Texas – Eastern and Central

February 24, 2004

Texas – Eastern and Central

Eastern Texas is your expected oil rigs and natural gas pumps.  We were still experiencing cold (38 degrees), wet weather so it looked even more dreary.  While visiting Beaumont, TX we spent our time in museums.  We enjoyed:

• the Fire Museum, (as CERT volunteers, we enjoy anything related to the Fire Department)
• the Texas Energy Museum, (with all of the oil wells in the area, you might as well learn all about them)
• and the McFadden House.  (a beautiful home and carriage house from 1905)

These were all well-done, so we were surprised to be very disappointed with the Art Museum.

Here’s a picture of me in front of the Disney-donated fire hydrant at the Fire Museum:


I’m already struggling with my vegetarian diet that I try to maintain.  I thought it was a fluke that I ordered Vegetable Soup in Louisiana and it came with chunks of beef.  But then in Beaumont I ordered Spinach Enchiladas only to find chicken in it.  Do they feel the need to ‘warn’ me that there are vegetables in the food?  But the meat is a ‘given’?

In Central Texas we stopped in San Antonio and Austin.  We enjoyed both of these cities.  San Antonio has their beautiful little River Walk, and of course the Alamo.

The Alamo

Andy Washes the RV...while I watch!

Andy started a new hobby while we visited Groene, Texas – collecting pottery coffee mugs.  This purchase would be the first of many beautiful hand-made coffee mugs.

Austin has a nice Riverwalk area along the Colorado River in downtown.  The Congress Ave Bridge in Austin is well-known for their bats.  Unfortunately we’re not here at the right time.  You can expect to see them around mid-March or so.  And the Capitol is worth a visit and has a beautiful dome.

Capitol of Texas

What we didn’t understand about Austin was that everyone used Highway 35, so it was congested and very slow moving, and there were all of these other roads they could use that were empty.  Go figure.  While in Austin we stayed at McKinney Falls SP and enjoyed biking and kayaking within the park and our closest neighbors were deers and birds.

Biking over the Falls

Our campsite was huge, too.  They say everything is bigger in Texas, and so far we believe them.

This was the first area that we were able to use our road bikes.  We did a bike ride from Bastrop State Park to Beuscher State Park – hilly, curvy, and lots of trees – everything FL riding isn’t.  It was great!

Biking Bastrop to Beuscher

After leaving Austin, we stopped in Fredericksburg.  This town offers a great micro-brewery and a great war museum – the Nimitz Museum – so give yourself several hours for the museum.  We also drove out to the Enchanted Rock for some hiking.  We combined several trails to make a loop trail that took us up and around the granite dome and past weather-formed mushroom formations.  Supposedly rock climbers use this area, but we didn’t see anyone out today.

We’ve been really wanting to do some caving though since we’ve gotten into central Texas.  So we scheduled a guided adventure tour at Sonora Caverns.  We’ll be driving through the town of Sonora, TX on our way to Big Bend National Park.

RVing “Firsts”:  RV repair – tire guard snapped (we assume it broke driving through Louisiana)

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