Home Again

We’re home.  We made the usual stop in Shipshewana, Indiana at Deb’s favorite grocery store, then came straight home, arriving at about 1pm.  We couldn’t have picked a better day to winterize the RV and to remove all our stowed stuff.  58 degrees and sunny, no battling ice and snow like we’ve had in the past.  Seven weeks and four days on the road.  More statistics below for the number-oriented..

So this is the last public post for this trip.  I’ll light this blog up again in late April when we venture out to Turkey on the 24th.  Stay tuned.

Statistics:
Time on the road: 7 weeks and 4 days (53 days)
Miles driven: 3909
Total miles traveled (RV, boat, bike, on foot, Uber, and everything else): 6992

The completed trip map:

Travel Day

Not much to say today.  We traveled.  That’s about it.  Kind of unusual for us that we didn’t really stop anywhere except for fuel and food.  I didn’t take any pictures today, but I did plot the route so far on a map and it looks like this:

We are currently in Gas City, Indiana and will be arriving home tomorrow.  Looks like we’re coming in at about the right time: most of the snow from the big storms is gone and there may be more snow coming on Friday/Saturday.  So we’ll slide in between the snow, giving us some time to re-winterize the RV and get it unloaded before the freezing weather sets in again.

547 miles covered today

Picking Up Sticks

We spent the day picking up sticks.  At five different homes, all in the Blue Mountain area just outside of New Albany, Mississippi.  And there are a lot of sticks to pick up.  This place is one huge mess.  A lot of work has been done already, but there is a lot more to go.

We started out right away with an orientation at the First Methodist Church in New Albany.  Everyone had their orange shirts, we sat through a safety presentation, and we were divided in to teams.  Deb and I were put with a team that had already been working together for a day or so, so we had a little catching up to do.  People from all over the states, California, Wyoming, Ohio, Michigan (of course), and others.  From teenagers to mid-70’s, it was quite a diverse group.

The first few jobs were rather small--yards littered with sticks and branches and lots of limbs hanging broken from trees which had to come down.  These were all piled up to be picked up later.

One of the main reasons for these efforts is a chance to talk to the homeowners, show them the love of God by helping out with the mess, and placing a Bible in their hands.  At each site, we all signed the inside cover of a Bible, presented it to the homeowner, and circled around and prayed for the homeowner when we arrived and when we left.  The people really appreciated the help and also appreciated the gift of the Bible.

We did five sites today.  The last site was the most severely hit, with a carpet of downed limbs and trees covering nearly the entire property.  We didn’t have enough time to finish this one and a a group will have to return at some point to finish it up.

This kind of work is very demanding, very physical work.  The limbs are large and many.  And 8 hours of this took its toll.  We were quite exhausted once the day was over.

Samaritan’s Purse has a lot of this stuff figured out.  Chaplains come out to each work site to talk with the homeowners.  They have every sort of tool imaginable.  They have a well-rehearsed safety policy.  They come into town with big trailers and portable offices and workshops. But one thing they don’t have figured out is restrooms for those at the job sites.  There are none.  We are twenty minutes away from the church home base, where there are large portable restrooms, but we can’t be driving back and forth all the time.  We stopped at a couple of gas stations between sites to use the restroom.  The first gas station was a run-down place with a barely functional bathroom.  Deb was one of the first to use it and had to figure out how to get the water to run properly.  The instructions were then passed down the line, hoping that the plumbing would hold up for the remainder of the group.  We managed, but for such a well-oiled machine, this one aspect is a glaring omission.

We took off as soon as we got back to the church, had dinner in a nearby parking lot, and drove for an hour, stopping at a Cracker Barrel in Corinth, Mississippi.

On To New Albany

I can tell we are more north.  It’s getting cooler at nights.  At some point we will no longer be “below the weather” and may have to deal with freezing temperatures and snow again.  From the forecast it looks like that may not happen until we get home on Friday.  We’ll see ... and we hope so.

We drove for a while to warm up the rig and to seek some better cell signal before stopping for showers and to watch yesterday’s sermon.  Somehow, that didn’t happen yesterday with all the moving around and the foodie stuff we did.

We covered 165 miles of the Natchez Trace before branching off towards New Albany.  The Natchez Trace is like a nice Sunday drive: very little traffic and it’s okay to drive slow.  In fact, it’s required.  We passed at least two police cars that had pulled people over, I’m guessing because they were speeding. If you want to go fast, take the Interstate!

