We’ve finished up visiting friends and family and are starting on our RV nomad lifestyle for the winter. Before we start living off the grid, We first stopped at Reed Bingham State Park in Southern Georgia. It’s a convenient stop, being only 6 miles off I-75. It’s also a good place to catch up on laundry and other maintenance issues.
There’s a small lake for boaters and fishing. They also have bicycles, canoes and kayaks for rent. For the hiker, there are some nature trails where you can find bald eagles, ‘buzzards’ (black and turkey vultures), alligators and gophers tortoises. We hiked them all and didn’t see a thing other than one turkey vulture. Best of all, it’s shorts and T-shirt weather! Seems like a good place to spend Christmas. There was a spectacular sunset over the lake on our first night.
Heading West
From this point on in our journey, we intend to spend most of our time living off the grid to save money on campgrounds and RV parks. Leaving Georgia, we joined what seemed to me to be the annual migration of RVs west along the I-10 corridor heading to the American Southwest.
Bolivar Flats, TX
After a couple of overnight stays in a Walmart parking lot and a little mishap, we got to our destination for New Year’s Eve on the Bolivar Peninsula in Texas. Our camping spot is right on the beach. Talk about oceanfront!
The beach camping in Bolivar Flats is at the end of Rettilon Rd. Spelled backwards that’s no litter. I think that’s clever. Apparently, there are some people that don’t get it. We picked up our little corner of the beach, however. Bolivar Flats is one of the best locations in SE Texas to watch and photograph shorebirds. The salt marshes, mud flats and beach attracts hundreds of thousands of birds each year. At high tide, it looks like any other remote beach area with a few shorebirds near the beach. Low tide at Bolivar Flats reveals several rows of sand bars with the shorebirds feeding in between them. This is the best time for the bird photogs to be here.
Nearby is the Anahauc Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is open seven days a week from one hour before sunrise until one hour after sunset unless otherwise posted. You can enjoy one of the many hiking trails, fishing platforms, photoblinds, auto tour loops, and butterfly garden available on the refuge. Best of all, it’s free. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate so we missed out. Next time.
The Plan was to enjoy the New Year here on the beach. Unfortunately, we woke up on New Year’s Eve morning to a weather report predicting heavy thunderstorms, high winds, hail and a tornado watch. After weighing the pros and cons of riding it out, we decided that discretion is the better part of valor and we bugged out. We started heading west again, through the heavy rain and celebrated New Year’s Eve in a San Antonio Walmart parking lot.
A Brief Interlude
The weather is turning nice for the next few days here so we found a nearby county park to enjoy the sunshine, warm temperatures and do some maintenance. We got to enjoy a couple nature trails while we were here.
A Circuitous Route
After our time near San Antonio, we decided to take US-90 to Alpine, TX and then take TX-118 north to get back on I-10 because our travel atlas said that was a Michelin Scenic Drive. It probably added an extra day to our travels but it was well worth it. US-90 north of Big Bend National Park passed through some small canyons, Amistad National Recreation Area and over the Glass and Del Norte Mountains. We even ran into areas where it had snowed recently.
One word of caution. When driving on US-90 through Del Rio, pay attention for when the route makes a right turn. If you miss it and keep going straight, thinking you’re still on US-90, you end up at the Mexican border. Ask me how I know this.
Over The Mountains
TX-118 goes over the Davis Mountains and rises to well over 6000 feet. My truck was doing it’s best impression of the Little Engine That Could as it hauled our trailer up, over and through the twisting mountain passes. This 75 mile section of today’s journey had the most spectacular scenery. Who said Texas was flat?
Westward Ho!
We’re back on I-10 and taking the direct route west now to the Tucson area in Arizona. We’ll continue to live off the grid as much as possible while we explore Saguaro National Park and the surrounding area. You can check that out here!
Leave a Reply