Along the Gulf Coast

June 9th to 12th, 2011

Posting pictures to Blogger is taking forever and I can leave comments on some blogs but not on others.
I posted South Padre pictures of Diane, Karl and Collin on Facebook today and it was much faster than adding photos to this blog. So, it's not my computer, its Blogger.

I've been driving through a lot of small towns and in this area many are connected by bridges. I have come across several weight restricted roads and was not sure if I was reading the signs correctly. So I went around to the alternate roads. Some signs would have a weight limit "per axle" -  other signs did not say per axle.

click on photo to enlarge to read print

When I left San Antonio on Thursday I headed south and east to travel along the Gulf Coast. Thursday night I stayed in Victoria and walked around the town on Friday morning.

The town of Seadrift was having a Shrimp Festival, I drove through town to see if I could find an RV Park - to turn on the A/C for the cat and still be close enough to walk to the festival. I drove past the area of the festival, they had a $5 entrance fee - I'm thinking this included the music for the evening. I did not see any inviting parks, so I kept on driving. I went to Port O'Connor, I had read about a ferry that will take you out the the lighthouse at the Matagorda State Park.  I had also read that the ferry had an electrical fire and was not repaired or replaced but that you could go out on other boats. I went to the town to try and find some information. This town is all about fishing, I have never seen so many pickup trucks towing boats in one place. No luck with finding a boat to go to the lighthouse. So I kept on going and ended up in Palacios, TX.

Friday night I stayed in Palacios, TX at Serendipity Marina and RV Park. This is just the type of place I like to be, on the water, with lots of boats around and I was able to walk into town. I stopped at a Mexican Restaurant and ordered some shrimp tacos (since I didn't attend the Shrimp Fest) they were fantastic and very big. I also walked all along the harbor and waterfront. There were more areas I would have liked to walk around and explore, but it was too hot. This would be a great place to come back to in the winter.

My site was near this ramp

On Saturday after traveling east for awhile, I decided to go south again to the coast. I stayed at the Matagorda Nature Park it is operated by the LCRA (Lower Colorado River Authority). It is a very nice park with large sites. Each site has a concrete pad, a gravel pad with picnic table and a very large grassy area. A lot of the sites had a trailer plus tents and there was still plenty of room left between sites. This park bordered the Colorado River and the Gulf. Again, I was able to do a lot of walking - this time along the seawalls and beaches and the long fishing pier. You can buy a permit to park on the beach. $10 annual fee. Some people were camped on the beach. The only thing I didn't like about this park was all of the traffic going back and forth to the beach at all hours. The RV Park is off to the side of the road that goes down to the beach, and it was Saturday night, so there were probably people from the area going down to the beach for the evening. The campers would load up their pickup trucks and take a ride to the beach. It's not that far, I walked all around the area. 

Sunday morning I headed towards Galveston, stopped by the State Park - no RV sites available. Then I went to an RV park down the road, they were full, but they gave me the directions to a nearby county park with RV sites.

San Antonio to Galveston Island is only 254 miles or around four hours of driving time - it took me 3 days to get there. It will be difficult to turn north and head away from the beaches.