Day 89 - Friday, March 1 - Goodbye Lakewood/Harlingen

 It was misting rain this morning, which continued for maybe the first 50 miles. We weren't traveling far, so we didn't leave Lakewoood until 11:30.

Pulling out of our site at Lakewood our home since December 19th.

All northbound traffic must go through the Inspection Station. It is within a couple of mile of being 100 miles north of the border.

About this area you pass a drug sniffing dog and handler. The Border Patrol agent ahead ask only one question, "How many are on board?". 

Anyone looking for a job? The insert says "Earn up to $20,000 signing bonus."

Sea Wind RV Resort is about 10 miles off US77. I had our trusty (NOT!!!) Garmin RV760 GPS (it is designer for RV users & supposed to keep you off roads you shouldn't be on and away from bridges you can't fit under, or are to heavy to go over) set up to get us to Sea Wind. We exited US77 onto a paved road with lots of potholes and 3 miles later we were on a dirt road. As Kathy was driving us slowly down the dirt road I grabbed my phone and pulled up Google maps. Within a couple of miles we were back on a road that actually had a center stripe.

One benefit of the Garmin routing was that we did get to see some beautiful roadside flowers. Everything is nice a green here. They must have received a lot more rain here than we got down in Harlingen. Note the grass in the photo of us leaving the campground, and they have run sprinklers at least twice in the last couple of weeks.

Arriving at Sea Wind.

The camper in front of us.

Maybe not in the best taste, but still kind of cute. I didn't see anyone around the truck.

The campground map. Construction is underway to add more sites on the outside of the ring road on the right. We are in one of the tan sites on that outer ring, near the top of the page. Its a hike to the bay, which is down off the bottom of the map.

This is the first time I've had to trim the trees at a site since we were in Cathedral City, CA in December 2022. These branches were only about 1.5" in diameter. I was watching Kathy make the turn into the site. I should have stopped her before these branches got caught on the roof. A man in an adjoining site saw me looking at the situation and before I could get out our ladder he loaned me one.

It's nice to have cordless tools.

Parked and set up.

Walking over to the bay.

Looking out northeast toward Padre Island and the Gulf.

Looking northwest. There is a boat launch area just out of the picture on the left. We saw 2 boats and an air boat come back in while we were sitting there. 

There is a nice playground here and the campground map shows a nature trail. There is a sign at the beach that all of the improvements to the area were funded with money skimmed from companies with offshore wells, it wasn't worded quite like that.

There appear to be a lot of Winter Texans here. We saw plates from Indiana, Minnesota, South Dakota, Saskatchewan, Washington, Iowa & Missouri, plus lots of Texas plates. Many of the Texas plate are probably Winter Texans, people who stay down here 6 months out of the year. Texas is one of 9 states with no state income tax, but it does have high property taxes. The Tax Foundation ranks states by total state and local tax burden. Texas ranks number 6, at 8.6%. Not as good as my beloved Tennessee which ranks 3rd at 7.6%; but better than Missouri which ranks 13th at 9.3%. If you live in an RV you don't pay property taxes so Texas looks even more attractive.

For $40/night ($36 with Good Sam's discount) it seems to be a nice place, once the tree trimming is done 😀

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours. He had blessed me.