On The Road

On The Road
Dutch Star and Subaru ready to go

Friday, November 16, 2012

Well, the first day of the trip had a few "mis-adventures" as well as adventures. We're traveling with Jeremy and Jane who have been staying with us for the last week.  The first little problem happened barely a mile from home with the tow hitch between his Beaver motorhome and towed truck. Apparently it failed to lock one arm in position but was easily fixed.
We stayed on highway 59 through Houston where traffic wasn't too bad and we made our first stop for lunch and puppy potty break at Warton.
Our plan was to spend the night in the Walmart parking lot in Beeville, Tx as this is where we stayed last year. I remember last year having a hard time finding the Walmart in Beeville and we had the same problem this year. But after wandering through the streets of town and asking directions at a gas station we finally found the store. However what we found when we drove into the parking lot was numerous signs saying "no overnight parking".. (I don't remember seeing them last year)
So.. off we went hoping to find a rest area or some other place we could stay between Beeville and Laredo. Nothing was seen except for a couple of highway picnic areas that were small and strewn with garbage. (These places give a terrible image of Texas)
Our idea of never driving at night didn't last long as it was dark by the time we reached Laredo and found Casa Blanca State Park.
Fortunately the park's gate office was still open and we paid for two nights as our plans are to cross the border on Saturday.  Unfortunately the park is quite large with no street lights and when given our site location needed to drive quite far from the gate entrance. In the dark I made a mistake by turning into a boat launch area which was too small to turn around. So Diane and I had to unhitch the PT Cruiser in order to get out of the boat launch area and finally find our site.
We'll stay the day on Friday and head out Saturday morning when we'll cross the Columbia bridge remembering to drive slow and careful along the first 15 or so miles in Mexico as this is a favorite hangout of Transit Police.