New Albany is in the area that was hit hardest by Winter Storm Fern a few weeks ago.  We lived through that same storm when we were camped at Tejas, but it was just an inconvenience for us.  A quarter inch of ice encasing everything, temperatures below freezing for a few days, frozen plumbing for some of us.  But here it was much more severe.  The ice took down trees and power lines and made a huge mess of everything.

This picture came from a local Facebook post from January 27.  Most of the streets are now clear and the evidence of the storm is seen in piles of brush and branches lining the roads.  

When we looked fora place to park overnight, we found that there isn’t a lot available.  After exhausting all the other options, Deb called the local police department and asked them if there was a place we could park.  They told us we could park at the Tanglefoot Trailhead, a large parking lot at the north end of the Tanglefoot bike trail, which also happens to be right next-door to the police department building.

We parked there and took the bikes down the trail for several miles, having to dodge sticks and low hanging branches occasionally.  The big stuff had all been pushed off the trail, so a lot of the initial work is done.  What remains now is individual homes that need clean-up and this is what Samaritan’s Purse is here to do.  We will be volunteering for a day in this effort.

We rode our bikes past the Methodist Church that is the command central for Samaritan’s Purse.  The parking lot is full of large trailers with equipment and supplies, more trailers that house portable restrooms, another trailer with a portable kitchen.  They have a big presence here.  We have to show up at the church at 7:30am tomorrow for our day of volunteering.

Should be an interesting day.

234 miles covered today.

A Caloric Day

With a full tank of fuel, a full stomach, and a good night’s sleep, we rolled out of Baytown (East Houston), heading east on I-10.  One thing that becomes apparent, even though we know it already, Texas goes forever. It was well into the morning when we crossed the border into Louisiana. 

We stopped at the information center to walk around and pick up any information we could find.  Data Deb is always picking up pamphlets and brochures from these places and squirreling them away in folders.  They come out on subsequent trips.  This location had a couple helpful workers whom we plied with questions.  When asked about a recommended place to get some good Cajun food, the suggestion was Prejean’s in Lafayette, about an hour and a half down the road.  That amount of time would put us at noon, which was perfect.  We made tracks for Prejean’s.

This restaurant was an entirely new experience.  It was all decorated for Mardi Gras, complete with a band composed of a fiddle, accordion, and a triangle.  We were asked if we wanted to be close to the band or farther away.  We ended up quite close and it was entertaining, for a while.  Then it was the same chords over and over again, and the triangle making the same dinging sound and it got a little repetitive.  We couldn’t understand any of the lyrics.  I won’t be buying the CD.

We both ordered the chicken and sausage gumbo soup.  That was delicious.  It had a significant kick to it, and we left with mouths and throats burning.

Then we went in search of beignets.  We were directed to the Poupart Bakery (yeah, that’s really the name).  Great bakery and we came away with a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread but they don’t do beignets.  We found some at the restaurant a couple doors down.  These were a pastry piled with powdered sugar that are supposed to go good with dark roast coffee.  It was good without the coffee and we learned they are more available at coffee shops than bakeries.

Somehow, we always end up at the local grocery store.  Deb bought some Cajun spices and a few other things to make our own gumbo.

As we were leaving we discovered the freezer wasn’t freezing any more.  Most of the stuff was quite thawed and the fridge was getting rather warm.  I poked around in the back for a bit, even swapping the control board for the spare I had hidden under the bottom drawer in the galley, and managed to get it working again.  I’m not sure what happened although I have some theories.  I’ll have to check this out when we get home.

All in all, the fridge has worked pretty well since I set it on fire five years ago.  It probably has an excuse to be a bit cantankerous.  I just wish it wouldn’t do it when we have expensive meat in the freezer.

Now it will take at least a day to cool everything again and our ice cream is probably a goner.  We went back into the store and bought a bag of ice for the fridge and a cake of dry ice for the freezer. Hope this helps.

Leaving here, we continued down I-10, turning north at Baton Rouge to get on the Natchez Trace, a 440-mile scenic route that ends in Nashville.  We will be traveling on this for a while and then leaving to stop in New Albany, Mississippi, to help out with the clean-up effort for Winter Storm Fern.  After seeing an email from Samaritan’s Purse about volunteers needed for this effort, we signed up as we were coming through that general area on the way home.

It was dark as we left Natchez and drove the first 60 miles of the Natchez Trace.  Our aim was the first of three campgrounds along this route.  This is a great route to drive, it goes through some beautiful country and you don’t have to deal with a lot of traffic.  With a speed limit of 50mph, you aren’t going to get there fast.  If you need to get there fast, take the Interstate.

