SHORT YEAR-END TRIPS

THANKSGIVING 2023

Tuesday, November 21, 2023 – Washington, TX, to Medina Highpoint Resort, Medina, TX

A short 4-day trip – mainly as a change of scenery - up into the Texas Hill Country for Thanksgiving.

Left Washington around 10:00am, an hour and a half behind Les and Melanie who were leading the way in their motorhome – Les not one to hold off getting underway early...

Looped around the northern edge of Brenham and onto Route 290, making a planned diversion to an HEB store in Bastrop, primarily for coffee but secondarily to look for a replacement turkey baster for Melanie, Les having purloined hers to top up the coolant in his RV engine...!

The HEB parking lot totally jammed – last-minute Thanksgiving shopping, no doubt – so I pulled into an adjacent bank’s parking lot that I had figured was just wide enough to let me make a U-turn with the RV, although without my Jeep in tow a 3-point turn wouldn’t be much of a challenge, either.

No turkey baster to be found in HEB, long lines at the Starbucks store, so brewed coffee in the RV while receiving traffic updates from Les and Melanie as a result of which I took a different route than planned, heading south on Route 20 down to I-10, staying on the interstate through San Antonio and up to Boerne where I turned off and headed west through Bandera and up to the RV resort north of Medina.

Swapping notes with Les later, definitely a preferable route to have taken as I avoided the 15mph, stop and go, traffic light-plagued Route 1604 north of San Antonio, arriving at the RV resort a little after 4:00pm.

Despite the lateness of the season, a few trees are still showing fall foliage colors, luminous in the bright sunlight.

Wednesday, November 24, 2023 – Medina Highpoint Resort

A quiet day, enjoying the peacefulness up in the Texas Hill Country, although some chores also checked off during the day - such as laundry, taking advantage of being hooked up to full services with the RV.

Took a long walk in the afternoon to the hill above the campground to do a little test flying with my new drone in an open area with few collision risks. Nothing super special to report or show, as it was mostly an "operator familiarization" exercise.

But I did stumble across a tin-plate turkey sculpture beside the trail on my way up the hillside...

...which I worked up into my Happy Thanksgiving e-card, ready to be sent out tomorrow morning to a select few friends.

Thursday, November 23, 2023 – Medina Highpoint Resort

Despite the chilly weather - courtesy of the lateness of the year, wonderfully clear skies and the 2,000ft altitude - I headed out for a run on Thanksgiving morning... as I frequently do, in order to justify the gastronomic and alcoholic indulgences later in the day.

Thanksgiving dinner prepared by Melanie, her daughter and boyfriend rounding out the party, enjoyed - with appropriate wine accompaniment - in some comfort in Les’s motorhome.

A surfeit of American Football on the very large TV in Les's RV followed the surfeit of food and wine.

A classic Thanksgiving...

Saturday, November 25, 2023 – Medina Highpoint Resort to Washington, TX

As with our departure from Washington, Les was out early for the return trip, leaving the resort once it was light. I followed considerably later, not breaking camp until 10:00am.

I-10 had served me well on the outward bound drive, so I took a similar route back through San Antonio, though running further east on I-10 to Schulenberg in order to make a stop there at a truck stop for a fuel fill-up.

Les, meanwhile, had suffered a catastrophic belt failure on his engine some 15 miles from home, just outside Brenham, and had pulled off the highway into a convenient parking spot, where I stopped on my way past in order to collect Melanie and give her a lift back to Washington to collect their Mini (neither of us having towed our cars behind us on this trip).

So I was comfortably back in my spot on Les’s property in Washington by mid-afternoon, while he and Melanie spent a night at the roadside waiting for delivery of replacement belts the next day before he finally rolled up 24 hours later.

CHRISTMAS 2023

Saturday, December 23, 2023 – Washington to Lake Livingston State Park, TX

A short year-end jaunt, not straying too far from home base but planning to be on the Gulf coast of Texas to see the sun rise on New Year’s Day.

A wet day forecast for tomorrow (Sunday 24^th) had caused me to bring forward my planned departure and drive to Lake Livingston State Park, not wanting to get the reasonably clean RV filthy with road spray.

Headed out through the gates at Les’s place around 9:30am, stopping in Navasota to top off the diesel tank in the RV so that I wouldn’t need to fill up until the end of the trip.

Made a leisurely late morning stop in Huntsville for a Starbucks coffee and grocery top-up designed to get me through most of this trip and as there was no rush to get to the state park ahead of their official check-in time of 2:00pm.

In the event, arrived at the park at 1:30pm but greeted cordially by staff at the ranger station where I checked in, discovering that I had arrived a day earlier than my reservation… a senior moment, as I had been debating with myself about arrival dates for over a week – due to the forecast rain – and had, I thought, moved my arrival date forward. Obviously only in my mind…

Fortunately, there were sufficient campsites available to allow me to switch sites to a spot that was open for the duration of my stay.

