We have done a lot and seen a lot these past couple of weeks. So hold on to your hats…there are a lot of pictures coming up.
We made our way to College Station to help Janelle with the big move to Galveston. On the drive to College Station we started getting pummeled by bugs on the windshield. It turns out they are called Lovebugs because they mate and then fly around together until they die. The bugs were really numerous this year because the winter wasn’t cold enough to kill them off. And they were all in the process of reproducing. It seemed we hit every bug in existence during our drive. That wasn’t true, there were plenty of bugs still around that week.
Our windshield looked like it was being splattered with rain. It sounded like it was too.
This is what the front of the RV looked like when we arrived at the RV park. Lovebugs everywhere! Many RV Parks won’t let you wash your RV. This place had no problem with us washing the front of the coach…thank goodness!
A closeup of two Lovebugs. Once they “connect”, they stay connected.
With the Lovebugs scraped off the front the RV, it was time to launch into moving mode with Janelle. On one of our trips out for supplies, we stopped to check out the Gig ’em statue. “Gig ’em” is Texas A&M’s battle cry. From the Aggie Nation website:
Gig ’em: The hand sign is a closed fist with a thumb up. The tradition got its start in 1930 at a Yell Practice before a game against TCU. “Pinky” Downs, class of 1906, was a member of the A&M Board of Regents and gave a speech, asking the Aggies what they were going to do to the Horned Frogs. The term comes from hunting frogs or fish using a pronged spear called a “gig.”
Yup, the Aggies are something else.
Gig’em!
Back to packing…..
The moving pile was starting to accumulate in Janelle’s living room!
A 6′ x 12′ trailer was JUST big enough.
So, early on a Saturday morning, we drove the U-Haul trailer down to Galveston (a 3 hour drive), unloaded it, and then drove the trailer back to College Station. Doing a round trip, the trailer rental was on $32. If we had done a one way rental, it would have been close to $400. No thank you.
That is a Hurricane Evacuation Route symbol on the shoulder of the interstate. We were heading into Galveston, so the arrow is pointing at us. When evacuating, all the roads are used to get out of the hurricane’s path, even if they have to reverse the direction traffic normally flows
Coming onto Galveston Island, we spotted this cemetery. Instead of grass around the markers, there are yellow wildflowers. I like that!
Lots of yellow flowers!
Welcome to Galveston. Janelle is now living is a house with Candice, another PhD student at Texas A&M Galveston. The house is up on stilts due to the fact they are two blocks from the beach and hurricanes have and will pass through here. So the ground level “basement” is used as a garage, workshop, and a storage area and the living area is up the stairs.
Janelle’s new abode…photo is courtesy of Bing Maps since I somehow neglected to take a picture of it.
The front porch has a hanging swing on it. We took advantage of the porch on a warm evening.
Janelle’s backyard…which she and her roommate get to maintain. It already had some raised planting beds. Janelle planted a bunch of veggies back in March. They are doing great! There is also a deck on the back.
From the upper deck on the back…watching Janelle tend to her garden.
Janelle had found an RV park close to her new house during a previous visit to Galveston, so we stayed there. It was great being only 4 minutes away. And the place was really nice, being right on the Gulf of Mexico.
The view from our RV window. Palm trees and the Gulf of Mexico!
The view from the RV park hot tub. The pool was an infinity pool…seeming to have no edge. You can just spot the Blue Flame out in the RV park.
The beach is very accessible from the RV park and Janelle’s house.
Texas A&M at Galveston (TAMUG for short) is a much smaller campus than the main campus in College Station. It’s on Pelican Island, right next to Galveston Island. So Janelle is no longer an Aggie, she is a Sea Aggie.
Welcome to Texas A&M at Galveston. This is Janelle’s home for the next 5 years or so.
Janelle’s home on campus is the Ocean and Coastal Studies Building. The building lobby had some really cool features.
A wall sculpture…I’m not sure what else to call it.
A close up of the wall sculpture. Cool!
