Tuesday Jan 30 Spoetzle Brewery

Spoetzle Brewery
The home of Shiner beer
Nothings finer than a Shiner

Started in 1909 by Germans it now ships beer into every State except Alaska and Hawaii. We took the tour of the brewery and of course enjoyed the free samples.

Spoetzle Brewery Website

Amazing what free beer does. They offer 2 tours each day and there were about 20 -30 on each tour.

Each person who takes the free tour gets 4 free 4 oz beers

This is how beer is made. Kind of a big set up to fit in our basement

Labels being applied on the bottling line. They have a rather unique set up.

They can do bottles and cans on the same line but not at the same time

One of the very few catholic churches in Texas. Very few in all of the southern states

While I was trying to figure my directions out, Rose visited this beautiful church

How  about this set of wheel discs

4th Leg of Journey

Monday Jan 29 San Antonio

Alamo

Beautiful downtown. Just a great place to hangout for a day. We visited the Alamo.
Official website  the Alamo. This is an historic site of a battle between the would be Texan residents and Mexico. The have restored the church and the surrounding walls and made it into a major tourist attraction.

It is interesting how much American's celebrate battles. They at so proud of always fighting with someone. Either outside forces or among them selves.  They are a nation the like to fight , maybe that is why there is so much violence here.

Riverwalk

There is a 15 mile river walk that winds through the downtown. It is really an outstanding development. They have boats giving tours, and outdoor restaurants along the way, just a very interesting way to move about the downtown in a very relaxed setting. The River walk is connected to the huge down town shopping mall, the conference center and many of the down town office towers.


The San Antonio Riverwalk

Sun Jan 28 Laredo

We travelled to Laredo and drove around the downtown a bit, and went to the information bureau at a truck stop to get directions and information. As we were entering the shop a truck driver who had noticed our plates asked us how we were enjoying America. After a few minutes of conversation he advised us to not go down town and walk around as we would probably get robbed. Laredo is right on the border and is a major truck route to Mexico. We skipped town and headed to San Antonio.

Saturday Jan 27 King Ranch Kingsville

King Ranch is covers 825,000 , most of it in Texas with some in Florida.  
They developed the Santa Gertrudis, and Santa Cruz breeds of cattle on this ranch, as well as breeding quarter , and thorough bred horses. They are the largest cotton producers in Texas as well.

If you go through the website you will see all of their other enterprises and their history. The Ford King Ranch pickup truck is made under license with their name and Logo.

King Ranch Website

A Texas Longhorn

This board displays a copy of all of the branding irons used in Texas.

Every 10 years they have to be reregistered or you will loose the right to use them

At one time the ranch was pretty well self sufficient, this is a weaving loom where they made the saddle blankets.

. The wool was never died but they used different colors of wool to create the patterns.

Thursday and Friday Jan 25-26 Padre Island National Seashore

Padre Island is a 70 mile stretch of sand (Island) that runs parallel to the mainland. It was designated a National protected area by Pres John Kennedy. It is an unbelievable piece of completely undeveloped and will never be developed land. Visit the link below to get a complete understanding.

Padre Island National Seashore

This was our camping spot, it is a bit cloudy in the background.

We were camped right beside the water with the sand dunes behind us. 

Miles of beach in either direction. 

Jan 26 3rd leg of journey

Wednesday Jan 24 Corpus Christi

We visited the USS Lexington , an air craft carrier full equipped and converted into a museum,

The take off and landing area is over 2 acres. Almost 100,000 sq feet

This the deck where they store the planes as well as the take off and landing strip

only 350 feet required for take off and landing

Crazy amount of space  on this ship.

About 5000 personnel on board when it is in operation

USS Lexington Website

Tuesday and Wednesday Jan 22 and 23 Port Aransas

Spent 2 days camped right on the beach beside the Gulf. Gypsy heaven in my book

Camping right on the beach. Bought an annual pass for $12.00.

Supposed to be for only 3 nights during any 21 days but some people had been there longer. 

Miles of sandy beach in both directions

Rose catching up on her knitting

We will not forget this place for a long time. Too perfect

On the second day we walked into town for lunch. This is a texas burger chain called whataburger.

Loved their burgers. They tasted just like you make at home. No sauces to cover up the taste.

Saturday Jan 20 Rockport

This town was severely damaged in Hurricane Harvey.

6 months later only about half of the businesses were open.

piers were destroyed

This is a boat storeage building that was full of boats, stacked maybe 6 rows high.

They were removing the boats from the racking when we say this.

A fun antique and junk shop we stopped at.

Enjoying the sunshine under a tree at Camp Wally

Sunday Jan 21 Aransas Wildlife Center

Interesting area. It is rather swampy but the ponds are filled with fresh water from rainfall. Many different species of birds winter here, including the only flock of wild whooping crains. They summer in Alberta. 

Friday Jan 19 Galveston

Wet rainy day and only 6 degrees so we moved on. This is pretty much a retirement city. Lots of condos and seashore. They even have a ferris wheel and carnival area on the beach. On a nice day it would have been fun to visit a couple of blocks of the old down town. 

Thursday January 18 NASA Houston

NASA Houston is where the space program took place from 1961 to 1992. When you look at the Apollo 13 movie they used this exact control center where they managed all of the trips to the moon.
The trips to the moon took place before a calculator was invented, all calculations were done by hand or with a slide rule. The huge room full of computers that they used had a total storage space of what it would take to store 4 or 5 pictures on your phone today.  They even had ashtrays in the sitting area.
It is mind blowing. What a day!!!

Visit the website , impossible to tell the story NASA Houston

Space shuttle on display as you come in

The actual mission control center where every thing happened

Training center

Canadarm    no Canadian flag!!!

Training Center

Training center

NASA Houston

Wed Jan 17 Texas Energy Museum Beaumont

The Texas Energy Museum is the history of the Spindle Top oil well discovery up until today. It explains how oil is removed from the ground and refined. Great place to visit especially after visiting the East Texas museum in Kilgore which only had history and not the current processes. If you poke around the website it explains every thing that our pictures could never do

Texas Energy Museum Website