It’s a great route to drive, just not at night.  It’s super dark at night and the recent Winter Storm left lots of broken tree branches along the way.  They have all been pushed off the road, but there is a lot of cleanup needed along this route.  Even more concerning are the deer.  There were lots of deer, especially in the open meadows, and we had to hit the brakes several times for deer crossing the road.  We were grateful to finally pull into the campground and shut down for the night.

One thing about this campground is that there is no internet.  Not by any means.  Cell phone signal is non-existent.  The heavy tree cover renders Starlink inoperative.  So we are offline for the night.  This is when you realize how dependent we are on the internet.  How far do we have to go to get to New Albany?  Don’t know, the maps won’t update.  Can’t send or receive emails.  The sibling call we were supposed to participate in went on without us.  We can’t watch the show we were in the middle of.

I guess we’ll just have to make do without it ...

423 miles covered today.

Turning North

The kites were still flying once it got dark last night.  Only then they were all lit up from within, creating this cool lighted sculpture, slowly moving about in the wind.  We watched them from the window of the RV.  Lighted kites, who would have thought?

It was a rather warm and humid night so it was a little more difficult to sleep.  As we were laying there a little later on we could see shapes moving outside the window.  We initially thought they were dogs running around but later identified them as coyotes, several of them.  Deb looked it up this morning and that’s definitely a thing.  There are somewhere around 40 dens of coyotes on this island and they do roam around the beach at night.

It was an overcast day today, low 70’s and so humid that any glass fogged up, making eyeglasses rather hard to use.  It was also very windy.  And the combination of the high wind and every surface being a little moist meant the blowing sand stuck to everything.  There seems to be a grittiness to every surface.

We took a bike ride into town and managed to stop at the Farley Boat Works.  This time, it was open.  The one person there was friendly and happy to answer questions and show us around.  Perhaps the most interesting thing was his story.  He came from New York City, in the Bronx, and had an interest in boats since he was young.  He did some schooling in Maine, worked for a guy on his yacht, and ended up here, on Mustang Island, two years ago to manage the Farley Boat Works, which is mostly a museum, which was being rebuilt and relaunched after shutting its doors in the 1970’s.  He helps people build wooden boats, one at a time, and is restoring his own.  He claimed that Farley was the first to put a motor on a boat back in the ‘teens, a few years ahead of Chris Craft, but information found on the internet contradicts that.

We also stopped by the Chapel on the Dunes again, hoping there would be a Saturday tour, but there was an actual wedding going on there, and we were not in wedding clothing.

Back at the RV, we racked the bikes, had lunch and then took our last walk on the beach.  It was then time to start heading north.

250 miles later, here we are, at a Cracker Barrel just east of Houston.  We drove through a thunderstorm for the last hour, and my affection for Houston driving is about on par with driving through Atlanta, which is none at all. Forty miles of Houston concrete spaghetti, driven at night, in the pouring rain, in very heavy traffic, was not what I call fun.  Several sections of roadway do not have good lane markers, and they disappear in the rain, leaving me with two options: (1) blindly follow the tail lights in front of me, which is not a good idea because he is just as blind as I am, or (2) estimate the distance between the concrete barriers on each side, divide by the number of lanes that I think there are, and position myself in one of those imaginary corridors.  Both of these options are bad, since everyone is blind and has a different idea of imaginary corridors.

I white-knuckled it for the entire distance and managed to cross the entirety of Houston without connecting with a single vehicle.

We made one stop in Houston, at a H-E-B store, and picked up some more Wagyu beef patties and more grapefruit.  Much harder to find as we go north. We will continue to eat well for a little while yet.

High as a Kite

This morning when the sun rose, it wasn’t foggy.  Still some sort of light mist in the air but not socked in like yesterday.  So I actually got to see the sun come up.  It popped out of the clouds on the horizon and immediately started warming the day.

We took a long bike ride on the beach earlier today to beat the tide.  This time we made it all the way to Mustang Island State Park, ten miles south of here.  In the morning, the beach wasn’t so crowded with vehicles and fishermen with their lines stretched across the beach, however, the ride was made a little less pleasant by the large road graders grooming the sand and pushing it towards the water.  Anywhere the graders had been was unsuitable for bike riding as the sand was disturbed.  On the way back, at least three areas had been completely groomed all the way to the water’s edge, and we were forced to ride in the surf to keep on firm sand.  It made a real mess out of the bikes.

We’ve noticed that the wind always seems to be blowing here.  And on a warm day it helps keep things cool in the RV when all the windows are open.  Even late into the night, the wind is blowing, this steady offshore breeze that enhances sleep at night.

