Long Haul to our Next Destination, Fulton, TX.

                                      Wednesday 2/6/2013

We left Abita Springs, LA and headed west on I-12 to I -10 across the lower portion of Louisiana. This is a picture of  Lake Charles as we started to enter into the city.

It looks like snow in this picture, but it is water. Lots of trees in the lake.

Shortly after Lake Charles, LA. we hit the rain. In all our travels we have had to drive in rain only around 6 times. One of those times was on this same route, last year when we headed on I-10 going out west.

We entered into Texas after a long day of driving.

We stopped at the Super Wal-Mart in Beaumont for the night, which is just across the Texas border. We stopped there last year also. You had to drive about 3 miles north off I-10 to get to the Wal-Mart. We both agreed that the day was much too long and we should have stopped somewhere closer. The drive was at 260 miles that day. There was a lot of semi's on I-10 and with the slight rain it was a stressful drive. We noticed a Casino located east of Lake Charles that would have been a good stopping point. They advertised their RV park next to the Casino.

The next day we drove through Houston.

Last year we drove from east to west through Houston.

This year we took  I-59 through downtown Houston going south from I-10.

It was cloudy, but at least not rainy.

There was an accident on I-59.

Looked like someone got pushed off the road in someones blind spot. Luckily it looked like no one was hurt.

There was a Whole Foods grocery store in Sugar Land, a suburb of Houston, that I had found online. I had Joe get off I-59, but unfortunately we were unable to find anywhere to park our big beast  and towing car. The Whole Food store was right off the interstate, but when we went through, it was lunch time and the shopping mall it was in, was completely full of parked cars. I had called ahead and the manager of Whole Foods thought we would be able to find a parking spot. Even though Whole Foods was in a shopping mall, the mall parking was pretty minimal. Nothing like Wal-Mart parking lots. Darn, I wanted to go to Whole Foods. This is when  I wish we had a smaller rig!

South of Houston the country side became like a very flat Iowa. Field after field of plowed black soil ready for planting a crop soon.

The next resort we were headed for told us to stay on I-59 and to take Hwy 185 southeast near Victoria, TX. She told us not to go by their address with a GPS as it would not get us there. I had put a small town that was located on Hwy 185 in the GPS so we could know when we were close to our turn off exit. For some reason the GPS didn't want to take us on Hwy. 185. No matter what town I put in that was on Hwy 185, the GPS  wouldn't take us to Hwy. 185. The GPS had us turn on Hwy. 87. I had been looking for signs for Hwy. 185, but we never saw any until we turned on Hwy. 87. Hwy. 185 was just about a half mile down the road from the Hwy. 87 turn off.  I could see on the map that it looked like Hwy. 87 and 185 both turned east at the same point, so I thought maybe Hwy. 87 would have an exit to Hwy. 185. No such luck!  There were no turn around anywhere, so we took Hwy. 87 toward Port Lavaca, which took us slightly NE. We caught Hwy. 35 south about 25 miles down the road ( which was the road we were suppose to get to on Hwy. 185). The mistake cost us an extra 10 miles. In this picture we had turned on Hwy. 35 to the south and the landscape turned from farmland to lowlands and scrub brush. Hwy. 35 has a speed limit of 75 mph, and people were traveling and passing at that speed. Two times we had passing cars, and a semi coming at us at close distances. The semi that passed, heading toward us, came so close to us that he ran the car he was passing off the road. Thankfully there is a wide shoulder to move over to. Along Hwy. 35 there is the Aransas National Refuge.

Here we are crossing  Copano Bay.

Our resort was just across the bay.

On the other side of the bay , we entered into the Rockport- Fulton area.

Bayview RV Resort is a Coast to Coast campground and we could stay there for a week at $10 a night. It was another long day, with Joe driving for 6 hours. It was a good thing we were staying for a week so he could get rested up. Upon registering Joe found out they also charge $5 per day membership fee, so it ended up costing $15 per night. It is always something with these campground memberships!