Day 12 - Friday, December 14th - USS Lexington

 Walking through the USS Lexington wore me out 😀 yesterday so I didn't do this post last night.

Friday was cloudy and windy with a high of 73 degrees. At times it misted rain and a few times sun peeked through the clouds.

We had lunch at the Angry Marlin, just down the street from the campground. Portions were generous. The blue corn onion rings were great. I have no idea what the spicy (not to hot) white sauce was, but it was good for dipping the onion rings. By the time I took the photo we had already eaten half of them. Kathy had a fish taco and I had a Cuban sandwich. She said hers was OK, mine was slightly better than OK.

There was still evidence of the hard rain 20 hours after it stopped. Water still blocked over half of the left lane of the northbound side of the highway.

Then it was on to tour the USS Lexington. A half hour drive from the campground.

We knew that there was going to be a LOT of walking and using ships ladders during the tour. Kathy was going to drop me off, go do some grocery shopping and then probably just wait until I was done. We found that getting in and out of the area was a chore because of MAJOR road and bridge construction in the area of the Lexington. Kathy found a nice parking spot overlooking the bay and decided to stay in the car and read. She did manage to get in a walk along the beach during one of the times when the sun was out.

The Lexington's keel was laid on July 15, 1941, she was launched September 26, 1942 and was commissioned on February 17, 1943. 14 months to build her and 19 months to get her active at sea. It is almost impossible to believe that at one time the federal government could actually get a project done without millions of hours of bureaucratic nonsense. 

She was expanded in 1955 and again in 1991. Below are some statistics. If there are multiple numbers they are for changes made during the rebuilds.

Length 872'/895'/910'

Length at waterline 820'

Width (extreme) 148'/167'

Beam at waterline 93'/103'

Height (flight deck to waterline) 52'

Draft (hull below water) 28'/30'

Full load tons 36,380/42,000

Boilers & Engines - 8 Babcock & Wilcox boilers & 4 Westinghouse steam turbines

Speed 30 knots/33 knots

4 shafts, 16' propellers

Fuel capacity 1.67 million gallons/1.5 million gallons

Flight deck 862'x108'/910'x142'

Elevator lift capacity 28,000#/57,000#

Catapults 1-H4B hydraulic/2-C11 steam

Aviation fuel capacity 231,650 gallons/400,000 gallons

Officers 268(incl Air Group)/75(no Air Group)

Enlisted 2,363/1,368

Is everyone bored yet? There are 5 color coded, self-guided tour routes. At different spots along the tours there are QR Symbols, you can use the camera on your phone to get the URL for more information about the area you are in.

The barrel shaped objects under the guns at the left are some of the 15 man life rafts. If the abandon ship order is given they are released with a button, or if the system fails they are manually cut loose. They are on a 100' tether. Once they are 100' from the ship the tether pulls a pin and the rafts inflate. Should the ship sink before they are released they are designed to release automatically once they are 15' below the surface. They  float to the surface and once the ship sinks to 100' below the surface the tether pulls the pin to inflate the rafts. Each raft contained supplies to sustain 15 men for 5 days (if I remember correctly).

Flight deck. There is a lot of areas where maintenance work is underway.

There were far to many interesting things inside the ship for photographs. But the bunks weren't for the claustrophobic. The ones on the tour were for the women but the ones for men were supposed to be similar. The bottom bunk is lifted up to reveal the storage area under the mattress.

I don't remember how the lockers were allocated. There were not as many at there were bunks.

During one of the rebuilds (I think the 1991) and escalator was added so that the pilots didn't have to climb 3 levels of ships ladders, while loaded with flight gear, to get to the flight deck. It only went up. It is not inservice but is used now used for tourists to have an easy way to go back down, after they have climbed ships ladders to go up during the tour.

When I was going down the escalator I wondered how they cut such a long slot through multiple decks without weakening the ships structure. Once outside I noticed the bump out below the flight deck and wonder if it is the added escalator.

