Celebrating 6 Months on the Road and Some More Beach Time

Our six-month anniversary on the road kind of snuck up on me. Busy having those senior moments, I guess. :)  Anyway, January 25^th at Texana Park marked the half-way point of our grand adventure. The “unscripted” portion of our trip which began after Christmas definitely has a different flavor. We stay longer at most stops and do a whole lot more nothing. Which is good!  Eat, read, walk, sleep, rinse, repeat.

A member of the Lake Texana welcoming committee.

As noted we are putting in fewer miles, only 829 miles this month, a new low. So far we’ve driven a total of 9077 miles in the RV, pumped 1053 gallons of diesel and stayed at 55 different places. We didn’t add any new parks this month so our totals stand at: 14 National Parks/Monuments, many state/local parks plus Disney and Universal Studios. We did make it into Texas, so we’ve hit 29 states so far. 

I asked Rog if he had any reflections after six months on the road. His response, “I like it.”  Guess that sums it up pretty succinctly. :) We were chatting about our trip with some fellow travelers and they asked what our favorite stop was – we really couldn’t point to any single place or experience as “the” favorite. Maybe when we’re all done we’ll come up with a Top Ten List. Lol. This past month was all about contrasts – going from the craziness of Bourbon Street in New Orleans to the absolute solitude of the foggy coast at Rutherford Beach. Apparently, the beach was a hit (tornado watch and dead batteries aside) so we are back to the sand. But this time with a little sun, yeah! 

Another “on the road” observation is how anxious not having any connectivity can make me. We’re so used to being just a phone call or text message away that being without cell service has all the little worms in my brain playing “what if” scenarios. It’s also amazing how much we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from news to weather to route planning. While we usually have decent cell coverage along the interstate, once we get out into the hinterlands (the whole point of the trip!) our technology often fails us. We do have a booster that has been very helpful, but it can’t boost nothing into something. And it appears we may be leaving one virtual dead zone and heading into another.

At several of our recent stops our Verizon service has been extremely spotty, going from no service at all to barely functional (fellow geezers will remember AOL dial up service). And of course it is crucial that I get my Fitbit and Stridekick to update otherwise I could lose that 10K step challenge due to “technical difficulties”. That is so not gonna make me happy. Lol. I guess this is another thing we can chalk up to being part of the adventure (and enjoy your blazingly fast Wifi at home, because I am extremely envious! Lol).

Padre Island National Seashore

We pulled into Malaquite Campground at Padre Island National Seashore early Sunday afternoon, 1/29. The campground is really a long narrow parking area with the front row of sites facing the Gulf and the back row of sites facing the front row’s butt ends. Since there are no hookups, we were surprised to find all the RV sites taken. We squeezed the short bus into a tent site and checked with the campground host to make sure that was ok for one night.

There is free camping right on the beach here, just like we did at Rutherford, but we wanted to scope it out in the CRV before taking the RV off road. You can camp on North Beach which is about five miles long and was nearly deserted when we checked it out or on the very popular South Beach which extends 60 miles along the coast. Yes, 60 miles! Four-wheel drive is recommended after mile marker 5, but there were plenty of campers and lots of traffic right on the beach. North Beach got my vote and we planned on moving there Monday morning.

Sand sculpture at South Beach. 

Then the very friendly and helpful campground host came by around dinnertime on Sunday and offered us a front row space that had just opened up. What a sweetheart. We decided to just stay at Malaquite and enjoy our good fortune. It’s not quite as nice, nor as private, as a beachside spot but neither do we have to worry about getting stuck. Apparently, the going rate for a tow from the beach is around $3000. Really????  That just seems absurd, but without other options I guess unrestrained capitalism rears its ugly head. We watched a guy in a van bury it up to the axles on South Beach. Nope, not on my list of things to do this week.

Sunrise view out our front window. 

February wildflowers.

Another advantage of Malaquite is that no vehicles are allowed on the beach in front of the campground, so we often have it all to ourselves. We’ve enjoyed walking and beachcombing every day and my shell collection is getting bigger. :)

Miles of beach all to ourselves.

Well, maybe not all to ourselves. We did have to share with this bunch of gangsters. Lol.

Making new friends on the beach. :) 

Long-Billed Curlew. Ya think?? 

One thing that isn’t so nice is the amount of trash that we’ve noticed on the beach here and at Rutherford. Padre Island does a volunteer beach cleanup twice a year that gathers up about 300 tons of trash. The camp host provides garbage bags and lots of campers will pick up too. But what really chaps my hide is that finding recycling is nearly impossible. There is some in the national parks, but in Texana we filled the back seat with bags of recyclables and ended up having to toss it in the trash since there was NO recycling at the campground or in the towns of Edna or Victoria.  That is just insane. Come on Texas, get your act together! These are not depressed municipalities that couldn’t afford a recycling program, so I really don’t understand it. When I asked where to take the recyclables, I get a blank look and “We don’t do that here.” Grrrrrrrr. Environmental rant ended.

Creative use of the beach trash. If only it was all this entertaining. 

Lol!

Doing our stint as trash collectors. Every little bit helps. 

From here we are heading towards Big Bend National Park along the southern border of Texas. We have a couple of tentative stops planned at Texas State Parks along the way. We expect to have little or no cell service at several of the campgrounds, so if I’m not responding very quickly it won’t be intentional! We love to get your comments and know there is still someone out there with the bandwidth to download an email or webpage with pictures. Lol.