Last night we spent our first night at a Texas rest stop. Most, if not all, of the roadside rest stops in Texas allow at 24-hour stay. It stems back to the depression era when people were moving west to look for work and needed a place to camp for the night.
After our excursion in Austin yesterday, we actually found a Wal-Mart near the city that allowed overnight parking. At first glance, you wouldn’t think they would allow it because it is a smaller store. After we asked the manager inside, they gave us permission as long as we park in a designated area which we happily obliged.
Last night after we left Houston, we started to make our way towards Austin, Texas. At the town of Bastrop, 35 miles east of Austin, we passed the midway point of Ventura, CA and Key West Florida. We are now officially closer to where we started back in July 2012 than Hemingway’s polydactyl cats.
This morning Luka found a new past time in the Airstream. He found the toilet paper roll and decided that it was fun to unreel the entire roll on to the floor of the bathroom. Our sweet little boy is slowing turning into a little devil.
Our campground in Dickinson is located about 20 miles southeast of Houston. It is just about right in the middle between Houston and Galveston just a few miles away from Johnson Space Center. We intentionally found a spot there so we would be able to spend the day at the Space Center after we check out in a couple of days. Today, we are headed into Houston.
We found a Cracker Barrel last night after our failed search for a Walmart where the GPS asked us to exit an off ramp that did not exist. It took us further down the freeway in the town of Beaumont, Texas. We don’t really have any plans of staying here long except to meet someone we have been friends with online who happens to live in this town.
From New Iberia, Avery Island is just a few short miles away. Since our only purpose to come down here is to see Avery Island, we headed straight there as we got ready in the morning.
When we were still in the panhandle of Florida, we decided that, for the first time, we will try to plan a route and itinerary back to California. We knew that if we didn’t at least try to have some ideas of where to go and how long to stay, we would certainly miss my commitment of being in California for a work meeting. Our original plan to be back to California for Ava’s 6th birthday in January was missed by a more than 2,600 miles on the opposite side of the country. We love having that kind of flexibility but sometimes you just have to answer when work calls.
We wish we can stay longer here but because of the Super Bowl, this weekend is completely booked. Well, the fact that half of the campground was not open due to construction did contribute a bit to that I suppose. We talked to one of the grounds person here and he told us that 9 times out of ten, a request to dry camp there would not be a problem. We thought about it but decided to just push on. Even though we still have about a month left before we need to be back in CA, we like the idea of getting closer before slowing down.
Today the clouds dissipated and left us with pools of water once again in the low lying areas around the campground. Our stay here has been a little disappointing as many of the reasons why we liked this place last time were not quite the same. The facilities all seem a lot more run down than we remembered. Half of the campground was closed and slow internet has prevented me from getting a lot of work done.
It was a good thing we made a second trip into the city yesterday as today we woke up to rain. Actually, we have been hearing rain on the Airstream all night. We have been pretty lucky in the bad weather column of this trip in not seeing too much rain but it has finally caught up to us.
The forecast calls for some rain in our future so we decided to take the opportunity to get back into New Orleans to do some more sightseeing before it is too late. Once again, we are taking the bridge in and forgoing the Algiers Ferry. Maybe our next visit won’t land on the perfect storm of tourists in the crescent city and we will be able to get back on that boat across the Mississippi river.
