Texas beaches and the Gulf Coast

Corpus Christi Camping and a Bday Celebration in Port Aransas

Spot the dolphin! 🐬

After all the hustle and bustle of city life and running around, we planned for a restful week of boondock camping on the Gulf Coast. Corpus Christi is an easy drive from SA/Austin so that was our logical choice. Mustang Island is a State Park along the chain of islands that allows primitive beach camping for $10/night so we registered for a handful to start out our beach week.

In the meantime, we had a birthday to plan a celebration for, Natalie turned 15 on Groundhog’s Day. Our bestest friend Sara and I conspired to have her show up as a surprise for the bday girl. (Fully vaccinated) Sara made her travel plans and and Airbnb rental that coincided with our beach timing. When we got to camp on Friday I made an excuse to run to the store but really drove to the airport to pick her up. We got back and saw the fam had finished setting up camp and were strolling down the beach. We ditched our shoes and started walking their way and when we got close enough the kids realized who was with me. Big hugs ensued all around and we were astonished that we pulled this off with relative ease despite being in close confines with the kids basically all the time. easily

Three nights of camping directly on the beach was sufficient for us, sand was literally everywhere and when the coastal winds pick up it leaves a salty/sandy film on every single surface (my mentor Becca calls this “special sand” and boy is she right!). It was a little daunting considering how we might go about cleaning all of this up but with Sara nearby in Port Aransas and with her Airbnb host’s approval we moved inland and moved into the house so we could give Flossie a deep clean. What a marvelous reset for all of us. We made meals together, celebrated the birthday girl with homemade BBQ and cake, walked to the port for dolphin viewing, to the beach for more sand that we could then clean off in an outdoor shower before returning home, and we scrubbed every last inch of our little trailer while it was semi-empty in the Airbnb driveway. Sara – you’ll never fully know how much this break was needed and how it restored us so that we could get back on the road with fresh everything – perspectives, energy, sheets and towels, appreciation…

Homemade Tres leches with what candles the Airbnb had on hand

How many miles did we walk barefoot on the sand? Countless (actually around 50). And writing this a week later while hunkered down during a polar vortex makes the memory seem like a mirage, or at least like it was a really really long time ago.

We moved further south down the coast for a few days near Brownsville where we had our first sketchy hipcamp experience (saved in my review and not worth repeating), but also geeked out at Space X, which was super cool. We ate some very delicious and authentic Mexican food – I’m loving these border towns the more time we spend near Mexico. Then we spent two nights in Laredo, Tx so I could see a chiropractor and we could get more supplies before moving on to Del Rio. We ate all the Latin foods for very little dollars and everyone in Laredo wondered what some gringos from Denver would be doing passing through their corner of Texas. Seriously, the chiropractor questioned it, a fellow RV park guest asked, as well as the Salvadoran man we ordered our dinner from on our final night. Despite their lack of enthusiasm for Laredo, it was far better than El Paso and everyone treated us with kind Texas hospitality we’ve come to know and love.

Beachy sounds are always good

Guatemala meets us in Austin

Coming to Austin was the culmination of the business end of our trip. If you don’t know me from a previous life, two years ago I co-founded Kinship Market with my friend and business partner Tom Curcio. We did the majority of our business at farmer’s and craft markets prior to Covid-19 and with the pandemic in full swing we each made significant life changes – Tom and his girlfriend Laura moved to the Austin area, my family and I took our lives on the road. Tom and Laura took most of Kinship Market’s inventory with them to Tx, but I had kept aside one suitcase worth to show as samples to any potential retail stores I thought might be a good fit for our goods. The heartbreaking part of that dream was that upon visiting small town after small town, shop after shop I realized that my sample sharing plan was conceived from a good heart place but not one that made much sense in real life/real time application. Small shops and entire towns have been completely decimated this past year, I don’t know how long it will take to recover, or if we ever will collectively, especially as a huge contingency of the population continues to heavily rely on Amazon and Walmart to get their needs and wants met. So take it from a small business owner who has seen a lot of places this year, support your entrepreneur friends, shop local and independently owned stores and restaurants that you want to see survive. They are literally depending on you – their communities, to keep their lights on and employees paid.

As for Kinship Market, we are continuing to assess the long term sustainability of our business model. Fortunately, neither Tom nor I are depending on consistent income from the business and it can be in hibernation mode for awhile longer while we get our bearings adjusted. I brought my suitcase of samples back to them so the products are all in one place and I don’t have to send the random order out from the road. Laura cooked us a delicious brisket comfort food dinner, theirs was the first house we’d been in since last August, and their golden retriever Maya gave us all the sweet dog cuddles we could want. I’m glad we spent our time together just enjoying our company and being friends rather than fretting over business matters. (I do enough fretting in my head and don’t need it spilling out all over the people that I love.)