Many years ago I toured the battleship the USS Alabama in Mobile. I was worn out by the time I finished. I was a little concerned that I wouldn't make it all the way through the Lexington. I managed all the tours. I think a person could easily spend 4-6 hours on the ship without getting bored. Information posted by the Captain's cabin, on the bridge, noted that he basically was on call 24/7. Basically he was virtually never to leave the bridge. Meals were brought up to him. His 1.5 room cabin contained a small bathroom.

Actually, now that I am going through some of the information I realize that I somehow missed most of the Fos'cle Tour, bummer.

I'll get this posted and will post more on the road and new bridge construction later, maybe on another of my blogs.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours as He has me.

Day 11 - Thursday, December 14th - Unproductive Day in Corpus Christi

Rain & Wind today. We didn't leave the campground, but we did have a some excitement. It sprinkled on and off most of the day. Around noon it RAINED and the WIND blew. 

Weatherbug says 3.2" of rain fell here today. Kathy heard a weather report that said the storm was very localized, and that some locations received over 5". The culverts under the driveways out of the sites are at least 12" in diameter. Even with the rains we have recently received there was no standing water between the campsites, until today. 

The wind during most of the heavy rain came off the Gulf and blew rain against the drivers side of the coach. After 30-60 minutes of rain Kathy noticed error messages on the display of our refrigerator. I did an online search for the error codes and the first thing that popped up was a couple of RV'ers in a YouTube video describing how their refrigerator showed the same error codes after a heavy rainfall, with hard winds. The coils on the back of RV refrigerators are cooled by air passing through a removable vent panel in the side of the RV. The couple removed the panel, dried the back of the refrigerator with a hair dryer and then used magnets to reset the limit switch that was sending the error codes. The same procedure worked for me, once the rain has slacked off to a light drizzle.

By the time the heavy rainfall was almost over the wind had switched around to blow against the passenger side of the coach. The seal along the top of the kitchen slide started leaking. The leakage was minor and I don't expect it to leak again during normal rains.

Today's high temperature was 70. We considered turning on the AC in the afternoon, to wring some of the humidity out of the air. Hopefully the weather will clear up enough soon so that we can get out and enjoy our next several days in Corpus Christi. 

It was a good day for naps during the late afternoon. 

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

Day 10 - Wednesday, December 13th - Slow Day at Padre Balli

 It rained on and off during the night last night. We had a few brief showers during the morning. Today's high was a cloudy, humid 73. Last nights low was 67. 

This morning I did some online shopping for a tires. The local place that is supposed to have the Nokian tires, the ones I had put on in August 2022, could not even order the same series tire to replace ours. They are made in Finland, that was a surprise. The odd size, 235/55 R19, limited what local dealers had in stock. 

The next step was deciding if I was going to listen to the tire salesman telling me that I really needed to replace all the tires since the Flex is an AWD vehicle. According to him because of the AWD all 4 tires must be have almost exactly the same rolling circumference or you will damage the drive train. (I really doubt that the rolling circumference of the donut spare is exactly the same as the regular tires, but in fairness you are only supposed to use it for emergencies.) I did some more research and decided to replace the front tires with a Falken tire. 

The tire shop was 16 miles from the RV park. I had a 3:30 appointment. The bad tire thumped all the way to the shop. I had a good grip on the wheel the entire way, expecting a blowout, in city traffic, at 50 mph (speed limit was 65). 

When I looked at the tire yesterday it was in the evening and the light was low. I could feel the "flat" spot and see what I thought was cord showing. After they took the tire off I checked it out. It has not been "flat spotted" by sliding, but something was definitely wrong with it. What I thought was cord/belt was a whitish stain in the tread grooves.

I now need to apologize for all the bad things I said about the Blue Ox dinghy brake system we have. Actually I still think it is a piece of junk but it didn't cause the problem. By 4:00 I was headed back to the park.  

It was a WINDY (common here) cool, damp day here. We did some housekeeping chores but not much else. I did call my Mom and chat for awhile. She seems to be doing OK. She was waiting for my brother, his wife and my brother's grandson to come pick her up so that they could go to my brother's grandson's ball game.

