The 2006 Travels of Richard n Shirley

Here we are in our space 41 at the campground. We have an asphalt drive with a concrete pad to set on. The pad is level. Now if we had another 5 foot of electrical wire, we could have hooked up. but since we were short, we had to move about 5 feet to hookup to power. But we are still level. Once the livingroom slide is out, we can drop the jacks and relevel the RV.

The grass is mowed but not weedeat. They have grass burrs here and they get on your socks.



This is the back view or our space. We have set up the DTV and DW dishes. We are having a problem getting the King Dom to ind the satellite. No trees, etc but it just goes on by. I guess I will have to hook onto the tripod to get DTV if the K-D does not find the satellite.

Its been warm here. Currently 86 out of Alice, TX. We are a week ahead of schedule and will see if we can stay here 3 more days so that our exit is on a monday vs a friday. With the plane ride later to be on a wednesday, we need a tuesday exit/arrival. After I post this, we will drive to the gate and see if we can stay in our spot an extra 3 days.

This is a view to the northwest of the campground. The two nearest 5th wheels are the camp hosts spots. We are two down from them. The host on the right has a Direcway dish up with tv lnb and is shown as Speedstream. Dont kow if they are registered on the datastormusers.com site or not.

A view toward the southeast of the campground. All of the spaces are turnouts or spurs and our group, 24-48, has full hookups. There is another group, 1-23, which has only water and electricity. The rates for the full is $18 per day or 6 days for 7, $108. They have monthly also. With the park pass, we don't pay the per person fee, $4 here, per day. The pass is $60 or $75 for two. Without the pass, you must pay the daily fee EVERY day. We saved $56 with the pass here plus what we saved at the last state park. We will have the pass paid for on the next state park stop.

EDIT: We did get our three day extension till 11/20 which is a monday. This works well for our plans later. Still no critters yet but its only 4:15 pm.

The roads here are good and there is lots of trees and bushes nearby. So far no "critters" to report. If and when we see any, we will try to get pics.

Mileage: 55 from our last campground
Temp: 86 with 91 heat index, pc skies.
GPS: N28* 03.750', W97* 52.612'
DW dish: 145.9* azimuth, 53.3* elev, -25.7* Skew

This is our spot #136 at Choke Canyon State Park. We checked the internet and all spaces were available. We got here and the space we have is good for tonight and friday night. Then we would have to go to the office on saturday morning by 8 am to get our name in the "waiting" list. All campers wishing to stay another day(s) must come to the office by 9am to see if they can stay in their spot or get on the waiting list if their spot has been reserved. Reservations are taken over any resident campers.




This leaves us without a space for saturday and sunday since the reservation list is growing. Our space is taken for the weekend. We went to eat at DQ and talked about what to do and decided to go to our next stop at Lake Corpus Christy Lake state Park. Its a 55 mile trip one way but they have a space for us for a week. We took it. We will spend thursday night at Choke Canyon Lake since its paid for, $16.00 for water and sewer only, no full hookups there, and friday and the next 7 days with full hookups at the new location. We have gotten up on friday morning, ate breakfast, packed up and drove south the 55 miles to our new and current location.

Remember I said this was not the pretty part of the state. Here is the country side taken from the suv at 60 mph. Ain't it lovely! This is what we have seen since we left Salado. This is the same as it was in Goliad. But its warm, or bordering on hot. Days are in the mid to upper 80's with nights in the low 60's. Mmmmmm nice.

Mileage from Goliad: 81
GPS: N28* 29.359, W 98* 20.646

We did not setup either dish, hence no numbers.

Its been quite here. We did go to Refugio yesterday afternoon. The country side here is mesquite trees, tall grass, some native oaks and I did say mesquite trees didn't I. The break is when the land is or has been plowed. Not very pretty. The town is much larger than Goliad. Goliad has next to no industrial base and Refugio is the same. Both are county seats. The Goliad courthouse is much older and prettier. The Refugio courthouse has been replaced and is not of the old design and appearance. We did find the city park with the RV parking. There were 5-6 pull thru's with twice that in backins. All sights we cought see had full hookup. The rate was $12 per night and there were rates for weekly and monthly.

We did get an email from Janis that one of our classmates has died. We met Mickey and Patti Ivey last year at the Rend Lake gathering. Mickey has the RVNotebook software for keeping track of the RV and toad expenses as well as camping information. Mickey was in his 60's and Patti in her 50's. At that time he was complaining of having chest problems but he didn't take it seriously. On tuesday of this week Mickey suffered a fatal heart attack. Patti was not home at that time. They had arrived in Las Vegas to visit some friends. We and those that met and knew them will miss their presence in the days and weeks ahead. Patti's plans for her future are yet to be determined.

We will be moving tomorrow to Choke Lake to the state park there for probably five days. We will not have sewer connection so we will stay till our grey tank is full. From there we will be going to Lake Corpus Christy for a week where we will have full hookups again. There DW will wash the clothes and we will sightsee the area. This will be our last "cheap" parking spot. We will be in commerical campgrounds for the rest of Nov and all of Dec. Be a real shock to us to be paying higher prices and having such close neighbors.

So, more later when we get to the next stop. Please pray for Patti.

This is our afternoon tour. We found these two older homes and took their pics.The white home is real home for somebody. Not able to see from here but it might have a basement for storage, etc.



The red house is a former home of somebody but today it is the home of a business, a funeral home. Its pretty and well kept. I liked its different appearance's.

We did make it to the post office and get the suv washed. All I need to do is wash the windows and the red will shine

We are going to do a day trip into Goliad this afternoon. Instead of the historic downtown in the pic, we are going to look around at the rest of the town. I would like to find a car wash too. I'm sure there is more to see than we have found.

A cannon dated to the mid 1800's.
We have spent the morning doing house work, washing clothes, and looking for places to stay in the rio grand valley, RGV. We plan on spending 2 weeks down there and then a week maybe in Lardeo. There must be hundreds of parks in the RGV. One week is going to be around Port Isabelle. The second week is to be west toward McAllen some where. Got to look first as prices vary for a week stay. And we must plan for the flight DW will make to go back home for a week.

This is the "Angel of Goliad" that is respondsible for saving many of Col. Fannin's men from sure death later. Not alot is said of her but she deserves as much headlines as the men of the Goliad battle. Read about her so you will learn about her courage.

This bronze statue is near the Fannin burial marker which you can see in the background. So far the statue does not have any written marker as of yet. She deserves the same history reference as the men of Fannin's army that died.









This is the "Mission Espiritu Santo" which is behind the registration building on the park grounds. It is worth a visit on the outside as well as the inside. Simply beautiful! It has a long history and was abandoned for about a 100 years, roof and some walls fell in. The CCC put it all back together in the 30's.

There are many pics in the link reference of the outside and outside and grounds of the building. This was a fort in its day and was there to protect the local citizens.









This pic is of the grave of Col Fannin and his men that were captured and held a week. Their fate was ordered by Gen Santa Anna and on a sunday the were shot and most were killed. Many were able to run and escape. Many more were saved by the "Angel of Goliad".

Texas has a very interesting history. It is the only state that was a republic prior to becoming apart of the United States. Among its better known fighters of that time is a man by the name of Davy Crockett.