Don’t open an umbrella up inside the house or you’ll have bad luck. If by chance you happen to open an umbrella up inside the house, quickly grab some salt and throw it over your shoulder so the bad luck will depart! Soooo…what’s the antecdote for bad luck on seemingly EVERY family vacation we take??? If you recall last year, we got stuck in Gallup, NM for a couple days when our transmission went out on the vehicle. On the way home from the same vacation, we had not one, but TWO tires on the trailer blow out and ended up spending the night in a walmart parking lot! Yep, it was one of those vacations that you blog about and talk about for years to come as being one of the worst vacations you’ve ever had. You pretty much just chalk it up to bad luck and an experience to last a lifetime and move on. What do you do when the very next year, you have a very similar experience?
The kids traveling in the car, stopping at our favorite stop off of 35 in West, Texas to get kolaches for breakfast the next morning and our campsite at Mckinney Falls State Park.
DAY 1
We pulled out early on Friday to head down to McKinney Falls State Park. It was only a 4 hour drive and the plan was to set up camp and then head into Austin to see the capitol and have some dinner. We traveled about 30 minutes before I noticed that the air conditioner was not working properly. Ray pulled off at an auto parts store to see if he could figure out what was wrong with it. Fifteen minutes later he knew it needed to be fixed in a shop. He got a recommendation from the auto parts store and we headed over there. The shop let us plug our trailer in, so we had a cool spot to rest while they fixed our air conditioner compressor over the next 3 hours. Ray and I and the kids walked over to the Babe’s chicken restaurant to have some lunch and my mom and the dog stayed in the cool trailer. We got back and the car was done and we hooked up and headed down to Austin. The air worked just fine. We picked up some subway sandwiches along the way since we got into the campground late. No visits into Austin this trip. Oh well, not the end of the world!
DAY 2
We didn’t even unhook the night before, so breaking camp wasn’t a big deal. We got on the road rather early after stopping at the falls to take some pictures.
There were not falls this time of year, but it was still pretty at Mckinney Falls. We stopped at a little mexican restaurant in Pleasanton, Texas.
The plan was to made the 4 hour drive down to Mustang Island State Park and then head in for some dinner at Corpus Christi. We were driving along in our nice cool air conditioned car for about 2 hours before we heard something funny happen on the car. Ray said it sounded like a belt that came loose. It only took a few minutes to figure out that our air conditioner had gone out yet again! We pulled into a gas station and Ray found that the air conditioner clutch had burned up again! We weren’t near ANY large towns, so we had no choice but to the make the rest of our drive down to the shore in the heat. The kids changed into their bathing suits and we kept cold washcloths handy to help with the heat. Stella said a great prayer, that was definitely answered many times over. About 10 minutes later we had a HUGE downpour of rain that cooled us down about 20 degrees for awhile which really helped a lot! My poor mom got stung by a bee on the neck, and then the next day, Stella pulled the left over stinger out. Crazy! We made it down to Mustang Island State Park, 
set up camp (our friends campsite is on the left and we are on the right with the dining canopy in the middle. :) )
Our shower that Ray rigged up for washing off the sand. It was a great thing to have all week!
and then headed down to the beach. After a bit of time at the beach we went out for a GREAT dinner at Outback. We picked up some groceries for the week and some sand toys and such and then went back to camp. We couldn’t do anything about the car air conditioner until Monday morning when the dealership would open again. We just dealt with a hot car until then.
to Portland and then onto Corpus Christi. We had lunch at a place called Blackbeard’s. It was a really fun little place that had GREAT food. I highly recommend it! 
I’ve been on a few air craft carriers in my life since I am a navy brat, but this was a first for Ray and my kids.
They had a great time!
While there we saw a short film called “Red Flag”. It was about an air force pilot and how he went through this training exercise called red flag. We mostly went because we thought Kyle would love it and he did, but he only watched the first half before he fell asleep. It was cute! After the ship visit, we went to pick up our vehicle that was really, finally fixed! Woo hoo, even though it cost a ton of money! After that we headed back to camp and cooked and then the kids crashed and Ray and I played cards with our friends outside. It was a very enjoyable day!
They were really neat and we even got to go on board one of them! 
The kids played literally for HOURS inside the museum on the all the play stuff and it was a cool area to spend the day. Stella showed off her ropeing skills. She showed a bunch of boys who had been trying for awhile, it was kinda cute. :)
We headed back to camp, cooked and then went down to the beach for the last time. My dog, Casey really enjoyed the beach as well and even showed off some of her swimming skills! She won’t go NEAR water at home, so it was a nice surprise!
Yep, one of the tires that we just replaced a year ago! It was so bad that there was only rim left, and when Ray took the rim off, he had a heck of a time getting the rest of the tire to disengage from the axle. 
He was able to and we did make it into San Antonio to a Wal-mart to have it repaired. We made it into Fredericksburg by about 5:00 pm, set up the trailer and then headed in for some yummy german food. We ate at the Aufslander and I would recommend it. Especially the appetizer titled the “The Farmer’s Platter”, it had sausage, cheese, crackers and pumpernickel bread. Very good! The rest of the food was good too, but that was my favorite part.
