Today’s adventures took us to an Ace Hardware for a sewer hose fitting that was needed in order to dump the tanks, where by the way, I thought that the customer service was exceptional. I was greeted by a guy who asked what I was looking for and when I said to just point me in the direction he said no, I’ll take you there. Which he did immediately. After I found what I was looking for another associate asked if I needed help and when I told what I was looking for he told me the department that it would be in and then used a radio to call the employee in that department so that when I got there he was waiting for me. Not like New York where they don’t even make eye contact and scatter like cockroaches in the light. Anyway, thumbs up to Corpus Christie Ace Hardware! From there Stacy wanted to stop at a new Beale’s that recently opened. I had never heard of Beale’s but she knew of it from her visits to Florida so was excited to visit. She found some cushions for the patio chairs at the campground because I had complained that they weren’t very comfortable being made out of that Trex type material. From there we went to that open house for a property for sale in Fulton, TX about a six minute drive from the campground. It was in an established neighborhood and had been built in 2013. Built on a slab, no basement like most places here, two bedrooms, two baths, on .29 acres with a two car garage with a workshop space. It had two “bonus rooms”, front and rear that I called mudrooms. They advertised “custom cabinetry throughout” but compared to Barret Vaughn carpentry I found them lacking and worn. There was an RV pad that had its own electric and sewer hookups which was a nice feature. The one thing that I did not like was that the entire house’s floors were ceramic tile, all the same style, color and size. BORING. The main electrical panel was on an OUTSIDE wall. Interesting. The sales agent was very nice but a neighbor who was present and knew the sellers was more informative. After our tour we drove around the neighborhood a bit and discovered a lot of manufactured housing, single wides, and even campers. Some of the properties were in disrepair and showed signs of neglect. At an asking price of $319,000 that puts it at $235/sf so now we have a benchmark to measure other places. So from there it was on to Goose Island to the north and the Texas Goose Island Park. The whole reason I wanted to go there was to see what was once the “largest oak tree in the state of Texas” which for some reason is now the second, but still ion the top five in the country. Whatever. Texas is all about being bigger, right? So, it turns out we didn’t have to buy the $10 pass to the state park because the tree isn’t in the park. Who knew? We’re tourists an made our donation to Texas before leaving the park and finding the tree. The state park was beautiful, don’t get me wrong, many campsites both on the beach and in the woods that if we ever come back we would enjoy. We eventually found the tree, and it is enormous, at least 10 feet in diameter. It appears to be two or three trees actually the way it diverges, but they all connect into the one trunk, so I guess it is one tree. The oaks here are not like the oaks in New York. The leaves are similar but that’s it. The bark is different and they grow different. All throughout the state park when we were there, there were signs saying not to feed the alligators everywhere. Did we even see an alligator? NO. Speaking of which, we were on Goose Island. Did we even see a goose? A picture of a goose? NO. such a disappointing day on critter sightings.
