Winter 24: A Month in Texas

A Month In Texas

After our Hot Springs visit during the first leg of our Winter 24 travels, we headed southwest to Montgomery, TX, a northwest suburb of Houston.   We stayed at the Lake Conroe/Houston North KOA, which is a bit misleading as it's actually about nine miles from the lake.  The park was about 1/4 occupied, and super quiet as the weather was not the greatest.  We visited with two of Tim's friends from work, and took in a few breweries, including Fass Brewing, Copperhead Brewery and Frankenboltzzzz.

After our stay in the Houston area, we headed south about five hours south to one of our favorite places in Texas, Port Aransas.  Dispite the weather (why do we keep coming here?) we enjoyed our beach walks, belt sander races at the Gaff, visiting the multiple bird sanctuaries as well as several breweries in the Corpus Christi area including Nueces Brewing Co. and Railroad Brewing.

After a week in Port Aransas, we headed down 77 to revisit Port Isabel, meeting up with our friends from Iowa.  We enjoyed exploring the area happy hours, getting in our steps with more beach walks which were much more enjoyable as the weather had improved significantly.  And we played a lot of games with our Iowa friends, almost every night.  We checked out other areas to stay on the island and took in a few of the turtle statues along the Sea Turtle Art Trail 

We also took time to enjoy the South Padre Island Birding, Nature Center & Alligator Sanctuary on a brisk day.  Great sights and an enjoyable walk along the boardwalk.  I really wanted to see a roseate spoonbill, and at first all we saw was one along the shoreline taking a nap. Then we came upon an entire family so close to the boardwalk!  We watched there for quite a while, along with a man with a camera with a lens so huge I wondered why he was that close.

After our week in Port Isabel, we headed west towards Arizona and the Tucson area.  Our plan was to take in Alpine, TX along the way.  Our first planned stop was in Kerrville and we walked off the day's drive by visiting two breweries including Pint & Plow and Off Main Brewing.  After checking the weather with forecast winds from the west 30mph gusting to 50, we decided to skip Alpine, staying an extra night in Kerrville.  With our bonus day, we decided to drive about 30 miles south to revisit Bandera, the Cowboy Capital of Texas.  Nearing the town, we were diverted off to a side road, because as we soon found out it was the 11th Street Cowboy Mardi Gras parade.  As in HUGE, with tons of floats and of course cowboys and cowgals, horses and flying beads.  Spotting some ominous rain clouds, we decided to head out before the parade ended and still wound up running through a brief rain shower.  We drove a few miles out of town to Bandera Brewing and arrived just before the rest of the parade crowd did.  What a pleasant, unplanned surprise.

The next day we departed Kerrville, staying along I10 with a stop in Van Horne, TX.   Our gas mileage proved that the headwinds were still very strong, but drive-able.  One more stop in Deming, NM before we landed in Tucson, for our first month-long stay ever.  That story and more, coming soon!

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Have you ever wintered in Texas?  What was the weather like in January?  Leave your comments below!  Enjoyed this post? Never miss out on future posts by following us.