The Lone Star State

Yesterday we crossed into Texas.  As kiwis, we often marvel at some of the things we see and experience here in the USA. Brenda and I will often look at each other and say "only in America!" But the real home of jaw-dropping is the Lone Star State - where we amend that exclamation to "only in Texas"!

We are now parked up at Huntsville State Park. To get here we drove thru a thunderstorm along a narrow road (just one lane each way) with no shoulder. It's extremely difficult to drive a coach that is 102" wide on such a narrow road and keep it off the rumble grooves that they gouge into the center line and the edges of the road. So in wet weather, with poor visibility, I kept the coach at a nice steady 40-45 miles and hour. Any more is suicidal. Of course this is Texas and the speed limit on this narrow road is a mere 75 mph (that's a bit over 120 kph)! Naturally all Texans drive huge pickup trucks and insist on their God given right to drive at the speed limit, at the very least, regardless of the road or weather conditions and other white-knuckled kiwi drivers on the same road.

Only in Texas!

And we only have another thousand miles of Texas roads to drive. Yippee!

But Texas has it's good points. The price for a gallon of gas and a bottle of Corona is about the same - a little under two bucks! Great value. And they have some great State Parks - including Huntsville here:

Once again, we have the park to ourselves with no neighbours in sight!

Brenda was contemplating going for a swim, until she saw the sign below!

According to the information sheet they give you when you arrive at the park - there are 30 alligators living in the lake and they usually hunt and feed at night. Brenda wasn't too reassured by the word "usually" - so no swimming for her at this park.

We are staying here for three nights and then we continue west to our next stop in Austin - the State capital. Haven't been to Austin before so we are looking forward to that.