A Full Day Of Things To Do

Down the street from our campground here in Harlingen, is the Marine Military Academy.

One of the Memorial Plaques.
Another Memorial Plaque
Harlon Block is also buried here.

His Grave

I am in the picture to give you an idea of how big the monument is.

From the Military Academy we headed out for South Padre Island where they were having a Kite Festival. Along the way we past Bobz World and had to turn around so we could check it out.

It was pretty cool on the outside and they are still adding to the over sized sculptures.

Joyce at the main entrance.

This place is what I call a really big junk shop.

They do had all kinds of dorky hats.

Neat huh?

From Bobz, we continued to the Kit Festival this link will take you to the 2009 show. I never knew kites like they had there even existed.
Some more of the different kites.

Video of the Kites as they move to music.

From the Kite show we decided to get on the beach and do some beach running. The road started to get covered with sand from the cross wind.

We finally found a way to the beach from the road. There was beach as far as you could see. At times we were doing 45 MPH. Was a fun time!

Coming back from Padre Island there was a light house on this historic site.

This is a shot of the lighthouse as we came across the bridge.

Harlingen, Tx.

Got up this morning and headed out for the most southern part of Texas in search of warmer weather. Got this pic as we were pulling out of the Walmart parking lot where we spent our night.
As we came into Kingsville, Tx. we stopped to see the King Ranch.

Here we are!

Welcome

Some info. on the Ranch

We didn't get to see much of the livestock because you get the tour by sitting in a van as the tour guide drives you around the ranch. We did see these two guys doing some head butts.

This gentleman is a fifth generation of one of the original ranch hands that live and work on the ranch.

Sign in front of his house.

This is a shot of the original home of the owner of the King Ranch.

This is a shot of the newer home in back of the original. This home is not open to the public, in fact we couldn't even stop in front of the house for pictures.

After leaving the Ranch and got on the highway, Joyce got some time behind the wheel while I looked for a small rattle. I found It!

Once we got to our destination campground, I went to see if I could get my knee drained. This time I was able to get it done, yea!!!! They drained 26 cc's of fluid. This should hold me till march and maybe I'll get lucky and it won't fill up again.

From the hospital, we went on a search for BBQ Brisket. We found a place and the meal started with bean soup that was very good. Note the size of the drink.

And the Brisket was very good.

Tomorrow I get to wash the coach and see what we can find of interest in the area.

Just Beyond Corpus Christi

While traveling on route 77 and passing through Victoria, Texas I stopped to fuel up. While I was fueling, Joyce spotted this memorial that was littered with water filled milk and soda bottles.
This sign was posted at the memorial. Joyce was able to find out that on May 14, 2003 a refrigerator truck that had left Brownsville stopped here for fuel. The trucks cargo was sixty (60) illegal immigrants that were being smuggled into Texas. When the driver stopped to fuel, he noticed that the refrigeration unit on the truck was not running. He open the back door to find that the people in his truck were dying due to the heat. Of the sixty, nineteen had given their lives for a chance to live in this country. How sad!

The day has come to an end and we are in a Walmart parking lot. We will be moving on to the King Ranch in the morning.

Visiting Friends

Got ready to leave this morning to visit a friend and his dogs. As we approached the Jeep we had a visitor and her family.

Here's the kids.

If you have been following our Blog, you'll remember Frank and his traveling companions Chesky and Ziva that we met at the Tiffin campground in Red Bay, Al.
Not one of my better pictures, Joyce moved fast as I took the picture but it was such a good shot I had to post it anyways. Ziva has doubled in size since we first saw her in November at Red Bay.

And as you can see, Joyce had to get her puppy fix again.

We all went out for lunch at a local restaurant and the food was great.

The girls waited patiently in the truck during lunch. Chesky was guarding the back seat. She is really a cool dog.

On our way home from visiting we stopped so I could get my knee drained for the third time. Well that was a bad idea. Filled out all the paperwork and did the usual sit and wait to get called thing.

Finally was moved to a cubical to wait again for the doctor to come in and drain the knee. Ten minutes later the doctor comes and and asked me a bunch of questions about the knee and then announced that doesn't drain knees and I would have to make an appointment to see an orthopedic doctor. Can you believe that, and they wanted to charge my insurance for doing nothing. Long story short, I did not pay and neither will my insurance company. And I still have to get the knee drained!!!!!!!

From La. To Tx.

We spent the last couple of nights in a state campground outside of Lafette, La. We didn't have very good cell or broadband service so I wasn't able to post. Doesn't matter because I really didn't have anything to post about.
We hit the road early so we could get to our first stop at a reasonable time. Guess where we stopped for lunch! Yum!!

So we made it to our campground just south of Houston and a half hour after parking, this guy went by. Hum......I wonder who or what they are looking for. Anyways, this is the view from our windshield.
Here we are for a couple of days in the hopes of the rain passing before we hit the road. It's tough trying to find somewhere to wash the coach so we try not to travel in wet weather.

Last Day Here And Many Things To See

The day started of bad. Had a brake pad failure on the right front wheel.

I did get some scoring of the rotor so I picked up a new rotor. The problem was I wasn't able to get the old rotor to brake free from the hub. After a while of beating on it I decided to leave it and just replace the pads. They will wear in to the scored rotor and I wanted to get this job done. Everything worked out good.

Once I finished we went out for a ride to see some local sights. On our way we passed by a section of New Orleans that had four cemeteries in a row so we stopped at one to look around.

This memorial was for the fallen confederate soldiers

This was mounted below the monument.

Some of the Tombs were casted metal while others were granite or some type of stone or concrete.

The cemetery was very large with numerous tombs.

From the cemetery, we traveled a couple of miles to what is called City Park. The park is huge and contains a botanical garden, a railroad the runs the circumference of the park, a museum, and a sculpture garden.

With so many things to photograph, I tried to be a bit selective about the subject matter like this guy trying to escape.

This is a very large spider that is about twelve feet in diameter and five feet high.

And there's a giant safety pin. Hate to change the diaper that came from!

This poor guy couldn't take it any more. And he lost the top of his head also!

Is this the window of opportunity???

The tree behind Joyce has actually grown onto the bridge wall.

This is another bridge date around 1920.

The trees were very old, large, and beautiful.

Is this part of the changing times among water fowl. They swam together as a couple.

As we left this great park, we detoured to the center of New Orleans so we could pass the Dome where the game was about three hours away from starting.

Looking to buy some tickets for the Saints vs Vikings game.

Go Team

A few miles from our camp we came across what looked to be an abandoned religious complex.

The were large building on both sides of the main road but no activity in the complex. Looks like it was shut down after Katrina.

In the back of the above building, we found this old mission????

Across the street is this chapel with beautiful detail. The front door was missing handles so we were not able to view inside.

Well that was a pretty full day and we are now watching the football playoffs so I will say goodnight!