Almost immediately the scenery changed – rice fields and cattle and industry, but overwhelmingly the main thing was – Industry!  Many miles of chemical plants belching out smoke greeted us. Freight trains with miles of liquid tank and barges carrying goodness knows what! After a very rural, agricultural Louisianna it was quite a change!

First stop – Houston but only because we wanted to visit the NASA space centre, where we could see the original Mission Control centre. This was cool, even for me! As we were there early, we were the first ones to go in the reproduction space shuttle and the original Boeing 747.

The attention to detail in the Mission Control room was amazing, the ashtrays and cups of coffee, the three ringed binders. We watched parts of the recording of when Apollo 11, the ‘eagle’ landing, touched down and Armstrong walked on the moon.  Epic! 🤩🚀🌓

To facilitate our early start, we stayed at a local RV park. This was mainly full of long termers! In fairness it was pretty tidy, but by the side of an 8-lane road. I could not live there, thankfully my ear plugs worked!  Houston really is a big city, loads of concrete roads & industry – so very glad to leave there and headed for Hill Country.

First stop was a Harvest Host at a cave system. We did a great tour, only four of us, so it was a very different experience to the last cave system we visited in Virginia. The guide was great and gave us a great history and explanation of how the caves were discovered and are in development. He even switched off the lights so we could experience complete darkness, something I don’t think we had ever done before, COMPLETE darkness!!

After breakfast in a small town called Boerne, pronounced ‘Bernie’, a town developed by German settlers we headed to Bandera the ‘Cowboy Capital of the World’!  Known as such as it was a staging area for the last cattle drives of the 1800’s.  It has many ‘dude’ ranches, ranches where they cater to tourists wanting a ranch experience. We had a mini ranch experience and did an one hour horseback ride, that was enough for me. Being on a horse is not my natural environment, but luckily, I rode Senor Blanco who was a kind and gentle horse. The best bit about the tour was talking to our dude cowboy, Travis. Travis was happy to talk about real cowboy life and grunted when I mentioned Yellowstone the TV series! He said there was way too much drama, and they would have been sacked for that! I felt like I was interviewing him, and he explained why cowboy boots are designed the way they are, including the long length to help protect against snake bites and prickly cactus. Chaps protect legs from cactus, sun, rain and the noise they make when you flick them can help control cows and horses. He told us how he shaped his cowboy hat, using starch and they helped others spot cowboys out in the fields. He told us how he helped cows give birth, including using the horse to pull out the calves. He eloquently described what he loved about the life, getting up early on a misty morning, the dew arching off his lasso as he ropes in a cow or horse. He also loves taming mustangs and can normally break one in three days! Whilst we were there, we saw a small herd of longhorns, such beautiful creatures. Travis told us that a steer, with horns up to 8 feet, can leap over an 8 feet tall fence! They can also use their horns to disable an electric fence. Clever and agile!

After the ranch experience, we went to the Hill Country State Natural area to have lunch. We chatted to people who had come down from cold Idaho for a couple of months with their horses. The attraction of this area for them is you can go riding through the state park, and their RV park has stables. What a way to holiday, with your horses.

That evening we had our first free park up in the USA, by a nice park just off the town centre. This allowed us to walk into town to a honky tonk bar, with sawdust on the floor, and a group of musicians jamming country and western music. This was great to see and the beer was the cheapest we had had in the USA!

After a taste of rural life, we headed back to city life and San Antonio, to meet up with Mark’s brother who was came over from Houston to see us! After Dave delivered a parcel we had sent from the UK with a few spare parts, we headed into San Antonio.

We walked around The Alamo and read about its history and walked a section of the famous River Walk before, boys being boys, having a few libations! However, I did manage to break up the evening to see the light show on the San Fernando cathedral, 24 minutes of excellent projections telling the story of the city. The evening was a little more exciting after that, we ended up in bar, Coyote Ugly, where women were dancing on the bar. Having never seen the film, we didn’t know what to expect, but it was good honest fun.

Having spent a lot of time seeing the cultural aspects of the east of the USA, we are now more than ready to experience the wilderness of the Southwest. We are heading to Big Bend National park and beyond ……..