We are heading north in the motorhome, heading to the wedding of Joan's brother Rob and the lovely Sharon. We were up early this morning, loaded more stuff into the truck, grabbed a quick breakfast at Whataburger, and headed to the storage unit to get the motorhome.
At the storage unit, we transferred stuff from the truck into the motorhome. It was a warm, sticky morning as we headed inland. A surprising development: once we got to the Expressway north of Harlingen, we had a (gasp) tailwind! That lasted for about 100 miles... and then Mother Nature found out we were on the road. Yeah, a quartering headwind, but it wasn't bad (single digit wind speeds).
Not much traffic on the Expressway...
Well, we did "play leapfrog" with this Mexican bus...
The Saritas check point. The Border Patrol agent asked, "You don't have any hitchhikers you picked up along the way, do you? (Smile) Have a nice day!"
Profiling has its place.
Our plan for today: stay on the Interslab to San Antonio, then take US Hwy 281 from there. All the times we have made the drive north and south, we have avoided 281 because it looks like there will be stop-and-go traffic. This trip, we are hoping to see some blue-bonnets - this is the prime time to see the wildflowers along the Texas roads (according to the internet), and we picked this route because it runs through (according to the internet) where the flowers will be.
I tried about a dozen times to get some photos of the flowers along the side of the road...
That's about as good as it got; most of them were blurry. No blue-bonnets, yet. This route would take us right through the middle of San Antonio, on Interstate 37, before it turns to 281... mostly new territory for us. Our timing was good - not a lot of traffic as you pass through town around 1:30 pm...
As I had suspected, Highway 281 has a lot of stoplights at the north side of San Antonio. In typical Texas highway engineer fashion, the speed limit is 65... until you have to slam on the brakes for a red light. Objects may have shifted while in flight.
You are definitely in Texas Hill Country - lots of trees...
And, hills (duh)...
We started seeing flowers along the side of the road and in the median. I shot a couple dozen, but they didn't really show off the floral display...
I decided to pull over and get a couple close-ups of the blue-bonnets...
I'm not showing you the other 40 or 50 shots that are mostly a blur. Joan took some, too...
Passing through Marble Falls, we drove by an interesting small RV dealer...
Not implying they don't sell a bunch of these, but they are "small RVs" - commercially produced teardrop trailers. Not much more than a place to sleep, but some of them do have an outside galley when you open the back. Definitely minimalist traveling, but would be fun with a sporty vehicle towing one. For now, I'll stay with the comforts of home we have in the Aspect.
We did about 400 miles today, breaking our 2/2/2 Rule... but, the driving was pleasant. We are traveling light this trip, not towing anything behind the Aspect. We are down for the night in a Passport America park on 281, well away from civilization...
Little Izzy spent most of the trip on "her bed", sitting on top of our bed. She was anxious to get outside for a walk once we were settled in...
Yep, this place checks out - cat approved.
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