Corpus Christi

So while we were still at Bay View RV Resort, we needed to take a trip to Corpus Christi, which was the real reason that we were going to that part of Texas to begin with.  But after spending all the time that we spent in Rockport and Fulton seeing all the sights there, we didn't have a lot of time left for Corpus Christi.  I mean there were plenty of things to see there, just that we had a limited amount of time, and it wasn't as close as we thought we'd be staying.

So we figured we'd take a trip from Rockport southwest down TX-35 down to Aransas Pass, head southeast on the Redfish Bay Causeway, TX-361 to the Port Aransas ferry crossing.  Even though at that time there were three ferries crossing the ship channel, it took about 1/2 an hour to be loaded onto the ferry to head over to Port Aransas.  We tooled around a little, then continued southwest on 361 on the barrier island called Mustang Island.  It's called that because there were at one point many wild horses on the island, with the story being told that horses were brought there and left by Spanish explorers.  There aren't any wild horses there now.  Lots of homes, rv parks, motels and condominiums as well instead.  And sand also since there's a beach.

Heading south out of Aransas Pass.

What a day for a drive, huh?  Of course, right now, we're stopped at the ferry landing, so we're not really driving right at this moment, ok?

Waiting for the ferry to unload.

Our ferry.  Not sure who he was, couldn't find out anything doing a cursory internet search, but he got a small ferry named after him.  

Welcoming sign (really, it's a water tank) after getting off the ferry in Port Aransas, Tx.

Apparently I have a pasture in Port Aransas, Tx.  Actually, it's a recommended nature preserve, click here!

Port Aransas has a building with a octopus on the roof...

And a shark coming out of the ground to welcome folks to a store.

If ya look at the above map, you can see that Mustang Island is really part of another island, Padre Island.  Or maybe it's the other way around with Padre Island being part of Mustang Island.  Route 361 goes the length of it and t's into Park Rd 22, where we turned left to travel further southwest, making our way to Padre Balli Park where we had a lunch of Subway sandwiches and walked the doggies for a while.  We thought a lot of Padre Balli Park as there were quite a few roomy RV sites there, although it looked like a parking lot with 30 amp and water only hookups, not unlike a lot of other RV parks.  But it's only $25/night, or $150/week, it's not bad for staying at the beach.

The beach at Padre Island, used by people and motorized vehicles.

The beach at Padre Balli Park with Bob Hall Pier in the background extending 1,240' into the Gulf of Mexico...

with Mikel May's just off the beach.

As it was getting further on in the day, we went through Corpus Christi towards the USS Lexington, which is now a floating museum.  You can find out more information about the museum part by clicking here.   We toured it until it we'd seen just about everything we could see on the ship, which was a bunch, and it was getting near closing time anyway.  It was very interesting seeing the many parts of it and getting to know a little about it's history.  It was nicknamed "The Blue Ghost" due to it's camouflage and the fact that the previous Lexington (CV-2) had been scuttled on May 8, 1942, and the new Lexington (CV-16) arrived at Pearl Harbor on August 9, 1943 to take part in the remainder of war in the Pacific.  It was decommissioned in April of 1947, recommissioned in August of 1955, and decommissioned again in November of 1991, when it was donated to the City of Corpus Christi as a museum ship.  It was very interesting to see the various parts of the ship and compare them to what I remember of the USS Wabash, which was more than a few years newer, but not necessarily better.  If you're in the area of Corpus Christi, I recommend that you take the time to tour the USS Lexington, especially if you're a history buff.

Picture of the USS Lexington taken as we're traveling over the Harbor Bridge.  That's why it isn't centered well.  Sorry.

USS Lexington Stats.

Katie in the XO's chair on the bridge.  Or is it the CO's chair?

