Leaving Colorado was met with mixed emotions. On one hand we were so excited to embark on our new adventure while on the other hand we were leaving family (including a brand new grandbaby) behind. But, we hooked up the trailer and hit the road headed to Texas. Our destination: Ingram, where we have friends. Our trip would take ten days.
Walmart in La Junta , CO provided a quiet night before we headed south into Dumas, TX where we spent two nights. While there we visited the local, and free (donations graciously accepted), Windows on the Plains museum. The next leg of our journey took us to Levelland, TX. Known as the City of Mosaics, Levelland has 13 Mosaics in town dating back to the 1960’s. It’s definitely worth the time to get the online map and check them out.
After a night in Levelland we traveled to Andrews, TX, where we spent a night. Then we boondocked at Foster Creek Park, outside of San Angelo, for four nights. While at Foster Creek we drove into San Angelo to visit historic Fort Concho. Prior to arriving in Ingram we spent a night at an I-10 rest area near Kerrville where we witnessed a brilliant and long lasting sunset. With a little research we found that a lot of small towns and areas in Texas offer free camping. Most campgrounds, which provided electric, water and dump stations, only had 4-6 sites so we made sure we stopped early in the day.
We spent a month, including Thanksgiving, in Ingram with friends where we explored the surrounding area. Our friends treated us to a drive through the hill country and one day we drove to Medina to go to the Apple Store where we bought some amazing Apple Butter. December found us attending the tree lighting ceremony in Fredericksburg, doing a little shopping and checking out the Pioneer Museum. Kerrville has a beautiful four mile path that runs along the Guadalupe River. What a beautiful place to walk in the evening. We hiked at Enchanted Rock and ate at several amazing restaurants in both Kerrville and Fredericksburg. The month in Ingram ended far sooner than we would have liked, but it was time for us to move farther south to Mustang Island outside of Corpus Christi.
Choke Canyon State Park was a great place to stay for a night before heading to Padre Island. Javalina, deer and many different birds visit our site. We saw signs warning about swimming in the reservoir because of alligators. What?! Yep! Alligators. Needless to say we didn’t take a walk down to the water!
We crossed the bridge and made it to “The Island”. Once setup we found out that Lucy and Brian from @whoa_nellie_rv_adventures were just a couple spots down from us. It was so nice to meet them and hang out for a while! During out stay on Mustang Island we went for walks on the beach, did a little sunrise photography, ate at a few great restaurants and witnessed some beautiful sunsets! We decorated our trailer for Christmas, spent some time at the National Sea Shore on Christmas day and had Christmas dinner at Landry’s.
When planning a visit to a new location we always pick out a couple sites we want to see. This time while in Corpus Christi we decided to visit the USS Lexington. The ship was commissioned in 1943 and was the oldest operating carrier when it was finally decommissioned in 1991. Obviously, there’s a lot of information about the Lexington but we also learned about the Texas Navy and there’s a section on Pearl Harbor and the Arizona. Definitely a day well spent.
A trip to the Texas Sealife Center in Corpus Christi is a must (in our opinion). The Sealife center is run completely by volunteers. They rescue, rehabilitate and release sea turtles and other critters. There were seven sea turtles at the center when we visited. Three sea turtles will be released this spring since they are now healthy. Three were awaiting additional surgery before they could be released. And then there’s Matilda. Matilda is a Loggerhead Turtle that was hit by a boat propeller. The Sealife Center is hoping that they can someday release her but she had a ways to go yet during our visit. They also have lizards, snakes, many other turtles and an opossum. We really enjoyed our tour of the Texas Sealife Center. The yellow turtle, in the picture below, is a Russian turtle that was turned over to the Sealife Center when its owner could no longer care for it.
We ended our two weeks in the Corpus Christi area with a visit to Port Aransas. If you like driving on the beach this is the place to go. You can drive for miles! There’s a pretty amazing candy store in town too! We did a little shopping and ate lunch at Moby Dicks which had some great food at reasonable prices. There’s a park by the ferry where you can watch the ships come through the channel. We went to the park to walk around and saw dolphins swimming by a tug boat! Our two weeks at Mustang Island State Park came to a close very quickly.
Our original plan was to head to Arizona at this point in our travels. However, we fell in love with this area and decided to stay around here a little longer. Rockport is our next destination!