A mosaic on another wall in the lobby.
Eight monitors in the lobby detail what the world’s oceans are doing in real time.
The tank room. Janelle will soon have tanks full of fiddler crabs in here.
Galveston looks like a good fit for Janelle. She joined us in doing some exploring.
Some of the beaches allow vehicles on them.
Janelle showed us what mangroves look like. She’ll be spending a lot of time in mangrove forests as her research involves them.
Driving to the end of Seawall Boulevard, the ships are pretty close as they head into the ports of Galveston and Houston.
Lots of ocean going freighters pass by Galveston. A lot of cruise ships sail out of Galveston too.
This house is REALLY high up on stilts!
We ate too much during our time in Galveston. Lots of seafood! Those drinks are blue margaritas! Janelle is just being weird.
We loved our visit to Galveston and want to see more. We will be returning!
Next on the agenda was my brother’s son Eric graduating from Southwestern University in Austin. As long as we were in Texas we might as well help him celebrate! So we high tailed it back to Austin. My Dad flew in. Janelle joined us. My sister lives in Austin. It’s unusual for that many of us Michigan natives to all be together…and it was in Texas of all places!
We stayed at the world’s worst campground. The guy living in the school bus was supposedly turning it into a motorhome. I didn’t see him do much. He had no curtains, so we kept our shades pulled the entire time we were here.
Family time! L to R: Janelle, my brother Jim, my sister-in-law Sarah, me, my Dad Jim. The picture was taken by my husband Jim. Yes, that’s a lot of Jims.
We helped pack up Eric and get the rental house spiffed up. Dad and I mowed Eric’s much-too-long lawn.
Happy Graduation Eric!
We had an excellent celebratory dinner at Eddie V’s in downtown Austin. My sister Christine joined us.
The only redeeming quality of our ugly campground was the fact that it was next to Dell Diamond (as in Dell Computers), a baseball field for the Round Rock Express which is a farm team for the Texas Rangers. After everyone flew out on Sunday morning, we walked over and enjoyed a ball game.
Dell Diamond on a pleasant Sunday Afternoon.
Torchy’s Tacos, for an excellent post ballgame dinner. We had a number of people tell us we had to try Torchy’s Tacos. They were right!
I would love to know what kind of flower this is. It was growing on a vine that covered a fence.
Alas, it was time to leave Texas. We had been in the state for six weeks. It’s hard to believe we had been there that long, but it IS a big state! As we traveled northward toward Oklahoma, we went through Canton, Texas and spotted debris all over the place. It took us a minute to realize it was from a tornado. A quick Google search told us that tornadoes had ripped through the area just the week before. We had never witnessed tornado destruction before. It was quite sobering.
Debris from a tornado in Canton, Texas.
More debris…and this isn’t the worst of it. I didn’t grab my camera quick enough to capture the really bad destruction.
On our journey back north, we were advised (by the gentleman sitting next to us at the baseball game no less) that we should visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. This is exactly how we end up in some of the places we do…someone mentions a place, we research it, we go!
You may have heard of Bentonville. It’s where Wal-Mart was founded by Sam Walton. So, we started our tour of Bentonville with a visit to the Wal-Mart Musem. It’s housed in the very building where Sam Walton opened his first 5 & 10 store. The museum told the story of Wal-Mart with lots of “Rah! Rah! Go Wal-Mart! overtones. It was free, so the price was right.
Sam Walton’s original 5&10 store, along with the Wal-Mart Museum adjoining it.
Sam Walton’s red pickup.
Next was why we came, to visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. I had heard of this museum via a story on CBS’ Sunday Morning television show years ago. The museum was founded by Helen Walton, the daughter of Sam Walton. If you have a spare 8 minutes, the CBS video story I mentioned is at https://youtu.be/DsX8yBnWHNU.