Our day was going to last longer as we wanted to stay in Corpus Christi and watch the lights turn on on the Harbor Bridge crossing the Corpus Christi Ship Channel.  This is a nightly event, and you can see a short youtube.com video about it by clicking here, and see images of it here.  The lights were installed in December of 2011 and have since been thought of as one of Corpus Christi's iconic landmarks.  We were just too tired to stay and see it as we had to go some 30 miles to get back home, and I wanted to find an HEB with their freshly squeezed orange juice.  But as the HEBs in the area aren't that big, I didn't get any.  Darn the bad luck!

Our time was running out there and we headed to Carlsbad Caverns in a couple of days.  More about that later. 

Rockport, Texas

Rockport, Texas is a small town of less than 9,000 folks.  We originally wanted to go to Corpus Christi, but as Coast to Coast didn't have a park there but in Rockport instead, which is about 30 miles NE of Corpus Christi, and the price was only $10/night, we stayed at Bay View RV Resort near Rockport.  Actually, it was a little further up the coast nearer the village of Fulton, with a population of around 1,300.  I think of all the places we stayed at in Texas, we enjoyed our time in Rockport / Fulton, and Corpus Christi best.  The climate was mild with the high temps being in the 60's with lots of blue sky, and lots of nice, friendly folks as well.  There was even a sign on one of the buildings saying "Welcome Winter Texans", so I'm guessing that we're Texans now as we were there in the winter.  Goody for us.  The rest of y'all eat yer heart out, ok?

Bay View RV Resort was the second resort that we stayed at using our Coast to Coast membership on our trip.  It wasn't a bad park with the office and the maintenance staff helping us a lot by letting us get the right camping spot after rejecting two other spots.  And when we tried to get out of the second spot, the ground was so soft that we got stuck.  If it hadn't been for the maintenance staff bringing their skidsteer to our rescue, we'd have been stuck for a lot longer than 10 minutes!  It just wasn't the same as what we'd come to expect at Eastlake RV resort back in Houston.  But it was only $10/night, right?  What was I expecting!

Our campsite at Bay View Resort in Fulton, Tx.  From the look on Katie's face, I'm thinking she was wondering what I was expecting from a campsite as well!  The campsite we had just tried was in the background where the motor home is seen.  

As we were driving NE on TX 35 up the coast from Rockport on our way to Bay View RV Resort, we noticed a sign at a bar saying "belt sander racing".  After scratching our heads because we'd never heard of that sport before, we asked a couple of folks about it while we were in Rockport in the following days.  And they weren't really sure about it either.  So I looked it up.  The bar, Legends Saloon, has them every 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month from October through April.  It turns out there is quite a following with various belt sander racing associations as well as videos on youtube.com.  But I think that the best belt sander race is when the racers sit on the sander while it speeds down the course, like this one.  Anyway, we never went there, but I'm thinking that it would've been a lot of fun!

The community of Rockport has a lot of "Winter Texans" there, a lot of them in RVs.  There were many RV parks there, along with condos, apartments, and houses for rent.  There were a couple of museums there as well, probably more, but I'm only gonna talk about the ones that we went to.  The first one being the Rockport Center for the Arts.  It isn't a large place, I'm thinking that it's actually a former house for someone who willed it to the City of Rockport to be used as it is now.  Although they had a permanent collection, little of it was shown when we were there as the museum was being used to display art works of the local artists.  Anyone who came in was invited to vote which piece of art was the best one, be it a painting, photo, sculpture, or mixed medium.  The below photos are of the the best ones that I saw.  

Sorry, I don't remember the titles of the exhibits, or why I thought they were of note.  Regardless, I thought they were very good.  

The other museum we saw was the Texas Maritime Museum, which was across the street from the Rockport Center for the Arts, as you can see from one of the photos below.  There are four main exhibits there, as you'll be able to see from the link, with the biggest one being the LaSalle Odyssey exhibit.

A model of the La Belle, part of the La Salle Odyssey.  The real La Belle was found on the bottom of  Matagorda Bay, some 50 miles to the north east in 1995 after being sunk in 1686.  After being discovered and excavated from the bay, the relics were distributed to seven museums along the Texas coast from Corpus Christi up to Matagorda County Museum.

