Haulin' HitchHiker busy busy busy

Greg & Judy; Gary & Karen Mayne, JV & Carolyn Evans beside our home in Willis, TX

Judy, Sharon & Stacy Wise, Donna & Ted Rogers in their stationary home.

It has been a busy two days. Yesterday Sharon & Stacy picked us up and we went to Ted and Donna's for dinner. We are all Haulin' HitchHikers, this is a chapter of HitchHikers Of America that was started by 3 couples having a few drinks around a campfire in Branson, MO last year. I'm the secretary & treasurer. Many of us are most or full timing and haven't joined a local club as we are always traveling. The chapter gives us the opportunity to socialize around the country with other RVers who have similar interests. We use a HitchHiker forum to stay in touch. Anyway.....we were contacted by 4 other Haulin' HitchHiker couples Tuesday and we were all within 20 miles of each other!

Back to dinner.....Donna made a GREAT Texas dinner for all of us, ribs, beans, taters, cole slaw, Texas toast and lemon meringue pie. Boy was it good!

Today we got together with the other two couples, the Evans & Maynes at our place to meet each other and talk about our RV adventures. We then went out to a nice catfish restaurant (one of the benefits of the chapter is that someone always knows where to go and what to do in the local area) for dinner and then went to the Evans home to continue our socializing. It's fun to be with others and it's fun to be alone. Tomorrow we leave TX for LA.

Sam Houston

Diorama inside the Sam Huston Museum after Sam defeated Sana Ana. Judy, Sharon & Stacy at the entrance to the museum.

How about a 67 foot tall statue of Sam?

We had a surprise call from Sharon & Stacy Tuesday night, they are 20 miles away!! We drove to their site in the Sam Houston National Forest (beautiful CG!) this morning and picked them up for a day in Huntsville. We checked out tall Sam, had a great lunch at the Farmhouse, then spent a few hours on the 20 acre Houston Museum grounds. There are two of his homes there along with the museum on the grounds of his homestead. I remember him from Texas history but learned quite a bit more about the soldier, statesman politician, and only man to be the governor of two states. I'll have to get a biography about Sam to read.

Willis, TX

Not much today to report. Judy went to Curves then we had some routine maintenance done on the truck and filled up the tanks with diesel. We drove around the local area checking it out and had a nice supper at home.

Willis, Texas

We pulled out of Rockport at 8:30 and arrived in Willis at 1pm. Driving through downtown Houston was not fun, LOTS of traffic and slowdowns. Worst of all was launching our trailer three time over hellashious bumps, we almost but our home into orbit! When we opened up we had new stuff messed up inside for the first time. Nothing broken! This afternoon we had the blue light on the TV dish repaired and decided not to have the software upgrade installed, if it ain't broke don't mess with it.
We both put extra clothing on this evening and turned the ceramic heater on, darn. We went too far north! We are staying warm and watching 2001: A Space Odyssey tonight.

Still in Rockport

Not too much to report. We spent the weekend just hanging out here. Saturday we did the Wal-Mart thing and filled up the truck with diesel. Judy played 31 in the club house in the evening. Sunday we went to church, same one as last week. It was a nice new ELCA church that was friendly. The weather has been nice, sunny and 80s. Today it was quite windy, 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 40 so we decided to just stay here, we'll move to Willis tomorrow. When we leave we have a narrow mile plus bridge to cross that will be open to the wind. Nice thing about this lifestyle, changes are easy. Today Judy did the Curves thing and played penny poker, I waxed the trailers front cap so the bugs will wash off easy. For lunch we tried BBQ brisket again at a "quaint" roadside stand that's always been busy but were disappointed.

Zach Taylor slept here

Zachary Taylor, "Old Rough & Ready" was the 12th President of the US. In 1845 he camped under this tree, so it's said. In 1845 he was staging in Texas to fight Mexico in early 1846 in the Mexican War. How they know it was this tree I don't know. I also don't know why he camped by this tree, there are lots of houses and motels nearby.

Aransas NWR

Today we went to a new Chinese buffet for lunch, it was pretty good. After that we went to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and on the way passed a large control burn that was being done on the edge of the park. Cactus Jack is checking it out in the picture. We spent two or three hours there walking the boardwalks, the lookouts and driving the long tour loop. We saw many deer, one wild pig, lots of birds, and one gater which Judy spotted on a boardwalk. We also got to purchase a seniors 62+ $10 forever pass to national parks. Take advantage of that age!!

I have to correct my post of last Friday, we did not see a large flock of Whooping Cranes as they are not here yet. What we saw was most likely White Pelicans, possibly Snow Geese.

It was windy today and in the low 70s, much more comfortable!