Texas RV Travel blog

Whether you agree or disagree with Mr. Neil Young, please take a moment and listen to his latest offering: Living With War.

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Mr. Young is a Canadian. For some reason, everyone believes he has no right to disagree with the policies of America.

• Mr. Young has lived in the USA for 40 years
• he is married to an American
• he is father to American children
• he has paid more taxes than all the members of the Bush cabinet
• he stood up for the Patriot Act and took flak for that

He has the right to his opinion, whether he is Canadian or Martian. This is America after all. We can still agree to disagree… or has that gone the way of our civil liberties and privacy?

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Living With War will stream on NeilYoung.com beginning Fri, Apr. 28th. The album will be available at digital retailers beginning May 2nd. CDs will be available in stores early May.

Click for the lyrics of the songs:
1) After The Garden
2) Living With War
3) The Restless Consumer
4) Shock And Awe
5) Families
6) Flags of Freedom
7) Let’s Impeach The President
8) Lookin’ For A Leader
9) Roger And Out
10) America The Beautiful

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When all voices of protest are silenced, the song of America will end. God bless Neil Young and our soliders. May they all live to see the end of the war.

Tags: Living With War, Neil Young, After The Garden, Flags of Freedom, America the Beautiful, Looking for a Leader, Families, Shock and Awe, The Restless Consumer, Roger and Out, Let’s Impeach the President

Posted by CyberCelt under Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Well, after feeling sorry for myself because our RV is in tatters and our RVing adventures temporarily halted, I actually laughed when I read this comment on my blog:

. . . I’m a stringer for People magazine. We’re working on a story tied to the upcoming movie RV, so we’re hoping to find families/couples who have had their own real-life misadventures on the road. I read about your ordeal on the Happy Campers forum …

I never realized that there might be a marketing opportunity in our misadventures with RVs. Perhaps Robin Williams and Cheryl Hines will play Michael and Eileen in the sequel to RV (On a Family Vacation, No One Can Hear You Scream).

Well, I do not know if anything will come of this reporter for People Magazine and our misadventures, but I sure got a chuckle out of thinking of taglines for the sequel to RV.

Here are my attempts:
RV2 (Brakes? We ain’t got no brakes. We don’t need no brakes. I don’t have to show you any stinking brakes!) - for fans of Bogart and Gold Hat
RV2 (Honey, I glued the kids to the RV) - for the Disney lovers in all of us
RV2 (And the hail came down and the roof flew off) - Rolling Stones soundtrack

Anyone else want to give it a try? Just leave a comment. If you are a member of BlogExplosion, leave your BE member name and you will receive a few credits from CyberCelt.

At least I am laughing again. Thanks, People Magazine!

Tags: RV, real life misdventuresOn a Family Vacation No One Can Hear You Scream, People magazine, I don’t have to show you any stinking…

Posted by CyberCelt under Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

If you have visited our website USAer.com in the past, then you probably read our tale of our first journey in our travel trailer and van. A comedy of errors, we had quite a few problems and were lucky to make it back to Texas from Colorado. That was less than one year ago.

If you visit USAer.com today, you will see the end of our travel tales for awhile. Beauty, our travel trailer and Beast, the van we use to pull it, were hit by one of the biggest hail storms in Texas history last week.

The Beast escaped with a broken windshield and hundreds of new dimples, while Beauty was beat to pieces. No fairytale ending here: the Beast will be left alone, separated from Beauty, the Beast’s reason for being for the past 20 years.

What started out as golf-sized hail soon became softball-sized hail and, finally, grapefruit-sized hail. Falling from far above the Earth, these spheres punched through windows, roofs, gutters, windshields and trees. In less than 30 minutes, the hail did over $10,000,000 worth of property damage in San Marcos.

Honda Classic, a new car dealer outside of San Marcos,lost most of the new vehicles on its lot. Over 1000 cars in the parking lots of Prime Outlet Mall and Tanger Outlet Mall were damaged by hail, many too badly to drive.

No one was seriously hurt by hail or flying debris in San Marcos, and we are truly thankful for this; however, we are devastated by the damage to our travel trailer, both vehicles and our home.

Tags: Texas hail, grapefruit-sized hail, San Marcos, Texas, Prime Outlet Mall, Tanger Outlet Mall, no fairytale ending, Beauty and Beast

Posted by CyberCelt under Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Texas my Texas is the USAer guest blog of the week. Tex, the owner, has collected an eclectic collection of Texas photographs. You will find great pictures of courthouses, Big Bend scenes (featured left), wildflowers, lakes, bridges, you name it!

Tex lives in Livingston, Texas and loves Texas. He is also a historian and writes detailed blog posts that will inform and educate you on Texas.

Visit Texas my Texas blog today. Tell him CyberCelt sent you.

Posted by CyberCelt under Uncategorized | No Comments »

Matagorda Bay Nature Park is a 1600-acre park located on the Matagorda Peninsula at the mouth of the Colorado River channel where it flows into the Gulf of Mexico. The Matagorda Bay Nature Park is an ecological gem that will be preserved and developed for sustainable tourism by the Lower Colorado River Authority.

