First Trip Experience: Texas!!

Well, we made it down there and back in one piece.  :)

The driving was tiring.  Expected that, not used to long stretches of nothing but road.  The seat, though, it gonna have to get some lumbar support for future travels.  Is cool, I have one in my car that I can try out. 

We got into Texas and stopped at the first Dairy Queen we could find, I finally got my tacos, lol.  The sauce wasn't the same, but it was still dang good and I devoured them. 

The puppies didn't know what to expect for a while.  The daughter's doggy sure gave my doggy some crap for a while, but then got bored yelping and settled down.  They both did really good, considering.  We kept water and food available, and they got regular potty breaks.  They were happy doggies for the most part.  Chevy, my doggy, did come down with double ear infections later on though. :(

Since we didn't leave til after 1pm on Monday the 23rd of March, we didn't make it too far south before it got dark enough for us to pull over.  We stopped in Ballinger, Texas to try out our first night at their Walmart there.  The place was only open from 7am to 10pm, but I thought we would just stay there instead of finding a 24 hour parking place.  For a full size bed...  me, the daughter and two little puppies managed to sleep pretty darn good.  After that many days, though, have figured out it does need an added layer of foam, denser on the bottom, possibly.  Bed was super comfy, but laying on my side I could feel the plywood on my hip a little.

There were two instances that were semi car trouble, but we still kept the van on the road.  The first instance was when I pulled over to get some gas.  Pulled up next to the station and it died there.  Ugh!!!   Absolutely hate that feeling, pulling up to stop and hoping your vehicle doesn't die.  I've had vehicles do that to me in the past and have pretty much been always dreading that feeling since then.   But anyways, it took off just fine and didn't die again on me, even with the millions of stop and goes we had over the next 9 days of the trip.

The second instance was when I stopped for gas to fill up.  Never did it before, but it had a little bit leak out after it was filled up all the way.  A nice older man at another pump noticed it at the same time I did.  Asked 'Is that you?', lol.  He got down on the ground with me even to help locate where it was coming from, then advised us which shop to take it to to fix it.  When I got there, the mechanic said he could order parts to fix it, but it wouldn't be in til the next day.  With two doggies in an unknown town, wasn't sure what to do.  Guess he took pity on me, told me if I just don't fill it all the way up, it can be driven and just fixed later.  I asked him if he would drive it like that, he said he would.  Decided to just keep going.  I put only a half tank of gas in the van when it got down to a fourth a tank, didn't have a problem again.

We made it down to near where mom and dad's turn off that leads to their place and let them know how close we were.  They were to meet us near the highway and show us the way.  It was really cute, we got near where they were and all of the sudden there they both were on side of the road, with flowers they had picked.  How cute was that?!

So we made it to mom n dad's place.  Spent five days there, checking out their place, driving around at the multitude of houses there, having some wonderful barbeque, visiting with the nephew and his girlfriend, walking doggies around the lake, it was really nice.   Even though they offered to put us up there, we opted to sleep in the van in the driveway. 

One of the days there we went to a town they are considering moving to, Rockport, Texas.  And I wanted dad to drive the van to give his opinion on the issues.  Rockport was nice, got to see the house they are considering buying, ate dockside and watch the seagulls, then drove to Ingleside, TX.  Ingleside is where we lived prior to moving to Corpus Christi.  There was a specific thing I wanted to do, spread some ashes near the canal John used to drive his little boat down from our house to go fishing.  It was pretty hard to do, but I think he would have liked it.  Here is a pic of him driving down the canal.

 

Here he was fishing in that bay. 

 

 

We left for lil sis's place on North Padre on Saturday, March 28th.  Corpus Christi drivers on a Saturday was more nerve wracking than I remembered.  Needless to say, once we made it in one piece to sis's town I was pretty much wore out.  It was cool, though.  Lil nephew had a ball game and so we had time to kill, went to the beach.  We hit the sand, the doggies liked sniffing everything.  Boy it was packed.  But yeah, it was a Saturday with gorgeous weather, of course it would be,  haha.    So we decided to hang out in the van for a while after walking the beach to kill time til the ballgame was over.  Had the front windows cracked, one of the back side windows open, a small fan blowing that ocean breeze through, snacks out, and a movie going, it was awesome!  Somehow mom n dad found us there, mom decided to hang out with us while dad went fishing.  She got a nap in.  ;)

Stayed at sis's place, parked right on the street in front of her house.  Never got bothered.  Was there from Saturday til Wednesday.  Ride on the golf cart, hanging by the pool, a hibachi grill with awesome food, good times!  I did take a bit of 'me' time off hanging out in the van, much to their dismay.  Sometimes an introvert must recharge.  That's me.  *shrugs* 

My daughter decided to leave a Hula John at the beach that she and John used to go to a lot when I was working.  I'm glad someone found it.  And it's kinda wild that I used to work with someone that knows the person that found it!!  (Thank you Johanna!!)   Here is a picture of my daughter leaving the doll.

Since we were leaving April 1st and sis's birthday was the 2nd, I did manage to sneak off and find her some goodies, I hope she liked them.  :)  The onery girl... on our way out, she managed to somehow snag a picture of me and kiddo driving down SPID, while she was driving, like right beside our window, lol.  I'll post that pic later.

Actually, will have to make a separate post of lots more pics.  This post is too long already.  :)  That and for some reason I can't get my pics to download off my phone..  aggravating, lol.

We left out April 1st about 1pm.  Lemme just say...  San Antonio traffic can kiss my ass!!   Bumper to bumper for more than an hour, ugh!!!   At one point I was so stressed out I had to pull off and just sit in the grass a bit.  haha!   Kiddo thought I was bonkers.  After that crap the kid took over driving.  It was awesome to have someone take over the wheel a while, I must admit.  She did admit the drivers seat sucked and hurt her back, too.  And also discovered how hard it was to keep the wheels straight with the play in the steering.  Total focus at all times gets tiring after a while, let me tell ya.  

We made it in after 2am April 2nd having driven straight through from North Padre Island, TX to Elk City, OK.  Doggies were wore out.  Bigger people were wore out.  I'm still recuperating.  Seriously!  lol

Will post some pics laters.  :)