Another of the exhibits had to do with outboard motors.  There was quite a display of outboard motors, and I'm sorry that I didn't get a picture of it.  But I did get a picture with a brief history of them, and the man who picked up the ball and ran with it, Ole Evenrude.

If ya click on the link for the Maritime Museum, you can see a photo of what the outside looks like with a slight replica of a lighthouse with a railing around the top, which is an observation deck.  It offers quite a view of  the town of Rockport as well as Aransas Bay and Little Bay.  

Looking southeast to the Rockport Center for the Arts.  Aransas Bay is in the background, and our big Ram 2500 is parked in the center of the picture.

Looking further to the southeast towards Aransas Bay.  The white building in the distance is the Aquarium at Rockport Harbor, a small but good aquarium run by volunteers in Rockport.

Looking northeast from the Maritime Museum.  Texas route 35 is on the left side.  The body of water is the extreme southwest corner of Little Bay.  On the right side is the Big Blue Crab.  Below is a slightly, better picture of it.

The Big Blue Crab of Rockport, Texas.  Click on the link above for more information.  

As we love to visit mansions wherever we go, we found that Fulton had one as well.  The Fulton Mansion is located at 317 Fulton Beach Road in Rockport, where in 1874 - 1877, George and Harriet Fulton built their dream home.  It was built with hot and cold indoor plumbing, steel beams supporting the floor, and five inch pine planks laid offset on top of one another in the walls to withstand hurricanes.  I don't have a good picture of the front, but if you click on the link above or here, you can see lots of pictures of it.

View of the Fulton Mansion, from the back where the visitors center  is located, named "Oakhurst" because of all the oak trees in the area.  This is looking east towards Aransas Bay, which you can see in the distance.

This is a poster showing the lighting, plumbing and heating features of Oakhurst.  Ya may need to expand it to be able to read it easily.

The mansion had a long a varied career after the Fultons left it, so that at one time, the yard in front of the mansion was an RV park.  The Texas Historical Commission took over running and maintaining it in 2008, and when were there, there were docents on the 1st and 2nd floors in period dress telling about the Fulton family, the mansion, as well as trivia surrounding the it.  The basement is a self guided thing, and the third floor is used as offices and inaccessible to the public.  But if you're in the area of Rockport, or Fulton, or even Corpus Christi or other cities to the north or northeast, be sure to drop in there.  Like lots of other mansions, it's a marvel to see.

Ok, I'm thinking this post is a really long one as well as being late in being posted.  Wait patiently for the next one which will be shorter talking about Corpus Christi.



Padre Island

art community and museums in Rockport

mansion in Fulton or Rockport

Corpus Christi bridge light show

San Antonio

Ok, now that I've got the pictures of Larry, Moe and Curly out of the way, we can go on to more current events in our trek to staying at Emerald Cove Resort near Parker, Az.

We left Canyon Lake about the time that a cold snap was coming down to Texas, and we couldn't stay in the campsite we were staying in there as it had a previous reservation for the day we were leaving.  So rather than pack up and move to another campsite that may or may not have fit us at the resort we were staying at, we just decided to move on down the road where it would be closer to our destination at that time, which was Rockport, Tx.  And we couldn't go there because our Coast 2 Coast reservation at Bay View RV Resort wasn't available until a couple of days later.  Besides, the further south ya go, the warmer it gets, right?  Well, maybe not.

So after packing up and travelling the 50 miles southwest to River Walk RV park, we only hooked up our electricity as connecting the water or sewer were unnecessary as we had plenty of fresh water and tank space on board.  Along the same lines, we did a minimal of setting up because we were only gonna be there for two days.  Then, not wanting our spare time to go to waste, we sought out the McNay Art Museum which we thought would provide us with a couple of hours of looking at different paintings.  And while it did that, we thought it'd have more historic paintings in it, which it didn't.  I mean there were historic paintings there, but the founder of the museum, Marion Koogler McNay, wanted the museum to be a modern art museum, so there were more pieces of modern art, which doesn't mean as much to us, than historic art.  So we were somewhat disappointed for not being able to see more, but that sometimes happens when ya go to an art museum.  