The Matagorda Bay Nature Park is destined to become a world-class birding destination! The unique river channel, the wetlands of the bays and estuaries and the Gulf coast are home to thousands of shorebirds and many migrating birds, ducks and geese are enticed to spend a season here. Where there are birds, there are fish and shellfish.

This area is already known as an incredible fishing spot and a wonderful environment in which to study wetland soils, vegetation and hydrology, bays and estuaries, aquatic organisms, coastal dunes and flora, organisms of the salt marsh and shoreline shells.

To view the park, coast and surrounding area, visit Tex-Maps and view the East Matagorda Bay aerial map.

Recreational and educational programs available now:

• boating safety
• angler education
• beginning birding
• teacher workshops
• scouting and youth programs
• guided kayak wetlands trail trips
• educational programs for students

Recreational activities and facilities available now:

• picnic shelters
• bird watching
• beach combing
• beach tent camping
• 2.5-mile wetlands kayaking trail
• fishing from three free public piers
• 22-mile beach with vehicle access
• hiking trail to shaded wildlife viewing area

This park will fill a void in coastal parklands created when Matagorda Island changed from a State Park to a State Wildlife Management Area due to budgetary concerns. While the Matagorda Bay Nature Park is not as remote as Matagorda Island, this park does have facilities such as potable water, showers and toilets and road access that were lacking on the Island.

A new 70-site RV Park with full hookups is scheduled to open by summer 2006. The RV Park will be located along the Colorado River channel, within walking distance of the beach, the natural science center, the group pavilion, the picnic facilities, the hiking trail and the fishing piers.

Other facilities to be open by summer 2006 include:

• playground
• food and drink service
• Natural Science Center
• ADA-accessible facilities
• 1/2-mile pedestrian beach
• rest rooms and outdoor showers
• group pavilion with covered picnic table
• equipment rentals: kayak, fishing gear and beach umbrellas

The nearby town of Matagorda has restaurants, lodging, shopping, fishing guides, boat rentals and many other attractions. For area information, please view the Visit Matagorda County website.

View map from Matagorda, Texas to Matagorda Bay Nature Park from Ask.com.

Tags: Matagorda Bay Nature Park, Colorado River Meets Gulf, world class birding, easy coastal fishing, RV Park on Texas coast,kayak trail, Natural Science Center

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Stars appear as the last red washed rays from the sunset wane from the blue sky above the canyon walls. Shadows come quickly to the canyon as day turns to night. The Frio River flows over rocks and eddies against the tree trunks, causing the lights of the pavilion appear to jump and dance.

It is quiet. Families are eating dinner and teenagers are showering and dressing for the evening. Girls try to decide: mocs and jeans, flats and shorts, or tennis shoes and shift? The boys are just as conscious about their looks: hair up in front or down, use hair gel or go natural, shirt tucked in or left out?

It is time. Families begin walking toward the pavilion, bringing lawn chairs, snacks and blankets, pulling young children along. Families set up their claim to ground around the concrete apron, facing the pavilion rather than the river, so they may watch the show.

Teenagers walk separately from their parents and younger siblings, too cool to be seen with their families. Some teens stop to wait for friends and check out the scene before making an appearance. In the shadows, some boys stand, smoking cigarettes, their crisp white shirts standing out against the darkness.

Then the music begins and hundreds of teenagers walk to the pavilion and stroll onto the floor to dance to the jukebox or, on the weekends, to local bands like BJ Thomas, Roy Head, Gene Thomas, Johnny Winter or Roy Orbison. It is the early 1960s and life is good at Garner State Park.

Life is also good in the USA. The economy is booming, John F. Kennedy is president, we are heading to the moon, Civil Rights are fast becoming reality, daylight savings time does not exist and most people could not point to Viet Nam on a world map.

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Today, the pavilion is being restored and a jukebox has replaced the bands, but Garner State Park is still the most favorite state park in Texas and remains THE place to dance under the stars for thousands of teenagers. Every night ends with flashing lights and the song Garner State Park being played.

Garner State Park offers camping, hiking, biking, birding, canoeing, fishing, swimming and tubing, seasonal miniature golf and paddle boats. The park is home to deer, turkey, bluebirds, warblers, squirrels and raccoons, is heavily wooded and is one of the most scenic parks in Texas. It is not unusual to find third-generation campers at Garner, as newly formed families visit Garner State Park to enjoy the waters of the Frio (Spanish for COLD) River, to recapture the good times of their youth, and to share family memories and traditions with their children.

For more information on Garner State Park, please visit Texas Parks and Wildlife Department website.

Tags: Garner State Park, Frio River, Dance Pavillion

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Good Friday, April 14, 2006

In me there is darkness,

But with you there is light;

I am lonely, but you do not leave me;

I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;

I am restless, but with you there is peace…

Lord, whatever this day may bring,

Your name be praised.

The prayer was written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, while awaiting execution in a Nazi prison. The picture of Jesus on the cross above is from the stations of the cross in Groom, Texas. Groom has another cross that towers 190 feet over the prairie and may be seen for 20 miles. View more pictures at the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ Ministries website.

Tags: Easter, Christ, Passion of the Christ, Good Friday, 190-foot cross, Groom Texas

Posted by CyberCelt under Uncategorized | 1 Comment »