Our Summer 2012 RV Vacation - Part 4 Palmetto State Park and FOOD!!

Welcome back!! This is the 4th and final post on our 2012 RV Summer Vacation!  (click here if you missed part 1, or part 2, or part 3).

In this final post I want to share about our adventure at Palmetto State Park and share some pictures of some of the FOOD from our trip!!  (because we all know it's all about the food - LOL!)

On the way home from Corpus we stopped and camped at Palmetto State Park.  This was a neat neat state park that is along the banks of the San Marcus River!  We originally scheduled two nights there, but only ended up staying one night.  Not because we didn't like the park - I would have loved to spend more time there, but because we were tired and realized we wanted to spend Saturday at home.

This park has many NICE trails!!  People come here for the trails, for tubing in the river and for birdwatching.  It will be a park that we will definitely look at going back to again in the future!

Here is the start of the trail that was right next to our camper.  All of the trails had a map of the trail system at there starts!  All of the trails had nice graveled walkways (and you can even bike the trails).  It will be fun, when the kids can all ride bikes well, to go back and bike some of these trails (and then cool off by tubing down the river!)

 These orange trumpet flowers were everywhere!  The kids wanted to take some to Granny but I told them they wouldn't last that long so we got pictures of them holding the flowers up for Granny.

 This picture still does not do justice to the size of this tree!  It was a BIG tree!  Of course - Seth wanted to climb it but I told him there was no way!

 The kids wanted me to get a picture of this weird tree.  All those vines have grown into the tree.

 The San Marcus River!

 After supper that night Daddy went with us back on the trails.  We were looking for wildlife.  The only thing we found was an armadillo that did not care one bit that we were there!  But Hey - it was a good lesson in being quiet! LOL!

 Here are some pictures of the kids being silly in our bed our last morning there!

The last part of the trip I want to share is the FOOD!!!  Before our trip we got some stove and griddle attachments for our propane grill so that we could do some cooking outside.  Not only would it keep the camper from getting so hot, it would also give me a chance to still enjoy family time while cooking - since everyone likes to spend their time outside!  It was a lot of fun cooking on the grill!!

Our first night in the camper we grilled pork loin chops (that we cut ourselves from a huge pork loin) and fried squash (the squash was picked from our garden!)  It was yummy!!

 The next morning we did pancakes, sausage and eggs on the griddle!!  We LOVE pancakes at our house and it is a Saturday tradition!  I liked cooking them on this griddle.  I had everything cooked within 15 minutes!!  I think Daniel is worried that I am going to wake him up early on Saturdays to set up the grill so that I can make pancakes!!  LOL!!  (It has crossed my mind though!)

 I just had to throw in a shot of my cute watermelon tablecloth I bought before the trip :-)

 Here was another morning - cooking bacon!!  It was so nice to be able to cook the entire package of bacon at once!!

 Here is a picture Daniel got of me cooking and apparently texting or taking a picture or something - LOL!

 Here was breakfast in the camper one morning - biscuits and sausage - YUM!!

 Here was another meal - I was frying okra and sauteing squash (once again -from our garden)

 We decided one night to fry cucumber slices (from our garden of course)!!  Fried cucumber was actually really good!!  Kind of had the taste of fried squash but was firmer!

Of course we ate out too - here were two places that are worth commenting on.  :-)

Papi Taco - this was in the area of Mother Neff State Park (can't remember the town name).  I took a picture of the sign - I thought it was funny that the bottom of the sign read "best burgers in town" - at a taco shop!! LOL!!  I don't know how their burgers were but their tacos were GOOD (especially the chorizo ones)!!  (oh - and I have to throw in here - the reason why we ate here is on the way to Mother Neff we saw a billboard in one town of a mexican place that had 'Taco Tuesday' and had a BIG picture of some very yummy looking tacos!! Ever since that point Daniel and I were both CRAVING tacos!  LOL!  We ate here the next day when PaPa rode his motorcycle down to visit us!)

 Another place we have to comment on is Catfish Charlie's in Corpus Christi.  Daniel came across this place on Trip Advisor.  I am so glad he did because we would have never found it otherwise.  It was in a "normal" part of town (away from all the touristy stuff) and it is where all the locals go for their seafood!  And I can see why they do!!!  The food was VERY VERY good!!  In the picture below Daniel is holding up an oyster that is wrapped in a shrimp that is wrapped in bacon!!!  O-M-G that was GOOD!!!  (we took the picture to text PaPa telling him this is the next thing we need to try on the grill at home LOL!)

