Austin, Corpus Christi and the gulf

Austin, Corpus Christi and the beginning of our tour of the Gulf Coast
The Wraights and the Toucan MoHo continue their trek across Texas. Today is March 19th. We have been in Texas 5 days and probably will be here 6 or 7 more; this is one big state with an awful lot to see. We have been playing with the itinerary to give ourselves a bit more time in each place and still stay fairly close to our schedule. We left San Antonio and headed to Austin, and we hit TRAFFIC, long gridlocks on the interstate --- little did we know that this was the South by South East Country Music Weekend, a very BIG deal with 500,000 folks gathering in Austin. Finally after a long day of driving we pulled into an RV park about 25 miles out of town, and settled in, glad to find a place to stop. Guess what, they were having their own music festival.
We took Sunday to drive the 70 miles back into Fredricksburg, (the little town we had stopped in a few days previously) to see some of the sights we had missed. We first took a tour through the LBJ property and the Texas White House during 1963-1968, when Lyndon Johnson was President. There was a lot of interesting history and information about his growing up in Johnson City and of course the years of his presidency. We were very impressed with all the legislation and improvements that LBJ accomplished in his 6 years, interesting what one remembers or doesn’t remember about past presidential times. After a quick lunch we took a whirl-wind tour of an incredible Museum, The World War II of the Pacific. We took about 2 hours and still had at least 1/2 of the displays left un-attended; definitely a 2 day visit would have done it more justice. The town itself would also be a fun place to have more time to browse the shops and restaurants.
With the music festival being over we headed into Austin. We found the Elks Lodge, located very close to down town, with a great view. We pulled in, unhitched, took the Boys for a walk along the river in a beautiful park. Very dog friendly town, we saw dogs everywhere. We drove into center of town, and walked around their striking state capitol building, and then toured around the Texas sized University of Texas (50,000 + students with a $6 billion budget (largest public university in the USA). We walked through the beautiful Zilker Botanical Garden – their azaleas, rhodies and wisterias were already in bloom; there are parks everywhere you look in this city. If one were to live in Texas, this might be a very nice place. It seems to be quite modern, young and liberal. That evening we returned downtown to see the largest urban bat colony. These little beasties live under the Congress Street Bridge. We arrived about an hour before sunset, waited and waited for the ritualistic departure at dusk. This was a bit unimpressive, but we can check it off our list. The numbers are largest in August when the pups start flying.
Day # 26 we head out of Austin and down to the coast, yippee, we are finally heading toward the water. We drove south towards Corpus Christy and the Padre Island Sea Shore. We were so anxious to find a place on the water, but the coast area wasn’t exactly the coast region we had envisioned. There is a lot of coast, but not a lot of camp grounds right on the water. We finally stopped at the Island RV Resort on Mustang Island and squeezed into our space, very, very narrow site with very, very narrow roads, but Mike was able to get us in and safely set-up. Think we were about the biggest rig that could realistically get in. Dinner that night was some truly wonderful gulf shrimp and mahi mahi--- so good, have been eating a lot of red meat, this was a refreshing taste.
The next day we headed out in our “towed” to explore Corpus Christi and more of the Padre Island area. We drove around and saw much of C.C., walked a bit on the boardwalk along the coast, and through the Water Street Market Place. Weather is still amazingly warm and humid, know how lucky we are not to be home and in the cold weather, we are starting to pick up some sun tans. Making our way back to the islands we drove out to South Padre Island National Seashore. We had hoped to walk on the beach, but no dogs were allowed, so we headed back toward camp and found a bit of beach where the Boys could stretch their legs. Guinness was not very impressed with all of the water action, but loved the all of the gross smells.
This morning we continued our eastward journey, trying to follow the Gulf Coast, the highway does not follow the water very closely, we went about 80 miles and stopped at a rustic fishing type of campground in Port Lavaca TX. We pulled into the campground and drove around looking for the office. Finally getting out we walked around and found a couple of “old guys” sitting on bench outside of office. Mike asked if they had room for us, there was a pause and the one of “gentlemen” started to respond, I think so, then nothing……. Finally Mike asked if the place across from where we were standing was open (there was no trailer or motorhome in it), the guy said (very slowly) that he thought that was reserved (who the heck would reserve here?) So after what seem like minutes he said he thought there was a space back a row. So we paid him the $20 fee and walked back to the MoHo and got into our site. The funny part about this place is that they have better Wi-Fi and cable TV than some of the better RV parks. Who would have guessed from our initial impression? Tomorrow we are heading toward Houston, the fun just keeps on finding us.