RV Texas: San Antonio, the Alamo & River Walk (EP 34: First BLM Camping)

All hooked up and flushed out. Man does it feel good to have the RV gray and black tank completely rinsed and flushed and put water up again and that's plugged in, lights on. Makes me sad when Ginger's neglected. Caleb, let's go. All right, we're headed off to go to the river walk and then we're going to go see the Alamo and we're in kind of a hurry because it closes at 530. Come on, let's go. Maddie's going to stay here. Goodbye Maddie. Goodbye. So remember this used to be a mission. Oh really? Yeah, so after they converted Native Americans into Catholics, they would go to the missions to be trained on the religion. This was one of the missions, but then it was secularized, which means it wasn't like based in the religion anymore and then it was kind of abandoned and then they used it for military and then lo and behold, the final standoff at the Alamo where all the men died to keep off for the Spanish Revolution. How does she know that? Sam Houston, the battle cry was, remember the Alamo, remember Goliad, that's the battle cry. They crushed Santa Ana's army in 18 minutes. And the following day on April 22nd, on the morning of April 22nd, they captured Santa Ana and to save his own hide, he signs Texas over, making it, well, independent. He gave me a pretty good little history lesson. I think 1842 or 1848, when Texas became a state of the United States, Mexico went up in arms because basically they said, you can't join the United States because that's really our land. We just haven't gotten it yet. So that caused a huge war. And now the United States was like, well, Texas is part of us because they were the 28th state. They said, well, we got to go win that war. So they went in and defeated Mexico. When they defeated Mexico, they took Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and they created the shape of the United States as we know it today because of that. So when you think about Texas and the Mexican War and all that stuff, it's crazy history. Super cool. I mean, I'm sure I messed all that up, but, you know, I gave enough information for someone to know what to look for in Google to get the rest. Yeah, go see the river. All right. Okay. So Alan, who's a subscriber mentioned in our last video, hey, what happened to Mark and Tori's tips? I like Mark and Tori's tips. Good point, Alan. We're here to bring you this week's tips. This week's Mark and Tori's tips, five tips, San Antonio edition. So, Tori, tip one. Tip one. There is a river walk and I highly recommend this river walk. We went on a boat and it was 30 minutes. We go all down the river. The guy who leads it, he gives you all these different facts about everything and the architecture. It was cool. Okay. The river walk is $10 per person. It's about a 30 to 35 minute tour. Definitely worth doing. Times five, a little pricey and no breaks. Tip two. The Alamo is a really quick tour. There's not really a lot to see inside the Alamo, so it is more like of a museum. There's lots of things to read about the history and whatnot, which is pretty cool. Tip number three. You can walk everywhere here. It seems like a very walkable place. Yep. You walk down past the Alamo. You walk on the river walk. You walk through the city. Yeah, it's a very charming city. Tip four. There's a, we didn't go to it, but I heard that there is a Catholic church called San Fernando Church. It's also a great history site for some of the people who died in the Alamo. Their tomb is actually in the church. Tip number five. There's this cute little, look at this. They're like horse carriage things and the back of it looks like Cinderella. It's like a whole pumpkin. There's horses everywhere. So you can take the boat ride and you could do a little horse tour around the city. And they're really great. Didn't take long to get back in the routine. I mean, literally, as soon as we woke up the next morning, it was load up. Everything came right back to us, even though we haven't been in Ginger for a month or so. It kind of feels like our clothes reproduced though. Like there's so much stuff everywhere. Even Tori said today that she wants to go home and get rid of half of her stuff so that she's ready for season two. Tori said that. I tell you, there are so many benefits to RV life or RV living, whatever you call it, because you just get a real sense of what you need. And it becomes so obvious all the things that you have that just aren't necessary. We got to get out of here. So here's the plan for today. We are headed toward Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. And we're in San Antonio right now, so we're going to drive as far as we possibly can. Trisha's probably going to do most of that driving. I'm going to work or edit or something in the passenger seat. And then we're going to figure out where exactly we should stay there. Are we going to boondock near the caverns? We're only going to make it halfway today. I doubt it. Just saying. I doubt it. Three quarters of the way, and then we'll do the rest in the morning. And then I watch a YouTube channel, and they boondock over by the caverns. Yeah, that would be awesome. There's all BLM land. That would be awesome. Of course, we're not set up with solar generator, but we'll be all right. It's perfect weather. We don't need any of that. Okay. Have you ever had the visor right at that level where it does absolutely nothing? Okay, that's the setting that it's on right now. Ah, look at that. Look at this lighting. That's good. We're working over here. I'm working. Trisha's been driving the entire day. Let me tell you something. This one over here, it's like she aims for bumps. Wow. You're going to get it. Ten and two. My gosh. Safety first. No dinner for Mark. All right. I apologize. I'm very sorry. Texas is a very big state. It is a very big state. Here's the plan. We didn't know we would go this far. Actually, we had no idea we were going to go this far, but what ended up happening is there was nowhere to stop. I mean, like nowhere to stop. So this would be our first BLM boondocking experience. And the reason we don't do it is because we don't have any generators or solar and stuff like that, but the temperature is 52 degrees outside and our tanks are empty and I have just about a third bowl of fresh water. So this is a perfect opportunity for us to do it. Trish missed the first turn. Wow. Because you didn't. It's okay that Trish missed that turn because there are two other ways. Look, there's a brown sign. That's good. You are going to get it. Seriously. I know, but as long as your hands are at ten and two, I'm safe. You're recording and I need you to be looking at a map. Okay. Rattlesnake Springs Picnic Area Slaughter Canyon. Don't stay there. How about let's not stay at Slaughter Canyon Cave? I don't know. Well, that's because you're recording and not looking at a map. Well, there's nothing on the map. Yay! Correct! Look up the rocks! This is what really happens if we kept the camera rolling the whole time. Like, we have a driver over here that completely disregards instructions. Oh! That's not true! It's pretty much true. I mean, we've missed two BLMs. You're not telling me where to go! Oh my gosh. If my only goal was to get a reaction out of everyone, I'm winning. Okay, we're out here at the BLM land. Alright, this is like a proud RV moment for me. Okay, this is our first BLM experience and we found a little campsite. And in the dark, I backed the trailer up in one shot. Let me just show you what I did. Sorry, I'm going to flip the camera around. I'm going to show you what's going on out here. You mean like, you think I backed it up in one shot here in the middle of the desert in the pitch dark because of navigating? Yeah. Go! I agree. Run! No shoes! Run! Oh no, please, no jeans! I'm so excited we got to actually use the stuff that we stored under our bed. We have jackets, long sleeve shirts. We're like ready to go hiking today. But the best part is that we stayed on BLM land last night. That's Bureau Land Management. Look it up or check out the link below because on the west side of the U.S., you can find this amazing, amazing! Look at those mountains behind me. There's no one here. We had the windows open. We watched the sunrise. Best RVing ever. It's better when it's nighttime though because you can see all the galaxies and the stars. Oh yeah, the stars. Good point, Caleb. The stars last night were fantastic. So if you ever want an experience where you feel like you're out totally alone, you have your little campfire, the gorgeous, gorgeous stars. I mean there is zero light pollution. So you can see so many stars. It's awesome. You've got to check it out. Okay, as we pull out of here, I want you to close your eyes and visualize wonderful sweeping drone footage of the trailer pulling out of the site, going down this dirt road, and thinking to yourself, wow, that drone is so cool. So sick.