We’ve noticed another thing this wind is good for: kite flying.  A steady wind is ideal for kites and there have been some flying every day we’ve been here.  Today there were a LOT of them, most of them flying all day long, strung out and tied to stakes in the sand.  When we were on a walk this evening, we walked by some of the larger ones, and there was a trailer parked there with a logo that said ​Kites in the Field over Texas.​  In it were lots of packed up kites and accessories. They didn’t appear to be selling anything and when we looked them up later on, their Facebook page said ​Kites in the Field over Texas main goal is to promote the enjoyment of flying kites.  It’s a great activity and makes for a beautiful picture on the beach.

After lunch we biked into town to check out some more of the 8 Wonders of Port-A.  The Farley Boat Works was closed, so we couldn’t see boat-building in action. The Chapel on the Dunes is a tiny chapel and sits on one of the highest points on the island (which isn’t saying much).  It is often used for weddings--very small weddings--as it will only fit 22 with some standing.  The inside of this chapel is painted with murals that depict the Old Testament on one side and the New Testament on the other side.

And, lastly, the Tarpon Inn is the oldest surviving structure on Mustang Island, built in 1886 using lumber from Civil War barracks.

Having seen these we returned to the RV and made dinner.  It only took about six miles on the bikes to see them all.

Dinner was hamburgers using Wagyu beef that we found at H-E-B.  It has a higher fat content than ordinary ground beef, which made a real mess of the grill, but, it was oh so good.  This is more expensive than regular ground beef--this package was seven dollars for two patties but it was immensely enjoyable.  We’ll have to pick up more of these on the way home.

Add to this the Texas grapefruits and we have been eating well.  We love coming here during grapefruit season and enjoying a half grapefruit at nearly every meal.  We found a couple particularly large ones at the last H-E-B we were at, grapefruits nearly the size of a small beach ball and so tasty.  We’ll be sad to leave that behind once we turn towards home.

Port Aransas

Port Aransas, Texas, is an interesting place.  Situated on Mustang Island, an 18-mile long barrier island along the Gulf, it appears to cater mostly to tourists and fishermen.  The main road into town crosses a major shipping channel, using at least five ferry boats that cross the channel all hours of the day and night.  Rush-hour here takes on a new meaning when the ferries are backed up.  When we crossed yesterday, the ferry had to wait for a large freighter to pass and then dove out into the water so close to the stern of the freighter that I thought we were going to hit it.  These guys have a schedule to keep!

The shipping channel here is one of the deepest along the Gulf Coast.  This allows some pretty big stuff to pass through here.  Two years ago, we watched an entire oil platform being floated through the channel and out to sea.  This thing dwarfed everything else.  I know this is a repeated picture but it was just such a thing.

One thing that is in great abundance here is condominiums.  It seems like whole cities of them.  Most of them are situated right behind the dune that runs along the beach, with little access paths coming over the dune.  The dune is high enough where most of the city and the condos are hidden from the beach.  So it gives a feeling that you are not next to these massive developments.

There are also many very large RV parks in town.  And they are all full.  I’m a little surprised that I don’t see more of these RVs just camping out on the beach but I suppose they need their hookups.  On the beach, you are on your own.  No power, no water, nada.

The beach area gets busier during the day when all the day-trippers come.  From sitting out in lawn chairs to having several lines in the water, they are all here enjoying the day.  When the sun goes down, they all disappear. Then it’s just the overnighters and the surf.

Another thing in abundance is golf carts.  They are probably more numerous than cars here.  All those condos and RV parks use golf carts to get around.  They are all over the place in town and on the beach.  So we hear them putt-putting by frequently until later on in the evening and then everything goes quiet.

And some people outfit their golf carts with very loud music.  Kind of like a boom box on wheels.  A favorite thing for them is to drive up and down the beach road blasting sone unknown but raucous music.

Fortunately, there aren’t many of these.  But they are memorable.

It was a delightful night for sleep last night.  The tidal symphony and the cool breeze, delicious.

We woke up this morning to dense fog.  Probably 100 feet visibility and that’s it.  The fog made everything feel cool and clammy and it hung around off and on until about 11am.  Even then there was still a haze on the horizon and things weren’t very clear.   I probably won’t get any sunrise pictures like I did two years ago.

We took a long walk on the beach in this fog.  Since we were on a sandy beach, I decided to forego the shoes.  Bare feet on a sandy beach on a warm day in February, what could be better?  And the sand felt great.  Three miles later, it was not so great.  My feet were exfoliated a bit too much and were starting to hurt.  I wore shoes for the rest of the day.

We took a bike ride for five miles down the beach.  And discovered that the tide was coming in near the end of that five miles.  So the ribbon of firm sand was getting rather narrow.  We left the beach and  came back along the highway, not wanting to ride back in loose sand.  

