realize that we have been gone for a month tomorrow.  That’s along time to be away.  Met a woman yesterday, here in Hondo, who told us that she and her husband sold their home and this is what they do all the time now.  Just don’t think that I am ever going to want to do that.  We know where our home is and love it very much.  We thank  those who are taking care of it-we owe you a lot. 

Now, I think I’ll go sit in the sun!

Love to all-linda & russ

South Padre Isl /Los Fresnos Feb 8

shrimp boats

loader moving sand off the road

So. Padre Isl downtown

we made it and are having a ball visiting with Tom and Aggie King, our friends from PA. They took us down to South Padre Island , it was totally awsome. I was expecting sand dunes and barren beaches. Nope SPI downtown is tall buildings and lots of retail.  When we got to the beach, it becomes very seashorelike. dunes, waves and sort of like capecod. very nice! the wind was blowing and it was the first time I ever saw a big frontend loader clearing the sand off the road, to keep it open. we drove quite a ways and then the road just ended. it becomes a national seashore and no roads.

  posting this for now, to let you all know that we are well and having a great time. seems we get so busy that we haven't been very good on keepng this up to date.  lots more to tell

Tuesday feb 8,2011

we left Corpus Christi this morning and headed south to Los Fresnos. It was a heck of a trip, we battled headwinds for the whole trip. I had all I could do to get the rig up to 60 MPH. I kept telling Linda that we were going up hill all the way to Mexico. The trailer hauled very good but did take a beating in the winds. we went 148 miles on 22 gallons. I asked Linda if I had an extra house tied on behind.
 I had read about the "King ranch. one of  the largest ranches in the world and certianly the largest in Texas so i wanted to go there. One of my old horses had a bloodline from one of the Kings original sires and thought it would be fun. We took the exit and drove thru town, not finding anything but King museum, asked for directions and headed that way, drove alot of miles and decided we missed it so found an airport to turnaround on and finily found the place. the tours were sold out until later and we didn't want to wait for a couple of hours so i bought a tee shirt and a couple of postcards and we left. stll windy and we made it to Palmdale park and got a site and setup. Our friends Tom and Aggie King winter here  and came right over to meet us.  we went to town and got some needed items(i can't spell nesisities), wine, beer, and mixers. We then went to Golden Corral and had way to much very good food and deserts. spent the evening catching up, as it has been quite awhile since we had seen the Kings.  Back to the Rv and settling in for the nite. warm and windy.  plan to go to South Padre island tomorrow after a "mexican" breakfast,  whatever that might be.  There are actually oranges and grapefruit on the trees here.
got great news tonite that Dad is ok, little scare last week, and his Dr;s agree.  Love you Dad! You too Mom.   Thanks Joey(he knows what I mean)    Brian, Jeff, and Al  thanks for your help. Beers after the work are on us, be safe.  Linda says post , so for the Man and his bride, goodnite and wish you all were here sharing in our experances with us.

Sunday AM in Corpus Christi

Saturday was a delightful day.  I'm using all the adjectives I can think of.  We had a wonderful day and found a perfect place.  Get to that later.
Russ suggested that we find some quilt shops to browse through.  We found the closest one, walked in, and were asked if we had our passport.  I was rather surprised at this comment as I thought we looked the same as everyone else in there, and we hadn't started talking yet, so I didn't know what she was getting at.  She explained that this is a Quilt Shop Hop weekend and we needed to have our passport stamped in order to win a sewing machine.  My kind of shopping.  The passport gave us the addresses for seven or eight quilt shops so we were on a roll.  We both also won a door prize and a gift bag.  See, we are easily humored.  Russ picked out a bunch of material, so I have one project to work on when I get home.  Onto the next quilt shop.  Another door prize and gift bag, and more material.  The owner at this shop told us which one's to go to first and which were the furthest away.  She told us which bridge to take to the island and since we had tried to get to the island on Friday, we just wanted to see what was on the island.  Friday, we had tried to get to Padre Island, but both bridges to the island were closed because of the ice storm.  We also had addresses for restaurants we wanted to visit.  Stopped at Kiko's, a mexican restaurant with a half hour wait.  That wasn't bad, but I wanted a margarita with Mexican and it was only noon.  So we went to Snoopis which was over the bridge.  Its a seafood place, right on the water, with outside dining.  I'm loving this area.  Russ had a cheeseburger and I had shrimp.  Sun and air were so great.  We got to Padre Island and travelled up the coast.  Found a few spots where you could go onto the beach and drove on.  We drove for a while, which is neat, and then stopped so I could get my feet wet.  Water was like York Beach-but it was salty and my feet were in it.  Driving in this area was like driving down to Key West or on Cape Cod.  Lots of dunes, and a hotel every once in a while, sitting there by itself.  Made it to our 3rd quilt shop.  Not a very large one, but great people.  Ths was in Port Aransas.  We found home away from home.  Its a tourist, but not real touristy, beach community.  Has lots of bicycle and walking areas; shops; a 'downtown'; and neat looking bars & restaurants.  We both said we think we could spend some time in this place.  Then, the best part, we were travelling on TX route 361, and it stops there.  We had to take a ferry to get back to th mainland!  It wasn't far, not even as far as the boat ride we take to get to our island at Square Pond, but we never see dolphins or pelicans.
There were even trucks pulling campers on the ferry.  We had heard people mention it, but thought that it was either the ferry or some bridge you had to take-didn't know it was only the ferry.  So island living.  So last night, I spent time on the computer finding RV parks in Port Aransas, TX.  Today, or tomorrow we'll be checking them out.
Oh, and we did get to Kikos last night for Nachos and Margaritas.  They were very good. 
We will be in Corpus Christi for two more nights.  I'm sitting at our picnic table and its beautiful out here.
Forgot, we did get to one more quilt shop, in Rockport.  More material-more projects. 
Hopefully next year, we'll be in one place for more than a few nights-we'll have a place for you northerners to visit.  We might just call it 'Brackredge Island South'.
Love-to all-linda & russ

