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| Cheeky drive by shot of Houston |
After saying goodbye to Louisiana
we entered Texas and made our way down to the coast where we had planned to
spend two nights camping on the beach at Mustang Island State Park. Not quite
knowing Rodge’s capabilities in the sand we didn’t stray too far down the beach
and picked a spot where we thought we would be slightly out of the howling wind
and have the luxury of a picnic table at our disposal.
Thinking the wind would dissipate
with the setting of the sun, we strolled up and down the coastline just taking
in the scenery and a quick splash in the Gulf of Mexico. When the sun finally
dipped beneath the horizon and the wind made no attempt at dying down we
attempted to cook dinner – somewhat problematic without being able to get our
camp stove started. Nevertheless we persisted and finally got her going and
shared our meal with a quick visit from Mr Fox who didn’t stick around long
enough to have a family portrait with us.
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| Beach Camping @ Mustang Island S.P. |
Mustang Island, like much of the
southwest of Texas, is renowned for its star gazing. So like all good tourists,
Nic and I settled back to enjoy the light show. Nic took the honours in the shooting
star competition, ousting me 3-0. Apparently my attention span isn’t quite as
good as hers.
The next morning we decided to
forego our second night and make our way closer to Big Bend N.P.– our main goal
in heading to this part of Texas. In part due to the sand that had made its way
into every orifice available, and partly to shorten the driving hours per day.
This left us with the notion of
just pulling up whenever we had had enough driving for the day. This happened
to be just before Del Rio, at a sort of RV Park/Motel/Road Side Bar where we
asked the proprietors if we could pitch our tent on an available patch of
grass.
Ray and Shirley, the owners, were
only too happy to oblige and we were encouraged to just ‘hang loose’ and make
ourselves comfortable, said about 10 times in a 5 minute conversation. It was
only later that we realised this enthusiastic encouragement may have been
exaggerated by the number of drinks Shirley had been pouring herself.
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| RV Park/Motel/Road Side Bar Camping @ Alibi Hill |
Still it
was one of those ‘sort of bucket list’ items we have and the night turned out
to be quite the laugh. The bar was filled with some obscure political posters,
one simply reading ‘Obama Sucks’ and another with quite the funny anecdote.
“Remember when Ronald Reagan was President. At
that time we had Bob Hope and Johnny Cash.
Now
we have Obama and NO hope, and NO cash!”
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| Walmart breakfasts - what better way could you start your day! |
We were up and going early the
next morning, heading to Marathon, our last stop before heading into Big Bend
N.P. It should be said that the drive through South West Texas is beautiful.
Rolling hills, hidden valleys and canyons, rocky outcrops and three churches
per town (no matter how small), and one really does feel like you are driving
through God’s country. It was during these drives that Nic and I amused
ourselves with a game of State Capitals. Cottoning on from Bec and Sally, we
decided to learn the state capitals of each American state, and we are quietly
confident we now know them all.
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| Pecos River, Texas |
The day’s driving was only meant
to be a short one but we ran into a slight problem at our first border control
outpost. Being so close to the Rio Grande, and thus the Mexican border, there
are numerous border control stops and not having an American entry stamp can
cause some dramas. So after explaining our story (the truth is the knob at
Miami, for some unknown reason, didn’t stamp my passport. At the time, I thought
it was because I had previously entered America and perhaps it is now all
digital, and a simple scan of my passport would reveal when I entered. And
although this is actually the case, one still needs a stamp) we were directed
to head back to Del Rio and explain ourselves to the authorities down at the
actual border. So seven people and two hours later I was the proud owner of my
arrival stamp and we were back on our way to Marathon.
It all worked out for the best,
as fate would have it, arriving in Marathon when we did completely changed our
Big Bend experience… But that story is for another time.
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| Motel Camping @ Marathon |
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