In town we stopped at the Marine Science Institute of the University of Texas.  They have some exhibits here about the marine life in this area.  This is listed as one of the 8 wonders of Port-A so we have now checked it off our list.  This is located right by the shipping channel so we walked there and watched the dolphins for a while.  We also saw a sea turtle come to the surface a few times and then sink out of sight.  It's the first time we've seen a sea turtle in the wild.

Eventually the mundane will catch up to you and this mundane presented itself by us not having any more clean socks.  Which meant the laundry was due.  The only game in town appears to be Wacky Willies, but it was a clean laundromat and we redeemed the time by having dinner in the parking lot while the laundry was in process.

Now we’re back on the beach, it’s dark, all the windows are open, and the breeze feels delicious.  We’ll have our nightly ice cream in a bit, and then go to bed and listen to the surf. Today’s ice cream: Raspberry Truffle from H-E-B.

On to Port Aransas

We’ve arrived at what could be the southern terminus of our land journey.  I know we were much farther south than this, but that was by boat. This was kind of our goal, to spend a few days on the beach at Port Aransis.  We may end up farther south--we’re making this up as we go, but this was a rather big goal... and here we are.

We took off from Magnolia Beach right away in the morning.  Many people in the other RVs were probably not even up yet, just those who were up walking their dogs.  Come to think of it, there are a lot of dogs so maybe most people were indeed up.  We chugged slowly by the long line of RVs, giving the Texas wave to those who were up and about.  Magnolia Beach is a nice place to spend a night or two; it’s quiet, clean, and secluded and people are generally friendly.  Several full-timers here, gypsies living in converted vans or school busses.  There was even a converted ambulance on the beach.  It’s rather fun just to observe all the different rigs on the beach and what people call their home on wheels.

We traveled south to Rockport, about an hour away.  When we were through here two years ago, we didn’t spend any time here, so we spent most of the day here, walking the mile-long Rockport Beach, visiting the Bay Education Center and the Rockport Center for the Arts, walking downtown Rockport.  At the education center, we sat in on a presentation on the whooping crane and their migratory habits or lack thereof.  The whooping crane was almost extinct and then was clawed back from extinction by the dedicated efforts of conservationists.  There are just over 800 birds known to exist now, most of those spend there winters near here.

A small percentage of these birds are tagged with leg bands and transmitters and the speaker described the process of tagging a bird by lying flat on the ground where the birds congregate and then jumping up when a bird is near, chasing it down, and tackling it. No nets, no sophisticated methods, just sack ‘em before they get to the end zone. They do this when the birds are molting so they can’t fly real well.  I wish she had a video of this process, I’m sure it would have been quite hilarious.  These birds are five feet tall with a seven foot wingspan.

Another half-hour and a short ferry ride took us to Port Aransas.  Coming off the ferry we could feel the change immediately.  It was getting rather warm in Rockport, but here the breeze off the water was cool and refreshing and we drove the remaining distance with all the windows open.  After picking up our twelve-dollar parking pass, we drove onto the beach, a vast expanse of sand that stretches for miles.  Here you are allowed to park on the beach and we found a suitable spot and backed the RV in so that the rear window faced the surf.  With all the windows open, the roar of the surf and the gulf breeze blowing in are a delightful combination that will make for some wonderful sleep later on.

Looking down the beach, we can see several RVs parked against the barrier, but after dark it seems like you are all alone with only the surf and the breeze to keep you company.  The dune masks the lights from the town and once the  day-use people are gone, it’s only the steady rhythm of the waves and the occasional passing golf cart that can be heard.  There aren’t many places where you can park your home, open all the windows and let the Gulf provide the soundtrack.  This is one of them.

Beach Bums

Three nights in one location, could be a new record for us.  But here we are, still at Magnolia Beach, enjoying the quietness and coolness of the evening.

We took a walk along the beach this morning and into the sprawling metropolis of Magnolia Beach.  It probably takes five minutes to walk from one end of this town to another.  One thing that really stands out here is the bird calls.  There is just a riot of different bird calls, all blended together in an avian symphony.  It’s fun to just listen to this as we walk along.  There isn’t much other noise here other than the occasional passing car so the birds can be heard clearly.  Back home we don’t hear much of anything until the snow is gone.

Today was overcast but still in the low 70’s, not quite shorts weather, but nice for walks on the beach and long bike rides.  And we did both.  One of the drawbacks of overcast days is the lack of charge to the house battery.  Solar just doesn’t work well under clouds.  Without hookups, managing energy reserves has to be done rather carefully, including estimating the amount of sunshine received and how long the engine is running.  Sitting here for three days, we still have good reserves on the battery, but both bike batteries are depleted and we have one night to go before we move on.  Tomorrow we’ll be able to restore some of that when we drive farther south.

