Changes

It was von Multke who said “No plan survives first contact with the enemy“ but I really prefer “Ch Ch Ch Changes” from David Bowie to describe what this week has been like.

We arrived in Goliad Texas at a really nice RV park called “Angels in Goliad”, a Passport America park just on the outskirts of town. Goliad, which is about an hour and a half from Goose Island, made for an excellent rest stop after struggling through some of those fine Texas back roads and being beaten around by the ever present wind. Our plan was to unwind in Goliad for a couple of days and do tourist stuff in the area before heading down for our hosting gig. We dropped a note off to the coordinator at Goose Island and proceeded to do our plan.

The photo is from the web site,
our camera's memory card is
apparently on walk-about.

First off it seems, at least to us, few outside of Texas know of the Fannin massacre. We have all heard of the Alamo but few know that about two weeks afterwards, Gen. Santa Anna ordered the execution of over 280 troops who had been under the command of Colonel James Fannin; troops that had surrendered after a two day battle on the plains between Goliad and Victoria. Coupled with the Alamo, “Remember Goliad” became another war cry during the Texas revolution. 

Two days of lounging about came to and end and we were off to Goose Island for what we thought would be two months of learning how to be birders while meeting new people. Here's where it fell apart. The coordinator had apparently not read our note from two days previous nor had told anyone else we were due in as on arrival we were met with blank stares and no real idea of where we would be setting up. The coordinator was not at the park yet so we were handed a map with some sites circled to go check out as possible places to stay.

To cut the story short and to avoid the urge to use this blog for venting, let's just say after the coordinator's arrival four hours later, we were informed there would be no full hookup sites available for us and we would be expected to utilize a dump station for the duration of our stay.

We returned to Goliad in a bit of a daze to regroup. The long drive had allowed us to get past the disappointment and disgruntlement so what remained was a commitment to turn this trip into something good.

First problem: find a new camping spot. While the Angels park was nice it was still in a very small town with limited resources. Our membership in Thousand Trails solved the problem in a wonderful way with the Medina Lake Resort, northeast of San Antonio. We'll be here for three weeks doing tourist stuff and perhaps fishing just a little bit. We'll search for another area as we get closer to March.

Have some more good news but I'll wait until the details are firmed up. The song may be right but I dislike playing it too often.