Touring Victoria Texas in our 2X2

Friday November 29^th

Victoria County Courthouse - built in 1892

The Victoria Convention and Visitors Bureau designed a driving tour of significant historical buildings in and near downtown. It was a glorious walk (2 feet x 2 feet) in the warm (60F+) sun - about 2 ½ hours for the green half (red tour next visit). Maybe if more folks walked the tour more folks could walk the tour.

Because this was Thanksgiving it was like a ghost town in the core…

Nobody!

This way too. We're right downtown

… but there were a few residents around as we walked the route.

This is a local joke - right?

Nope!

Mural of past businesses in this location (done in 1985)

Many homes echoed the styles we’ve seen in Galveston, Charleston and Savannah. Sumptuous and, in most cases, huge.

T.M O'Connor house (1889). What's on the front door?

Somebody has a fascination with spider webs.

This one (J.D. Mitchell house) was a mortuary for decades.

Ah thank ah'll have ma sweet tea on the upper balcony today dahlin'.

This was a 1908 wedding gift from rancher J. Ferdinand to his daughter Emily (MCCan).

Stone houses are rare here.John Donaldson had the stone brought down from the "Hill Country"

The Tour describes this as one of the city's most significant bungalows.

Looks like a full time painting project.

Victoria is wise to encourage the preservation of these beauties. Completely impractical in the little chunk of arctic we’re from but they look right at home here.

Managed to keep Norene out of the orange tree. Reminded her most Texans are armed.

Today’s little outing was not exactly an adventure but it was picturesque and showed us there is a lot more to Victoria than Wal-Mart and HEB (she wasn’t too keen on HEB after all – said it was too big and she couldn’t find stuff as easily as Costco). My experience was the usual – I was just as lost as anywhere else.

I will understand if you have drifted off day-dreaming about shopping as you look at the pretty houses. To spice things up for our next entry we’re on the hunt for savage wild animals, tall mountains or raging white waters on the way to Mission tomorrow.

The rush to Rosenberg Texas

Thursday November 28^th.

Since we were still fleeing the cold (this time from Nacogdoches) it looked like a smart
move would be to head a little south of Houston...

Houston in the fog as we passed through

This could be any city but it really was Houston. Not as much fun on an expressway in a motorhome with a toad as you might think

... and find a place to hole up (please excuse the Zane Grey terminology – we are in Texas after all) in Rosenberg so Norene could double back to Costco.

Who knew that out in the middle of a pasture – the inn would be full? Appears that the “pipeline project” has all the nearby campgrounds replete with oil patch workers and that our gusty drive on the local back roads would lead to “sorry guys – we wish you had called ahead”. Say what?

So we headed south to Victoria, the next city on I59 south. After consulting Passport America’s book we decided on the Lazy Longhorn RV Park. Reasonably spacious sites with banana trees and a lovely clubhouse.

Surely banana trees are a sign of warmer weather to come

Norene comes out from under the layers today (Thursday)

Even Smiley looks warmer in the sun

We’ve had a few chilly days (avg 45F day/34 F night) but it started to turn around yesterday (Wed the 27^th) and it is forecast to hit 60F today. Costco is out but we hit HEB today. Will that be enough? Stay tuned.

After a few days of mall walks at the Victoria Mall (too cold and rainy for walks outside) we finally got the sunny clear weather that we have been promised and Smileyed over to Riverside Park (beside the Guadeloupe River).

 

This is a Texas trail - looks like an Ontario runway

Local deer and a turkey(lower right) chance being in the open just before the American Thanksgiving. Very brave

Beautiful park. Fantastic trail – lead us to the city of Victoria RV Park – this is a great spot with a ton of big full service sites at $12(!) a night (we’re paying more than double that).

Here we met Henri and his wife from northern Quebec who are about 80 and have been RVing down here every winter for the last 21 years and are going strong. They say that the RV lifestyle is keeping them healthy. Makes a lot of sense since we’re surrounded with new people and places as we travel and it’s fun to explore (and stretch your arms without punching your partner).

