We also took time to see the Texas State Aquarium on Corpus Christi Beach. It is a smaller facility than we are used to for an aquarium, but it made up for size in quality. I had particularly sweet interactions with the sea turtles, which crowded around to pose for my camera (I must have been standing where they are fed or something!)
The boys enjoyed the Big Tank…Peter is a huge fishing enthusiast and lamented being unable to catch some of the prize redfish on display:
We were guided to leave Corpus on Wednesday, October 16th…so we pretty much had the RV ready by then. As we left, we gassed up at the local Valero, and were shocked to see that gas prices had dropped to $2.32 a gallon! We took a picture because we know we won’t likely see that price again!
The 16th we headed up to San Antonio….again, we were guided to go there. We thought we were going so that we could have the car serviced (40,000 miles in 16 months!) But it turned out there was something more special in store!
At close to time to make supper, I received a call from a man who said he had seen our website and that his family was planning a cross-country trip to see National Parks. He had received our web address from a woman who had met us 4 years ago, when we were on our first big trip and were stationed at Padre Island National Seashore as volunteers. She remembered us and passed our contact info on to him as a resource for his own family’s trip. Usually a procrastinator by his own admission, he called on this night to ask some questions. He said he had seen we were in Texas to get the RV, and wondered if we were still in the state. I told him we had just left Corpus Christ, but we were staying in San Antonio until the following morning, when we would be heading west. He paused for just a moment before he said, “I live in San Antonio!”
This is exactly the kind of thing that used to happen to us all the time on our previous journey…the magic of synchronicities became so common place that we expected them. It was so fun to feel the “magic window” open up again for this kind of happening! He suggested our families meet for dinner at a famous burger joint in town…we did, and we spent hours talking and answering their questions. They are very special people and I want to pass their website on to you to see what they are up to. Their current plan is to disembark in December. We can’t wait to meet up with them on the road somewhere out there!
We left San Antonio on Friday, October 17th and headed west on highway 90; we slept at Alpine, Texas at the Lost Alaskan RV park, where Susan in the office was an absolute hoot (the park was great, too, except that the pool was closed down for the year). As we drove away from Alpine the following morning, I had the sense that we wouldn’t be seeing Texas (or, Tejas in Spanish) again for a long time. The sweet rolling hills and live oak trees are so very beautiful there.
Thank you, Tejas, for the memories!
So next…..a night in Deming, New Mexico on our way to Tucson AZ. We will be in Tucson for the week of October 19-25. More soon!
