On Sunday, March 19, 2023 we left our first beach boondocking spot on Surfside Beach in Freeport, Texas and drove an extra hour out of our way to Potter’s Creek Campground outside of Canyon Lake, Texas for a nine night stay. Why did we drive an extra hour out of our way? Well for some reason the RV GPS decided we should do that and I had neglected to check our route myself ahead of time. The upside, for Cindy, was that our out-of-the-way route took us through Galveston, Texas so she got to see the place for the first time. Me? I could have done without the extra-long drive.
The sites at Pottter’s Creek were, for the most part, nicely spaced. Ours was a paved, level site with a covered picnic table AND an extra paved side space for parking Voyager. They have sites that are under trees and sites that are in the cleared areas, like ours was. Many of them are lake view sites, as was ours, allowing you nice views of Canyon Lake. The restrooms were fairly new and very clean. Didn’t use them so not sure if they had hot water and how the pressure was. Unfortunately, they have no trails for hiking.
Tuesday I drove 13 miles into the town of Canyon Lake to do our laundry and fill our empty propane tank that ran out at 2:15 in the morning during one of our last nights at the beach. Why is it they always run out in the middle of the night? I had to get out of a warm bed, go outside in the cold, wind and rain to switch over to the full tank. Must be an unwritten rule somewhere that says they can’t run out in the middle of the day.
I also dropped off four books with Bookcrossing labels that I had read while we were at the beach. It’s fun to see where the books go (if someone logs in using the label) after I’ve dropped them off. Once I saw a book go all the way to an airport in Greece.
Thursday morning we drove into San Antonio so Cindy could see the Alamo for the first time. I had toured it by myself about 5 years ago when I was deployed to Austin and had wished then that she could see it with me. Now we would get that opportunity.
If you’ve also never been to visit the Alamo you would not be blamed for expecting to see something much larger than it is in reality. It’s kind of like going to the Louvre the see the Mona Lisa and being surprised to see how small the painting actually is. Visiting the Alamo you would naturally expect to see a large fortress on acres of land, but the Alamo is actually quite small in size at 4.2 acres and surrounded by modern-day, multi-storied buildings in a largely developed section of the city. The dichotomy is quite startling to the roughly 1.5 million first time visitors each year.
The Battle of the Alamo during Texas’ war for independence from Mexico lasted thirteen days, from February 23, 1836-March 6, 1836. In December of 1835, a group of Texan volunteer soldiers had occupied the Alamo, a former Franciscan mission located in the present-day city of San Antonio.
On February 23, a Mexican force numbering in the thousands and led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna began a siege of the fort. Though vastly outnumbered, the Alamo’s 200 defenders–commanded by James Bowie and William Travis and including the famed frontiersman Davy Crockett–held out for 13 days before the Mexican forces finally overpowered them. The battle cry of “remember the Alamo” later became popular during the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848.
In addition to the old church and barracks buildings, the grounds have statues of heroes scattered about and there are volunteers who reenact what life was like inside the Alamo during that historic time period, as well as an educational center. There are antique firearms of all types from that era on display and replicas of cannons that were used to defend the fort.
The Ralston Family Collection Center (which we did not visit and carries an additional entrance fee) contains priceless artifacts, many of them gifted to the State of Texas by one of my favorite musicians, Phil Collins, who is also an amateur historian.
After a few hours of touring the Alamo, Cindy and I walked a few blocks over to stroll down and around San Antonio’s famous Riverwalk. It’s a beautiful, relaxing walk below the city street level along the river with lots of shops, hotels and restaurants along the way. Cindy and I were trying to decide where we would like to dine for lunch when we came upon an Irish Pub called Waxy O’Connor’s. Since we both enjoy Irish Pub food we decided to stop there for lunch. It was a decision we regretted. We sat outside in a dining area by the river, so the ambiance was pleasant, but the service was incredibly slow and the food was disappointing. We should have gone to the Mexican restaurant farther down the river. Ah well…
Saturday morning was spent with a small painter’s brush cleaning Surfside Beach sand out of the window tracks on the outside and vacuuming it out of the window tracks on the inside. It was just crazy how much sand got on and into Nomad! We’re STILL finding grains of sand in cracks and crevices in and around the RV. I also got out my expandable ladder to clean the layer of sand/mud/dirt off of our solar panel. Because it’s located on the roof and on the same side as our big slide-out, I also had to get out my extendable pole brush in order to reach the solar panel. But I was able to get it cleaned off and our solar charging should get back to what it was when new and clean.
Monday we drove to another nearby town to load up on groceries and for Cindy to get her hair trimmed and styled. I also dropped off another four books at locations in the town and by the time we got back to the campsite three of them had been retrieved/logged on my release notes.
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