Ok, I’m nerding out a little bit.

Between walks, bike rides, meals, and even a nap, we managed to spend another entire day here.  Once it gets dark we’ll come inside and Deb will work on the back bed and I will work at the table for a while before our mandatory 8pm ice cream break.  This evening it’s Bible study for Deb and tax returns for me.   Yay. 🙄

Tomorrow we’ll pull up stakes and head south, spending a few days camping on the beach around Port Aransas.  We’re still working on what the remainder of our time looks like and what path we’ll take home.  We’re making this up as we go.

Staying Put

Magnolia Beach is not much of a town.  A few narrow streets, clusters of small homes built on slabs, one place that looks like a metal scrap yard, and a gas station is about it.  We rode our bikes up and down nearly all of the streets.  It took us about ten minutes.

This morning Deb wanted to mail a couple of post cards she wrote to Alex, our grandson. Post cards, remember those?  We searched online for the nearest post office, which was in Port Lavaca, about ten miles away.  We asked a couple of county employees that happened to drive by us on the beach and they weren’t aware of any of the blue drop boxes in Magnolia Beach.  As we were riding through town this morning, we happened to see the mail carrier driving down the main street.  We flagged her down and asked if we could just hand the cards to her.  She looked a little confused for a bit as this probably doesn’t happen very often and then, after verifying the cards had postage, accepted them and was on her way.

I didn’t realize that mailing a post card would be such an ordeal.

Magnolia Beach may not be much of a town but it has a nice public beach.  Not the white sand that comes to mind when you hear the word ​beach​, but crushed shells.  So footwear is probably a good idea.

And this beach allows camping on the beach.  For free.  So there are a lot of value-oriented (i.e. cheap) people like us who spend a night or two or ten here.  We’re here for the second night, enjoying the lovely weather, the quietness, and the water just a few feet from our RV.  Since this is our second time here in two years, maybe that makes us regulars, along with many of the other people here.

Since we are staying put, we had a chance to catch up on a few things.  The cruise was a great time but all the activities and the shore excursions and the six meals a day left little time for anything else.  And it was an internet desert, unless you paid the twenty-five bucks a day for WiFi, which I did not.  So there was a number of things to catch up on; emails, church service, Bible studies, and a recorded informational meeting for our next trip at the end of April.  You’ll just have to stay tuned to find out what that is.

So we stayed here and took walks and bike rides and enjoyed the day.

Back in the Saddle

 The ship was scheduled to dock at 7am this morning.  I was awake at 5:15 because a couple of texts announced their presence on my phone.  This meant we must be near Galveston.  I went topside and saw the lights of the terminal moving slowly by as the ship came to a stop.  So we arrived somewhat early.  Deb came up and we had breakfast and walked for a bit.  When the announcement came for disembarking, we were ready and were off the ship by 7:30.  We took an Uber to the self storage lot where we parked the RV, threw our things in, and were on the road before 9am.  All in all, a pretty painless exit.

We headed south to a place where we had camped on the beach before, just off of a beach access road near Matagorda Beach. Arriving there, we saw that the sand was rather soft and quite chewed up, and the only vehicles on the beach were four-wheel-drive pickups.  Looks like this will not be our overnight spot this time.  We walked the beach for a bit and had lunch in the parking lot.

We moved on, driving another hour and a half to Port Lavaca, another spot we had stayed before.  There was room at Magnolia Beach among the dozens of campers already there, and we even scored one of the picnic table spots.

Dinner was pulled pork, salad greens, and grapefruit, a far cry from the spreads we have been feasting from the last several days.  We have to reset our expectations a little bit.  And probably our body weight.  Now we’re back to whatever supplies we have stuffed in the freezer.  Because we were fed so handsomely at Tejas, we still have a lot in the freezer.

While on a walk, we met a guy named Chuck and struck up a conversation.  Turns out that Chuck is a regular here, and he told us there are a bunch of regulars.  Chuck lost his wife to cancer seven years ago and the medical bills ruined him financially, so, after losing the house and all his possessions, he went on the road full time, following the weather to and from from southern Texas to the UP of Michigan.  He was a wealth of knowledge for camping spots, particularly the free ones, and we gained a few ideas on where to camp for us value-oriented campers.  Chuck likes this place because it’s quiet and no one disturbs you.  He can also stay for weeks if he wants to.

