Corpus Christi

We arrive at Sea Breeze RV park in Corpus Christi and Dale leaps from the RV to set  up the dish while I set out to check out the world's largest Canadian geese.  They were huge, they never moved either.  Decoys!   The park advertised wildlife but 90% of the birds on the water were decoys.  The live ones were still winging their way from Michigan down to TX to join us.

 

Just north of us was the aircraft carrier, the USS Lexington so off we went to explore

On board there are many hands on activities that I tried, such as landing a plane on an aircraft carrier.  I dropped mine in the ocean 5 times so be glad I am not guarding our country.

USS Lexington

My boating experience helped in my captain duties! This is a piece of cake...where are all those ropy things you have to pull on a sailboat?

Cindy watching for enemy aircraft.

You may have to zoom up a little but there's a lot of work in this picture and all of it was knot hard to do!




Now where's that bowline knot???

After the USS Lexington, we moved across the street to the Texas State Aquarium.  I volunteered to be part of the hawk show and had one of them rush from the side of the pavilion and fly within inches of my head.  I could feel his feathers on my head and was glad he had already made his trip to the bathroom that morning.   Dale was also very eager to be part of the show....not..... but he did get a few laughs from my lack of a performance.  Here's the pic I caught of the hawk going back to the trainer.

Note the thick leather glove which I was NOT wearing when I was on stage.   Hmmmmm????

Took this pic for my friend Margaret.  She's a shark lover.

This one is more my size.

 This spoonbill was at the aquarium, but we also had one at the RV park.

My favorite part was watching these dolphins play with floating toys, swim on their backs, jump and generally have a good time.  Still, I would rather see them in the ocean where they belong.

 We were able to pet these guys and were surprised at how gentle they are.  I think they were wrongly charged in the death of that crocodile guy.

You could pet the sting rays, but couldn't drive them!

Dale making new friends.

Looking south on Padre Island by Corpus C.

Here's Dale enjoying petting the sting rays.

We drove on to north Padre Island. (and I mean ON the beach.)   As you can see from the pic, this beach is very crowded.



After some driving around exploring (found a pet store and a Kohls!), we started our drive to the King Ranch in Kingsville, TX.

Texas, Livingston/Escapees

We made it to Texas.

We checked in and found our site at the E.scapees Park in Livingston.  Nice place, very nice people.  The town of Livingston is small and quaint.  Not much shopping except WalMart.  But who needs shopping when you can have so much fun right in the park with the interesting people who stay there?

April does some serious thinking.

Mr. T and April

After sporting our brand new Texas license plates from MI to TX, we decided to was time to "tie the knot" and get our official Texas driver's license.  But....nothing is easy.  If I had it to do again, and this is looking back on the experience a few days later.... hmmmm I am not sure I would do it.   We both really studied for several evenings to prepare for the Class B endorsement for our driver's license and I will say that it was NOT an easy test.  We both thought the questions were obscure and had little to do with facts we needed to know to be safe drivers of our 39 ft motor home.

After taking the written test, we were really unsure as to what they would expect of us on the driving test.  Would we have to show that we could do a full CDL 7 point inspection? Would we have to show that we could crawl under the rig and test the slack adjusters?  The pre trip inspection is about 6 pages long.  But we made it to the testing day, the examiner was very nice and relieved our stress right away.  We did have to drive the rig around town, on the highway, on some very small side roads, several left hand and right hand turns and back it up in a straight line.  We did not have to parallel park, but some people do.  But when my test was over, the examiner told us we both passed.  On to the office to get the license and jump in the rv and head out of town.  We walk in, get up to the counter and the computers all over the State of TX went down.  So we left, went back to the park and waited.  Then the computers were up again so we jumped in the car and took off for the licensing office.  Got there, made it up through the line to the counter, and....yep...they went down again.    We finally got them and departed for Shrimp Boat Manny's to celebrate.

We met some great friends at the SPCA benefit we attended on Halloween weekend.

Louisiana

We lingered at Percy Quin State Park in Mississippi so long that we could not do justice to the State of Louisiana, but we visited long enough to see a rebuilt Cajun village in Lafayette.   While there we were able to sit in and listen to a group of Danish musicians learning to play Cajun music from a local artist.  If you search Polewach2 on YouTube, you can listen to a short clip of their music.

Tornado!

The village had a great little science museum which concentrated on Earth science topics.  Not only did they have many working models of various stream tables, they had  nice tornado simulator too.  I enjoyed sitting back down at the old lab table for a few minutes.