Friday Feb 4th Corpus Christi

Hi folks,

just a picture from last spring picture to remind us all that spring is coming

 It's me instead of Linda.  We made it to Corpus Christi and as Linda said yesterday we got the furnace repaired and made it to the rv park. We got setup and were warm. The weather started getting damp and by 6pm they were closing the many bridges in the area and shortly after that they closed most of the roads due to iceing. The rv repair shop had said to saty off the roads as Texan's here will drive 80 and not even know it's icy or what to do if it is. We woke up this morning to 1/2 inch of ice over the whole park. I had to really hang on to the railing to get out of the rv. I was goinng to take pictures, but it's so clear ice that it just looked wet. The truck was totally incapsolated in ice, the tires looked like soneone had just "Armorall"ed them. We had left the water trickling in both sinks and am glad we did, as alot of folks were "frozeup" this morning. It's now 1pm and it's about 45 and the ice is melting and the sun is poking thru.  We hope to get out this afternoon and see something, not sure what but qwe do need to get out.  I have a list of GREAT restaurents, provided by the repair shop guys and we may just have to have a meal at one of them.  i met a guy from Looweeezannaaa, a guy from ontario-ay, and a guy that works for Home Depot and keeps transfering around the country to checkout different areas. That doesn't sound like a bad idea, that is if you WANT to work.  They all were sqwacking about the cold but say it's going to warm up sometime. We got the laundry done and are getting ready to visit something(food I hope).  Don't ever take your home comforts for granted, we have a wonderful rv and have been very fortunate , but when you lose heat and don't have a wood stove, it gets cold fast.  If your ever in CC and need help, Robby at Del Ray Air is a great guy and deserves a huge thank you.  For those folks that are making this trip possable by watching over our home and everything else, THANK YOU!!!! keep your gas receipts and you will be compensated!  Love you all, Russ
PS "the woman" will add more later.  OH, am I in trouble for writting that line.
THE WOMAN!  That's me and I'm not even going to correct his spelling.  We ended up going to Rudy's for barbeque, which was different.  Everything was cooked, but you had to add the barbeque sauce-which just seemed strange.  I like russ's barbeque more, but we'll have more to choose from.
Then we tried to go see the battleship Lexington and the CC Aquarium.  Couldn't get there from here!  This was late afternoon and the the huge bridge leading to that area of CC was still closed.  We drove along the beach road (Ocean Drive and Surfside Road) until we ran out of road just past the Texas A&M CC branch.  Went into the chain store at the end of the road and asked whether it was normal to see no one on the roads.  The CC Air Station and college had been closed due to the weather.  This weather has really affected this area.
Still don't know if we will go further south or head some other way-don't know which way that will be. We are here in CC over the weekend.  Its so nice not to have definite plans-something we have never been able to do.  I am so glad that we are doing this together.
Love to all-linda (and I will not respond to 'the WOMAN'.