We’ll have to get used to sleeping in an RV again.  We’ve grown accustomed to the subtle swaying motion of the boat, and the low constant rumble of the engines.  Now it’s a smaller bed, no movement and an occasional vehicle passing by.  All part of the adventure.

Ciao, Y'all

The cruise director is an an Italian guy named Giuseppe.  He introduces most of the events, and it’s his voice heard over the PA system for important announcements.  He greets everyone with a signature combination of Italian and Texan, saying Ciao, y’all!

In fact, nearly of the senior officers are Italian and I believe that’s where this ship was built.  Giuseppe introduced the head cook and the head pastry chef during the baking show this morning in the theater, both of them Italian.  The one exception was the head of the wait staff, who was Dutch.

These guys put on a spoof of a baking show which was both informative and humorous.  After the show, everyone in the theater was invited to take a walk through one of the galleys.  So perhaps a thousand people streamed through the galley, a massive area of stainless steel which serves the needs of thousands of people.  Some of the wait staff were playing instruments and singing songs as we passed by.

Seeing the scale of this kind of operation can be rather mind-boggling.  In addition to the 20,000 eggs a day that are used on this ship, 600 pounds of bacon are consumed.  Per day.  When it comes into port, this ship will take on another $1.2 million in food supplies.

We’re really getting into the cruise thing now.  After taking another long walk on the walking track, we had lunch and then sat in the sun above the pool deck and listened to the the ship’s band play songs from various artists such as CCR, the Beatles, and the Eagles.  This band is quite good and they are fun to listen to.  The sun is rather warm and it’s hard to believe it’s early February.  Sunburn can be a real issue here.

Last dinner with our table mates that we have shared dinner with the last several days.  Both couples are seasoned cruisers, one in their 80’s and the other in their 30’s. The older couple remarked that they were old enough to be our parents and the other couples’ grandparents.

More walks around the decks, this time the wind had died down enough to where I could actually wear a hat.  I’ve had my hat blow off numerous times, once it even went over the side rail and slid down the outside of the glass railing and lodged on the metal lip just outside the rail.  I was able to reach under the glass and retrieve it but I thought I was going to watch it float down 18 decks into the water.

We took our last chance to use the hot tub, watching the end of a move that I don’t know the title of.  Then it was down to the piazza deck to watch the ship’s band play for a bit before turning in.  A lot less people were congregating and dancing this time--they were probably all packing and getting ready to disembark.

Tomorrow it’s back to reality as we trade an enormous ship for a tiny motorhome.  It has been good and it was fun to be pampered for a week.  Cheap, too.  Deb found this deal online: $250 for each of us.  Add to that about $100 for the mandatory tipping and it was a value oriented (read: cheap) vacation for us.  The shore excursions added some cost, but where else can you stay for a week with all meals and entertainment included for $350?

Captive Audience

I wrote yesterday’s entry early in order to get the public portion of it online before we lost internet access when leaving Roatan.  So this will have a bit of yesterday’s leftovers.

We steamed out of Roatan at just after 3:30 yesterday.  I would have thought we could stay a bit longer to allow 3500 passengers to spend more time and money in Roatan, but, what do I know.  The day was still far from over when  our two-day confinement on the ship began.  From here it’s sailing back north to Galveston, arriving at 7am on Sunday morning.  So now we are a captive audience for that time, no more doing things on our own.  There are a lot of activities on board, however, and we will avail ourselves of those.

Shortly after the ship left port, they started playing Star Wars: Return of the Jedi on the jumbotron by the pool.  We grabbed a couple of deck chairs and watched for a while.  Good choice of such a classic movie and it was fun watching it out in the open, with the wind blowing and the sea slipping by.

We were scheduled for a sit down dinner at 5pm, but nothing on the menu really jumped out at us, so we cancelled our reservations and had dinner in the buffet instead.  It was a lot faster than a sit-down dinner.  We walked around on the top deck for a while, struggling to stay upright because of the very brisk wind that was blowing.  Still a warm day so it was nice to be outside.

We spent some time in the hot tub, watching Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back on the big jumbotron.  One could get used to this. But I suppose that’s what a cruise is all about.  Not having to make meals, not having to make the bed.  Not having to pick up after yourself.  Having ice cream after every meal.  We’ve talked to people who do this regularly, sometimes taking multiple cruises back to back, even doing remote work from the ship.  I’m not sure I could do that.  I will probably be going stir-crazy by tomorrow.

Alex Yost was playing in the theater at 9pm.  Another talented performer but he talked so fast that it was hard to get what he was saying.

