March 18, Austin, capital of Texas

Austin, capital of Texas and world capital of music?
Texans pride themselves on world bests but we will have to believe it. We stayed south of town and found everything a good drive away. It took us about 3 days to find everything, at which time we left. The road system is mind-boggling, a spaghetti of overpass over overpass, I guess that's where the oil tax money goes. They are still building overpasses there, despite talking of laying off teachers and cutting budgets 25%.
The downtown Capitol core is a lovely mix of historic yellow sandstone buildings, many beautifully restored and high-rise city scape of lovely modern buildings, mostly banks. Several 'gatherings' outside the capital were disputing cuts for education and banning texting while driving. Both Senate and Representative houses were in session but we were able to visit both houses and see how Texas is ruled!
Driving home, the sun has come out, it's stinking hot and we spot an outdoor beer parlor, U-turn and get back there. It's Doc's Motor Court Bar, a garage turned into a bar. Yeah. We're obviously near one of the universities, as it's packed with students and locals with their dogs. And why not, with $1 chicken or beef tacos and lots of cold beer.
Leaving Austin we went up through Hill Country, supposedly the best part of Texas. Wild flowers are now blooming beside the road, and cotton, pecans, cattle and oil/gas wells and collection centres were evident. Goats and sheep make this the US capital for wool and mohair production too. Wish we could find local goat cheese but no.
"Jesus is the boss on the cross"
"Keep Austin Weird"
"J (heart)U" - yup, you're reminded there's lots of religion in Texas all right. At the next RV park, the WiFi password is godblessyou. We're saved!
Austin was a great town for finding all the things we needed, do the laundry, central RV park, wash the RV, get RV parts, some retail therapy (clothes for my cruise at Chicos), and of course, a visit to a genuine out-in-the-boons Texas BBQ. For $20 we had dinner of ribs, sausage, brisket, coleslaw, potato salad, local beer and, of course, pecan pie. The weather was cool, positively cold overnight (45) but then next day sun and 87.

March 26 - Still on the 'Redneck Riviera'

We take a drive up the coast to see the small ports of Rockport and Fulton. One very developed with enormous homes and huge boats parked on their docks, the other laid back with the shrimp trawlers and gulls circling for scraps off boats as they come in. Lunch of oyster stew (tons of cream!) and crab stuffed shrimp and local beers, overlooking the trawler harbor, is great. Dinner of red snapper caught that day and oysters is good too.
We enjoyed lunch with Carlos and Laura (Don Druery's niece), who live in Corpus Christi and were a mine of local lore.
Mornings were generally foggy and sometimes didn't clear until early afternoon, so 6 days at the beach satisfied my need for sea, sand and all things marine. The UofTexas Marine centre was an interesting visit, but no dolphins visit, disappointing too.

CORPUS CHRISTI and Texas riviera

It's a pleasant drive south for 2 hours to the cost. Agricultural and hunting, fishing and shooting territory here. Corpus is a huge industrial city with many refineries but we shoot through, over the bridge to the 18 mile beach of North Padre Island, the Texas 'riviera'. It's sunny and hot so we are glad the wind is blowing. But we're told this wind has stopped fishing in these parts over the last while, bringing loads of seaweed to mar the beautiful undeveloped beaches.
This is summer home territory for the monied. Clearly there are some enormous mansions on inlets with their enormous boats parked on their private piers - we expected no less of Texas!
The Pioneer RV park is well run, right on the beach, but we get parked on a nice spot looking over a small lake. It is seabird and ornithologists paradise here, on the two main flyways between Canada and Central/South America. Very popular with birders.
We have our own picnic table behind wind break and BBQ shelf, great for Ted's back, which is playing up again. Not sure if it's the humidity, his arthritis, or all of the above. WE plan to stay and veg out here for the rest of the week. They got 10cm of snow in North Dakota today, piles are still 6ft high, so we are not keen to head back up the east side of the Rockies any time soon. All the snowbirds are leaving here and after spring break, it's a breeze to find good RV parking now.

