Not many RVs here at the beach

Not a very exciting Christmas Day here at the beach. Despite the morning sunshine it wasn't very warm outside and the wind continued throughout the day. It was 11:00am before we decided it was warm enough to go out for a walk.

We did about 2.5 miles (4 kms) along Magnolia Beach. It's a public park, and there is a washroom building with 4 showers. One of them was unlocked, and it looked usable enough.

Christmas Eve at the beach!

We didn't have far to go yesterday, only 48 miles. As soon as we got to Port Lavaca, we stopped at the Walmart to do a little last minute grocery shopping and buy an emergency supply of beer. Wouldn't want to run out of beer during Christmas at the beach!

Got up to the cash, and the beer wouldn't go through. The cashier couldn't figure it out, until she remembered that you can't buy beer here until after noon on a Sunday. Who thinks up these ridiculous laws?

But, it was almost 11:30am, so we went and sat in Sherman for a half an hour and I went back to get the beer at noon.

Bit of a long driving day for us...

We were still on a bit of a mission to get some inexpensive propane, so after we said goodbye to Annette and Raymond, we made a quick detour to the U-Haul in College Station to fill up the tank.

We got there, and parked nicely beside the fill station and I went in to get the guy. He was already coming out because he saw us pull in.

He got the hose and everything ready, and I remembered to ask him the price. "$3.39 a gallon" he says. Yikes. That's not cheap!

No alligators to be seen.

Slept great in our out of the way boondocking spot. Then Sherman summoned the courage to use the narrow exit road, and we put on some miles heading west towards Bryan/College Station, Texas.

Along the way, we made a stop at another Texas State Park. This time, Hunstville State Park!

What we go through to get to a nice boondocking spot

We left the Livingston Municipal Airport at about 10:00am and drove the short distance to Lake Livingston State Park. We're only about 65 miles north of the big city of Houston, Texas so I'm sure this park is a zoo during the summer.

I went into the office to get our day use pass, using the $70 USD annual pass we bought the other day. Each Texas State Park sets it's own day use fees, and so we save $5 each at this particular State Park.

Don't mean to be gross, but...

What a great day we had yesterday!

After breakfast, we drove over to Martin Dies Jr. State Park. Went to the park office, and bought our $70 USD ($92 CAD) Taxes State Parks annual pass. (Thanks Mom!). The lady explained all of the benefits we get with the pass, including four coupons that give you half price camping for one night of any two night stay. Good deal, and we'll definitely take advantage of that over the next two weeks.

One thing we've learned about overnighting at airports.

It's been four and a half weeks since we left Ottawa and headed to the abnormally cold south east in the motorome. Yesterday, we drove west from Louisiana into Texas and it's been our warmest day yet, with a high around 24C (75F), we were able to open the windows and and still have our t-shirts on.

Finally! But, it didn't start off that way...

Never seen such a big spider web...

Kind of a coasting day yesterday. Nice to have those every now and again, although we still managed to get out and get some exercise. Went out before lunch and did a 5 km (3 mile) hike. Didn't really stop to take many pictures though.... did it more to get out and get the heart pumping.

And after lunch I took our oven burner apart yet again, and did some more adjusting.

This time, I got it right!

One of the things I love about traveling in an RV

Yesterday morning, we headed west through Alexandria, Louisiana early before there was any traffic. Stopped at the Home Depot and used their fast free wifi for a while before going in the store and buying a couple of things we need to finish up a few things on Sherman's interior.

Then, we went to the nearby Bed Bath and Beyond store. We had received a package from Amazon  the other day. We bought a new silk filled duvet for our bed. But now, we needed a duvet cover.

Another great overnight spot!

We were on a mission to avoid some heavy rain. Well, not avoid it I suppose, but at least be parked somewhere on solid ground.

Here in Louisiana, at 60 feet above sea level, puddles tend to form easily! And we didn't want to be parked in some forest campground on low land with a muddy dirt road.

We took the money and ran!

We made it out to do some exploring at around 10:30am. We were waiting for the sun to come out, but it didn't look promising!

I have to admit, we expected it to be warmer getting this far south. But, that's the problem with the southern U.S... decent weather is not guaranteed in the winter. One of the reasons we love Mexico in the winter. Once you are in that country,  you can have whatever weather you want within a four hour drive.

10 days on the Natchez Trace Parkway

We made a 20 mile (32 km) detour off the Trace yesterday to take in a ruins site that Ruth had read about.

Another really interesting story, where this wealthy landowner had built himself a huge mansion back in 1861. After completing the mansion, he died at age 34 only weeks later! The mansion survived the turmoil of the Civil War, only to be destroyed by fire when it accidentally burnt to the ground in 1890.

Clinton, Mississippi is worth a stop...

The city of Jackson, Mississippi (pop 170,000) didn't really offer much that we were interested in, plus the Natchez Trace Parkway goes around the outskirts of the city so we didn't feel the need to go off course too much when we were going through that area.

However, Ruth had seen a media display at the visitors center in Kosciusko that advertised the town of Clinton, which is sort of a suburb of Jackson.

A friendly welcome to Madison, Mississippi

We left Jeff Busby Campground early, hitting the road just after 8:00am. Nice clear blue sky all day, but still a little on the cool side. First stop was French Camp, a sort of recreation of old buildings from the 1800's.

They have a sort of visitors center there as well, but I think I read that it doesn't open until 10:00am.

The batteries will do for another six months or so...

Definitely a nicer day yesterday, with the temperature going up to about 63F (17C). We had already decided to make Monday a non-driving day, and just relax at the Jeff Busby Campground. We took our time getting outside, and finally went out to enjoy the day at about 11:00am.

Not many places to hike in this park, so we did the same route we had done on Sunday, but in reverse. Because we needed some exercise!