Since we had no shore excursions today, we slept in this morning.  Well, one of us slept in this morning.  I was up at 6am and walked the decks for a while, enjoying the sunrise and warmth, in spite of the wind. Since we now had time on our hands, we went down to the sit-down breakfast and enjoyed a more leisurely pace from the normal pandemonium of the buffet.  Seems like we always get seated with seasoned cruisers and a favorite topic is various cruise lines and destinations.  We’re such newbies.

In the theater at 10:15 was a behind-the-scenes presentation of how 1350 crew members live and work on the boat and a Q&A session with the captain and a few top officers.  During the Q&A section, the question invariably comes up: since the captain and the senior staff are all here, who is driving the boat?  Their answer: Artificial Intelligence.  Well, not really.  It was interesting to learn how the ship handles fresh water, waste water, navigation, etc.  One little bit of trivia from the hospitality side: the egg consumption of this ship is 20,000 eggs per day.

We did a lot of walking today.  The upper deck has a walking track and we did many laps.  The wind is still blowing at 25 knots, and, combined with our forward speed of 15 knots (about 19 miles per hour), it makes for quite a gale when walking in the forward direction.  At the end of the day, my phone logged 21,300 steps, quite a bit more than usual.

Dinner was their gala dinner, requiring formal wear and serving surf ’n turf, a combination of beef tenderloin and lobster tail.  I’m not much of a lobster person, so I traded with another person at our table.  When the plates arrived, we swapped tenderloin for lobster tail, much to the consternation of the waiter, who came around with butter for the lobster tail and found two tenderloins on my plate.  This particular waiter is a weak point in this entire journey.  He’s just slow.  We get left holding our menus until nearly everyone is halfway through their appetizers, and we are among the last to leave the dining room.  It has been a scramble to make it to the 7:00 show in the theater on the other end of the ship.  Today was no exception.  We ended up finding single seats a few rows apart, but we did see the show.

The show at 7pm was The Mighty Quinn, a street performer turned comedian from Canada who was supposed to perform last night but all his luggage was lost on his Air Canada flight, including his tall unicycle.  Even without his unicycle, he was quite entertaining.

The show let out in time to see the last half of the 2025 movie Superman on the jumbotron.  We watched it from the hot tub.

Snorkeling in Roatan

Another early day as the chip was scheduled to dock in Roatan, Honduras at 7am.  All-aboard time was 3:30pm so it was a bit shorter day for exploration. Very overcast and windy day, even some rain spattering at the windows as we were eating breakfast.  Our guide yesterday told us that these were quite a bit cooler temperatures than normal, but, at 75 degrees, I’ll take it.  It’s 15 back home with over a foot of snow on the ground, a very different kind of cooler weather.  I’m not complaining a bit.

We had booked a private tour, including an hour snorkeling in the reefs off the coastline.  We first saw some of the sights of Roatan from high on a hill, where our guide took us to some vendors of local wares.  Beautiful sights from up here, and these vendors have this view all the time. We were told that the wares here are more local and the prices were more reasonable.  And they were willing to deal. What we found was the prices were a little bit better than the shops at the pier, but they were not really willing to deal.  We came away only with some Honduran coinage, which is supposed to be hard to get since they don’t use coins anymore.

What I found rather comical and also a commentary on the state of things today was a sign emphasizing the locality of the products in the store.

“We have nothing from China!”

We drove through the narrow and crowded streets to a dock where a small boat was coming in. This was to take us on our snorkeling trip.

We joined up with another group of four and motored out several hundred yards and tied off to a marker in the water.  Then everyone donned their snorkel gear and jumped into the water.

That was cool and a lot of fun but I was quite out of breath when this was all over.  The water guide, seeing the struggle Deb was having with her equipment, took her by the hand and led her (or perhaps dragged her) through the water most of the time.  So she was right next to him when he called out the various things to see.  And he was a strong swimmer.  I was usually behind, struggling to get enough air through the little straw poking through the surface. So I was the trailer, often having to float with the snorkel out to pant for a bit, and then swim vigorously to keep up.  Add to that a strong wind and a choppy surface.  For a first time snorkeling, it was a rather aerobic hour.

Our guide took us on a drive around the island of Roatan after we changed into dry clothing.  This is a fascinating place, usually very steep, heavy vegetation, and very green.  He brought us to his favorite place, which he called the million-dollar bench, as it has a commanding view of the waterline and the outlying islands.

Now we’re back on the ship after browsing the shops on the pier for a bit.  It was far past lunchtime so we availed ourselves of the buffet and topped it off with ice cream. The ice cream station is quite popular here as it has a line for most of the day.

So now it’s two full days at sea, heading back to Galveston, Texas, where we will pick up our RV and continue the journey stateside.