S.A. DODGE'S VERSION OF CUSTOMER SERVICE

Took a hotel to be near the dealer and get it in by 7:30am to be finished by 10:30. At 11am they tell us they have not started, we wait 2 hours at our hotel to be "picked up" by their courtesy?? car. After waiting two hours, we call a cab, but still sit at the dealership for another hour or so! Grrr.
Finally they finish at 2pm! And we are on our way south to the Texas Gulf Coast, our destination this winter. It's now too late to head for Corpus Christi so we shop for food at the great HEB grocery stores here, hole up one more night at our RV resort on the south side and meet up with Pat & Anna, some nice New Yorkers.
Crack the last bottle of Trader Joe's dessert wine to celebrate his birthday and enjoy dinner on the picnic table. Good news is most of these RV resorts do have a picnic table, ideal for our BBQ and eating out on these lovely warm evenings. We still have some of TJ's limoncello to go with the lemon cake I bake when I can plug in the toaster oven outside.
(Photo left, no not our hotel, it's the Pearl Brewery, sadly under renovation, so not the source of limitless free beer, as it was on our first visit there some 35 years ago!)

HILL COUNTRY - THEN SAN ANTONIO

The plan to stop in Hill Country, visit Fredericksburg and Texan capital Austin was scuppered by spring break hordes, and a huge music festival and the rodeo in Austin. We found a small RV park overnight, then headed south next day to San Antonio.

We visited there 35 years ago - it has changed unrecognizably but still has a lot of charm.
Pulling into a nice RV resort on the south side of town, we found we were easy driving to the Mission Trail, covering 4 of the 5 missions in SA, a good day's touring in brilliant sunshine and 88 degree days (photos above.)
The Alamo (left) was originally a mission that makes up the 5th in the series, a positive shrine for Americans, and one they lined up around the block to visit. We enjoy the civilization of good facilities and a pool to end the day after hot sightseeing. Also a day (an easy 3 mile bus trip so time off from driving for Ted) downtown, enjoying the Riverwalk, a great downtime collection of hotels, shops, restaurants, live entertainment, a theatre on one bank of the river and seats on the other.
With spring break, it was positively jumping, we skipped the river tour lineups and walked to take in the renovated Spanish Governor's palace, cathedral, market square and, of course, The Alamo (photos only!) Great to see the cardinals and birds in our trees, which are bursting by the day with pale green life again. So glad we are not heading home to the 10 cm of snow forecast for Calgary again. (Durty Nellies left on the Riverwalk!)
We stayed an extra day to get the RV in for service, a frustrating and aggravating experience while you search for a dealer who handles these vehicles, sometimes Dodge, sometimes Chrysler, sometimes Mercedes.

FINALLY TEXAS! Cave country and Spring

Arizona one day, New Mexico the next, and today Texas! We carelessly lost two hours in one day, one to daylight saving change and the other going east a time zone. Ted was able to BBQ steaks to get in the Texas mood! The reason for taking this route is to visit Sonora Caverns, one of the third best sets of caves in the world, and even by other than Texan standards! It was truly worth the journey to camp here in the rural site, surrounded by many many birds, wild turkeys and deer who came by in the light of an almost full moon. True to form, Texans are a friendly bunch and readily meet and greet and are generally a mine of useful information. It is also very hispanic around here, Spanish being spoken and used more than English in many areas.
Today we see the first signs of Spring, green grass, trees budding, a few blossoms and many, many birds.

NEW MEXICO - FOR THE DAY

Out of Tombstone en route to Las Cruces, NM, we found the amazing Amerind Museum, a repository of some exquisite Amer-Indian relics, displays and crafts, unexpected in its remoteness from any large centres. Driving through a vast agricultural region of alfalfa, cotton, pecans, walnuts, this is also a rockhound heaven. Many people come here to hack minerals from the rocky, mainly volcanic, outcrops. There is also plenty of evidence of past and current mining in the area for cobalt, talc, copper.
Las Cruces is an interesting city on the edge of the mountains with a long history of settlement. Crossed the continental divide to get there and hope it's the last time we do that on this trip. Spent a pleasant afternoon strolling the streets of historic Mesilla which has been nicely preserved and has several good restaurants to enjoy traditional Mexican food, like chicken mole enchiladas and seafood stuffed chile relleno (photo left.)