The Guate love continued when we met some social media friends in Austin too. Angelica is the owner of Tesoro’s Maya and lives within easy driving distance of where we were staying. We decided to grab lunch together and meet for the first time in person at The Saltlick BBQ. Angelica’s business is much like ours, we know a lot of the same people at Lake Atitlan in rural Guatemala. Talking shot about similar struggles this year has brought was somewhat a relief because it means we aren’t weathering this storm alone. We shaped another day of our visit close to her again so we could see her land and cute little pigs/chickens/homestead situation. I just love finding our people when we’re traveling.

Our final Guatemalan connection was meeting a woman whom I greatly admire in person for brunch. Ronne Rock has been an online friend for a long time, once again because of our mutual love for serving friends in Guatemala. Last year she published a book, “One Woman Can Change the World” and it was such an encouraging read about women doing their part in a lot of small ways to make big changes in their corner of the world. It was such an honor to share a meal with Ronne and talk about ministry and the world and how all of it is shifting since the pandemic. Something that keeps haunting my mind from our conversation is that many countries may not want us back doing “ministry”in their territory after they’ve seen our collective response to how we’ve treated the least of these among us on our own soil. Ouch! #hardtruth

Along with all of our Guate-related escapades we made plenty of time for eating our way through the entire city, a visit to the Texas Capitol which was in session so we could tour inside, a luxury grocery shop at Central Market, strolling up and down South Congress and all the funky shops, a nature hike at Hamilton Pool, relaxing on a dock while the kids kayaked down the Lower Colorado (boats courtesy of our hipcamp host whose property backed up to the river), and one last meal out with Tom and Laura on our final night in the city. This was by far the most socially active we had been since last March, we did it all safely with masks, physical distancing, frequent hand washing, and being outdoors whenever possible. Nobody we had seen had been around other people since everyone is working from home, we hadn’t been around other people minus one outdoor and physically spaced gathering the previous week. I said it before and I’ll say it again, you can travel safely if you’re willing to implement protocol that has everyone’s well being and health in mind and are transparent about your plans, who you’ll be seeing, and adjusting expectations around what you’ll do together to stay safe.

More Hamilton Pool (can you guess our favorite nature stop?)

Now here are the rest of the photos and all the links!

Our sweet little biz:

http://www.kinshipmarket.org

The Salt Lick BBQ worth the drive out of town

Angelica and I meet in person at The Salt Lick

Walk along South Congress for all the funky shops my favorite was Tesoro’s (not to be confused w/ Angelica’s biz listed below) http://www.tesoros.com/homepage.html

Visit the state Capitol building

Grocery shopping experience that’s more posh than Whole Foods at The Central Market https://centralmarket.com

Eat dinner at The Cosmic Cafe: 3 food trucks and great drinks under tents (we had tacos and posole! Tom had BBQ, Laura had wings, it ALL looked amazing!) https://www.cosmiccoffeebeer.com

https://www.tesorosmaya.com is Angelica’s business. We carry similar but different items and support many of the same families and communities in Guatemala. #collaborationovercompetition

Ronne’s website with links of all the places to buy her book https://ronnerock.com Sign up for her emails too! She’ll literally pray for you!

Guadalupe River State Park

San Antonio, Tx

We departed from Marfa on a really chilly and really early morning in order to make it to the San Antonio area before nightfall. We tend to avoid major interstates so our mode of travel is slow and meandering. This was one of our longest travel days in awhile as we tend to break up a long haul over several days but it was less feasible this time with the reservation window we had at the state park on the northwest side of SA.

It stayed chilly and we got socked in a wet weather pattern for most of our stay in San Antonio. This was our first parlay with any moisture since snow in Bryce Canyon NP way back in mid-November. It’s been nice taking the winter off but we were bound to catch some inclement weather sometime. The upside was, of course, no crowds anywhere. We had the run of the one open state park trail and campground pretty much to ourselves. We also got our first experience with some of Texas’s wildlife, armadillos rooting around everywhere, vibrant red cardinals, strange dinosaur-sounding birds that we were never able to identify but certainly heard numerous times. We obtained a Texas State Parks pass for this visit and plan to fully utilize it as long as there are places to stay.

Here’s proof that not ALL armadillo in Texas are dead on the side of the road.

Along with plenty of time in nature, we visited the Alamo and enjoyed exploring the greater San Antonio area, we met up with three former New Denver Church families and spend an evening picnicking with them and catching up.

The Alamo (which was smaller than we were expecting)

Our favorite lucky food find was a hole in the wall BBQ joint where we had the best brisket we’d ever tasted. If you’re ever there go to The Station BBQ and have a spiritual experience (if you like meat of course).

We were pleasantly surprised with our mutual enjoyment of this place so we went ahead and extended three more days before departing to Austin. Our visit with our friends also filled the longing for connection we didn’t realize we’d been missing since departing from our new friends in Tucson. This pandemic may change how we interact with one another for a long time into the future but it doesn’t mean we need one another any less. Community remains important even when we’re distant and have to get creative to see each other.