Once in the campsite, I built a ramp for the front passenger wheel to allow me to shuffle underneath the chassis to remove and replace a faulty control unit for the extending entry steps. 10-minute job that took an hour, as usual…

Sunday, December 24 - Thursday, December 28, 2023 – Lake Livingston State Park

Out for a mid-morning run, hoping to avoid rain showers but managing to get a pretty good soaking on my cool-down walk back to the RV.

The rain held off for the afternoon, allowing me to get reasonable satellite signal reception from my Starlink antenna on the roof of the RV, despite periodic signal interruptions due to the light tree branch cover above the campsite I was in.

Took a late afternoon stroll to watch the sun setting across the lake, back in good time to settle in for more football during the evening.

The campground had filled up a little during the day, but still some open spots for anybody who had wanted to spend Christmas here (not the case next weekend, New Year’s, when the campground was apparently booked solid).

A neighboring campsite opposite mine celebrating their Christmas with an expansive inflatable display, themed to the RV life...

Improving weather during the week meant I was able to take my new drone out for some flying over the nearby dam and hydro-electric power station at the southern end of Lake Livingston on a couple of occasions, although the number of birds - particularly the large white pelicans - circling around were a little concerning.

None of the video shot was really exciting, but some of the still photos gave an interesting perspective on the dam and the spillway.

Friday, December 29, 2023 – Lake Livingston State Park to Sea Rim State Park, TX

With Lake Livingston State Park full over the New Year weekend, I had booked a few nights at Sea Rim State Park on the Gulf coast, hoping to see the sunrise there on New Year’s day.

After a run first thing, and a mid-morning coffee, I pulled out of the campground for the 125-mile drive to the coast, stopping at a grocery store on the outskirts of Beaumont to top up supplies ahead of the holiday weekend.

Sea Rim State Park very much out in the boonies, essentially at the end of a 10-mile coast road leading west from Sabine Pass, which also marks the state line between Texas and Louisiana.

Walked down to the beach once set up in the campsite, batting away swarms of mosquitoes until onto the beach itself and away from the marshy area behind it, rather foolishly also taking a stroll around the boardwalk built out over the inland marsh towards sunset, when the mosquitoes were even worse.

Saturday, December 30, 2023 – Sea Rim State Park, TX

Braved the mosquito-infested marsh barrier between the campground and beach to take the drone out for some photos and video of the seashore, searching out the more interesting patterns created by wind and wave action on the sand.

I had spotted a couple of herons on my evening stroll yesterday and found a couple more were stalking the seawater pools on the very flat beach.

Not really intending anything other than getting closer with the drone than I could by approaching for photos on foot, I nudged the drone slowly towards one heron which then took off on a long sweep up the beach.

Although I find flight management of the drone slightly less than intuitive via the twin multiple-axis joysticks on the controller – no video-gaming in my history - and also find photo composition difficult via a screen (rather than a camera viewfinder) I managed to reasonably closely track the heron on its flight.

And as luck would have it, I had unintentionally left the drone video set in slow motion and so ended up with footage that I was subsequently (some days later) able to manipulate in video editing software to produce a decent end result.

Took a drive in the afternoon back to Sabine Pass to visit the historic site of a battle there during the American Civil War for control of the waterway that could provide supplies to forces inland.

Not a great deal to be seen any longer at the site of the Confederate gun emplacements from where 46 men repelled and then captured a much larger Union force of some 200 men.

Encouraged by my heron sighting earlier, I braved the mosquito barrier for a late afternoon outing on the beach, staying until the sun dropped below the horizon - the reverse view of the sunrise I was hoping to see on New Year's Day.

With the sun down, I battled my way back from the beach to the bug-free sanctuary of the RV.

Sunday, December 31, 2023 – Sea Rim State Park, TX, to Washington, TX

Although the original intention had been to watch sunrise here over the Gulf of Mexico on the first of the year - followed by a celebratory morning run - this morning's weather forecast confirmed that I would be confronting clouds and possible rain tomorrow.

And with the constant irritation of mosquitoes everywhere - other than inside the RV - I decided I might as well head back to Les’s place, where no rain was forecast and no mosquitoes would be bothering me, even though it would likely be too cloudy for any sunrise photos tomorrow.

Pulled out early in the morning, once a little breeze was up to help ward off the mosquitoes as I hooked up the Jeep.

Although I had braced myself for possible holiday traffic congestion I had a surprisingly traffic-free drive back, stopping at a convenient grocery store once through Houston, getting back to Washington and my now-familiar RV parking spot early afternoon.

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