Funky Texas Traveler, Author at Funky Texas Traveler

Aug 12 2014

Boca Chica Texas – From the Civil War to SpaceX

SpaceX and last battle of the Civil War

The unluckiest Union Soldier in the Civil War saw combat on the road between Brownsville and the Gulf of Mexico. Just a few miles separate the new launch site of SpaceX and the very last battle of the Civil War, fought at Palmito Ranch. Here John Jefferson Williams (1843 – May 13, 1865) became the last Union soldier to die in a skirmish that took place 37 days after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. Poor John.

7393936578_4df175847e_q Boca Chica Texas - From the Civil War to SpaceX — *By US Army Center for Military history – The last battle of the Civil War: Palmetto Ranch By Jeffrey William Hunt, Published by University of Texas Press, Public Domain,*

Bad dirt or bad timing?

The battlefield area is as lonely as it probably was when Pvt. Williams fought here, only four miles from a barely alive ghost town on TX SH 4. That settlement is now named Boca Chica Village. Boca Chica Village has gone through three names since it was founded on this far south Texas coast in 1967, just months before Hurricane Beulah paid it a visit. Sounds like in each case, timing was not in Williams or Boca Chica Village’s favor.

Maybe timing is right for Elon Musk’s SpaceX . This sparsely inhabited stretch of coast is priced right and ready for some recognition. When the SpaceX deal was announced in 2014, it felt like time to visit this Battlefield, Boca Chica Village and the beach that stretched to where the Rio Grande River emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. Our adventure starts here.

[Read more…]

Jul 21 2014

Why We Love New Orleans for Long Weekends – A Birthday with Friends

Who Went -Seven Texitas aged 19 to 60 hitting New Orleans for a landmark birthday. Four flying in from Houston and Austin and three road-tripping it in the Subaru.

What We brought: Great sunhats, walking sandals or booties, cool jewelry, easy dresses,skirts and shorts. The old KIKKer playmate cooler filled with wine and some snacks. A portable Bluetooth splash tune speaker.

Where we stayed: Inn on Ursuline, Marie Laveau’s old guest house from mid 1800’s. Best location and setting we have been at in a long time. Situated between Royal and Bourbon street at the quieter end of the party. Only five blocks from the local hangouts on Frenchmen street, 4-5 blocks from either the French Market or Jackson Square and a walk against the flow to everywhere else. Guesthouse walls were so thick; we did not hear our speaker from outside the door. Sweet little courtyard and Kuerig coffee machines in the rooms.

Be warned that stairs are rickety and steep for second floor rooms and we needed a designated climber to help a couple of our group up the stairs after a particularly fun night. Also no frig or microwave but we didn’t need that with the trusty playmate.

bloody-mary-at-cafe-pontalba-225x300 Why We Love New Orleans for Long Weekends – A Birthday with Friends — At Café Pontalba at Jackson Square. Image by Rindy Jones Greer

Where we grazed: NOLA is a food paradise. Clover Grill on Bourbon for hot dogs, omelettes, grits, club sandwiches at 1am on Saturday morning. Café Pontalba at Jackson Square on Saturday 11am for crab cakes Benedict and French toast with Bloody Mary’s and Mimosas. Loved this place because big French doors all open to the Square on a rainy Saturday morning so we could people/dog watch, like seeing the Great Dane who relieved himself right in front of the St. Louis Cathedral with a big audience. Sleepy from breakfast, some returned to hotel while a couple of us planned next meal at the Gazebo in the French market at 1pm for shared gumbo and Greek salad with a Nola Blonde ale and a margarita. 3pm feeding at Muriels at the bar for a salad with shaved Manchego cheese and crab imperial on French bread with wine. Fiorella Café at 7p for crab bisque and unbelievable fried chicken (plus more wine) and a chance to be reacquainted with Ashley the manager and Alaura the bartender. A break in eating until 1am Sunday for a Lucky Dog on Bourbon Street. A 2am visit by

clover-grill-sign-265x300 Why We Love New Orleans for Long Weekends – A Birthday with Friends — Image by Rindy Jones Greer

those who didn’t eat hot dogs for another early am diner breakfast at the Clover Grill. Hangover food – ribs from a grocery store on Royal between Ursuline and Esplanade early Sunday morning. Later Sunday morning racing to check out and loading our car, we met a lovely retired couple who directed us to Croissant d’Or Patisserie for a farewell breakfast.

