Finishing Yesterdays Job

WHERE ARE WE? Magnolia Beach, Texas

Another great start to a great day again.  There is never a bad day at the beach!!  The wind could go away though but we tricked it this morning by blocking it with the Jeep.  There is always a way.  A couple cups of coffee and it was sneaking up on noon time.

Today I had on my list to finish what I started yesterday.  I did all the wiring yesterday and today I need to put everything back that I took apart yesterday.  Sue got this old smoker and we have incorporated it into our motorhome as an electrical center.  Anyway I got it all put back in place and now we just wait for the new inverter/charger.

Subpanel hid in bottom of smoker

                                       

Main panel in top of smoker

We tend to forget that as we get farther south there are some things hiding in the long grass that we don't have back home.   One is alligators and another is rattlesnakes.  This one was heading for our motorhome but he met Mr. Tire first.  Whew!!  He wasn't that big but I bet he could bite up a storm.

And once again sunset has fallen on us.  The place behind us is a concrete and glass place.  It is owned by a Canadian who we have never met yet.  The yellow cube is a trademark of the business he owns.  I can't remember what it is though.  We took Archie for his last walk of the evening as the sun went down.  Good Nite!!

Another Improvement Accomplished

WHERE ARE WE? Magnolia Beach, Texas

A Ship a day...no no maybe its an Apple a day.  No matter what we saw a ship this morning while drinking coffee.  It is still quite breezy here today and not really nice enough to sit outside.

After coffee I got busy on another little project I have been trying to get done.  We are tired of having to unplug the Skylink all the time when we are not using it, especially if we are on the inverter, so I am wiring a plug to a switch that has a light on it.  Now, if the red light is on Skylink is on, if red light is off, Skylink is off.  As I said yesterday, I wanted to check all the wiring so I took all the panels out to check. This made for the easiest time to do the plug so that's what I did.  I will put everything back together tomorrow.  

We made a little trip into town to Walmart today to pick up some things.  That pretty much filled up the rest of the afternoon.

On the way home, we checked on Edgar.  Edgar is the mannequin here at Magnolia Beach that they dress up appropriately for the occasion.  He has been around as long as we have been coming here.  Right now he is dressed to vote!!!

 We had an early supper and worked on the computer for a while.  Then it was TV for the rest of the evening.   Good Nite!!

A Football Game!

WHERE ARE WE? Magnolia Beach, Texas

One of the things we do here on Magnolia Beach is a lot of nothing.  Archie likes to go for long walks on the beach and we make sure he gets some.  The weather is a little breezy and cool for the Texans, so we pretty much have the beach to ourselves.  

The other thing we do is watch ships go in and out of the bay.  There are generally 3 or 4 every day.

And then we just relaxed and had a wee nap.  I did do one wee small job.  Our inverter showed a short circuit and shut down so I had to track it down.  It seems that the short is in the actual inverter so I took it our and bypassed it for now.  We will use the generator for our 120V needs until I can get a new one.  No problem. This was a fairly cheap inverter (not that that is always bad), but I was not impressed with it right from day one.  I will find another one I'm sure.  I just hate spending like $2500 for one.  Maybe another cheap one and take a chance.  

Out with the old

Bypassed the wires and we are good to go.

We met up with our friend Sue this morning, and kinda invited ourselves to join them and their friends for supper and a football game.  We went to a football game with Randy and Sue a few years ago and enjoyed it.  Well we will tag along tonight again.  First thing was to go out for supper.  We went to a nice little restaurant that had lots of fish and shrimp on the menu.  Mmmmm.  I had Snapper and Shrimp with dirty rice and veggies.  Lots and lots of Broccoli!!   Hey, do you know the difference between snot and broccoli?...............Kids don't eat broccoli!!!  Bad joke!

Oh yes, we forgot that Sue and Randy have a white Jeep Sahara too. We are like twins!!

Tonight is Cancer Awareness at the Football game.  They even have a pink car for the event.  

The home team is the Port Lavaca Sand Crabs.  They are the local high school team but they play pretty good football.  It was a fun night     `    

 

Randy, Sue, Carol and Keb and Sue not paying attention.

The game was pretty much a blow out.  It was a complete shut out until the 3rd quarter when the Sand Crabs started playing their young B players.  They did really well, however they gave up a couple touchdowns.  Still almost a basketball score.

We had to stop at McDonalds for a wee treat on the way home and we looked across at the stadium which was empty already. They have pretty awesome facilities for sports in the south.

