After leaving Cajun country, Sara and I journeyed to Natchitoches, south of Shreveport, LA. Our three day stay at Natchitoches, which coincidentally, was how long it took us to learn how to pronounce it, Nat-tish, not Nat-cho-to-shies was prompted by a recent Kiplinger’s magazine article on the 10 best places in the US to retire. We do not know what lies ahead for us, but eventually we plan to sell our home in Oregon, WI and live in the RV full time for a few years before buying a smaller home somewhere. Our home is wonderful but simply too large for our needs. You know you have too big of a home when Sara refers to one of the bedrooms as the “ear ring” room, and we as travel we are constantly checking out possible locations in which to retire. Natchitoches is what you think of when someone says a sleepy southern community. Nestled on the banks of the Cane River, it is a town of wrought iron balconies, town parks ,bed and breakfasts, magnolia blossoms, and moss covered live oaks. It is where the movie “Steel Magnolias” was filmed. Natchitoches is at the top of what is called “Plantation Road” which stretched from the city about 30 miles south on either side of the river and has many old sugar plantations in varying states of restoration. While we were in Natchitoches, we browsed the many shops and stores, walked along the river and visited several of the plantations. We would want to live there for one summer, which one of the locals described as “somewhat humid” before settling there but were impressed with home prices, low taxes and things to do. Then the rains came……………………We left Louisiana in a rain storm and it did not stop for over 6 days.

We planned to visit the many state parks in Southwest Texas but found that rural parks had no cable TV, no newspapers and of paramount importance to Sara, NO LAUNDR0MATS, or as they are called in Texas “Washaterias”; we didn’t last long in the sticks. Are we camping or just plain, as a Texan would say, “spoiled as catfish stinkbait in the setting sun”. Imagine washing 8 little muddy paws every time you walk the dogs, and you would leave too.

We tried out run the rain only to find it everywhere we went, so we headed for the Texas coast in the hopes that ocean and land would create weather conditions that would allow the sun to shine. Beaumont, on the border between Louisiana and Texas, is billed in the travel brochures as a “unique” harbor city with quaint, turn of the century homes, beautiful beaches and the famous Crockett St with its jazz clubs, shops and restaurants. Well, the houses were old, not quaint, the beaches were lined with thousands of chemical refineries and Crockett St was one half block long with most establishments closed…….the only thing unique we could find was the smells created by the refineries. We were not impressed. Still raining………..

So it was off to Galveston Island south of Houston. Our strategy worked as the sun finally appeared. We opted for the Galveston Island State Park and were rewarded with a site where the back window of the RV was 100 ft from the pounding surf. Texas is much more dog friendly than most states and makes Florida the “Lupus Domesticus Hatefulness” capital of the country. They actually let dogs walk the beaches and our two miniatures schnuauzers, Ollie and Rudy, had a ball. They tried to “herd up” the waves, sniffed the seaweed and occasionally, much to the dismay of Sara, (they are her dogs you know) roll in the dead fish that washed up on shore. The sunrises and sunsets were awesome and we where rocked to sleep each night by the wind, quite literally as RV’s do wiggle in the wind, and sound of the waves as they hit the shore.

While on Galveston Island, we visited the famous historic Strand Street Historical area. Few people know that until the 1900 hurricane destroyed the city, Galveston was the economic hub for the entire state of Texas. More food, trade goods and immigrants entered the US through the port at Galveston Bay than any other port on the southern coast including New Orleans during the late 1800’s. The seafood was unbelievable with fresh redfish, grouper and trout and the biggest shrimp you have ever seen. The jumbo shrimp cost about $5.00 a lb and the medium size for as low as $2.00 a lb. We visited Sea Center near Galveston Island where millions of redfish are hatched and raised for release. The redfish, due to recent popularity of “blackened fish” have been reduced to dangerous levels and this is an attempt to restock the local waters. The tour was fascinating.

The rains returned and we decided to skip visiting Corpus Christi and Brownsville on the Mexican border. Our return date to Wisconsin was starting to loom and we decided to revisit San Antonio and Texas Hill Country while we still have the time. It is spring in Texas. The rains that have been battering Southern California and sliding over Texas for day after day finally stopped when we arrived at San Antonio. On a sunny day we toured the famous missions along the San Antonio River, including Espada, San Juan, San Jose, Concepcion and of course the Alamo. We did the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio and the Texas Cultural Museum. We lunched at the restaurant 500 ft above the streets of San Antonio making one full revolution in an hour.

But we could not linger as we have a date in one our favorite places on earth, the dancehall in Luckenbach, Tx. The famous Muddubber Festival will bring many local and national bands and we plan to be there to eat some of those awesome Texas ribs and dance the Texas Two Step.