Ah, yes, gentle readers, welcome back! Last you knew, we were headed from Alamo, down in the Rio Grande Valley, up to Corpus Christi, in order to get our continuing coolant leak investigated. When we were in Phoenix, we took it to Tolleson, where they found a bad sensor and replaced it, plus, filled up the reservoir, notarized the papers that would allow the cemetery to open my dad's final resting spot, and sent us on our way. So, here we are, heading east on new Interstate 2 (yup, what we used to call big 83!) toward Mercedes and Harlingen. I knew there was a really tall overpass coming, so I figured I'd better take photos now, 'cuz I sure wouldn't be in any shape to record when we hit that bad boy. (Welcome, for you new readers, what you don't know is that I am *terrified* of heights, and if you continue reading (and why on earth wouldn't you???), you will see a recurring theme of bridges and the anxiety they cause me)
Soooo, we drove for miles and miles, finally getting to Falfurrias, and the Border Patrol inspection station. Not really sure what was going on, but the covered inspection area seemed to be blocked off. How could they inspect anything if all traffic was being funneled into one lane of travel?
Thankfully, we didn't see our photos up on the wall of wanted....
There goes the pup....we passed his inspection, the guard motioned us to stop (we ALMOST got to a complete stop), he asked if Driver was a US citizen, got his favorable answer and simply waved us on. As I said, we ALMOST came to a complete stop. Whole process, from first sniff to final wave, may have taken all of 3 seconds. Now, you tell me....how did they know if we were carrying contraband or even extra passengers? How would they know if we had been hijacked and held hostage, forced to drive a passel of 'em up into our beloved country? They never asked for our papers, our passport, not even our driver's licenses. To be truthful, I'm not even really sure they knew I was in the coach, even though I was sitting up front in the other captain's chair!
A little farther down the road, we came to the rest stop. A friendly reminder was posted for our benefit. But, ya know, one of the very first things they taught us at the zoo was that there was no such thing as a poisonous snake. Oh, yes, there are certainly VENOMOUS snakes, and they'll be just as happy to strike as not....but, no such thing as poisonous snakes. You would think that the biologists responsible for protecting the state's wildlife would communicate that to the DOT peeps responsible for protecting the state's travelers. Or maybe not, I guess.
Ahhhh, yes. There's Corpus, coming right up. Doesn't look like much of a city downtown, does it? That's 'cuz it's not skyscrapers, as you would expect of a downtown area. It's a humongous refiner. Yup, that's where the magic happens, turning petroleum into the gasoline and diesel that keeps this country rolling.
And here's the Welcome Committee at Freightliner....he wasn't exactly aggressive, but he certainly wasn't friendly, either. He followed us around, so I think maybe he was just curious about Bailey.
The Driver's Lounge was open to us, and had a TV, but it was on some football game, there was no remote available, and oh my, the stink! So, we grabbed a couple of magazines and made ourselves comfortable in the Parts Department showroom. We each tried out a couple of new chairs until we had our Goldilocks moment and settled in for a long day.
Our beast, big as it is, was dwarfed by the rigs on the lot and in the bays.
And what, exactly, was the problem you might ask? Well, after about 4 hours of diagnostics, they couldn't find one. Hush now...I hear you giggling over there. Yes, FOUR HOURS. Best they could gather, there was an air bubble in the reservoir or lines, or something, and it passed through the sensor, like a big fart. The service manager was really nice and spent about an hour talking to Freightliner Corp about who was going to pay for the diagnostic hours. Thankfully, they came through and we didn't have to foot that bill. Around 11 am, we loaded up the car on the dolly and headed out. Straight into pea-soup sea fog! It cleared a little bit, as we neared the REAL downtown Corpus. I was so relieved, 'cuz, last I recall, there were a couple of opportunities to get royally screwed as we passed through. One lane would take us down by the seaside, with absolutely NO place to turn around, and another lane would take us clear across town (on the aptly named Crosstown Expressway), and worst of all, in the wrong direction, with no chance to exit and turn around! Yeah, I was really sweating it, 'cuz, well, you know....'cuz I'm the navigator, and it's much easier to go the right way than it is to turn this baby around!
The fog cleared just enough for me to get ONE shot of the USS Lexington. Pretty sure you can't even see all the planes on the deck, nor the flags strung from the bridge, but, they're there.
Ah, yes. How does one traverse Corpus Christi Bay? Why, over the Portland Bridge, of course. How high is the Portland Bridge?
Too damn, if you ask me. (spoiler alert: 538 feet high) It was started in 1959, and it was designed with a 50 year lifespan. Now, you KNOW I can't do math, right? So I used a calculator. That bridge should have fallen down in 2009. Pretty sure that means it's 11 YEARS past its expiration date. Ummmm, 'scuse me....but I don't think concrete and steel are like eggs and milk, whose expiration date is a SELL-BY suggestion, not necessarily a USE-BY deadline. Soooo, the Harbor Bridge, a new, higher, longer span, is currently in the works. Except it's no longer. What happened gentle readers ask. Well. Apparently, the company building the new bridge is the very same one responsible for the
pedestrian bridge that collapsed in Florida International University in Miami, in 2019. So, the powers that be have decided that they need to engage another engineering company to review all the design work and examine all the structures built so far. And work on the new bridge has ceased. I was too busy navigating to get a photo, but it's weird, seeing this span that starts on the ground and goes up and up and up, and then just stops.