Sunset was from the our seat at the game.  Good Nite!!

Made it to Magnolia Beach

WHERE ARE WE? Magnolia Beach, Texas

One more day of travel before a little break.  Here's where we are going.

We saw the weirdest thing this morning as we were traveling.  I said to Sue, Sue I don't think that mower has anybody driving it!!  Well sir I was right.  I have never seen nuttin like that before.  Kinda like one of those rumba vacuums I guess.  It was mowing a pretty big area and mowing around obstacles and everything.  It won't be long and farming will all be done like that.  

Today we drove along the Gulf again for the first part of the day.  The reason is that we want to take the big ferry in Galveston again.  So we headed that way.  Lots of tall stilted houses along here.  

We saw a few ships as we got closer to the ferry.

We got to the ferry just as one was docking so we didn't have a very long wait.  

They loaded us up and we were off.  The ferry takes about 20 minutes to cross the bag so there was time to go up top and check out my solar panels. lol.  The water was quite choppy today and you really get thrown around up top.  If you were prone to seasickness, you would be puking today. 

    

I loved the speed limit sign as you get off the ferry.  

We had to drive right through downtown Galveston and we saw some of the houses of the rich people who lived in town.  At least that's what I think.

The Bishops Palace

Moody Mansion

A couple other things we saw along the way that were interesting.  First a fishing guy that could be up to his armpits in something!!  Hope he catches a couple.

And there were a few of these Amazon vans around and they twigged my curiosity.  So there was one at the gas station we stopped at so I went and talked to the driver. (I should have asked him about putting parcels by the locker but I didn't)  It is an electric van and the driver loves it.  It is a unibody and looks real sleek.  He says it has lots of power and a charge lasts him all day.  Now I am not a believer in EV's for a lot of applications, but for an in town delivery vehicle, they are maybe the cats behind.  But don't believe they are saving the environment for one minute, cause they definitely are not.  Just my opinion.  

Anyway, here we are in one of our favourite places in the world, Magnolia Beach.  We can listen to the waves and watch the ships go by for a few days.  We have some good friends in these parts too and I imagine, our friend Sue will come wandering down the beach to visit us tomorrow.  we are just gonna chillax for a few days and do a little visiting.  Good Nite!!

Made it to Texas

WHERE ARE WE? Winnie, Texas

We had a great sleep at the boat dock last night.  It was warm when we went to bed but had cooled off to about 19C by the time morning came.  I went down on the dock to see what was happening.  One of the boat crews was there just hanging around and fishing.  Another young lady was there as well.  She had caught 1 drum so far this morning.  She said the crabs on the river bottom were stealing her shrimp that she was using for bait.  They promised if they caught anything good they would invite me for a fish fry.  I never got a call so I guess their luck was not good.

We headed out about 9:30 for another day of leisure travel.  We are taking the road less traveled again today.  We meandered along about 45 km/hr most of the time, so we had lots of time to look around.  

This is a little drawbridge on a narrow road

the bridge is really narrow

We are getting closer to the Gulf and most of the buildings are on long stilts.  Some of the homes are 15-20 feet off the ground.  Lots of buildings are in a sad state of disrepair.  We are not sure how long they have been like this.

Hey look, there is our first palm tree sighting.

In the afternoon we came upon a little ferry that takes us across a river.  There were only about a half dozen of us so it didn't take long to load and we were off.  The total ride is 3 minutes long.  The cost is $1 per vehicle.  They didn't even charge us for the Jeep!!!

loaded and ready

Archie wondering what this is about

and we are off

and 3 minutes later we are done.

And finally the Gulf of Mexico came into view.  We always love the ocean and the beach, so we were in our happy place.

We went for a little walk.  The road can't get any closer to the beach!!

We finally made it to Texas.  

We stopped in Port Arthur for some groceries and when we drove away, this little guy wouldn't let go.  He finally gave up at a stop light and flew away.

We are crossing a few big shipping channels as we travelled along today.  Sue grabbed some photos from the bridge and along the road.

This was our travels today.  We hope to be in Magnolia Beach tomorrow afternoon sometime.  

Until then, this is where we are for the night.  A little nostalgia for you. Back in March of 2019 we spent the night here in Winnie with Pat and Harold, Jerry and Deb, Ed and Lessie. Check out that post here.   John and Val got left behind up the road with RV troubles.  I thought I recognized the spot when we pulled in today.  It's a nice cool 22C tonight so I can feel a good sleep coming on.  Good Nite!!