Thursday, February 3

Its February and cold in Texas.  I heard on the news today that it is warmer in Alaska than in Dallas, and I also heard that it is warmer in Green Bay and Pittsburgh than in Dallas where the two teams are playing in the Super Bowl.  I'm writing that for myself, since I probably won't be watching the game. 
It has been too cold to do much of anything.  Tuesday, was a big day....I had a pedicure, so now I am ready for sandals.  Yesterday, we went to Cibolo to spend the day with the Balls.  Ben (Russ's nephew) and Allison (his wife and I may not have spelled that correctly) came back from their weekend away, so we went to visit.  Allane & Steve were still there, as well as their cute kids (Elijah, Jacob and Allyssa.)
It was fun, so to get together and chat.  Allane & Steve have plans to fly back to Maine today, but with what we are hearing for weather, they may be delayed. 
fter the day, Russ & I went back to get the camper ready to leave San Marcos for Corpus Christi.  Everything seemed to okay, and since we were headed further south, we were hoping for better weather.
I woke up sometime early morning (oneish) and Russ had already been outside-the furnace had decided not to work and it was in the 20s.  Russ couldn't get the furnace to work and the temperature was 54 in the camper.  We snuggled back in to get some sleep.  A while later it was 46 in the camper.  We both got up by 7:00 and were headed out by 7:45.  I was sooooo cold, with two pairs of gloves on, but Russ had to get us unhooked and all that stuff that I don't like to think of.  The furnace was still not working, but we headed for Corpus Christi with plans of finding an RV repair facility in CC.  Russ called Good Sam for their assistance in finding a dependable place, and they connected us with one company who would take care of us next week.  The second contacted, didn't even speak to us, but the third place told us to drive there and they would fix it.  Three hours later and with the company closing early due to the weather, we now have heat. 
We think that the weather here will be improving within the next two days.  We can't get much further south in Texas and aren't going any further than that.  They are expecting freezing rain and everything is closing down.  We've been travelling for 3 weeks and have found sun & warm weather for parts of 3 days.  Oh well, we are still laughing!  Couldn't head north, we'd run into snow in about an hour!
We're thinking of you-love linda & Russ

February 1 in frigid Texas

Good morning-its Linda. 
I know, no sympathy.  We heard the weather reports last night for up north and we do not have any snow, but the temperature is 39 at the moment and Russ had to pull out his winter coat.  We woke up around 3:00 this morning to the camper rockin & rollin and nothing that we were causing.  We had opened the window at the head of the bed, very small window, but you could hearing the wind howling.  We didn't think that there had been any tornado warnings, but we don't know much about those.  We went back to sleep.  We were glad that we had done so much yesterday as today won't be a walking around Austin day. 
Yesterday we took off and headed for Lockhart, TX, a town east of us in San Marcos.  We had barbeque at the Chisholm Trail Lockhart BAR-B-Q.  There were 3 or 4 barbeques in town, but this one is supposed to be the best.  It was very good and like going through a cafeteria line.  I think we were the only non-Texans, so that was a good sign.  Russ wnated me to say that the beef brisket tasted like pot roast.  I had a half chicken which was great.  Choice of three sides, but damn, no okra.
The town was just a neat old time, and while driving back through it, I saw a quilt shop.  First quilt shop I've manage to get into.  The owner could talk your ear off, but I bought a few pieces of fabric-cactus material, which I'm sure I would never get anyplace else! 
Then we went looking for Duchman Family Winery in Driftwood, TX.  I think Lockhart and Driftwood were names of towns in some old cowboy movies I've seen.  I participated in the wine tasting, but Russ did not.  Found several I liked and an of course bought 4 bottles.  Didn't want to go too overboard as this is the first winery.  Oh, and our wine pourer (for lack of a better word) was from NJ.
Then we drove back into Austin.  We are both amazed at how hilly the area around Austin is.  The area in Mineola seemed flat and you could see forever, and even Dallas when we visited there while the Lents were living there, but here is different.  Still seeing lots of beef. 
Well, back to Austin, it was late afternoon, so we hit a 'Happy Hour' at the 'Hanger'.  The deck was on the 3rd floor of the restaurant and here the bartender was from Syracuse.  Stayed for a drink and went walking again.  Russ had read about STUBBs and their barbecue so we walked to Red River Street (or Road) just off from Sixth Street.  Some of these 'hot spots' really look like dives and this was just a little above that. 
Heard a little live music on Sixth street, but understand that music doesn't start until 10:30-much too late for us.  We headed back, but stopped for ice cream at a DQ.  There are DQs everywhere and they are open.
We thought that we had to leave this camping area tomorrow morning, as there were reservations for this spot, but we don't.  This works well for us as Russ's nephew and his wife will be returning to their home in Cibolo, and we will be able to get together with them and not have to worry about finding a 'home' for the night.  We are looking forward to seeing them and their children (Allane & Steve are tending to them) again.  Then we'll head for South Padre Island-which will take a few days.  Oh, well, we are enjoying the travelling. 
Know y'all are getting snow and cold weather, but it is February......and February is a short month.
Enjoy!  Linda