I believe they call this Indian Point. We often see water in the streets, sometimes even up to the campers' floors. It's one of the campgrounds we considered, but only briefly. Sure, the view is beautiful, but the weather is often less than ideal. Plus, there's the salt factor....and salt is certainly not easy on the rig.
This is the view coming in to Portland, on the down side of the Portland Bridge. Where is it? I dunno, down there somewhere.
Dottie's teddy bear is helping me look for the edge of the road (that's important, since there's not much room between the edge of the road and a short drop to the bay waters).
See what I mean? We could be over that little barrier in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
But, we arrive in Rockport safely, no wrong turns, no accidents, no incidents. Thank you, good Lord, thank you. We arrived at lunchtime, and, of course, the office is closed. So we got out and walked around the park, looking for where we might be going. We found two sites that look feasible, and we really could only get into one of them. The other had a tree at each side of the entry, preventing us from getting into the site without disturbing the neighbors across the way. When the office opened back up, we went in to register and found we were assigned to the site we couldn't enter. Yup, Dick Luck strikes again. After some discussion with the manager, the clerk was able to change our site to the other one, and we were able to park the rig successfully in just a few minutes, and with only one neighbor vehicle moved. Yaay. Nope, sorry, no photo available yet, but I'll get one before we leave.
Of course, we had to hit up Charlotte Plummer's straight away. You can see Aransas Bay out the window.
Here are the shrimp boats that brought our dinners back to the docks.
Dick opted for the full size portion; there was plenty on his plate, but I shared one of my bacon-wrapped shrimp with him anyway. 'Cuz I'm nice like that. heehee Don't worry, won't happen again.
The next day, we set out on our bikes to explore the new greenway. Really, we were going to get liquid soap and mouthwash, 'cuz we were out, but it was a good chance to stretch our legs and check out the greenway. We were advised that we would be sharing the territory with alligators if we strayed off the concrete or boardwalk. No worries, we stayed on the path!
The next night, we went dancing, and what do ya know? There were four couples of NSDCA members!! That's pretty good, considering there were only 10 couples there, and one of them was the caller and his wife! Oh, sorry, NSDCA stands for National Square Dance Campers Association.
Tuesday, we decided to load up and hit a few geocaches. We had two travel bugs in our possession that we picked up at Meteor Crater, AZ, back in September. SepTEMber! Yeah, that's a big no-no, keeping a travel bug that long. We REEEEALLY need to ditch them. Here's Driver down at the Veterans' Memorial. It was coooold and windy, and really, not a lot of fun. And we didn't find the cache either.
Yesterday, Wednesday, it was cold and rainy off and on, all day. ALL day. It was really funny, about 1 o'clock, we took advantage of a break in the rain to walk the dog. I think everyone in the park did the same thing! We were all bundled up and walking quickly, dodging the puddles, but we got the job done.
The weather promised to be so much better today, so we grabbed our jackets and the pup, and we headed out again. I had seen that the geocache we didn't find was really a magnetic box, so it had to be in one of the helmets at the memorial, not the flowers, where we had been looking. We found that one, then another one at the Chamber of Commerce, and then went to bustling down town Rockport. It's very similar to our last town of residence, Crystal River, in that they have a boardwalk down by the bay (river, in FL) and lots of quaint little shops that cater to the tourists for souvenirs and locals for decor and home accessories. This was one of my favorite signs.
The Sandhill Cranes have returned. Rockport and Aransas Pass are famous for being home to Whooping Cranes, but these are their cousins, Sandhill Cranes.
They usually don't come back till early Spring, but they appear to be a bit early this year. Apparently, they are tired of the winter weather of up north too.
One of the geocaches was located outside the labyrinth beside the Hospice House. What a lovely place to ponder. Or wait for Driver to go back and get the car.
We finally found a good spot to drop one of our travel bugs. We had plans to drop the other one at another cache near the dog park. (spoiler alert: we didn't want to bushwhack, so we didn't really find that one & as a result, still have the travel bug)
The final geocache brought us to the Bruhl-Paul-Johnson House, which now houses the History Center. I thought I was going to provide you a link to learn the interesting facts about this charming old house. Ha. If you want the history, you'll have to read the placards below (it is really VERY interesting). Remember, you can click on the photos to open them in a new, larger window. The History Center is closed one day a week. Can you guess which one? If you guessed Thursday, today, you would be correct! We readily found the cache, but we'll have to tour the house another time.
Back down in the Heritage District, you'll never guess what we found. Ok, well, maybe you will, since you know us so well. Yup, we are back in Blue Bell country!