Heading into the Spanish Moss

Oh yeah - now I'm confused

Victoria is another historic city with a many architecturally interesting homes and has a recommended driving tour. We’re going to combine that with our daily constitutional today so there may be interesting pictures in a day or two.

Slipped into Texas and stayed at the Army’s place on Wright-Patman Lake

Thursday November 21^st

Heading south on I71. We're actually keeping up with traffic this year.

Starting to look a lot greener

We have been on the move pretty well daily since last Friday’s crossing (Nov 15^th) – putting Harvey through regular doses of interstate travel (we seem to average about 62-63 mph). That’s about 100 Km/h for those with metric heads. It’s a bit of a contest to find the right speed since Harvey won’t shift into 6^thgear (most economical and easiest driving) below 63 mph and Smiley can’t be towed at speeds higher than 65 mph. Takes a little finesse to keep them happy. Glad Norene is easy to please. 

As we became aware of the huge weather disturbance coming from the west we felt some urgency to get south of its track and pushed on even though we did encounter strong winds (50 mph gusts) and some heavy duty rain as we headed southwest. Better to be mobile and have a chance to work around the storms than to be like the poor folks in Ohio, Illinois, and Tennessee who were hit so badly only a day or two after we passed through.

Averaging about 350 miles per day over Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we ended up at our first target, the Camping World in North Little Rock Arkansas, by day 3. Stayed in their lot overnight and by mid day Tony had our reluctant step repaired plus 2 vent covers installed. All done at a very reasonable cost and way faster than we had a right to expect since we had not called ahead. Cannot recommend these guys enough.

Crossing the Mississippi into Arkansas

Oh yeah – the Army thing. After a succession of expedient overnight stops at Wal-Marts and Flying J’s we set out to reward ourselves on Monday at Rocky Point Park on Wright-Patman Lake just a few miles south of Texarkana (barely inside the Texas state line). This park is operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers (the dam, dike and canal people). This is a beautiful park with huge shaded sites on a managed lake. 

Sunset on the lake through the campground

Trees still in their glory days

Some more than others

My artistic work is now done. Yeah I know - big deal.

There is a second nearby park, Piney Point which is just as pretty. Naturally we took the nature trail walk between the 2 parks and got a nice 2 hour round trip out of it. 

We walked the thin blue line

It started out looking like a road. Got a bit more challenging

Purple fruit. No idea.

That's Rocky Point (from Piney Point).

Norene looking serene in Piney.

The lake from Piney. Weather in the 60's

Not far enough south yet according to the forecast so we picked up on Wednesday (Nov 20^th) and headed south a mere 133 miles to Nacogdoches. 

Working our way down Highway 59

This scenic little place happens to be the oldest town in Texas and has lived under 9 sovereign flags since its inception. Dropped into the tourist bureau and walked most of the downtown district (including the Sterne-Hoya House Museum & Library). 

Sorry for spoiling the picture. I did suck it in!

Yes those are flowers. No idea again. Can still name the female.

Look at these pretty berries. Eeewww - they're sticky!

Now I believe it gets hot here.

Yes that is a yellow rose in Texas. No it is not a good picture.

Too lazy to find out what these are. Neat colours though.

Saw a lot of references to Sam Houston since he lived here at one point. Convinced ourselves we deserved a genuine local meal so we dropped into a Mexican restaurant on South Street. Huge delicious and authentic – no franchise here. Weather has been terrific – the mercury hit 75F today which is close to normal for here at this time of year.

But it ain’t going to last. According to today’s forecast there is an arctic air mass on the way down (even to here) that will drop the temperature to as low as the 30’s tomorrow night. Time to move further south tomorrow. We’ll try south of Houston so Norene can get a Costco fix. I have a good book so we’ll both be happy.

Have you been listening to anything I’ve said? I’m sure I saw you start to nod off there.

Relax – nearly put myself to sleep too. Will try to put a little more emotion into my next post. Or at least more interesting pictures.