Texas Drought Must Be Over!

We are preparing to wrap up February and head into March. Hopefully bringing a bit more sunshine here in Galveston. February is traditionally the driest month of the year in Galveston. I beg to differ. : )

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Mardi Gras was a big event here in Galveston the last two weeks. It rained almost everyday and many of the expected 200,000 stayed home for the festivities. Sheila and I made the best of it and enjoyed the INDOOR barn bash that kicked off the event and later in the week spent an evening at one of the balcony parties we purchased tickets to. We probably had the most fun at the barn bash since it was indoors and we got to preview most of the floats.

We did enjoy the private balcony party too, a great view of the parades and tossed beads to the people below. We finished up with the Josh Abbot country band in concert.

Love this shot below of the action from the balcony : ) Really shows how much fun we were having!

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Over time here in the RV Park we've made some friends and learned of a few really great spots to go shell hunting! Galveston Island as it turns out, is one of the top ten best places to find sea shells in the U.S! We took the scoot on a ferry to another island in Galveston for the best hunting.

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Just this week we decided to get out of town for a couple of days and went into Louisiana – Lake Charles to be specific. We found a great Casino Resort Hotel there and stayed a few days. They have a wonderful pool area with a lazy river and swim up bar. An interesting note: I guess the state of Louisiana allows 10 "riverboat" casino's. This dates way back when they were legalizing gambling, and allowed "floating" casino's to be legal gambling spots. There are a few places that still have traditional boats "permanently docked" as casino's, but modernization has created "floating barges" with hotels and such built around them. From the inside and front of these casino's you would never know, you were actually floating in the water while gambling.

Our second night – after an excellent four course dinner – we decided to learn Craps : ) I've played most Casino games but always avoided the Craps table because it looks confusing and very intimidating. We did a quick read of the how-to guide and headed to the tables. The dealers were helpful and after plunking down an initial $200 investment, we cashed out with $800...enough to pay for our entire stay at the hotel! We really enjoyed finding a game we could partner up in, and after getting comfortable with the table had a blast...of course it helps to win : )

A really cool looking casino as you approach, and the view from our room window of the pool area. The last image shows the back of the hotel with the massive floating barge casino section.

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On a rainy day...we took the opportunity to visit the Moody Gardens Aquarium here in Galveston. They had a couple of huge tanks that were several floors tall. Some of these shots are poor...difficult shooting into aquarium tanks. One of the more interesting exhibits was the dragon fish. Kinda looks like a really weird seahorse.

  Walk through Shark Tank as poster art : )


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Another super-important date was on the Calendar this month : ) Happy Valentines Day my love!

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We will be heading to Indiana in March to have some trailer repairs done. A little worried we will still run into snow and "weather" on the road up there – even in mid-March, but we don't have a choice. We hope to catch a couple Reds games during opening weekend while we're there for two weeks.

 As always, thanks again for reading and I'll leave you with a sign we came upon when we got to Louisiana. (actually the first rest stop and visitors center) I think it's very welcoming, don't you? : )

Choosing Campgrounds

(a quick blog tech note: you can click on any photo in each story and it will bring up a photo only area that you can use to scroll thru and view photos at a larger size)

We are coming up on the end of our first year of travel (March). Can't believe how fast it went by. We have been here in Jamaica Beach for a month now and will be staying through the first week of March. We have really enjoyed our stay here in Galveston and the hosts here are the best we've had. 

Which brings me to what's important to us in choosing a campground. Certainly the season has something to do with it, as we would choose a warmer climate almost all the time. We have a top five campgrounds list and Jamaica Beach comes in at number two. It's funny, because we also have a top five things the campgrounds need in order for us to stay for any length of time. (weeks or a month) Otherwise we consider it a short stay campground for a night or two. We have still not hit the perfect spot : ) One that would be excellent in all of our qualifying categories. A note: Campgrounds are classified as "resorts" or "campgrounds". And is really just based on the number of amenities. "Resorts" are obviously more costly with better amenities.