The museum was OUTSTANDING! Admission is free (amazing!). The grounds were beautiful with outdoor sculptures. The architecture of the building is very unique. The art collection was varied and covered from about 1680 to now. You were able to get up close to all the paintings. I still remember seeing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and not being able to get close to it. There was not a don’t-get-close attitude here. Plus you could take pictures of the artwork! No one was slapping the camera out of my hands. Below is just a representation of what we saw. I really had to cull through all the pictures I took to decide what to post here. If you are ever in Bentonville, I highly recommend stopping.
The Crystal Bridge American Museum of Art
Sculpture called Maman (french for mother). The artist said it’s a tribute to her Mother…in a good way.
The Art Trail on the grounds.
LOVE it (pun intended). I’m guess this came before the postage stamp.
This dome was in the process of being installed. There is a wheel barrow in the lower right hand corner if you want a sense of scale
Looking at the museum from the inside.
The architecture was very cool.
Darn, we just missed the start of this Chihuly Exhibit.
This is what Chihuly glass looks like…when packed up.
Done with the museums, we had to check out the town and find a grocery store. Of course, the only grocery stores were all Wal-Marts.
Walmart to GO????? I think it’s like a 7-11 Convenience Store.
This is the cleanest Wal-Mart I have ever seen!!!!
We are now on the final leg of the trip. We spent last night in Illinois “camping” on the farm where we bought the Blue Flame (Thanks Pam!). Tonight we will be in a Cabela’s parking lot (free camping again) just north of Columbus. We will be home on Saturday.
So the final stats for this trip: 13 weeks. 6000 miles on the RV. 3300 miles on the Jeep. 13 states.
Till next time….
UPDATE!
I was just about to hit send on this post when the RV started making beeping noises and Jim was pulling over to the side of the road. What???? Our engine was overheating, 10 miles from our destination, on a VERY busy highway in Columbus, Ohio. Jim popped the hood and found a broken belt. Bad. Jim had spare belts with us. Good! But replacing belts on a 12.8 liter diesel engine is not easy. Bad.
Stranded on I-270 during rush hour.
We have roadside assistance through our insurance. I placed a call to them…they would only tow us, not send out mobile service. I called the local Freightliner shop who recommended a mobile service shop. The mobile service shop said they would be out in 90 minutes…only to call 30 minutes later and tell me they don’t work on motorhomes (note to self, NEVER tell the service people you are a motorhome). Even explaining we are a truck that just happens to have a home on the back wouldn’t change their mind. These guys recommend someone else…who didn’t have a service tech available. The no-service-tech people recommended someone else who did…. You get the idea. In the meantime, cars and trucks are whizzing by, rocking the RV back and forth.
Yup, there’s a belt missing. The shiny pulleys should not be visible!
In the meantime, Jim had put on his coveralls and started doing what he could. About the time I finally found someone to come out and help us, Jim shouted that he got the belts off and the first new belt on. Did I mention there are three belts? If you are replacing one, you might as well replace all three. I scrambled to find a belt path diagram online.
Who travels with spare belts? Apparently we do!!!
The biggest obstacle was removing tension from one of the pulleys. We needed something to wedge in next to a tensioner. A high quality Craftsman socket would do it…but it was too long. But, before we left Arizona, my Dad had given Jim a cheap socket set that a neighbor had passed on to him. Viola! Cheap sockets are shorter, and in this case just the right length. Without that cheap socket set, we would not have been able to fix it ourselves. Thanks Dad!
I should also mention Jim’s ratchet broke in the middle of all this fun. It wouldn’t ratchet anymore unless he hit it with a hammer to knock the mechanism back into place.
BUT…Two hours later, we had three new belts installed. I give Jim HUGE props for having spare belts with us and the knowledge to replace them. Otherwise, we might still be sitting there.
So NOW we are on the way home. If I push send on this blog post and something else breaks, I’m going to quit blogging (said sarcastically).
Wow — what an end to your trip!!! And — the blogs aren’t annoying — enjoy each and every one of them. I could spend some time in the O&C S Bldg. where Janelee is.
Glad that you made it home safely.