Housed in the former pharmacy of A. Bruhl, is
Goin Coastal Outfitters, the self-proclaimed (accurately, too, from what we could tell) best T-shirt shop in all of Rockport. The building was very old, that was obvious, but the products inside were fresh and pretty. We had a lovely chat with the owner (whose name I neglected to get, sorry) and learned a lot about Belize, believe it or not! We shared geocaching with her, and of course, Driver had to sample the Southern Charm Blackberry and Happy Tracks (vanilla base with fudge ripple and chocolate/peanut butter cups), one big scoop of each, in a homemade waffle cone. All is right in our world. We promised the owner we would return to the History Center to learn all about her building.
So, ya wanna know what ELSE we did today? This morning, prior to setting out, we spent some time on getting paperwork together to submit a claim against Dad's life insurance. Charlie (my brother) had found a MONY policy from years back, and tracked it down and submitted a claim for the two of us. Well.....here's the thing. They rejected my part of the claim for two reasons. One, he accidentally recorded my maiden name, not my married name, and I didn't know that, so I completed my W9 with my married name. Nope, can't do that. Names must match. But the REAL kicker is that he put his address down as my address to get the check. He actually did that with my knowledge, and permission, because that would make getting the check a lot quicker and easier, and theoretically, faster. Besides, my legal FL address has a Box Number, and the insurance company refuses to send any checks to PO boxes. So, ok, we'll use his address. But, again, on the W9, I entered my legal FL address so that I wouldn't get taxed on all our income by Arizona. 'cuz, you know, if you earn money in any state, they have the right (!!!) to tax your entire income in that state. Including your spouse's, if you file jointly. So, for me getting the princely sum of $5K in Arizona, they would get to tax all the millions (cough-cough) we make with our pensions and Social Security. Yeah, not the desired outcome, not at all, so that's another reason to record my proper, legal Florida address. But, again, doesn't match. MUST match. So, what are we to do? Well, I have to refile the paperwork, with names and addresses to match, and I have to write a letter, and GET IT NOTARIZED, authorizing them to send my check to Charlie's house. Really now. So, I wrote the letter, printed it, and all the other forms out, and trucked my spare parts on down to the bank, to see the Notary. She notarized the letter, no problem. Then, one of the forms required my signature (attesting to the fact that I wasn't trying to commit a fraudulent act) and a witness to my signature. Whaaaa??? You know we've only been here a week, so we really don't know anyone but the lady in the office. The insurance lady had told me the Notary could witness my signature. HA. The Notary lady told me otherwise. Bank employees cannot be witnesses. I can't even begin to count the number of documents I witnessed when I worked at Chesapeake Bank & Trust, back in the dark ages. I guess that's all changed with the times. But, she did mention that my witness should be someone I knew well, because, should this ever go to court, *I* would be responsible for producing my witness. Well, Crap. What to do, what to do? We went back to the camper and asked the neighbor, our new best friends, if they would mind witnessing me sign the document. Bless their hearts, they did so, without question or hesitation. I guess the insurance companies don't really recognize or understand this full-time RV lifestyle. I know we can't be the first ones to be in this position though, can we? Really?
And, on the plus side, Saturday, we took a ride up to Victoria, our old stomping grounds and had a lovely visit with Roger & Rosemary, our former next door neighbors, and their new puppy, Charlie. Charlie is only 3 months old, and just a fuzzy ball of energy. Old lady Bailey was really sweet with him, and tolerated him well. Didn't play with him much, but she didn't bite him, so I count that as a win! After a lovely dinner at La Tejanita, where 3 of us enjoyed bacon-wrapped mozzarella/jalapeno stuffed shrimp (the other suffered through plain grilled shrimp), we had a long, dark ride home, with only one quick stop at the Dairy Queen in Tivoli. Yes, John & Lora, that is the SAME Dairy Queen we stopped at, TWICE in one day, years ago. :)
So, next week promises to be jam-packed, once again. Tuesday, we will head to San Antonio, to Ancira RV, where we will, hopefully, get our awning issue resolved. And, maybe (or maybe not) we will get back to Freightliner there, to have them look at our headlights. They don't seem to go to highbeam, and that might be an issue, so we figured we'd get it looked at before we need them again. And, if we're REALLY lucky, we'll hook up with Lolly and Allen, who have been following in our footsteps, and touring Arizona and western Texas. (Casa Grande & El Paso, to be exact) She got a MUCH better picture of that giant road runner in Los Cruces, NM.
OK, so hubby has taken pup on her final walk of the night, and now it's time for me to unload the dishwasher and go see about a hot shower. If you've read this far, THANK YOU! Hope you weren't bored to tears. We really have been seeing some interesting sights (and sites!) and in spite of the one day of cold rain, we are enjoying the weather. Especially when we compare our high temps to those of our friends in Florida....hello, Charles & Barbara! And I'm not EVEN gonna look at what John S is suffering through in Indiana! You have my sympathies.
Y'all be safe out there, lots of crazies. And sea fog.
