There is so much to see and do in Texas – it took us 2 months to make it through all the major cities, we were looking forward to some beach living! Here is an overview of where we have been so far with Ruby (doesn’t include all our touring in Trixie the tracker):
Where we’ve been so far. (I forgot Galveston – pretend its there)
We left Austin and head down the I-37 towards Lake Corpus Christie State Park, which is our 6th campground on a reservoir lake. We continue to be in awe of the state parks down here – this one was a whole $17/nite with power and water. We road our bikes through the entire campground, down all the loops, through all the cabins and boat launches and day use areas and put 10km on – this park was pretty big.
Campsite and view for 5 days
Lake Corpus Christie
There was a cool point of interest on the top of the “hill”. After WWI, Roosevelt put a Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) together to help re/build infrastructure and put people back to work and get the economy going. Check this out:
CCC description
CCC building – not sure what its original use was for, but used as a Park state office
This CCC group built this gorgeous building, and it was still in use by the State Park staff.
We noticed in this campground that there is a BBQ smoker provided for large gatherings! Since we love Texas BBQ, we thought this was such a cool idea!
Trolling around the lake on Speedy
Spent a few days here just relaxing and enjoying lake life while planning our next destination in Port Aransas. We weren’t sure what to expect as the area was hit hard by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, but it looks like recovery has happened and although we are probably not the best people to comment on hurricane aftermath, you wouldn’t know it happened 5 years ago.
On the Corpus Christie beaches, you can camp for very cheap. You buy a $12 parking pass and can camp on the beach for 3 consecutive days and a maximum of 6 days in a 21-day period. How awesome is this find! And don’t worry, we didn’t get stuck. Ruby’s 46,000 lbs was no problem for this hard packed beach. We pulled onto Holiday Beach for a few days longer than they allowed….
Holiday beach – Port Aransas
Beach camping – amazing views
Can’t believe I’m here!
One of the really cool things about camping on the beach, is the quantity of fellow campers, including Canadians that stop by to say Hi and have a friendly conversation; we had at least 4 sets of couples in the first 24 hours stop by! Here is what beach camping looks like – video of Beach driving
There is no shortage of things to do in a port town – unlimited beach walks, driving on the beach roads, bike riding, touring the marina, watching people fish off the docks/jetty and watching boats…..check this video out: Oil Rig move
Our camping neighbor Dale from Wisconsin is an avid fisherman, who is out at least twice daily for hours catching anything he can. He showed up with a bagful of delicious whiting yesterday that we promptly fried up! It was amazing!
A day trip to Corpus Christie took us bike riding on the seawall area. We were pleasantly surprised what a pretty city Corpus Christie is. I feel a bit biased about any city that is on water and has lots of access to beaches and boat marina’s. For us land locked Canadians any access to ocean is amazing that has bike riding paths, walking paths, etc it regularly breaks my face / puts a perma-grin on my face!
Corpus Christie Sea Wall
Corpus christie beach
SS Lexington Museum in Corpus Christie
Fish fry at Cajun Charlies
Stopped into Cajun Charlie’s for some great fish fry – it was ALOT of food for $10 each. Both the fish fry and the shrimp fry plates came with homestyle fries, a basket of about 10 hushpuppies, coleslaw and beans! I love that fish fry restaurants accommodate for GF diets by just using cornmeal (instead of a flour cornmeal combo). We highly recommend this place if you are in the area.
We plan to spend an overnight at Mustang Island State park before heading to our most southern destination that is the Brownsville / South Padre Island area for more beach camping.