Christmas 2011 in Oak Mountain State Park

Went to Oak Mountain State Park in Pelham, Al on 12/23/2011. The park is just outside Birmingham and is very nice. The campground is way off the highway, so to go somewhere takes some time, then the traffic in Birmingham can be time consuming. But a nice campground overall and there aren't to many campgrounds closer to Birmingham. My sister and her family, plus my mother live in Birmingham, so we wanted to spend Christmas with them.
Went to a great Christmas Eve service at a church my nephew, James and his wife, Anne-Michelle belong. This was a great service with over 1200 people in attendance. The ending with over 1200 lit candles was really cool and we all left with a great feeling for Christmas. Then we had a great meal at my nephews house with all the family. What a great day!
Christmas day was spent at my sisters house and all the relatives.  The food was GREAT and it really is wonderful to be with family on Christmas.
We are leaving on Thursday to head back to Florida with a stop off at Florida Caverns and New Years day with our grandchildren.
December 28th is day 300 of our travels. We are a little disappointed to end our adventure but also excited to get back to Florida and our friends. We have been so blessed to travel and see all the wonderful animals and scenery. What a wonderful chapter in our life and we are looking forward to the next.

Staying at Paul B. Johnson State Park 12/15 -12/21

Having a nice time at Paul B. Johnson State Park in Hattiesburg, MS. We have been doing a lot of shopping and going to McD's for the internet. There is a place called Dirt Cheap, that has a lot of surplus merchandise from retailers, very very cheap! I found a heater for the camper for 60% off. But it beeps and Sandy has a fit. So we may have to find a new home for it. The heater not Sandy::))

Hatttiesburg is the Home of The University of Southern Mississippi. They have a very nice looking campus. On the Hwy to the campground is Camp Shelby an Army base. The have a surplus of vehicles in a big lot. I wonder if David would like one?

We are looking forward to going to Birmingham on Thursday to have Christmas at my sisters house. She always has a lot of decorations and prepares a fabulous dinner. She is the Martha Stewart of our family:))

For David

My county!! Lamar is my middle name:)

Heading to Mississippi! 12/15 – 12/21

It was time to move on to Mississippi and our goal of being in Birmingham, AL for Christmas. It was a nice easy drive of just a little over 200 miles. I10 takes you over a bayou that was interesting to us Florida people.

We are staying at the Paul B. Johnson State Park for a week. A nice campground and we have a great sight with grass and surprisingly a lot of campers. This by far is the busiest state campground we have been in since last summer. This is our 15^th state we have camped in since we left Florida.

Well, I am slowing down on my postings on the blog as we wind down our trip. Not really much to see and we are enjoying just relaxing and doing nothing. We will return the first week of January and are looking forward to getting back. I can not believe we are coming down to our last few weeks on the road. What a great trip and the memories are forever!!

Lafayette, LA 12/13 and 12/14

We got over to the Acadiana Park Campground a county/parrish type campground with time to get in some Christmas shopping. It was a nice campground and a place to celebrate Suzanne's birthday. We called my nephew's in-laws, Beth and Chris to meet up for lunch on Wednesday. They took us to a nice canjun restaurant on the river. They(the restaurant) even sang Happy Birthday to Suzanne! We really enjoyed our visit and will see Beth and Chris again in few weeks for Christmas at my sisters.

The Walters keep moving on!!

Galveston Island State Park

The dogs enjoyed walking on the beach during our stay at Galveston Island State Park. We never had a day of sunshine and the wind blew most of the time but we still enjoyed staying on the beach. We visited Bishops Palace which was built in in 1892. Don't forget after the hurricane in 1900 they raised all the surviving buildings 17 feet. How they raised these old buildings, must have been something to see. We stopped by Murdocks, a tourist shop built in 1910, that was destroyed for the second time in 2008 and had to be completely rebuilt. We really enjoyed our stay on the island!!

After 5 days it was time to move on. We decided to take the ferry over to HWY 87 and continue on to Lafayette, La. Suzanne was a little nervous putting the camper on the ferry but all went well. If the heavy fog had lifted it would have made our trip, but that was not to happen. We couldn't see much but it was still fun and saved us having to go around Houston. It is also FREE!! and you know how I like FREE:))

an Old Camper spent the night

Bishops Palace

In Galveston for 5 nights starting 11/8

Staying at Galveston Island State Park. The beach reminds us so much of St. George Island, where Suzanne's parents had a house. The family sure has fond memories of the beach and all the fun we had. The weather hasn't been good, as it has been windy and overcast the whole time. But a day on the beach is better than a day at Work:)
We are enjoying our stay and went down town to the the old section of town. Very interesting area and Carnival had one of their ships in port. Visited Moody Mansion where in 2008, during Hurricane Irene there was 5 foot of water in the yard. The storm came from the bay side and really caused a lot of damage. You can't tell it now.
 Having a great time and the dogs really enjoy the beach and all the smells:)

Moody Mansion  there was 5 foot of water in the parking lot

Moved on to Victoria, Texas on Tuesday, 12/6/2011

Well the weather has turned cold and very windy in Texas. We were going to Mustang Island just outside Corpus Christi but the temperatures and strong winds stopped us. There are no trees etc... on Mustang Island to help block the wind, so we would have been sandblasted!!  We even stayed an extra 2 days at Lake Corpus Christi State Park to hopefully wait out the weather, but the weather won!!

This morning while sitting at the table, we watched 4 bobcats cross the road. Usually you see one but it was really cool seeing four of them hanging out together.

We ended up in Victoria, Texas at the Gateway to the Gulf RV Resort. It is a Passport America campground, so we got a nice discount. We will be staying here for 2 nights and then to Galveston Island State Park. Hopefully the weather will be a little warmer and the wind will slow way down:)

Most of the campers we saw on the road today were heading South,  But not us, north to Alabama for Christmas is our plan. We are hoping for warm weather:))

Lake Corpus Christi State Park on 11/30/2011

Made it to Lake Corpus Christi State Park in Mathis, Texas. It is only about 70 miles from Corpus Christi, where we will be going next. The campground is very nice with full hookups for only $20 and you get good TV reception, but no internet. There are only 4 other campers in the park, so we have the park to ourselves.  We see plenty of deer just walking around the grounds and some pretty colored birds.  As of November 23, 2011 we have been on the road for 272 days. Boy that is hard to believe!! Time does fly when you are having fun. We will be here for 4 nights and then move on to Mustang Island in Corpus Christi.

McDonald's saved the day again having the internet.

Visiting the San Antonio Zoo!

San Antonio has one of the top 10 Zoo's in the country, so we had to go take a look. There weren't many other visitors, as it was a Monday, so the zoo was almost all ours. This is a nice Zoo and worth visiting if you get to San Antonio. Suzanne  really enjoyed the day!  I wish we had a zoo near us, so she could volunteer.

 

Visiting the Alamo in San Antonio on Sunday, 11/27/2011.

Took a drive to downtown San Antonio to see the Alamo and Riverwalk. We had been there before when Dave graduated from bootcamp and needed to see a little bit more of this neat area.  The Alamo had a lot of visitors as did River Walk. We enjoyed walking along the the river and that took us to Market Square ( El Mercado ) a mexican market. There were a lot of people visiting this area and being lunch time we had to find a place. We found this mexican restaurant, Mi Tierra, which turned out to be the place to eat in San Antonio. There had to be close to 1000 people eating in this restaurant. The food was good but just being in this place was cool. Suzanne and I had a nice day and tomorrow takes us to the San Antonio Zoo, one of the top ten in the country.

we ate with Dave here almost 4 years ago