Travel Day to Pearland, Texas

When we travelled to Port Aransas from the Valley, since we were coming from the south, we just crossed a bridge from Corpus Christi to get onto Mustang Island.  We could have left the same way, but since we were going north from there, it would have added unnecessary miles to our drive.

Tom wasn’t so sure about putting the motorhome on the ferry, but after we got here and rode across the channel several times in the Jeep, we were more comfortable with it.  Plus, on several trips, we travelled across with motorhomes and RVs, and none of them seemed to have any trouble.

It wasn’t just a simple ferry operations – there were multiple ferries running at all times – 24/7. and they were very well organized.

In good weather and bad . . .

The pelicans and seagulls loved the ferry launch and were always flying around and landing on the roof of the Jeep (I think we only crossed once with the roof off!), and almost every time we saw dolphins swimming around the ferries.  I was afraid they were going to get run over!

On the opposite side of the channel, there were these big structures – we thought they might be oil rigs, but we weren’t really sure.  We often saw ships docked there, and there was always activity going on, but no indication of what . . .

So, as we ended our month in Port Aransas, the day came for us to leave the island . . . we left on the Friday morning, around 9:30am and that turned out to be a really good time.  Every time we’ve travelled across in the Jeep, we’ve had to go around the loop road next to the ferry launch, which is where they have vehicles line up to wait for loading.  On this morning, the gate was open, which meant we were going to be able to drive right up to a line for a ferry.

We did, and we weren’t the only motorhome waiting to board the ferry.  We pulled in behind this Dutch Star.

It was our turn to board – the attendant was signaling for us to straddle the two right lanes and pull up next to the Dutch Star.

We fit!  Tom handed the phone out the window to a guy walking by and asked him to take a few pictures!

And we made it to the other side!

With the most stressful part of the drive behind us, we made our way north on Hwy 35, through a few small towns, and approached Pearland, TX (a suburb of Houston) from the south.  It was an easy 3-hour drive, and we made it to the RV Park with no issue.

We pulled into our site and got set up.  The Park Manager had called while we were on the way, and told us to go ahead and pick one of the two available sites, and settle up with her the next morning.

We chose site 30, across the road and down a few sites from our friends, Tom & Karen, who are spending the winter here to be near their son.  Tom is retired from Ford, the same office where I work.  It’ll be nice to get caught up with them while we’re here, and they promise to share some of the better sights of Houston with us.

It’s a small park – new, and they are still adding more sites and facilities, but very clean and nice.  There’s a nice little pond in the back, with a walking path around it where Casey likes to walk.

It’s nice for sunsets, too!