Windy Day but Quiet Time for Us!

We’re back to some semblance of heat this morning. It was 61F (16C) when I got up and went for my beach walk. Today I did get a few photos of the clean beach although it’s not as clean as it was yesterday. It got cloudy and windy later this morning but the temperature remained pretty much the way it was at 8:00 a.m..

We spent the day hanging around the RV reading and I did a little bit of cleaning and also went for another walk.

Tomorrow we move north (aren’t we going the wrong way) to Goose Island State Park just north of Rockport, TX.

Sunny and on the Chilly Side!

It was bright and sunny this morning but only 48F (9C) when I went for my walk. Quite a difference from yesterday morning. The other difference is the beach was clean, no seaweed, no Portuguese Man O’War on the beach so either the wind carried everything out to sea which I think is unlikely or they cleaned the beach during the windstorm yesterday. I didn’t take my camera with me this morning so I don’t have photos.

Today I needed to go to SuperWalMart so Gordon drove me as it’s quite a ways into Corpus Christi and I don't like driving if I don't know where I'm going. On the way we stopped and checked out some campgrounds in Corpus Christi thinking that if we couldn’t find one in Rockport, we could stay in Corpus Christi but didn’t find one that suited us. Fussy eh?

It did reach 59F (15C) today but since it’s turned quite chilly here and will be for a few days we thought about heading south toward South Padre Island instead of going to Goose Island State Park. That’s something you can do if you don’t have reservations but I think we’ve decided to go GISP and look for something in Rockport. I can get around by myself there!

Monthly Expenses for November

Campground Fees - $616.75

Groceries - $417.14

Laundry - $19.50

Wine/Spirits - $0.00 – Under groceries

Entertainment - $86.00

Snacks - $2.85

Eating Out - $112.11

Fuel (Truck) - $431.01

Propane - $22.75

Repairs/Service RV/Truck - $198.37

Misc - $80.36

Insurance - $151.04

Internet/TV - $155.57

Cell Phones - $114.18 – we get a $50 rebate on Gordon’s new cell phone (not reflected)

Medical/Dental - $251.52

Gifts - $0.00

Total - $2709.15

Considering we did a lot of driving this month, we did fairly well. The Medical/Dental may change as I haven’t submitted anything through insurance yet so I’m not sure how much they will pay. Other than that, everything’s pretty self-explanatory.

Photos below are of the USS Lexington. It was the most highly decorated aircraft carrier of World War II and is now a floating museum since its retirement after 48 years of service, a longer tour than any other ship in the U.S. Navy.

Gordon and I in Memphis, TN on our Anniversary

I'm uploading this here so I can use it as my profile photo

A Nasty Day!

I have no idea what this is. Anyone have any ideas?

This photo shows the expanse of beach and the truck camper mentioned in the blog below

Another beautiful morning for my beach walk. This morning there was a truck camper parked on the beach. There are no hookups there but you can dry camp.

From 72F (22C) at 8:00 a.m. by 10:30 a.m. it was 49F (9C) and VERY windy. I’ve never seen the temperature drop that far that quickly. Apparently they had snow in Dallas today so at least we don’t have that. I sat outside this morning after breakfast thinking that it might be my last chance to do so for a while and within about 15 minutes of going out the sun had gone and cloud had set in and it started to rain. It rained on and off for about an hour or so leaving us with the strong winds and low temperatures. Out came the heater again. I had hoped it wasn’t going to be needed until we start heading homeward in the spring.

Later in the afternoon, the power went out, it had been of and on a few times and then it went out for about 45 minutes. We were starting to think that it was going to be a long, cold night when it came back on.

The sun also came out late in the afternoon and the skies began to clear and it warmed up a bit to 52F (11C).

The electric blanket may have to come out again tonight!

A Great Day to be at the Beach!

My walk on the beach this morning was under 78F (26C) temperatures and a fairly strong wind but not enough to blow the sand around. It’s so beautiful! I wasn’t alone this morning. There were a couple of other people walking. Quite a few RVs came into the park yesterday. We’re nowhere near full though.

After breakfast I again sat outside in my lawn chair until the sun left us and it became cloudy and seemed to be cooler although it was still 77F (25C). With the wind blowing it just seems to be cooler.