Where we guzzled: Aside for all the locations above except for the Clover, JC’s Deli on Decatur provided a quick, cheap place to buy beer with good selection. Also tried to stop there between bars to grab a Perrier. The Magnolia Bar on Decatur for margaritas, various stands in the French market for frozen drinks including a Mocha Almond Freeze with ice cream – yum. Hotel Monteleone Carousel bar for beer, wine and Sazarac cocktails. Bombay Club at the Prince Conti Hotel where all is British and made good vodka gimlets with olives and a Kir Royale cocktail.

Where we partied: Friday night on Frenchmen street at DBA with tremendous band. Saturday night at the Golden Lantern gay bar, which was hosting a drag show and had the friendliest people we met on the trip. Most of the time, our best party experiences were on the street since one of our group was underage and couldn’t go in some of the clubs.

Where we shopped:

Great jewelry at the open-air market on Frenchmen street next to the Spotted Cat. Fun but expensive to shop while partying. Lots of great things to purchase without too much buyer’s remorse.
Hats on the store at the corner of the French Market where Decatur and St. Peter split.
Fun cheaper clothes at Lindsay’s on Decatur.
Weeping Angel pictures from the French Market
Jewelry and ponchos from California Drawstrings

The Best Parts: Finding our Poor Dumb Bastards band friends from Houston (PDB) in town. We met up with them at the Carousel Bar at Hotel Monteleone and shared NOLA war stories. Ended up sharing off pictures of all our respective dogs. Fur People Love – the common denominator with 90% of the people we meet

Taking a back street to Frenchmen Street and running into 12 guys dressed like Elvis (Twelvises) celebrating a divorce.

Meeting two friendly cross dressers outside the Golden Lantern and finding out about the Drag Show. Inside it was like an episode of Cheers with Jeff manning the bar and a sweetheart from Indiana helping us figure out who everyone was. All women should carry themselves like Drag Queens – the confidence and the star quality was incredible and it had nothing to do with body shape, age, or income.

Running into two second line wedding parties – the first where we practically ambushed the bride and groom leading the parade.

[Show as slideshow]

Apr 29 2013

Todd’s Farewell Journey – El Venado Ranch, Laredo, Texas

I had a complicated relationship with Todd, the younger of our two rescue terrierists but still I was sad to find out his immensely swollen belly was not the result of another Buccee’s fudge raid. It turned out to be an aggressive kind of spleen cancer. Never at his best when he was scared or uncomfortable, we decided to make it as pleasant as possible for all of us during Todd’s remaining days – strangely estimated to be 19 to 37 days from the research we did on the web. He rode in the red truck, got Wendy’s kids meals and went to ranch in Laredo, Texas

[Not a valid template]

Apr 29 2013

Huntsville State Park with the Happy Campers

“The road goes on forever and the party never ends” certainly applies the Happy Campers, a group of baby boomers we hooked up with through our trawler friends.

With a core group of friends from elementary school in Baytown whose parents worked at the Exxon plant, Happy Campers has grown to 50 plus participants from age “not quite here yet” to “not going there”. The outdoor adventures appear to have started in the 70’s when most of the core group went to Austin (yes, there are some longhorns in the bunch). Sometime in the early 80’s, they became official Happy Campers with twice yearly get-togethers and along the way they started picking up strays and branding them Happy Campers even though the Baytown connection might be thin and pretty stretched. We got rustled and branded three years ago around the time we bought an 20-year old 8-foot pop-up trailer to see how we did in really small spaces (this could have been a really bad idea but worked out okay).

