Post Christmas Tree Lot (Dec. 19 -23rd, 2011)

Look-Out at Kings Ranch

Familiar Face at Kings Ranch

Flight Deck of USS Lexington

"USS Lexington"

Says "Hello" at Kings Ranch

Our Christmas Tree sales were going all to well, we had a last minute delivery of 33 more trees on Friday Dec 16 since we only had 10 beautiful trees left and plenty of time to sell more. By Tuesday Dec. 20th, the day our daughter Kelsey arrived here, we had sold everything and it was time to take everything down and store it.  We had sold a total of 704 trees.  On our first free day (22nd) we ventured to Corpus Christi beach to take the self-guided tours of the aircraft carrier, " USS Lexington" Museum on the bay.  There were several historical warplanes and jet fighters displayed on the flight deck as well. This particular ship was called "The Blue Ghost" in it's war days not only because of its blue/grey color but because it always surprised the Japanese when it showed up for battle, after hearing it had sunk time after time. The USS Lexington was designated a National Historic Landmark on July 31, 2003.  After the tour, we had lunch at nearby Blackbeard's restaurant, also visited the LaPalmera Mall to witness the vast number of mad shoppers and drove through the Christmas Candy Lane subdivision which was decked out with lights and decorations.  If that did not put us in the Christmas mood, we were ready for Christmas.  On the 23rd we headed for our ever southern most destination of San Benito, Texas to one of our fellow membership parks (Encore) called "Fun N Sun".  On our half day journey, we stopped through the town of Kingsville,Tx. and toured the largest ranch in the world called "Kings Ranch". They took us on a bus tour through the ranch where we experienced its vastness as well as the cattle, horses, deer, javelinas and even a couple of coyotes.  This too is a National Historic landmark as well as the birthplace for the American Ranching industry.  This ranch sprawled along 825,000 acres of land (larger then the State of Rhode Island).  Today it  is the home of 50,000 cattle, 350 quarter horses and a variety of native wildlife of South Texas. There are also historic, nature tours and a Kings Ranch museum.  After that interesting tour, we proceeded on to reach our camping destination where we would celebrate Christmas and be thankful and happy we were in warm weather and Together.