Back to Texas

We returned to Houston after a nice week spent with family and friends.  Highlights were the kids shows (Audrey as Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Susana in Hairspray and Allie and Margot in rehearsal for the PS 45 talent show).  Hyatt Place had taken good care of the van and good care of us.  Their shuttle picked us up from the airport even though we were only guests of the hotel for one night a week ago.

Drove south to Galveston knowing that there wasn’t any way we would find space at the state park – it’s spring break after all, and families were camping up and down the coast.  We did find a space at Jamaica Beach RV Park, though, not far away.  It was filled with monster rigs, no more than six feet between them, not a tree in sight.  We couldn’t wait to leave the next morning and continued south, stopping along the way for a short walk near the bay, where we were greeted by meadow larks and interesting shore birds (yellow legs, dowitcher’s, willets, sandpipers)  including a plover-like individual with un-plover like coloring.  Still trying to figure out what it was.

Hoping to get to Victoria City Park before dark, we drove on.  We would have made it, too, but the driver (K) got really tired and we stopped at a rest stop to make the switch.  It was a pleasant area so after much discussion, some internet checking and confirmation from a truck driver that it was legal to spend the night at a rest stop in Texas, we settled in. Lesson learned: huge semis also sleep at rest areas and they don’t turn off their engines for the night.  They also seem to check air brakes periodically.  Little sleep was had that night so at daybreak we left for Aransas NWR under cloudy skies and without breakfast.

We are having a bit of trouble with our “sanitation system” so made arrangements to stop at a service center in Rockport, just south of the park. Just a few miles before we reached Rockport we stopped at what the GPS said was a coffee shop.  Turns out it was a BBQ place that also roasted coffee. Coffee was great and it was the first time either of us had brisket for breakfast! We picked up a brochure there that advertised boat rides to see the whooping cranes – our reason for coming to Aransas. Couldn’t pass that up so as soon as we left Camper Clinic we went in search of the marina. Found it just in time to board the 1:00 cruise and it was fabulous.  The weather had cleared, the bay was pretty calm and the cranes were clearly visible in groups of two and threes.  This is the only place in the US they winter and they are only here from November until March, when they fly 2400 miles north to Wood Buffalo NP in Canada to nest.  The crane population was nearly decimated (down to 15 individual birds in the 1940s) when they were declared an endangered species and  efforts began to increase their numbers.  Currently there are only two migratory flocks in the US, this one (consisting of about 400 birds) and a Florida/Wisconsin flock that was artificially established by the Patuxent Wildlife Research group by rearing young hatched from wild laid eggs and teaching them to migrate using ultralight aircraft (as seen in the movie Winged Migration).

After a nice dinner near the marina, we found a city park on the bay and tucked in for the night.

Got up the next morning and drove up the coast to Goose Island SP to see if we could find a site for the night.  All along Fulton Beach we could see the signs of devastation caused by hurricane Harvey last October.  Piles of debris, wrecked fishing piers,  boarded up windows and closed shops lined the road. This time we got to the BBQ place just before it closed so we ordered some brisket and sausages to go.  We’ll have dinner for the next two nights wherever we land.

Goose Island was a bit of a disappointment.  There was still ample evidence of what the hurricane had done; lots of tree branches littering the sites, some broken picnic tables and washed roads.  But it was quiet and the bathrooms were clean, if buggy, and three deer greeted us on the way back to the campsite that night. We visited the “Big Tree” while we were there – a live oak said to be over a thousand years old, 85 feet across the canopy with limbs as thick as most trees.  The afternoon brought us to Aransas NWR, where we drove the 16 mile auto loop and stopped at a few observation points, including one that climbed almost 100 feet above the ground.  To Ron it seemed more like 500 but he made it to the top without complaint. At the Jones Pond overlook we spotted dozens of coots, a couple of pied billed grebes and at least four wild pigs.  At the visitors center we saw bluebirds and yellow throated and black and white warblers. Along the drive we found a racoon, little and great blue herons and the usual egrets.

We turned south again, passing mountains of hurricane carnage over 50 feet tall – household items, store signs, sheet rock, concrete slabs – all awaiting the dump trucks that will take it to use as fill somewhere else.  Maybe our descendants will dig up the refuse and wonder what kind of civilization threw away so much stuff. Oh, wait.  They will probably think that about Fresh Kills, too.

The birding trail brochure led us to another city park that was supposed to have free camping but when we got there it was in an iffy neighborhood and looked abandoned.  Another victim of Harvey? Who knows, but we didn’t feel comfortable staying.  There were a few people playing disc golf (look it up! apparently a pretty big thing in the south but nothing we had ever heard of before) and a photographer waiting for his clients to show up.  We asked about camping there but he thought the park closed at dusk and told us that RVs often pulled over on the hard packed sand at the shore of the bay just before the ferry crossing to Port Aransas.  So that’s what we did.

Woke up to a blustery, foggy morning and took the ferry, hoping to find breakfast and a bathroom asap. As the skies cleared we decided to check out Padre Island National Seashore which turned out to be absolutely beautiful. The meadowlarks were singing as we walked the nature trail and the swallows, mostly tree, flew overhead.  The dunes are majestic, tall and covered with goat’s foot morning glory and grasses. We decided to stay the night and backed into site 14 right on the Gulf beach. Made some pb&j sandwiches for lunch and plotted our next move.