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One of the most important things we need to do as we become full-time RVers is to establish a home address, which will be our “domicile” for the foreseeable future, and get registered to vote (in the apparently faint hope we’ll have an honest election someday soon). To get all that done, we needed to get to Livingston, Texas, and that’s where we are now. We’ve had our mailing address here for almost a year, and now have Texas plates on our Truck and RV. Next, we need to get our Texas driver licenses, but have to wait until our birth certificates and marriage certificates arrive. (I mistakenly assumed our Washington State enhanced licenses were sufficient to prove our ID, but was mistaken. Oh well.) They should arrive in time for us to get all the rest done within the next week.
Our first few days here, we were able to get the license plates and tour the town while appreciating the sweltering heat and humidity. We wanted to be where it’s warm, and we surely did accomplish that. The last few days, however, it almost feels like Seattle: It’s been cloudy all day, relatively cool, and line after line
of thunderstorms have been rolling through. We haven’t seen any truly severe weather, but it has been wet and wild. There is something ironically delicious about the last couple days: We left the rainy Seattle area for the warm, dry southern states, and haven’t had more than a few rainy days since we arrived in Quartzsite last November. Until arriving here. And the next week is forecast to be more stormy weather.
As Natalie describes it so well: We have been experiencing thunder and lightning storms that only God can create. After a full day of such nature, as darkness fell, a high wind like God just exhaling a huge breath blew and then the storm was over, just that quick. Then the crickets and birds sang loud in rejoicing for quite some time over the end of the storm and fresh air again. What a chorus. Every creature sings His praises.
It is very nice to be comfortably warm and dry and enjoy the magnificent, powerful storms as they roll through.
After leaving Van Horn, Texas, we stayed in Sonora, Texas at an RV park with 10 rental spaces. The only thing to the RV park
was a gravel-covered driveway next to the hookups, and an easy exit. The first day after traveling, we visited the Caverns of Sonora and took the guided tour, which proved very interesting, quite strenuous, and quite warm and humid. I’m not sure how it compares to other tourist caverns, but it was a nice and very interesting excursion. The tour took us to about 155 feet below the surface and involved 360 stair steps, along a well-defined path with guardrails. The sights are truly amazing to see. One feature of these caverns is an abundance of helictites, which are not found in every cavern. These are crystals that form towards the sides and can even become circular, as opposed to the stalactites and stalagmites that form vertically. The gift shop sells rocks and crystals, as well as the usual tourist goodies.
After that tour, we found the Chamber of Commerce back in town, where we heard some good ideas for restaurants and the suggestion to visit the museum, which also proved an excellent idea.
The Ice House Museum is in the building that used to be the town’s ice house. There’s very little left from the actual ice
house, but an amazing collection of memorabilia donated by the citizens of Sonora. The ladies who gave us a tour of the museum next took us to visit the courthouse, the old jail, the Miers house, and the train station.
The courthouse was built on the highest hill in the town, with the city businesses down the hill in front of it, down the hill. It’s the only building in the center of a very nice lawn about the size of a city block, completely surrounded by huge old and healthy pecan trees. According to our hostess, the lawn becomes packed with people collecting pecans when they start falling from the trees. The building and interior have been renovated to the original time frame, with the addition of such modern touches like electricity and telephone lines. The building is still in use, but not terribly busy, at least when we visited. (Sonora isn’t a big metropolis, but government business continues.)
The jail was abandoned long ago, but is interesting because it housed prisoners on the second floor and the warden’s family on the first. As a matter of fact, the warden’s wife cooked for the prisoners. The Miers
home was a very small settler’s cabin, and it’s another eye-opening view into the lives of our hardy pioneers. The train station is also no longer used as a train station, but is a very classy place to hold weddings and other significant events. Outdoors, there’s even an amphitheater outside which is frequently used for events.
After Sonora, we spent just over a week in San Antonio, at the KOA Holiday there. That is a wonderful park, with a pool, a neat little fishing pond, a breakfast café and weekend dinner café, with ice cream on the weekends as well. The camp store is pretty nice, the people are friendly and very helpful, and the campsites are really nice too.
Just settling in to our site at San Antonio was a wonderful new experience. We had spent 4 months in Yuma, which is very nice, but it is desert – dry and dusty, with very few trees and not a whole lot of real green grass or trees. The San Antonio KOA is really a beautiful park, with very nice and spacious sites, jam-packed with healthy trees and green grass, the first time we've seen so much live
green in months. After the day’s drive it was really nice to relax on our patio while enjoying the beautiful setting.