Our top five resorts/campgrounds to date:

1. Oasis RV Resort (Las Vegas, NV)

2. Jamaica Beach RV Resort (Galveston, TX)

3. Seven Feathers RV Resort (Canyonville, OR)

4. Cochise Terrace RV Resort (Benson, AZ)

5. Anaheim RV Resort (Anaheim, CA)

Top five things we personally look for to qualify:

1. WiFi and phone service

2. Amenities and campground layout/upkeep

3. Area attractions/weather/temps

4. Campground costs

5. Rig space size/layout

The Oasis campground for example, was sunny everyday, EXCELLENT POOLS and spas, very good park layout and great rig space. But Wifi service was off and on and costs were very high.

Jamaica Beach has awesome beaches and local attractions, very inexpensive monthly rates, ok pool/spa and OUTSTANDING WiFi service. But very wet and humid and the rig space is just ok. (when it rains we have a flood out our front door)

Seven Feathers had an awesome park layout, rig space was very good, excellent indoor pool and spa with a workout room, and we spent quite a bit of time at the CASINO ENTERTAINMENT. Plus they had a free shuttle service that came to our door. Costs here were high and Wifi was spotty, plus they did not allow you to stay longer than three weeks.

Cochise Terrace had the best weather of all - sunny everyday, the rig SPACES WERE HUGE, costs were average and amenities were good. Absolutely horrible WiFi and no AT&T phone service.

Finally Anaheim obviously had the LOCAL ATTRACTIONS nailed : ) Sunny and warm, great park layout, and pretty good WiFi service, but very expensive.

We'll keep updating this list as we go along.

Along the seawall here we noticed a stretch of rock sculptures. (called rock balancing) There were dozens of them constructed from pieces of sandstone. Well, obviously I had to have a go at this : ) This is truly an interesting art form, and takes a ton of patience. The really good ones are awe-inspiring (google rock balancing) as your brain tells you it's impossible. We built a quick one but will be back to spend the day and try our hand at it again. (a trick is to use a small amount of sand between the stones, blowing off the excess. The few grains of sand that remain, can't be seen but act as support legs).

We also saw the Galveston Civil War reenactment of 1863. This was held in the historic downtown district of Galveston.

Fish, fish, FISH! One of the dining challenges we have, is that I LOVE FISH and Sheila...well...not so much : ) She has been a real trooper though as we have already frequented a few fish houses here and will be sampling more as the weeks go on.  My favorite so far was Joes Crab Shack!

There are many museums and historic buildings to see here. One of our first was a retired oil rig. Very interesting tour, and brought a new understanding to modern day drilling and the environment. One facinating bit of info for me, was the fact that old oil rig stands were just left to rot at the bottom of the ocean floor. Galveston has created an undersea oasis with the Eco folks using these old stands. This has actually created a thriving underwater mini-ecosystem.

We have some local neighbors that visit us almost everyday looking for handouts : )

 

We have a new hobby. We like to spend some of our downtime sipping wine and working on puzzles together. This can be a challenge traveling, unless you can knock these babies out pretty fast and put them back away before your next trip. We tried the usual roll-ups and such to secure unfinished puzzles when moving place to place. Then (all the credit to Sheila here) we found a way to store AND display the finished puzzles. Not only does this secure unfinished puzzles, but allows us to display ever-changing artwork in a very space-limited trailer. We purchased a custom-cut piece of plexiglass rounded the corners and added thin rubber feet.

  The result is pretty cool!

January also marks one of the most important dates on the calendar...Happy Birthday my love. I'm soooooo glad you were born 21 years ago : )

We look forward to the Mardi Gras celebration coming up in a couple weeks. We purchased a couple of balcony party tickets in the downtown entertainment district. Not sure what it's all about, but we wanted a birds eye view of all the parades and concerts : ) We take lots of pics and share them here.

Until next time, we'll leave you with this pic we took stopped at a red light. It's not often you can actually see the rays of sun like this. It looks unreal. Just another example of things you see when you slow down your life : )

Thanks for reading!