Flash forward and we are now in a 19-foot Rockwood Roo with more space but still camping twice a year with the Happy Campers.

Huntsville State Park is a favorite with at least the Gulf Coast based part of the group since it is only a hour or so from Houston. Also the early contingent (Wednesday arrivals) reserve all the screen shelters 1-13 that gives us both lake front frontage and a fairly contiguous area for all to spread out.

Let the camping, hiking, biking, canoeing, cooking/eating and story telling begin. We were part of the group that drove into Huntsville to see the Sam Houston museum. Houston is man and a leader who, like Lincoln, inspires me more with every passing year. We think our times are contentious but spend some time reading about Sam’s up and down personal and political struggles, defeats and triumphs and the sequester argument seems genteel by comparison. Among the things we learned: how the Alamo mission was originally to get arms and get out but the defenders decided to try to hold the mission. Sounds like the call for rescue to Sam Houston and the decision not to send reinforcements must have been gut-wrenching but ultimately necessary to maintain enough force strength to win at San Jacinto. I’ll have to read more about that.

As for the canoeing, had great weather all day Saturday even though it turns out Houston was flooding with storms dumping 6 inches of rain in 3 hours. Took advantage to learn some canoeing basics (very very basic stuff like how to get into a canoe, hold the paddle, etc) but the payoff was beautiful scenery, a gator-eye view of our camps and an actual gator sighting about 15 feet off our very flimsy, small, unstable bow . Do I sound a little bit nervous? Imagine how I’ll be if I run into a bear on our boundary waters trip in early fall. Good incentive to learn how to paddle well and fast!

Spent the rest of the afternoon in camp with a great view of the lake through tall pines dosing and reading “The Geography of Bliss” about what constitutes happiness in different cultures. Spoiler alert – a rum punch, a good book and a great campsite with the Happy Campers at HSP meets all my happiness criteria for the moment.

Apr 22 2013

Borrow A Dog for the perfect Texas Beach Vacation:

Years ago, I was visiting my daughter in San Clemente, California with Karen, my trawler diva friend and fellow animal fan. We were walking on the sandy footpath above the Pacific ocean that runs next to the Coast Highway just south of Carlsbad, playing an informal game of dog bingo to see who could spot the most breeds. Canines were everywhere. When we saw someone not leashed to a four-legger, we knew we were meeting a fellow tourist.

Dogs are an essential part of the California beach life and apparently have been for a long time. Karen told me that when her parents were first married and the Navy stationed them here, her mother had an idea to rent dogs by the day to visitors.

Karen’s mom will be happy to know that someone picked up on her idea. Friends of Animal Rescue run a resale shop on South Padre Island that supports care of animals abandoned and lost on the island. Even better, though the odor can be somewhat pungent, the resale shop shares space with all the cats and dogs that need new owners. And the Friends are happy to lend the dogs out for a quick walk or a few hours sharing your towel on the beach and helping you mask your tourist origins.

Match them to your mood at the moment. Pick up a pocket pooch if you are feeling like a Kardasian. Or channel Ryan Gosling and leash up a bigger dog with a couple of quirks like six toes on one paw, an under bite, and soulful, slightly off-center eyes.

bryan-and-pork-chop-300-500 Borrow A Dog for the perfect Texas Beach Vacation: — Is this the one for me?

That would be Pork Chop, the chocolate lady lab that my brother and I test drove one weekend. Apparently, Pork Chop had a fan following because a girl was waiting to walk her as soon as I checked the dog back into the Friends shop. A few days later, I saw the loopy lab strolling down Constellation Street with another beach goer. I checked on Pork Chop a few months ago and some one had permanently checked her out and given her a forever home.

When I bring my nieces and nephews down for holidays, the first stop is to see what new dogs and cats are hanging around the resale shop and decide who we are going to take for a spin. And while the infamous”Puppy Dog” sales tactic works on many potential pet parents, the volunteers at the Friends shop are just happy to have you give their dogs and cats some one-on-one time away from the herd.