Everything available at the park is conveniently located, clean and neat. And it was amazing to see what the KOA workers did to make it so nice. No sooner did somebody leave the park at the end of their stay than a KOA worker was there to pick up anything the camper might have left, clean out the fireplace, sweep the patio, and do anything else necessary to make the site perfect for the next campers.
We were able to get to the Alamo from the KOA quite easily using the city bus and a cell phone app that allows purchase of tickets and passes. The KOA people explained how to use the app and the bus system. The buses run often enough you don’t have to work to catch the bus in time; there’s another one coming within 20 minutes or so.
We were able to tour San Antonio a couple times after visiting the Alamo, and really enjoyed the river walk. I don’t know about many river walks, but have been told San Antonio’s
is the best. I believe it. It is a wonderful stroll, with beautiful gardens all along the length, bars and restaurants lining the walk, and nifty little hideaways to just sit, relax, and enjoy life.
In eastern Texas the landscape is grass green, tons of green trees, cattle and horses, and slightly rolling hills but mostly flat and pretty. So lovely and peaceful and serene. I think that should be a color - Serene Green. Pecan trees grow abundantly, just not during this season. The magnolias are in full glorious bloom and the blossoms are huge. Beneath these trees are miniature flowers of the trillium. Such contrasts co-exist peacefully and beautifully. It’s truly a pleasure to behold.
After San Antonio, Natalie found a Duluth Trading Company store in Katy, a suburb west of Houston, so we stopped there at a very nice RV park on a lake. (Natalie has found Duluth clothing fits her well, feels and looks good, and lasts forever, so it’s well worth the visit.) Except for the rest and shopping, we didn’t do any tourist things in Houston.
Here in Livingston, we see many soaring birds of prey but are not able to
identify them. I do believe I have seen eagles, but these are different. So majestic. Doves can coo for hours and it is always a pleasant, calming sound.
The roads since we left west Texas have frequently been like a washboard. So much so that the next morning when I went to use the salt and pepper shakers, the lids had totally unscrewed themselves. Of course, I didn’t notice until a mess happened, but it was worth a good laugh. Refrigerated lids also unscrewed but not as completely. There, liquids sometimes spray yet the lids seem tight. It is a mystery.
I would be rich if someone had paid me to keep track of all the yellow diamond signs that say “bridge may ice in cold weather”. DUH!! These signs are all over Texas; almost every bridge has a sign for both directions of traffic.
A new habit I have to remember is to keep the butter dish in the refrigerator. Butter melts quickly when its 90 degrees, whether on the counter or on the stove!
As we mentioned earlier, our main reason to come to Livingston is the is where we can get all the
domicile formalities done here. This is the headquarters of the largest business supporting full-time RVers, Escapees. The main thing they do is provide a mailing address and forwarding service, and that is what brought us to the club in the first place. But they also help us deal with the process of moving to Texas, at least for the purpose of having an official home address where we can register to vote, license our vehicles, register our insurance, etc.
They also have several RV parks around the US, and we are staying at the original Escapees RV park, which is quite nice. Not quite as good as an KOA, but very nice just the same.
One feature at this park is the tour of their mailing service offices. They offer a tour twice a week, and have reason to be quite proud of their service. We took the tour and learned their mailing service is far beyond anything I could have imagined. Our first clue was the first day we went to pick up our accumulated mail. As we were walking to the pickup window, a full-size semi drove by - tractor and trailer labeled "US Mail" -
just cruised by and backed up to their loading dock. Then, a couple days later as we walked up to take the tour, another one pulled up. It turns out they handle mail for 14,000 RVers. They handle so much mail, they have their own zip code.
They collect the mail as it arrives, then send everything they've accumulated for us to us when we ask them to. Of course, they charge for each mailing, and we keep a balance with them so they can pay for it, as well as a charge account number they can use when necessary. But the fees are reasonable, and they will advise us the best and most efficient way to send everything to us. It works very well.
This park also offers several activities, and we've been able to attend a church service and an ice cream social, and Natalie's gone off to participate in several ladies events, dodging the showers along the way. And we've met some very interesting people, but that's becoming the norm for our RV travels. Our only meaningful complaint is the pool is not yet open. When we asked, we found out the pool season doesn't
begin until Memorial Day, by which time we'll have moved along to our next destination, which we think might just be Austin.
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Donna Kalahar
non-member comment
So great to hear of your travels
Sounds like you are having fun, meeting people and learning new things. You're doing it. Bravo. D&D