Getting back to the rig, we noticed that it was getting cold enough that the furnace needed to be turned on.  However, the furnace didn't want to turn on, even though I'd set the thermostat higher.  It was then that I decided to check how much propane we had left in the tanks, and found all three tanks to be empty.  As it was going to get below freezing that night, it was very important that we have propane for the furnace to work and keep the pipes in the basement from freezing.  I disconnected two of the tanks, put them in the car and set out on my trek to find a place to refill those two tanks.  My first stop was to go to the office to see if they would be able to tell me where to go to find a refill spot.  I went to the resort office to find out where propane was readily available in the area, and found the staff bundled up trying to stay warm with electric heaters blowing in their direction.  I was blessed to find out there is a convenience store less than half a mile away with pre-filled 20 pound bottles of propane.  However, the price was outrageous at $30 a bottle.  But it was a convenience store, right?  So I really shouldn't have cared about the price.  NOT!  What's more, the bottles were kinda light, and I later found out that the bottles sold there aren't always filled completely, which kinda added insult to injury.  So while them pre-filled bottles are convenient, ya really pay for it!  That is that's how it was at that convenience store.  I'm thinking that it'd be a little different price at Wal-Mart, or some other big box store that sells them.

Not letting any days go to waste while we were there in San Antonio, we ventured out the next day with the idea of seeing a couple of things at least.  Maybe the Alamo.  Doing our research, we found there was Fort Sam Houston located a couple of miles away.  I don't know why we didn't quite understand that it was a working US Army fort rather than a historic point, but we didn't, and drove up thinking that we'd be able to get a tour of the facility.  However, when we got to the main gate, there was a sign pointing to where visitors would check in.  And when we went to check in to see what we could see, the man behind the counter looked at us kinda weird and said that we'd have to wait till a certain time that I don't remember now.  As we didn't want to just sit around, we headed on down the road to see the Spanish Governor's Palace in downtown San Antonio.  Parking is at a premium there, and we decided that the cost of parking wasn't worth the cost of seeing the palace, but you can see it if you click on the link above, or see pictures by clicking here.  It had an interesting history before it became famous for what it was, being a bar, a clothing store, a produce market, a tailor shop, and a school.

So we headed off to see the Spanish frontier missions of Mission Concepcion and Mission San Jose.  Just like the missions of California.  The first three below are Mission Concepcion, with the ones below it being Mission San Jose.

Didn't know it at the time, but there are active congregations there which is why there are lights inside.

Ok, there ya have the blog posting I've been "working" on getting done for the past ...how many days!  I hate it when I forget things.  Hope all are well, next post will be coming...

Back in Houston

So, going back through my pictures, I found some that I wanted to show but couldn't find previously because I downloaded the pictures from my camera in alphabetical order rather than chronological order.  As a result, I didn't know where to look for what I wanted to find.  However, in going through all those pictures for other stuff, I was able to find them.  Here we go!

On December 10 2016, we ventured out to the Houston downtown area where the Houston Heritage Society held it's 54th Annual Candlelight Tour. The tour consists of touring several old houses and a church which have been moved to Sam Houston Park (here's another link to a youtube.com video about Sam Houston Park) as well as seeing the jolly old elf, and vendor booths set up for the season.  In those old buildings, there were folks in period dress telling the visitors to the park a short history of the family, or families, that lived in those homes, as well as relevant events that happened during that time period, not unlike what is found in other living history museums.  

Katie posing with the blacksmith.

This man was depicting William Marsh Rice, one of the wealthiest men in Houston in the latter part of the 19th century.

