Texas in the cold

[Tom&Shelly]

Next day we drove to Blanco State Park, West of Austin and North of San Antonio.



Low 50's when we arrived that afternoon, but it was windy and the temperatures quickly dropped to a low of about 17 when we woke up the next morning. Also got a little snow



It had been forecast so we came prepared. On this trip, we didn't prepare a single hot meal. We brought pastries for breakfast, always stayed at electric sites and made coffee in the morning, then we ate one meal at a restaraunt each day. We either snacked or made sandwiches for the other meal. We never used the propane stove and never used charcoal. With the winds, the latter was prohibited at most campgrounds anyway. Oh, and on the two weekends while we were out, we stayed at relatives East of Austin and ate their food! We came back weighing about the same as when we left, so the strategy worked out okay.

Our first day we saw the Museum of the Pacific War in Fredricksburg TX, which was my intention when we picked Blanco as a stop. Admiral Nimitz was from Fredricksburg and, when they proposed a museum for him, he insisted it be for all of the American men who served in the Pacific Theater in World War II. Well worth the stop.

Our second day at Blanco we drove to San Antonio and saw the Briscoe Museum of Western Art, which is on the River Walk a little ways from the Alamo. We saw the building on our trip last year but were there the day of the week the museum was closed, so we took our opportunity this time. It was still pretty cold, so an indoor venue was in order.

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

Incidently, last year, on our way home, we drove through a pile of debris from a blown truck tire. A piece came up, whacked our teardrop fender, and tore the spare tire cover. We got a new one, with an original funny saying



Too bad it doesn't fit a little better!

Oh, never mind, one of our fellow campers at Blanco had the exact same original cover



Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

After spending the weekend mooching off of relatives (and touring the Texas National Guard Museum in Mabry) we drove on to Galveston State Park, on the coast on Galveston Island.



By now, reasonable temperatures had returned, and we spent some time in short sleeves and shorts! We could have cooked for ourselves, but when on the coast we like to check out the seafood restaraunts.

Our first full day, we drove up to the museum at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. We had tickets we'd bought online, but still had to pay for parking. They use a QR square, and an ad popped up on Shelly's phone which stole my credit card number (which she tried to use to pay), then her debit card number before she realized what had happened. Sure enough, a few hours later my credit card company called and said there were fraudulent charges. Shelly then looked at her debit account and found similar charges. (The charges were taken off of both accounts.) So we had both cards turned off for the remainder of the trip. Luckily, I still had a debit card, but this sort of soured me to the commercial company that runs the Space Center Museum. We reported the problem to one of the staff and she said they had had problems when folks use a 3rd party ap to scan the QR codes. Shelly deleted her ap and found the telephone sees the square and offers the correct web site on its own. My phone does nothing when it sees a QR code, so I won't use them. I suggest never taking the chance and, in this case, paying once you get into the building. (Of course, they don't mention that option on the sign in the parking lot.) Really, one could probably not pay at all, and throw the ticket away. I mean, I never saw any cars being towed... But, I won't recommend that.

The museum itself is a solid meh. We toured the mission control room they used on the day of the first Moon landing, remade to look like it did that night, but they didn't say much about what the folks in mission control did or anything



Maybe I'm too much of a space nut, but I'd've liked details like that. You do pay extra for that tour. We also took a tour of the astronaut training facility



There were also some videos, in the theater, but the signage was a little confusing. Of course, we were also navigating our financial issues with several phone calls in the midst of all of this.

But I did do one thing on my bucket list: Bought, and later ate, astronaut ice cream! (It was crumbly and would have been a terrible choice for a space flight. Luckily, the gulls at Galveston were on hand to help clean up.)

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

Our second day in Galveston we found the USS Texas, but also found they are not giving tours currently



However, we also found the Ocean Star Drilling Rig Museum, which we thought was very interesting, and informative



I spent my career working on communications systems and space craft, so those museums often cover (or don't) topics I already have experience with. I have absolutely no idea about oil drilling, especially off-shore, so this was all new to me!

