Another Fun Harvest Hosts

On our way to North Carolina, we needed an easy stop after a long day of driving. Normally we stay at a winery or farm with Harvest Host, but this time Mac Haik Ford in Fort Desoto, TX came up as a good spot for the night.

It was super safe (24/7 security), quiet, and the whole staff was very accommodating! Highly recommend. Thank you, Chad!

Harvest Hosts is an annual subscription program that offers access to a network of vineyards, farms, breweries, museums, and other special destinations that invite self-supporting RVers to go to and remain overnight. As participants of Harvest Hosts,’ we have the chance to visit hundreds of fascinating places around North America while enjoying the RVing lifestyle.

Save up to 15% off your first-year membership by signing up with this link.

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Typically we’ll spend a maximum of two weeks at a single location (or we go stir-crazy), but lucked out to land at Alsatian RV Resort in Castroville, TX, which is about 35 miles outside of the city. This resort could easily be a getaway destination in itself with its spectacular swimming pool, hot tub, friendly visitors, and amazing staff, so we were happy to be here for our “travel pause” due to COVID19.

 

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Fast forward about six weeks, and we were feeling comfortable enough to get out a little. We decided to stretch our legs and take a short afternoon journey down to the River Walk and the Alamo to share with Caleb a few of the reasons why we loved this city so much. We were learning how to address concerns about our health and safety for the “new normal” but found It was super easy to stay socially distant at this point as many places were still closed.

While it was somewhat eerie to step down the ordinarily busy steps of the River Walk, we found ourselves relaxed and soaking in all its beauty. If you’ve never been before, the River Walk is just that, a walking path along the river located one level down from the city streets. It is gorgeously landscaped with beautiful flowers and trees that make you feel like you’re in a botanical garden. There are also a few bars/restaurants that line the area as well, and our favorite is Casa Rio for their fantastic Tex-Mex and margaritas (too bad they were still closed while we visited).

Just being able to walk along the quiet sidewalks, enjoying views of the Alamo, and teaching Caleb of its history and importance felt like a treat to all of us at that point. We have found that getting out and seeing/learning about history is one of our favorite parts of our travels.

We thoroughly enjoyed having the place pretty much to ourselves. We only came across five other people while down on the River Walk that day.

Fortunately, since we were there, things have slowly opened back up, and our country has learned how to return to life somewhat-as-normal safely. San Antonio is a city filled with rich history and culture, beautiful sights, gorgeous landscapes, and AMAZING food! It remains a must-stop for us again and again and we highly recommend adding it to your bucket list as well.

Here is a 360 photo we took of the Alamo. You can see we were the only people around.

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We are doing well after our first week of social distancing. Last week, we left Galveston and made our way to the “Heart of Texas” (aka Waco). We’ve been fortunate enough to find the things we need and be in areas where the competition isn’t too crazy for goods. We’ve made some adjustments to our daily routines and set some personal & family goals to accomplish while we’re in this forced downtime. Making the best of it as we can and taking advantage of the breaks in the bad weather to stretch our legs outside the RV.

The place we’re staying (Airport Park) is on Waco Lake and is an Army Corps of Engineers flood control area. Flood control measures must have been activated as the lake is rising after all the rain. So much so – we’ve been asked to move to higher ground as some sites by us are nearly underwater. So we got to do a “quick breakdown exercise” to help the day pass! It worked – Very fun! Hahaha!

Navy life prepared us for this over the years because plans change, and then change again. Sometimes (as we saw today), even in a matter of minutes. We’ve also made the important decision to put a hold on our travels, to be stationary for the next 30 days or until things blow over. So we’ll be heading south tomorrow to a private park as all COE Parks are unofficially “closed” for camping. We assumed Rangers would ask us to leave at some point, so we went ahead and made plans to stay put at our next stop. We’ve seen many concerns about National, State, and other Government parks closing across the RV community. Private parks do seem widely available in Texas at this time.

We hope everybody else is doing well. I think RV’ers are prone to be prepared for the unexpected. We have the flexibility to move to areas that are less impacted or completely isolate ourselves if we choose to. The trade-off is we can’t stockpile a bunch of supplies, but we’re finding it’s not so bad to get what you need outside the major cities. Stay safe and healthy, everyone!

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At any given time, one vessel is in operation 24 hours a day.  Additional vessels are added when needed, during peak hours and holidays.

If you have the chance to do this with your RV, I say go for it.  Save time on your drive and let someone else clock the miles for you!

Vehicles should not exceed 80,000 pounds and have a maximum length of 65 feet, a maximum height of 13.5 feet, and a maximum width of 8.5 feet.

To view current ferry wait times and live cameras, visit the Houston Transtar website. To receive updates and the latest news regarding the ferry, follow Galveston Ferry on Twitter.

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Talk about full circle. Quick story….In February of 1996 we bought this laughing Buddha figure at this exact Chinese restaurant while driving from Tampa to San Diego.

We had broken down (while doing a cross country move from Tampa to SD) in Winnie, TX for several days and needed any form of good luck to get us going and reach our destination. We thought this might work – and it did!

Since then this statue has made many road trips with us and kept an eye outside the windows of every home we’ve ever lived at. While we are not practicing buddhist, we know enough about the culture to respect the ideals of the statue. So we’ve always adhered to the customs when displaying him.
It’s now mounted in our RV to keep doing what it’s done for us all these year.

Today, on the way to Texas we made a special stop to bring him back to where we met! Winnie, TX has changed a lot, but the Motel 6 and Chinese restaurant still remain.

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