Inside the St. John church.  The pastor (an actual pastor in real life) told about the history of the church, and how many european immigrants came through Galveston, then north through Houston to live in the area.  To his right (left in the picture) is part of the Houston Boy Choir, which sang a couple of Christmas carols during the 15 minutes or so we were in the church building.

With the exception of one house, the Pillot House, we were able to tour each one and get a short visit with each of the docents there.  It was an enjoyable late afternoon, albeit being a little cold, that we spent in downtown Houston.

The offices at Eastlake RV Resort had, just like many other places, cards and pamphlets showing the various tourist attractions in the area.  One of those was for The Aquarium, a seafood restaurant, also in downtown Houston, just a few blocks away from Sam Houston Park.  It's actually more than a restaurant as it has a HUGE aquarium in it, and if you go to Kemah, Texas, or Denver, Colorado, or Nashville, Tennessee, you'll find other Aquarium restaurants also.  In addition to the restaurant in Houston, you'll find a small amusement park complete with a ferris wheel and miniature train.

Katie in front of The Aquarium by the ...fish statues.  Any idea of what kind of fish they are?  ...Well, besides statuefish, ok?

Entrance to the amusement park of The Aquarium.  Note the skyscrapers of downtown Houston in the distance.  The statuefish Katie was standing in front of is out of sight to the right.

This is the carousel.  Note the lack of horses, or ostriches, or benches.  Only aquatic life that lives somewhere in or near the state of Texas!

The food at The Aquarium was kinda spendy, but as in most cases, ya get what ya pay for.  So it was pretty good.  But the view from our table was more impressive than the food because we were about eight feet from one of the large tanks of marine life.  So we had a real good view of the fish swimming by.

...Like this unicorn fish.

...or this humphead wrasse, and two of the many sting rays in the tank.

And then, there were fish that weren't moving, just staying in one place, and seemed to be watching folks eat their food.  In this case, the folks were Katie and I.

These three Queensland groupers pretty much just stayed in front of us all the time we were eating.  I'm thinking that they're Queensland groupers at least.  We were both hoping that they were amused by watching us eat, maybe crack a smile or something like wink an eye, or have a twitch of some kind...  But their facial expressions never changed.  I nicknamed them Larry, Moe, and Curly.   In the lower left corner is an electric ray, something I didn't know existed until I did research on the fish in this picture.  There is a stingray swimming by above Larry, Moe and Curly. 

Not much else to say about our time in Houston, but I did want to mention a couple of eateries that we went to that we enjoyed.  They were both Mexican restaurants, the first one was Los Cucos Mexican Cafe, which is a chain with most locations in Texas, but one in Las Vegas, Nevada, and another one in Sandy, Utah.  The Humble location we went to served food that was very good, and there was a fiesta, sports bar ambiance with several screens throughout the restaurant and bar, probably being able to serve better than 150 meals at a time.  The second eatery was also located in Humble, but was a much smaller operation being in a strip mall.  Manuel's Mexican Restaurant and Taqueria located a few miles east of where Los Cucos was, and only has two locations in Houston and Humbolt, with the Houston location having a capacity of less than a hundred.  What it lacked in serving space it makes up for in really good tasting food, and it was my favorite of the two.  As a result, we frequented it more than Los Cucos.

So now I'm done returning to Houston, I'll get up to date as time goes by.

I'll end by saying a cowboy goodbye by saying "Y'all come back now!"

Canyon Lake

From Galveston, we headed west about 250 miles to the town of Canyon Lake, to stay at Lake Pointe Resort, where we stayed for six days.  By using our Coast to Coast membership, we were able to stay there for only $5/night rather than the regular $45/night, plus a fee of $.12 a kw hour.  The park had lots of amenities that we like, like a pool, and trails to hike. Although it was too cold to use the pool at that point, it was quite a large pool for a resort that size, which from what I could tell, was less than 100 RV spaces.  When we got there, we didn't realize just how big our rig is.  But it barely fit under a branch of one of the trees in the first campsite we went to.  After we moved to another campsite that didn't have anything over our roof, we felt a lot better.  The big pull for this area, if not this resort, is the number of deer that freely roam the area.  When I'd take the dogs out at night and in the morning, I could always count several deer not more than 30' away from us.  One morning, I counted 21 deer lurking around other rigs and in the trees.  