I have a short list of things to do the next time we are in the Houston/Galveston area, including a naval museum (hopefully with a tour of the USS Texas, unless they move it somewhere else on the coast) and a railroad museum. I also pointed out to Shelly that Galveston is about a day from New Orleans, so some Winter we have a trip to make!

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

From Galveston, we drove back to mooch off my relatives, who live East of Austin. We took a tour of the capitol building and spent a day with a high school friend of Shelly's and her husband, who now live in Austin.

From there, we drove to Cascade Caverns just North of San Antonio in Boerne Texas. (Pronounced Ber-neey, or something like that.) Their campsite was a pretty nice field with electricity.



We spent two days there, and were going to tour the cave the second day, but the staff suggested we do it the first as there was a large group of children coming that second day. I agreed because I don't like children. Shelly likes children, but she's now on a low sodium diet.

The second day, we toured two of the four missions at the San Antonio Missions National Park. (The 5th mission is the Alamo, which I thought was a Texas state park. Looking it up, it is also part of the San Antonio Missions. We saw the Alamo last year.) We thought the weather was much better than two weeks earlier when we were near San Antonio, so we determined to do something outdoors. And so the weather was, but it was also very windy. The rangers had to cancel the tour of San Jose Mission, and instead gave a talk in the auditorium. But they did let us walk around the grounds afterwards.



We plan to see the southern two missions next time (weather permitting).

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

From Cascade Caverns, we took I-10 to Balmorhea State Park Texas.



It was primarily a way-point for us, a good place to spend the night. Not crazy about the asphalt camping pads, especially with curbs that make it difficult to back into the site.

The next day we were driving to Bottomless Lakes State Park in New Mexico. Check-in wasn't until 4 pm, and there is an hour difference between New Mexico and that part of Texas, so we had the morning to explore Balmorhea. (Its a three syllable name; named after three men who settled the town. Not an Irishman, to my mild disappointment.) The chief feature of the park is a "swimming pool" made out of a natural spring by the CCC in the 1930's. Don't think I'd go swimming there, but you can--they allow it. It's a real cee-ment pond: Rough floor, wildlife in the pool, etc.



I suspect there is no fishing in the pool, but I'm not certain. We could have gone to Ft Davis State Park, which we really like, but it's almost an hour South of I-10, and we were about to turn North. Also, Ft Davis is in mountains, and it would likely be much cooler.

Anyway, we expected an easy, if unslightly drive through the oil and gas fields of the Permian Basin. What we didn't count on was the dust storm, with close to zero visibility in spots. The New Mexico State Police had a road block closing US 285 North of Artesia, and just as we found a place to pull over, hoping no one hit the teardrop, our phones went off with a weather alarm. Spent nearly an hour sitting with other vehicles waiting for things to clear. We finally were directed East to a side road, and proceeded slowly, while experiencing more near brown-out conditions along the way. Shelly wanted to take me for a steak dinner in Roswell before we went to the park (it was my birthday) but we decided it was safer to go to the park in daylight and hunker down. We had snacks for dinner that night, but any birthday you live through is a good one!

the storm began to receed after we settled in, but you can still see some of the dust in the air in the pictures



the next day we returned home. Ate brunch at Penny's Diner in Vaughn, but were disappointed to find they no longer have menus. You have to use your phone to scan a QR code. We're not big on those after the incident in Houston, so we may have to find another diner! On the other hand, they have a short order cook, and I suspect she'll make anything for you if you ask nicely and they have the ingredients.

Overall, a great trip that (eventually) gave us warmer weather, a few great adventures, saved us three weeks of burning fire wood at our cabin here in the New Mexican mountains, and helped us get the most value from our Texas Parks annual pass, which expired at the end of February. (We'll buy a new one on our next trip to Texas, probably next Winter.)

Oh, if you don't agree our adventures were that great, just wait until I tell about them next time! My stories get better every year.

Tom

[philpom]

Epic, thanks for sharing!