Texas as a holiday destination..... or not.

Murphy_The_Cat

Vikki_74 wrote: »

My mum recently told me about a really fun website www.roadsideamerica.com which shows all the "quirky" (read, at least in some cases, "extremely random"!) roadside attractions in the US and is searchable by state, city etc or can show you on a map. I know my parents have found some interesting diversions on their many trips across the states, including Texas where they're off to in a week or so. The things they list would definately qualify as "off the beaten track"!

that sounds absolutely perfect.
We aren't in a hurry to get from A-B and what I'm provisionally planning to do is have breakfast, then take a (hopefully) leisurely drive towards or next destination. Unless of course there is nothing to take our pancy. In which case we'll let the V8 do the talking and get there ASAP :rotfl:

RootyTooty_2

Hi,

I have done that trip loads of times, and love it so much.

Have you thought about Gruene (pronounced Green). It is a lovely little town, with a really nice resturant overlooking the river.

It is famous for its "honky tonk" dance hall (the oldest in Texas), which was used in the film "Michael" with John Travolta.

There is also a general store, which sells yummy ice cream, a large antique shop, and other gift type shops.

It is easily accessible from the I-35, just before New Braunfels.

If you like burgers, be sure to try Sonics! (It is a drive in).

There is so much to do in Texas! Enjoy!

Murphy_The_Cat

RootyTooty wrote: »

Hi,

I have done that trip loads of times, and love it so much.

Have you thought about Gruene (pronounced Green). It is a lovely little town, with a really nice resturant overlooking the river.

It is famous for its "honky tonk" dance hall (the oldest in Texas), which was used in the film "Michael" with John Travolta.

There is also a general store, which sells yummy ice cream, a large antique shop, and other gift type shops.

It is easily accessible from the I-35, just before New Braunfels.

If you like burgers, be sure to try Sonics! (It is a drive in).

There is so much to do in Texas! Enjoy!

Thanks Rooty, I've added it to the TomTom and its going to be somewhere else to 'explore'
We're also booking the Canyon Trail Chuckwagon for some Cowboy Cabaret - we went to a similar looking place in Arizona (BlazinM) and had a really good family time there. Plus, we're on holiday, so its the time to do something different (like the South Texas Speedway, which will be a first for all of us whilst we're at Corpus Christi :j:j)

Murphy_The_Cat

Thank you for everyone who contributed to this thread with their ideas, thoughts, suggestions and experiences - you've all helped me enormously.
If anyone is interested, we've settled for Dallas/Fort Worth 4 days, San Antonio 4 days, Corpus Christi 4 days, Galveston 3 days and Houston 1 day. All our accomodation is pre booked and is Homewood Suites, Holiday Inn Resort & a Family owned B&B (great fun, they'll spoil the children rotten). The car was hired via US Rentacar, the flights were Aadvantage reward flights, the insurance was arranged from a link on here, the car parking I got a 'promo code' for and posted on here -- so, all in all, its been a MSE helpfest and I am truly grateful.

See Y'all later

Murphy

p.s. thanks for the pm piglet. I'll be following some of those ideas

Mr_Lahey

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

Thank you for everyone who contributed to this thread with their ideas, thoughts, suggestions and experiences - you've all helped me enormously.
If anyone is interested, we've settled for Dallas/Fort Worth 4 days, San Antonio 4 days, Corpus Christi 4 days, Galveston 3 days and Houston 1 day. All our accomodation is pre booked and is Homewood Suites, Holiday Inn Resort & Family B&B (great fun, they'll spoil the children rotten). The car was hired via US Rentacar, the flights were Aadvantage reward flights, the insurance was arranged from a link on here, the car parking I got a 'promo code' for and posted on here -- so, all in all, its been a MSE helpfest and I am truly grateful.

See Y'all later

Murphy

p.s. thanks for the pm piglet. I'll be following some of those ideas

Have a fab time mate

jackieblack

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

Thank you for everyone who contributed to this thread with their ideas, thoughts, suggestions and experiences - you've all helped me enormously.
If anyone is interested, we've settled for Dallas/Fort Worth 4 days, San Antonio 4 days, Corpus Christi 4 days, Galveston 3 days and Houston 1 day. All our accomodation is pre booked and is Homewood Suites, Holiday Inn Resort & a Family owned B&B (great fun, they'll spoil the children rotten). The car was hired via US Rentacar, the flights were Aadvantage reward flights, the insurance was arranged from a link on here, the car parking I got a 'promo code' for and posted on here -- so, all in all, its been a MSE helpfest and I am truly grateful.