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

Day 9 - Tuesday, December 12th - Riverbend RV Park (Richmond, TX) to Padre Balli Park (North Padre Island/Corpus Christi)

 Today we travelled from Richmond, TX to North Padre Island/Corpus Christi, TX, about 250 miles. It was a mostly cloudy day with a high temperature in the low 70's. Traffic was moderate to light. 

Once again there was a LOT of miles of road construction. Last year when we were down here we chuckled as we say numerous signs on US59 stating "Future I69". When we lived in Michigan and Indiana I69 ran from Indianapolis up through my hometown of Coldwater, Michigan to Lansing, Michigan and then east over to the border with Canada. During the summer of 1967, the year Kathy & I were married, I worked as a "rodman" on an I69 surveying crew as it was under construction in the Marshall, Michigan area. Seeing "Future I69" signs in southern Texas was humorous.

Today we drove along side of miles of US59 that had been torn up so that "Future I69" could be built on the same right of way. I took the photo below, of US59, immediately after we came out of the construction area. Other than putting a lot of contractors to work I'm not sure of who benefits from this expenditure. I did see that this route is also called the NAFTA highway. I guess politicians want to speed up delivery of cheap goods from Mexico.

We topped off our tank with 81 gallons of biodiesel in Beasly, TX, $3.39/gallon. Maybe 50 miles later we saw fuel for $3.17/gal. As we entered the Corpus Christi area it was $3.15/gal at a Walmart, then $2.96/gal at a Sam's. In Corpus Christi regular gas ranges from $2.41-2.55/gal. It will be interesting to see if the biodiesel is noticeable. When we were out west a few years ago, pulling our travel trailer with my Duramax, I kept track of fuel mileage on every tank. Fuel mileage was noticeably worse with tankful's containing mostly biodiesel.

We parked at a rest area to have lunch. There were more wrecks headed south.

The view from the office after checking in at Padre Balli. It was windy. There were no people in the water.

Parked at Padre Balli.

We unhooked the car at the office and as I drove it to our site I noticed a tire thumping. We checked and found that one of the front tires was "flat spotted". Apparently at some time during the trip down here today, or maybe yesterday, the braking unit that sits on the floor of the car and applies the brakes when the coach slows down, malfunctioned and locked up the front tires. I think one of the front tires is down to the cords where it is flat spotted. I paid $921 for these tires when we were in Traverse City, Michigan in August 2022. They have 15,000 miles on them and should have been good for 60,000 miles. https://bertdsblog.blogspot.com/2022/08/monday-august-29th-new-tires.html

I was not happy with the operation of the Blue Ox brake system but the law treats towed cars like trailers and you must have a system the applies the brakes when you slow down. I have talked to guys who said they just threw theirs on the floor of the car and didn't hook it up. If they were stopped by the police and questioned about the unit they would say they weren't sure how it came unhooked. As a Christian I can't lie about the issue but this thing is obviously dangerous if it can lock up the tires on the car while it is being towed. I may set it in place but make sure it can't apply the brakes. 

Praise God the tire did not blow out when we were doing 65 mph towing the car. 

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

Day 8 - Monday, December 11th - Lake Charles, LA to Richmond (Houston), TX

 Today we travelled from White Oak Park near Lake Charles, LA to Riverbend RV Park in Richmond (Houston), TX, 183 miles. 80 of the first 95 miles was all construction, but traffic moved right along.

Saturday's post has a couple of photos of the Calcasieu River, at the edge of White Oak Park. The following photos show the bridge over the river as we passed over it on I10.

Once you are on the bridge approach the grade is steep enough that you can only see the top of the bridge.

You are quite a ways above the river.

Between Lake Charles and Houston there are many  miles of industrial facilities.

And some great scenery.

We went through Houston around 2 PM. Praise God that I don't have to live in an urban area and deal with traffic like this every day.