Deer herd at Lake Pointe Resort in the morning.  Sorry the picture is so dark.  I count 10 deer, how many do you count?

We stayed at Lake Pointe because it was in the between Austin and San Antonio as we thought we might be going to San Antonio, but it didn't happen as we kept doing things in Austin.  One of the goals we had while we're traveling was to go to the capitol buildings of all the states we go to.  We haven't always done that in a few states, but we were able to do so in Texas.  It was kinda drizzly the Saturday that we went.  When we go there, we saw signs pointing to the capitol visitors center, and since it was kinda on the way to the capitol building, we went there first.  Turns out that the visitor center was in the old General Land Office building, and it was remarkable as William Sidney Porter, better known by his pen name of O. Henry, worked there from 1887 - 1891.  One of the many rooms there was devoted to him, telling his life story.

Old Texas General Land Office building, located on the grounds of the Texas capitol building in Austin, Tx.

There are free tours through the capitol building given every 15 minutes, if I recall correctly.  For a reason I don't remember, the tour didn't include a lot of the building, only going to the rotunda, the House of Representatives chamber, and the Senate Chamber.  However, the tour guide still told us a bunch of stuff about the history of Texas.  

"Surrender of Santa Anna" by William Henry Huddle in the Texas State capitol building foyer.  General Sam Houston, commander in chief of the Texas Army, is lying on the ground injured extending his hand to General Santa Anna of the Mexican Army.  The surrender took place on April 21, 1836.

Star of the Republic of Texas on the floor of the capitol building.  This was featured at the end of  the movie "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" where Dom Deluise (or a dummy that looked like him) went sliding across the floor to rest in the middle of the star.  The capitol building started to be built in 1885, and was opened to the public on April 21, 1888.

After visiting the capitol building, we did some lunch thing, and then headed to the Lyndon Baines Johnson library on the grounds of the University of Texas at Austin.  It's interesting to visit places like that to learn more about the person, as well as the history that was made while that person was alive. The folks that worked there thought very much of LBJ, and probably knew more than lots of other folks by a long shot.  I don't remember that much about him, except that he was president during the Viet Nam War, and declined being nominated for a 2nd full term of being President.  The folks at the library said that he was one of the busiest presidents the US has ever had, and accomplished a lot.  So much so that he only live four years after he left office.  I didn't take a lot of pictures at the library, but here's a couple of them.

LBJ howling with his dog, Yuki, while his grandson looks on.   Not sure if the grandson was amazed by the harmony of the duet, or who looked better: LBJ or the dog.  Apparently LBJ did this a bit as you can see here, along with a bunch of other photos of him.

LBJ's 1965 stretch Lincoln Continental limo.  This limo is plain compared to "The Beast", the current Presidential State Car (...limo).

We did go back to Austin another day to have lunch with a fellow gas sniffer, Debbie, as she was in the area near Austin, and we wouldn't be seeing her again for some time, if ever.  Debbie came to Houston from Salt Lake City also, but after we got there.  So we were able to show her a few things about Houston, and she was able to show us a few more things about gas sniffing and the company we work for since she's been doing the job for a few years now.

Debbie recommended to us, as did Katie's sister, Karen, that we go to Fredericksburg while we were that close to it, as it's a quaint small town that we'd enjoy going to.  It's about 65 miles northwest of Canyon Lake, so we were able to make it there in just a little over an hour.  There are several things that we were told about to see while we were there, including art galleries, the National Museum of the Pacific War, Admiral Nimitz Museum, and just taking a stroll up Main Street.  So we did that the next day.

