Saturday 12 November 2011 - Left New Orleans feeling very low and we drove - uneventfully - to Lake Charles. Spent the night at Walmart and had a BIG sleep to catch up on the previous nights debacle. Miles #212.9 ( 342.6 kms ) Bugs # 1080 OLD $13
Sunday 13 November 2011 - Texas!!!
I never knew Galveston was on an island. The Gulf Coast was pretty amazing with all the houses on stilts and quite a breeze blowing off the Gulf of Mexico. Galveston was quite beautiful and the day was very warm and muggy. we caught a large car ferry to get onto the Island and left via a bridge.
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| Car Ferry to Galveston |
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| Galveston |
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| Galveston |
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| Galveston |
We then went on to Austin Texas and arrived just in time to meet the dusk deadline for all the bats to fly out from under the Congress Avenue bridge. Unfortunately it was too dark for photos but there were 85 million small bats whizzing around the bridge pylons - quite remarkable. The night was beautiful and very mild and Austin is a very clean beautiful place.
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| Houston Texas |
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| Spaghetti roads |
We went to another Walmart as it was quite late but were moved on - some Walmarts don't allow campers and there were no signs to say this was one so we settled in for the night but then were told we couldn't stay. So - at 1 am we were on the road again. Everything in Austin seemed to be closed - couldn't even find a 24 hour Starbucks or Macca's so we drove for 50 miles until we came to a small town called Blanco. I really wanted to stop because if we got a flat tyre we would have been stranded and it was VERY VERY dark. We saw a caravan in a car park still attached to its car and figured they had pulled over to sleep so we parked next to them. Woke up the next morning to find we were parked in the Town Hall car park lol. Turned out it was quite a cute little town. Miles # 356.8 (574 kms) Bugs # 1092 OLD $13.00
14 November 2011 - a long uneventful drive through Texas heading towards El Paso - should get there tomorrow. The roads are good - very wide and very straight - too straight - had to pull in to a rest stop for an afternoon nap. After our moonlight flit the night before I was still a little tired - nothing a couple of hours snooze didn't fix. The Satellite Navigator sent us on a wild goose chase to the Cactus motel which didn't exist. It turned us into a very dubious little road - out in the middle of nowhere - lots of falling down shacks with lots of broken down cars in their yards. Then a dirt road........ petrol was low ...... it was getting dark.......seemed like the beginning of a horror movie so we beat a hasty retreat. Bought petrol at top dollar and took off into the sunset glad that the speed limit was 80 miles an hour. Now in bed at a Motel 6 in Van Horn Texas instead of being leading lady in the Texas Chain Saw Massacre number 46. Miles # 479.6 (771.8 kms ) Bugs# 1095 OLD $13
Welcome to Texas! I've lived in Austin for over 20 years and still haven't seen the bats. And oddly enough, I went to Blanco, TX for the first time on 11/10. I liked that little town, too.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you survived the scary West Texas dirt road.
P.S. the picture you have labeled Austin is really Houston.
Hi Kim - have corrected my Austin/Houston photo error - thank you for that :)
ReplyDeleteThe bats were worth seeing but it was very dark by the time they poked their ugly little heads out. Apparently they will stop coming out by mid November - maybe they nap through winter - I know I do :)
Wasn't Blanco cute - loved the little store on the right that had all the little Christmassy things out the front.
Cheers - Lesley