See Y'all later

Murphy

p.s. thanks for the pm piglet. I'll be following some of those ideas

Have a great trip Murph - we'll look forward to a full report when you get back!

Murphy_The_Cat

yeeee haaahhhhhh Pardners and Howdy :D:D:D

Texas really was a splendid place to go to on holiday and was an EXCELLANT family destination.
They obviously don't get many English families holidaying over there and we must have been asked a couple of dozen times "why've you brought your family to Texas instead of Florida/California" ?

Anyway, in no particular order we spent the best part of 3 weeks, covering nearly 2000 miles in a rather splendid Cadillac CTS (I would have preferred a STS or DTS, but hey, thats the way it goes) doing the following :-
rodeo, riding a mechanical bull, going shooting, visting the Alamo, Botanical gardens, Japanese Tea Gardens, some mazes, Chuckwagon, visited Greune, various childrens museums, various science museums, going up The Tower of The Americas, HemisFair Park, Outlet Mall (only once, thank goodness), beaches, mini golf, aircraft carrier, aquirium, touring about, car racing, karting, more mini golf, toured a WW2submarine, toured a WW2 destroyer, dolphin spotting harbour cruise, Houston Space Center, Theme Park, Southfork (:o:o) etc, etc
and sometimes we just plain old enjoyed each others company whilst we chilled out together.

Absolute Bliss.
Not cheap, but worth every single nickle & dime that we spent.:j:j

jackieblack

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

yeeee haaahhhhhh Pardners and Howdy :D:D:D

Texas really was a splendid place to go to on holiday and was an EXCELLANT family destination.
They obviously don't get many English families holidaying over there and we must have been asked a couple of dozen times "why've you brought your family to Texas instead of Florida/California" ?

Anyway, in no particular order we spent the best part of 3 weeks, covering nearly 2000 miles in a rather splendid Cadillac CTS (I would have preferred a STS or DTS, but hey, thats the way it goes) doing the following :-
rodeo, riding a mechanical bull, going shooting, visting the Alamo, Botanical gardens, Japanese Tea Gardens, some mazes, Chuckwagon, visited Greune, various childrens museums, various science museums, going up The Tower of The Americas, HemisFair Park, Outlet Mall (only once, thank goodness), beaches, mini golf, aircraft carrier, aquirium, touring about, car racing, karting, more mini golf, toured a WW2submarine, toured a WW2 destroyer, dolphin spotting harbour cruise, Houston Space Center, Theme Park, Southfork (:o:o) etc, etc
and sometimes we just plain old enjoyed each others company whilst we chilled out together.

Absolute Bliss.
Not cheap, but worth every single nickle & dime that we spent.:j:j

Sounds like you had a great time Murphy!

:TI'm going to file away a copy of this thread for if/when we're planning a Texas trip. As always with your threads there's a wealth of useful information contained within.

From the date of your report I'm guessing you didn't get caught up in the volcanic ash cloud problems.:D

Murphy_The_Cat

jackieblack wrote: »

Sounds like you had a great time Murphy!

:TI'm going to file away a copy of this thread for if/when we're planning a Texas trip. As always with your threads there's a wealth of useful information contained within.

From the date of your report I'm guessing you didn't get caught up in the volcanic ash cloud problems.:D

We certainly did. Of course, our holiday was very much slanted towards keeping the little people happy, but there was plenty for us as well.

If / when you do consider Texas, drop me a line (or repost on here) and I'll help you as much as I can.

As for the ash, yep, by about 5 days - thank goodness.

Bananasplit

Hey Murphy! Glad you had such a good time in Texas.
It's good to know there's things to do. I'm off to Texas in 3 weeks to visit some family in a small town called Uvalde which is about 70miles West of San Antonio! Anything you could tell me about that area would be fantastic. I have a few things planned (Alamo, trip to the cowboy town of Bandera, Six Flags, the caverns)

Also, with regards to car hire... we have that booked but wondered about the insurance side of things. Do we need anything more than what we got with the car??