A Long Pause in Marfa, Texas

It was a drawn out and chilly stay in Marfa, Tx. We ordered car parts quickly upon arrival, but they were delayed, extending our stay to 11 days total (we originally “planned” on 5, ). With all the waiting around we got a little lazy, sleeping in to sometimes as late as 8:30! (We are still not adjusted to central time, so that’s an acceptable 7:30 Mountain time.) The mornings always started out in the 20’s, some days even in the teens, so there wasn’t much to do except stay snuggled inside our blankets with three heaters blasting until we were warm enough to start moving around for the day. Not having a car limited what we could do, but the RV park we stayed at was an easy 1/4 mile walk into town. Art galleries are something that Marfa is known for, but most were closed or by appointment only due to COVID. This could be a really depressing read for anyone up to this point, but we really did enjoy our stay at this quirky place! The people here made all the difference for us.

We loved the old west charm of this place from old and untouched to beautifully restored. There was something in every category architecturally. No cookie-cutter plan here.

It started when we were getting our tow figured out from the last stay. I got in touch with the Tumble In RV Park to ask if they knew of a local tow company we could contact. We got Robert’s name from Melvin, the Tumble In owner and made a call. While we eventually went the AAA route with our tow, Robert was a fountain of information for us. He sent me the name of every tow truck company in the area, he let us borrow tools and a jack and stands to work on our car when our parts finally arrived, he had so much to share about the area and surrounding communities, he was the epitome of southern hospitality going above and beyond with all of our interactions. Melvin was equally kind and understanding with our flexible stay at his RV park. The Tumble In was the first established park we stayed at where we didn’t feel out of place or obnoxious with all of our stuff and outdoor living style. The other businesses we frequented in Marfa were Para Llevar for wood fired pizza and our first side order taste of pimiento cheese 😋

The Stop & Read was a cute garage converted to a bookstore with new and used books, Kendall’s dog Pepper was particularly sweet with the kids. I wish we could have gone back again but with physical books we can only get so many before the cabinet is full again and we have to get rid of them at the next Little Free Library.

The Get n Go was our favorite little grocery store for organic and specialty items, oh, and Dr. Pepper with real sugar. We hope to swing back through Marfa for a few more days in February when we start heading back to mountains and New Mexico.

Racing in our backyard

Easily entertained (and so grateful they have mostly got along this whole trip)

Beauty is all around us if we’re willing to stay still and observe

Marfa sent us on our way with a stunning sunrise

West Texas

Still managing to find some mountains to climb, even in Tx.

We made it to Texas! (It should really be like four states, but don’t tell anyone from here that I said that)

After a rough and anxiety-inducing two days at a city RV park located under interstate 10 in El Paso, we made our way southeast, first to a hipcamp south of Van Horn. We’ve arranged a longer stay in Marfa, and eventually plan on ending up near Austin for a longer stay around there as well.

Sometimes reality is camping under a busy highway in a big city.

We hiked up a wash adjacent to our hipcamp with lots of evidence of people crossing through the area. After spending so much time along the US/Mexico border through three states now I am determined to find any organizations working with asylum seekers and any other people crossing that border to seek a safer and better way of life. It can’t be a passing thought for me anymore, there has to be people who think similarly to me about a humane solution to this predicament, I want to work with them moving forward.

Artifacts both past and present in the wash we hiked. Was so good to be back in a quiet and isolated place. We had a lot of rich discussion about the strewn out camps here too.

We ran into a major hiccup at our remote destination. Our rear air suspension on Lafawnda the Lexus has officially kicked the bucket. This happens occasionally with her (old sensors that get finicky so it lifts when you want it low or stays low when you want it lifted) all other times this eventually self-corrects or Zach fiddles with it and it resolves but this time no amount of tinkering would help, it was the end. This predicament made it impossible to tow Flossie to our RV Park in Marfa so we called AAA and got a tow out. Now we are extending our time in Marfa so we can get some parts delivered and get Lafawnda back in good shape for trailer hauling.

Our first encounter with car troubles but we won’t let it dim our spirits. Also, cheers to being conservative with water since we had to stay here an extra day AND help our tow truck driver find us for about 2 extra hours.

This gives us good pause for getting back into a regular school routine for the kids as well as lots of time to explore this funky community. Some folks on our nomad forums suggested we return to Van Horn for better access to parts, but since Zach knows what he wants and how to fix it we can wait in this quiet town very far from I-10, and the community is such that we can likely borrow jacks or tools from the locals as we began inquiring shortly after arrival. More on Marfa in my next post!

The Writings of Breanne Mashek

Homesteading, Caregiving, Ramblings, and Travel

Author: breannemashek