Cold Moving Day, Nice Texas Museum, Lunch with RV Friend

Location: McKinney Falls State Park; Austin, Texas

(click pictures to enlarge)

It's almost 8:00 a.m. and I'm waiting for it to warm up some inside Liberty before taking a shower. It got down to the uppers 30's last night which was about 10 degrees colder than I expected. I had left one ceramic heater on low last night which kept Liberty in the upper 50's. I have a second one going now in the bath/bedroom area but am having to be careful since I only have 30 amp service at this campsite. If I turn each heater on high, they will draw a combined amperage of about 26 amps which leaves only 4 before tripping a breaker. Therefore I have each set on medium and have my fingers crossed that the water heater doesn't trip the breaker. In the past whenever I was restricted to 30 amp service, I always used propane for the water heater because of the amp draw the A/C units would pull. This time, since I knew I wouldn't be using the A/C, I flipped on the electric option for the water heater. So far, so good, no breakers tripped and it's warmed up to 63 degrees in here. I'll have to turn off one of the heaters before I turn on the coffee pot. Aw, the joys of RV living. :) 

I'll be moving today to Blanco State Park in Blanco, Texas. It is a small state park next to a small town but it is centrally located to the places I want to explore. I will be there through Christmas. It will be a very short tow of about 1 1/2 hours so I can pull out of here as late as noon today. McKinney State Park has been nice and peaceful. I walked some of the trails and saw both the upper and lower falls. I wasn't able to cross the lower falls to see some of the other sites but I was OK with it. The massive limestone cap rock is impressive.

Campsite Number 1, McKinney Falls State Park

The view out my door

Wide walking paths in this park

The lower falls.

The swimming hole at the lower falls

The gulleys cut into the limestone at the falls

This is at the upper falls with a deep cut

The overhand has been cut out by erosion. It is off limits
today due to it being unsafe, but you can easily
picture people in past seeking shelter here.

The upper falls with the overhang in the background

More upper falls

And one more of the upper falls

This is just part of the very large limestone cap rock in the area

I visited The Bullock Museum of Texas yesterday. It is a nice museum with plenty of exhibits. I was there for almost 3 hours and time just flew by. I have posted about some of the history of Texas in the past and will try not to repeat any of it here. A few things did stand out to me in the museum. One was the recovered ship of the French explorer LaSalle. He originally explored the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. On his next trip to America, he planned to establish a colony near the mouth of the Mississippi River but due to bad navigation and maps, he ended up in Matagorda Bay, Texas. It was a bad place to try to establish a colony and it failed miserably. LaSalle was eventually killed by his own men as he was attempting to reach some of his old exploration areas in the Illinois area. One thing his exploration party left to us was the sunken ship, La Belle. It sank in Matagorda Bay in 1686 and was recently re-discovered and recovered from its sandy grave. Artifacts and parts of the ship are on display in the Bullock museum. The possible story-line of LaSalle in Texas is that if he had succeeded in establishing a colony in Texas, then Texas may have been aligned with the French as Louisiana was instead of with Spain/Mexico. It is an interesting display. I met two nice ladies that work for the museum and they were interested in my RV'ing so I gave them the address to the blog. One has already commented, so I know they are reading. I'll have to be careful not to mis-state any facts or I may be called out on it. :) LOL

Nice looking museum and if someone wasn't sure
about the reason for the museum, well, the
big Texas star is a give-away.

The keel of the LaBelle which was salvaged
from Matagorda Bay. Pretty good shape to
be about 250 years old.

This display represents what may have been the
beginning of the Texas Revolution. The Mexican
Army was sent to Gonzales, Texas to retrieve
a cannon that was loaned to the Texans for defense
against the Indians. The Texans refused to give up the
cannon which sort of set the tone for the revolution.
Note the words on the flag. The Texans kept the cannon.

This is the American flag after an additional star was added
due to Texas becoming a state in December of 1845. It was nice
because the star cluster formed a star as if it was the Texas
Star. The shape of the stars only lasted for about a year until
Iowa became a state, then it changed.

Comparison of homes. The pioneers "dog-trot" cabin on the left
and a plains Indian teepee on the right.

Large shot of several displays

More displays

After visiting the museum, I had lunch with another full-time RV'er. Her name is Malia Lane and she has been full-timing since 2001. She has an extensive web-site/blog dating back 13 years. If you have a few days to read some of it, one of the addresses to a couple of her webpages is www.maliasrv.com. That one will get you started from the beginning. I began reading her site many years ago when I first began thinking about RV'ing. The food was so-so, but the conversation was very good. 

Well, it's warmed up enough in here to shower and get ready to roll on down the road so......

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.