Getting Sherman ready for three months in Mexico

The sun never appeared like the weather forecast said it would, but at least they got the temperature right and it turned out to be a decent day despite the lack of sunshine. So I spent most of it outside giving Sherman a sponge bath and puttering around on a few fixer upper type of projects.

While I was doing that, Ruth was cleaning the inside of the windows and frames in our bedroom. Took all the screens out and cleaned them properly too. Sherman had sat for a full year prior to November 15th, and it has been so cold for the past six weeks of this trip that we've never been able to properly clean things.

This is a great free camping spot!

I first read about this spot on the Free Campsites website. It's also listed on the Ultimate Campgrounds app.

The reviews were mixed. Some people didn't think it was very good, but others thought it was fantastic. So we had a backup plan of staying at the nearby Falcon State Park if this didn't work out.

But, for a free campsite, we're not really sure how much more you could ask for. It's great!

Made it to the border!

And if we had our way, we would be crossing that border this coming Sunday, instead of having to wait until the next Sunday. But, we signed up to lead this RV caravan throughout Mexico (which we are really looking forward to doing, by the way) and the schedule says we don't depart until January 7th.

Speaking of the RV caravan, everything is coming together as we get closer to the departure date. There are lots of emails flying back and forth as the participants get prepared for a three month adventure... and what an adventure it will be!

We can't wait to get to Mexico!

A totally overcast day yesterday. Never saw the sun, but it never rained either so at least we were able to get outside and get some exercise.

I noticed that Al and Kelly over at The Bayfield Bunch got hit with a freak snowstorm while making their way through Texas to Arizona. Abnormally cold winter so far in the entire state of Texas. That's the problem with wintering in the southern U.S.. You never know from one year to the next if it's going to be Texas, Arizona, or Florida that gets hit with the cold. Always seems to be one of them.

Common sense prevails!

Woke up to a cool, windy, overcast day yesterday so we decided that we were better off driving. We're not really beach people to begin with, and the beach on a dreary day just doesn't seem worth it to us.

And the forecast for Magnolia Beach looked terrible for the next week, and not much better all across Texas. But the better weather is definitely closer to the Mexico border, so we started heading that way.

Not many RVs here at the beach

Not a very exciting Christmas Day here at the beach. Despite the morning sunshine it wasn't very warm outside and the wind continued throughout the day. It was 11:00am before we decided it was warm enough to go out for a walk.

We did about 2.5 miles (4 kms) along Magnolia Beach. It's a public park, and there is a washroom building with 4 showers. One of them was unlocked, and it looked usable enough.

Christmas Eve at the beach!

We didn't have far to go yesterday, only 48 miles. As soon as we got to Port Lavaca, we stopped at the Walmart to do a little last minute grocery shopping and buy an emergency supply of beer. Wouldn't want to run out of beer during Christmas at the beach!

Got up to the cash, and the beer wouldn't go through. The cashier couldn't figure it out, until she remembered that you can't buy beer here until after noon on a Sunday. Who thinks up these ridiculous laws?

But, it was almost 11:30am, so we went and sat in Sherman for a half an hour and I went back to get the beer at noon.

Bit of a long driving day for us...

We were still on a bit of a mission to get some inexpensive propane, so after we said goodbye to Annette and Raymond, we made a quick detour to the U-Haul in College Station to fill up the tank.

We got there, and parked nicely beside the fill station and I went in to get the guy. He was already coming out because he saw us pull in.

He got the hose and everything ready, and I remembered to ask him the price. "$3.39 a gallon" he says. Yikes. That's not cheap!

No alligators to be seen.

Slept great in our out of the way boondocking spot. Then Sherman summoned the courage to use the narrow exit road, and we put on some miles heading west towards Bryan/College Station, Texas.

Along the way, we made a stop at another Texas State Park. This time, Hunstville State Park!

What we go through to get to a nice boondocking spot

We left the Livingston Municipal Airport at about 10:00am and drove the short distance to Lake Livingston State Park. We're only about 65 miles north of the big city of Houston, Texas so I'm sure this park is a zoo during the summer.

I went into the office to get our day use pass, using the $70 USD annual pass we bought the other day. Each Texas State Park sets it's own day use fees, and so we save $5 each at this particular State Park.