Riverbend RV Park has 150 sites. It is a little on the rough side, but it is fine for us. We need a place with a pull thru, full hook up site, and not much else. At $35/night, including taxes, it fits the bill for us.

It got down into the 30's last night at White Oak Park. Today's high was 65 in Houston. Tonight's low is forecast to be 47. 

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours, as He has blessed me.

Day 7 - Sunday, December 10th - Exploring Sam Houston Jones State Park

 This mornings wake up call started at around 7 AM, and was still going on when we left at noon. These rooster roamed around for hours. When one would start crowing the other would pick it up and they would go back and forth for several minutes. (I'm guessing they are roosters from the way they crowed. I was surprised at how close they stayed together.)

After a leisurely morning at the campground we ventured out for lunch and some time at Sam Houston Jones State Park (SHJ). Lunch was at a pizza place, It was good, but nothing memorable.

SHJ is about a 20 minute drive from the campground. I had tried to make a reservation to stay at the SHJ campground, before making one here, but it was full for the weekend. It looked like a nice place. This time of year, the off season (Oct-Mar), the rates are $33/night over the weekend and $25/night during the week, for a FHU site.

The start of walking/biking paths in this area of the park. On the right is the kids trail.

We enjoyed the scenery.

The "Yellow Path" was a little uneven in some areas but was very walkable here.

This was right next to the edge of the paved road through the park. The water level was within a foot of the elevation of the pavement.

Off in the distance is one of the boardwalk paths.

This was one of the nice concrete/boardwalk paths in the park.

The concrete walk surface was only 3-4" above the water.

We watched this egret(?) having a nice lunch.

Temperature was in the 50's. It was a nice day.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours as He has me.

Day 6 - Saturday, December 9th - Brookhaven, MS to Lake Charles, LA

 Today we moved from the Lincoln Civic Center in Brookhaven, MS to White Oaks Park near Lake Charles, LA, a 248 mile move. Total miles on coach this trip 1,047 miles. We drove a lot of Interstate today, I55, I12 & I10. Pavement surface varied from good to poor. Weather was mostly cloudy and we experienced occasional vary light drizzle. Todays high temp in Lake Charles was 81. Tonights low is forecast to be 50.

385 miles from here to Padre Balli Park on Padre Island in Corpus Christi. We are supposed to check in there for a week starting Tuesday afternoon.

An interesting aspect of todays trip was the number of wrecked cars we saw being triple towed down I10. It is difficult to believe that the towing arrangements in the photos below were legal.

There were at least 5 groups with 3 vehicles per group. Even the vehicles doing the towing had been wrecked.

Below is the bridge over the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge. I don't know what the domes held.

I didn't think about it in time to take photos but the scenery when we traveled through the Atchafalaya Basin was incredible for Yankees. You can get an ideas at: https://www.atchafalaya.org/atchafalaya-basin 

Below are typical roadsides between I10 and the campground.

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White Oaks Park is on the Calcasieu River. I think it must be the equivalent of a county park, or here its a parish park.

It is a great little park. I am amazed that we were able to get a site over the weekend. The only drawback is that the sites only have water and electricity, but a dump station is conveniently located at the edge of the RV parking area. The cost is an unbelievable $12/night. $24 total for our 2 night stay. I think there are only 8 or 9 sites.

We were set up by 3:45. Our GPS, on the dash of the coach, says that it is 9' above sea level.

It was a great evening to sit out, until dusk and then the mosquitoes came out in force.

Playground equipment.

The river, with a boat launch ramp and nice dock for sitting and watching the river.

It rained fairly hard this evening. It was probably the biggest rainfall we have experienced in over a year, something that would have been normal a couple of years ago, but far from normal for central MO over the past year.

We followed a Class A into the campground. The guy, George, is a little younger than us. He is from Louisiana and has come here before. He is staying a week. He walked by when we were outside and we visited a little more. He mentioned that he was recovering from liver cancer. He praised God that he went from a dying man in need of a liver transplant to a man whose liver is again functioning. Hopefully we will get to visit some more tomorrow.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you as He has me.