Naturally, the first thing that ya go to in any town is the visitor center where ya can see all kinds of things, especially the little cards and flyers telling of places that ya might like to go see after ya leave the visitor center.  Fredericksburg visitor center was very nice with lots of information to share to visitors there.  It was cold that day, but Katie was happy to be in the visitor center where they hadn't taken down their Christmas tree yet, as it wasn't January 1st yet.  Take a look!

What a happy wifey!

There's many more cards and flyers of places to go and see that can't be seen here.  So why is Katie looking at her phone?  I don't know either...

The National Museum of the Pacific War is located right across the street from the visitor center, so it wasn't hard to find at all.  In case you were wondering, this is merely another way of saying that it's a museum about World War II in the Pacific Ocean.

I couldn't get a wide enough shot, but there are several WWII artifacts from the war in the front.  You can see a little more if you click here.

The National Museum of the Pacific War turned out to be very extensive and sobering.  In it, we found information not only on every battle of the war in the Pacific, but the history of the nations involved in WWII in the pacific, including the US, leading up to it.  The exhibits are done well, and the price of admission is well worth the education ya get while you're in the museum.  But remember that this museum is about war and the horrors of it.  It's not really for the faint of heart, and it could easily take six hours or more to go through everything there.  At the time we went, there was also an exhibit on Norman Rockwell, the artist who's paintings were on the covers of The Saturday Evening Post for many years.  His life history was given, along with copies of at least 15 of his paintings during the WWII years.

Willie Gillis: USO  Willie Gillis is a fictional character created by Normal Rockwell during WWII on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.

Willie Gillis in Church

The Admiril Nimitz Museum was part of the National Museum of the Pacific War (NMPW), in that you could include admission to it by getting a ticket at the NMPW.  Being a former US Navy man, I found it interesting to go to this museum, which is much smaller than the NMPW, that tells about the life of Chester Nimitz.  It only took about 1/2 an hour - 45 minutes to go through it all, and it wasn't quite as visually stimulating as the NMPW, but it was very informative telling about his life starting in 1885 when he was born, his life in Fredericksburg, joining the Navy, rise in the rank to become fleet admiral in 1944, being instrumental in the victories in the Pacific,  postwar retirement in 1947, and death in early 1966, as well as a few other items along the way.

This is the plaque across the street from the Nimitz Hotel.  I thought I had a picture of the Nimitz Hotel because it's a unique looking structure, but I didn't.  Here's a link to a picture of it still the same.

Following are other pictures of Fredericksburg.

After walking 1/2 way up Main Street, we were both getting pooped, so we went to the other side of the street and headed back to the car for our trip home.  On the way there, we stopped in the hamlet of Luckenbach, which I only know of because I heard the song "Luckenbach, Tx", or "Back to the Basics of Love" .  From what I was able to tell, there really wasn't a lot to the hamlet, only two buildings, and the population is only three.  But if you go to the website of Luckenbach, Texas, you can see there's lots of things happening for a town of only three people!  Wow!

Lastly, I wanna mention about our time in Canyon Lake, Texas, was the church we went to while we were there.  While we try to attend worship services everywhere we go, this church, Cowboys for Jesus Church, will stick with me for a long time.  Really friendly people, good message, and even though there is a praise band that was made up of a man and two women, the good old hymns were sung.  And on the last verse, they dropped out so it was sung acapella with folks harmonizing.  Really sounded great!  They have a lot going on there, including archery instruction, which Katie and I made use of.  Overall, I'd say that attending there was the frosting on the cake for out time at Canyon Lake, Tx.

So if you have the chance to go to Canyon Lake, Lake Pointe Resort isn't a bad place to stay.  The town of Canyon Lake isn't very big, but it has a large grocery store, several gas stations, and assorted shops and restaurants.  In addition to condos or motels for lodging, there's several RV parks or resorts available for RVers.  We enjoyed our time there, and I'm thinking you would also.