Well I think that about covers our trip!  Something that I am kicking myself over not getting pictures of is Aaron learning how to ride his bike without training wheels.  We were at Mother Neff and he was telling Daniel over and over again "take my training wheels off Daddy".  Daniel was just sure that he was not ready but was finally tired of the nagging and decided to do so.  He put Aaron on the bike and helped him take off and then let go and the boy rode like has always been riding a bike!!  We laughed so hard!  Now the little stinker does not want to crash so he would only go just a bit and then stop before he crashed.  But he never wobbled and never lost his balance.  Daniel said at one point he was waiting for Daniel to give him a start and he was sitting on the bike with both feet on the pedals balancing for a good 5 seconds!!  He has still not quite learned how to start himself but it will only be a couple more days!!  It was so cute watching him though!!

I hope you have enjoyed my recap of our vacation!!

Until next time,
Kellie

Our Summer 2012 RV Vacation - Part 3 USS Lexington and Texas State Aquarium

Welcome back!  You are reading part 3 of our 2012 RV Summer Vacation (click here if you missed part 1 and click here if you missed part 2).

In this Post I would like to share our adventures at the USS Lexington and the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi!  We had a lot of fun at both!!

The USS Lexington was a HUGE ship!!  It hit a sweet personal note with me because it was a sister ship of the USS Wasp, which my grandpa served on!!  So I kind of was able to see what life was like for him living on an aircraft carrier.  :-)

There was a lot of climbing of stairs.  Little Alyssa was a TROOPER and never complained about having to climb or come down the stairs and she didn't want any help doing it either!

It took between 4 and 5 hours to tour the ship!!  It was a BIG ship!

Here are some fun pictures from that trip!

The kids loved looking up in the wheel housing of the aircrafts on the flight deck.

Seeing them stand under the plane shows you just how big some of these planes were!

They had some of the guns set up where you could actually sit on the assembly and move the guns around.  The kids thought that was too cool!

 Here is Seth on the Bridge.

 Aaron on the bridge.

 Alyssa on the bridge (I think she was happy to sit down for a moment!)

 Yep!  This is where the boys belonged! LOL!!  (not really - they were actually really good!)

Seth flying a jet!

 Aaron flying a jet!

 Alyssa flying a jet!

 A stage that was on the main deck.  In fact they had just had some type of veteran's ceremony that morning before we got there.  We heard about it the night before and wondered if we need make an adjustment in our schedule to not go that day but the ceremony was done when we got there and there wasn't a big crowd so it worked out!

 I love this picture!  You can barely see her head!! LOL!

 The boys in the barber shop on the ship!

 This picture was actually taken at the aquarium but it has a good view of the ship in the background :-)  We didn't get any other pictures of the ship from a distance.

The next day we went to the Texas State Aquarium!  It was a nice, small aquarium.  Like most other aquariums it was way over priced but oh well!  And seeing the crowd that was there on a Tuesday - I would have hated to see the crowd on a Saturday!!  Apparently a daycare was having a field trip that day because there were little kids everywhere!  But we still had fun!

Alyssa and Daddy waiting for the dolphin show to start.

 Mommy, Daddy and Alyssa :-)

 The kids loved the dolphin show and seeing to fascinating dolphins do all their tricks!

 This next picture has got to be my favorite picture of all of vacation!!  I am thinking of getting this picture printed on canvas!!  I LOVE this picture!

 The sea turtles were cool!!

 The kids laughed at this funny little otter for the longest time!!  He was acting like he had an itch because he was rubbing his body on everything!  He was so funny to watch!

 Uh-oh!! Jelly fish!!!

 Alyssa loved looking at all the aquariums.  I think she would stand there for hours if we let her.

 And she fell in love with another boa constrictor.  Don't know what her fascination with them are.  (she wanted to take the one she saw a trainer holding at a show at the zoo home this spring!)  She even kissed the glass!!  

 They liked the sharks too!!

Well - I think I have one more post left to do!  (And am still only sharing a fraction of the pictures LOL!)

Stay tuned!
Kellie