Lisa & Bud Gould's Travel Blog

Thursday was my last work day in Texas. Today, Friday, we left Corpus Christi about 7:30 AM and drove to Lafayette, LA. Lots of traffic in Houston and all of I-10 in general. Must be because of Labor Day weekend starting. Hope it lightens up tomorrow and Sunday. Tomorrow we expect to have a nice Cajun breakfast at a restaurant a couple miles from here. Maybe a crawfish omelet with frog legs and alligator fillets on the side and a little shrimp or crab etouffee. Yum! We might check out the Cajuns after breakfast or find a bayou tour. We expect to stop somewhere in MS or south AL tomorrow night. Sunday we will be visiting some old friends in the Huntsville, AL, area, maybe for a couple days. So, we will probably get home sometime Tues. or Wed. afternoon. Will try to update this blog tomorrow or Sunday when we know more.

I did not intend to add much to the blog or post any pictures until I was finished working this week. But, Sunday we went over to the bay area of Corpus Christi to see if anything was going on in the colusium, only to find out it is being torn down! So we stopped along the waterfront which is very much improved over the past couple years. We had a very nice lunch at the Water Street Seafood. Took some pictures and posted them to the Picassa site.

To get to work, we drive thru about 30 miles of the Chapman Ranch and it is mostly cotton fields, with some sorgum, some sunflowers, and a few other crops. They are full bore into harvesting cotton right now. Took a few pictures of the cotton bales, fields, and some equipment. There are a few cotton gins that I was not able to get pictures of, but, will try to in the next few days. We also drive another 30 miles thru the King Ranch and that is almost all cattle and maybe a few horses. Not much going on there so no pictures.

We got here in the early afternoon and took care of a few personal items. Checked into the Embassy Suites for the next six nights and that makes us feel pretty good. No more long days of driving and unpacking and packing every night and morning for awhile. We will rest up tomorrow and hope our biological clocks get out of Pacific time and into Central time. Unless we get carried away tomorrow and find some touristy things to, I don't expect to post much on the blog or post any more pictures on the Picassa site until we leave here.

We stopped at the West of the Pecos Museum in Pecos. A well preserved 1904 hotel with rooms full of memorbilia from old West Texas. Quite a bit about Judge Roy Bean who was 'the law west of the Pecos (River)' for many years. It is said he would recess his court to sell whisky to his customers. Must have been some wild times. I took a few pictures and posted them. Susan, if you are reading this, there are 3 pics of quilts you might find interesting.

We are staying in Kerrville, about 70 miles from San Antonio, and about 220 miles from Corpus Christi. We may stop and visit Rose, my sister-in-law in San Antonio tomorrow. Then on to Corpus for a day of rest and a week of work.

Here we are in the beautiful little West Texas town of Pecos. We lost another hour today because TX is in the Central Time Zone. Got here about 6 PM so most everything is closed. We hope to go see Judge Roy Bean, the Law West of the Pecos hanging judge, tomorrow along with the West of the Pecos Museum.

Today we visited Carlsbad Caverns National Park and walked the 1.5 mile Big Room self-guided tour. It's about 750 feet down and certainly is a big room. I also went down to the natural entrance to see where the people go in and the bats come out. We took the elevator down, but, kind of wished we'd taken the natural way down as it is about a mile and is mostly down hill. Lisa's knee has been pretty good so far but we did not want to push it. After Carlsbad, we drove about 35 miles to Guadalupe Mountains National Park Visitors Center. We watched a slide show of the park and toured the exhibits. This park is part of the National Wilderness Preservation System, and as such has no developed areas except the visitors center. Just parking areas for the trail-heads. If you want to go in, through, or around the park you have to hike it. Period.

We are about 500 some miles from Corpus Christi. We will drive 300 or so miles tomorrow and plan to get in Corpus around noon on Sat. We need to get some service for the van and also for us. Then rest up on Sunday as I will probably be working Mon through Fri.