Testing our limits on the Texas gulf coast

Want to know what I love most about full-time RV living? It's being able to live on some of the most beautiful spots around without making a long-term commitment or paying a king's ransom for the privilege.

Itching to climb mountains? Go to mountains. Yearning to hike the desert? Find one. Wanting to hear water gently lapping on a lakeshore? Get out your map and drive! I find this way of life to be emotionally truly freeing.

Another great backyard at an affordable price!

Our latest experience along these lines was found at Goose Island State Park near the community of Rockport, Texas. Leonard, Sprocket and I parked at the very edge of the Gulf of Mexico for just $22 per night, plus a $5 per person daily entrance fee.

To some, $32 probably seems like a lot to spend for camping at a public park. Consider that not only did this cover water, electricity, grill and a lovely ramada complete with picnic table, it also featured entertainment courtesy of Laughing gulls - their call sounds more like Burgess Meredith in his role as The Penguin in the old Batman TV program than it does a laugh - pelicans diving for dinner, red-headed ducks bobbing in the water, cormorants and other birds that call the Texas seashore home during the winter months. Then there were the Bottlenose dolphins enjoying their sushi breakfasts while swimming the waters off the back of our parking spot. Paying a heftier price to stay in a similarly-situated private park ($50 per night in most cases) would not have enriched our experience. Not one bit.

Stinky beach? Only in summer when sea vegetation rots under the hot Texas sun.

Too good to be true? Not quite, but there were a couple of catches.

The first relates to a Texas state parks rule limiting camping to 14 consecutive days. Those of you sneaky enough to figure out that being “tardy” to class only matters if you get there after the teacher does probably already have reckoned that the way to skirt this rule is to move out of the park for some period of time only to return for another 14 days. (But why do that when so many other cool spots await discovery?)

Goose Island State Park is home to “The Big Tree,” a live oak whose trunk measure 11 feet in diameter and 35 feet in circumference. It stands 44 feet tall and has seen more than 1,000 summers. Truly awesome!

The Texas gulf coast attracts many species of birds...and birders during the 

winter months. Volunteers lead free birding walks at Goose Island.

The second concerns RV tanks, specifically black and gray tank capacities. Note that when mentioning Goose Island's amenities I said nothing about a sewer connection, a feature that allows RVers to clear a rig's waste without having to move to a dump site. Our stay at Goose Island would offer us a chance to test our fitness for “dry camping” (i.e. park with no hookups at all) as prelude to many such experiences in store for us during July and August when we plan to spend a significant amount of time exploring the national parks of the West.

Successful dry camping requires significantly changing many daily living habits we normally don't give a second thought to. Think about it. Every time you brush your teeth, wash a cup or go to the bathroom brings you that much closer to needing to pack up your possessions, in preparation for the rolling earthquake to come, disconnect any hookups you have and go to the dump station only to return to your space and repeat the entire setup and unpacking process. Who needs that?

Reaching Port Aransas requires a ferry ride to Mustang Island. The ride is 

free and takes less than 10 minutes.

Kong can hold up to 50 gallons of black water (the stuff you flush down the toilet) and 75 gallons of gray (the stuff that goes down the shower, sink and laundry drains). We knew how long it would take to fill the black tank. That's because when we're parked, we let that tank fill then dump using the onsite hookup. (This helps to avoid the "black mound of death" I wrote about in an earlier post on dumping.) We did not know how long it would take to fill the gray tank. Our strategy was simple: do as much as possible to keep as little as possible from going into both tanks!

Browsing at Felder Gallery in Port Aransas. Leonard studied painting with Larry, a fellow expat we met during our Costa Rica days. The gallery is now owned by Larry's son Robby.

This would probably be an appropriate time to mention that Kong came with sensors that let us monitor tank levels. The black tank sensor has never functioned correctly, and we're not really sure about the gray tank. Only the fresh water tank level appears to read accurately. Since Kong's still under warranty, we plan to address the matter in an upcoming visit to our dealer in NW Arkansas.

Truckzilla enjoys a visit to the beach.

As for our quasi-dry camping at Goose Island, some changes of habit were easy, like not leaving the faucets running while we brushed our teeth or soaped up our hands. Others required more forethought, like remembering to pack up everything we needed to shower before schlepping off to the nearby (and spotlessly-clean) bathhouse instead of our in-house (also spotlessly-clean, thank you very much) shower. During our six day/five night stay, we got in two runs of the dishwasher and one load of laundry and still managed to come in under limit. Success!

So, you see, there are some tradeoffs to living like nomads. I suppose someday we might consider a more stable arrangement, like leasing or buying a spot at an RV resort. For now, I'm not ready to give up the freedom of the road. There will time enough for that soon enough.