Trip Meter 248 miles
We left a very windy Georgetown and headed south in front of the same cold weather that trailed us from the Dallas metroplex. We accidentally got to see some of downtown on our way to interstate 35. As we headed down the frontage road I took the ramp to my left thinking I would merge onto the freeway I could see a few feet away from my window. The ramp sign said "Austin"- then just below the sign I see those fateful words "toll"- Yikes! I just jumped onto a ramp that snaked us up and over I-35 and onto the Texas Toll Road 130. Let me explain why I was alarmed. When you take a toll road here (as elsewhere I assume) you are charged per mile/per axle- that means vehicles towing a car are charged for the motorhome AND the car. Joan tried to calm me down as I frantically searched for an off ramp. The ramp finally came 5 miles down the pike, and to get off it cost us $1.50! To get back to I-35 we ended up snaking our way through downtown- which as it turns out is very beautiful. If it were not for the impending cold snap, we may have stayed longer.
Once back on I-35 Joan started to plot us a course which would parallel the freeway and allow us to see more of the countryside. First we had to get through Austin, population 850,000. I admit it- I don't like big cities. One would think that all you have to do is drive straight through on the freeway eh? Not so! One has to be extremely vigilant to take the correct branch at every Y or ramp- and of course to be in the correct lane to do this, while dicing it up with semis on both sides of you and cars diving in-and-out like fighter planes attacking a bomber fleet. Did I mention it was windy? High wind advisory till 6PM today. Okay, enough sniveling, we made it through Austin and Joan plotted a route down State Highway 181 starting at San Marcos and heading in a straight line 150 miles south to Copano Bay (near Corpus Christi), our home for the holidays. (see map below)
We stopped at the only wide spot we could find alongside highway 181 near Kenedy, and had a quick lunch (thanks Sally), and planned our final destination in the Rockport area.
Motoring on we were surprised as we got close to Sinton to find ourselves in the midst of hundreds of wind generators (see Picture below). These things really look HUGE when you get as close as we were to them. Some of the wind towers were literally a couple hundred feet from the road, with many more marching off into the far distance. Awesome and graceful. (apologies for the hasty photo through the windshield)
With only a few missed turns I managed to pilot us to Aransas Pass and then things started to get interesting. We were loosing our daylight, the roads were diminishing into small two lane rural roads with no shoulder, and when we got to where we had programmed the GPS there was no RV park! How could we have missed it? We had to make about a 5 mile circle because there was no place we could turn around. We got close again and proceeded at a snails pace along the bayshore road- nope it was gone! Not a sign- nothing- disappeared. A quick huddle in the middle of the road as light traffic filtered around us. Plan B was a little further up the road. We had initially eliminated it after a flyover with Google Earth at lunch time, but now we wanted a place before it got dark- it would have to do. We drove on a couple miles to Copano Bay RV Resort and pulled in to register. The park was much nicer than it had looked from 2000 feet up. The spaces were all concrete and tidy green lawns separated each. We were home! It kept getting better the more we looked. They have a low weekly rate, the equivalent of about $25 a day, free wi-fi, bay frontage, only about 5 miles to Rockport, or Fulton which has a great little down town with WalMart, grocery stores, restaurants, etc. A good home base for exploring the area. The last photo below is a closeup of the Rockport area and I placed an orange arrow to indicate our location on Copano Cove.
Tomorrow we will get out and do some exploring and let you know what we find.
Best of the Holiday Season to you all
Jeff and Joan
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