Dale looks for retirement home

Then we were off to find some award winning Cajun food!  Yum.  The place had a 14 foot stuff alligator and a 210 lb Gar Fish.  YIKES

Mississippi

We made it to and through Mississippi.   We decided to stop for a night at Percy Quinn State Park and ended up spending a week there.   This is a must stop for anyone traveling I-55 through MS.  The park was upgraded to be a hurricane escape site and all sites have sewer, water, and 50 amp power.  The sites are large and the views are beautiful.  There is also a championship golf course.  The course was well maintained and the price for 18 was right!  We could have stayed here easily for a month, but we forced ourselves to leave to find some Cajun cooking in Louisiana. 

Our campsite at Percy Quinn

A "cabin" you can rent at the park.

View from the club house deck down the fairway.

It was NOT very crowded on the weekdays.

and a little wildlife

October in TN

 We love Tennessee!

I've discovered that if we move along too quickly, I have a hard time remembering where we've been and what order.  That's what's nice about digital pictures.  They not only give you the date and the time, but often, through Google, they give you the location of where the pic was taken.  Whew....

Our campsite at the TVA campground

Tennessee River, dam and locks

We made it to Shiloh, TN.  Dale was anxious to see the Civil War Battlefield and National Cemetery.  We stayed at a beautiful site along the Tennessee River.  But... as there is always a "but" , there was a paper mill on the other side and the smell was awful.  The view was beautiful and we had a nice site along the river with good 50 amp power and nice water.  Water and power...it's those simple things in life! 




Shiloh 


Shiloh is the place for Civil War buffs.  If you want to know where each division sat, slept, where they walked at each hour of the day, where they shot and when they were shot at, then this is the place for you.  It is a large place with monuments, plaques, statues, etc., everywhere explaining each detail of the battle.
The monuments are striking.  There are so many that you lose the beauty of each one.  The bronze relief shown below was on a monument.  I was so impressed with the detail.  We learned a little more about the Civil War.   We wanted to go to Vicksburg, but alas, our heater core started leaking so we decided to head more directly to a large Texas repair place to get it fixed.

Even the pups were allowed to walk around in the fields.

This bronze relief was just a small part of a huge monument.

From Ohio to Kentucky

After all this time on the road....we have finally made it to KY.   Now that's traveling slowly!  I think the pioneers moved faster than we are.  There is so much to see that we could have stayed in any of the cities for a much longer time.  

I spent my last full day in Ohio visiting with my Aunt Dot and my Aunt Jean.  It was good to see them and my Uncle Bill. 

We waved goodbye and headed for KY. 

My Aunt Dot  in her cozy room at Bethany Lutheran Village.  

Our first stop was Lexington, where we visited Mary Todd Lincoln's Home.  Beautiful place filled with antiques.  My only complaint was that we had 14 people in our group and could barely fit into the rooms to hear the guide's narrative.

 We packed up the rv again and moved to an rv park called Chimney Rock.  It was not my favorite rv park by any means, but it was close to Shaker Village.  Anyone traveling through this area of KY should stop and see this large village built by the Shakers.  They were a religious sect in KY who were highly organized and motivated.   Each person had a job, and all were treated equally.  In a time of history when people were barely producing enough to eat, the Shakers had their own infirmary, laundries (3!) , three large apartment type buildings with dining halls and a large farm complex.   We were amazed at the size of the buildings and by their exquisite architecture.

The main highway ran through the middle of the village.

A typical Shaker room.  Men lived on one side of the hallway and  the women lived on the other side.  They even had separate front doors, but no wall between the halves of the building.

Three and four stories of rooms, meeting rooms and dining areas.  Notice the two separate staircases?  One for men and one for women.

Baby goats on the farm

Can't miss mealtime sleeping here.

One of three very large buildings that housed the residents.

This building had 25,000 square feet of living space and each  part was kept neat and clean.

 The next day we visited the Toyota factory in Georgetown.  No pics allowed inside, but it was huge.  Everyone seemed to be pretty happy working here, but I found it rather dark and gloomy inside.  No windows.

We hit the road then and went on to Elizabethtown for a three night stay over.

A replica of Lincoln's log cabin home.

Quite an impressive place.

Lincoln's boyhood home.

We visited Lincoln's birthplace and saw a replica for the cabin he was born in.  Not much compared to Mary Todd's place.

 I was anxious to get to the huge and I mean HUGE fall festival in Glenwood.  A million and one crafts for sale.  Ribbon potatoes??? I have no idea what they are, but they must be good because people stood in long lines for them.  It was a beautiful fall day.  Shorts weather, leaves falling and many campfires in the park each evening.  The dogs loved the place.  Oh, we also had to visit the vet here because Miss Tooie was not feeling well.  All her tests came back fine so I guess she had traveler's upset stomach.  Tomorrow we head into TN, through Nashville and on our way to Shiloh Battlefield.