Birds on the beach

This afternoon I walked down to the beach and just walked around taking photos and listening to the radio. They have a really good oldies station in Corpus Christi 93.9 FM. They play real oldies from the 50’s and 60’s. I thought 1310 AM in Ottawa was good but this one is way better. You’ve got to be really carefully walking barefoot on the beach as they are a lot of Portuguese Man o’War (see photo). Nasty looking things! Their sting is dangerous to humans and has been responsible for deaths and there are lots of them here of all sizes. Needless to say, I either have beach shoes or my sneakers on when I’m on the beach. It was amazing to be on the beach all by myself in the middle of the day. There was no one anywhere that I could see up and down the expanse of beach which goes for miles.

Portuguese Man O'War

Pelicans in flight

This time of year I have a problem making dinner as it's usually too hot to put the oven on and I don't really like to fry meat. There's always the crockpot but I always think of that too late. In the summer, Gordon barbecues but by the time we eat dinner in the late fall/winter/early spring, it’s too dark so tonight I just browned some chicken breasts and put them in with a can of the tomato basil soup (that you can only buy in Canada) mixed with ½ water and ½ cooking wine and we’ll see how it tastes. It’s sort of a poor man’s chicken cacciatore. This soup doesn’t have any wheat flour in it unlike plain tomato soup so I stock up before we leave. We’ll see what this concoction tastes like!

Rockport and Goose Island State Park

Another hot, humid morning for walking on the beach! Just me and the shore birds.

This morning we took the ferry from Port Aransas to Aransas Pass and headed into Rockport. We stayed in Rockport two years ago when we were here. We stopped at the Chamber of Commerce and picked up some brochures on RV Parks and drove along the shoreline and took some more bird photos. There are so many birds there! We stopped for lunch at Taco Bell in Rockport. Then we drove out to Goose Island State Park which is just north of Rockport and decided that we’d like to spend a week there. They have sites that back on the water so we’ll head over there on Sunday for a week. We stopped by the Raintree RV Park where we stayed in 2005 but they are full over Christmas so we’ll have to look elsewhere. We drove back through Corpus Christi instead of taking the ferry and stopped at the H.E.B. grocery store and picked up a few items.

When we got back, I again took my book and headed for my lawn chair.

Just before sunset we went to a spot near us to take some sunset photos. The sunset wasn’t great but there was a heron right in front of the sun so got a few photos there. When we came back the grackles had gathered in front of the camp hosts site. Looks like a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock movie!

Photo Ops & Visits

It was very warm overnight even with the windows open but it sure was nice to hear the surf! I hadn’t turned my fan on so I could hear the waves but it got hot so about the middle of the night I turned it on. We also took the electric blanket off the bed today. It’s supposed to get down into the 40’s F during the week at night so we can put it back on if we need to.

I walked down to the beach for my walk this morning and did part of my walk on the beach watching the pelicans and the shore birds. There was only one other person there quite a ways from where I was and it looked like he was fishing. It was great to walk in shorts and T-shirt again.

I put up the clothesline this morning as with the humidity, our towels won’t dry inside the RV and there’s no campground rule against clothes lines here as there are in most RV parks.

Late this morning we headed over toward Port Aransas looking for photo opportunites. We saw a couple of birds at one spot along the way but saw most of our photo ops at Roberts Point Park by the ferry in Port Aransas. There was a very cooperative heron and some pelicans as well as some dolphin in the bay. Photos above.

These birds hang around the fishermen hoping for a handout. In one of the photos of the heron, you’ll see he’s giving me what for for sneaking up on him to get his picture. They really do have an ugly sound for such a pretty, graceful-looking bird.

While we were out, Carolyn & John, blogger friends dropped by and left their card. They are staying at an RV park in Corpus Christi. Also Howard & Linda from rvdreams.com dropped by. I had notified them on their website this morning that we were in the area. It was great to meet Howard & Linda. They were being chauffered by a local lady who is also a follower of their website. I’m sorry we missed Carolyn & John though. Carolyn is the lady who recommended the campground at Levis, Quebec that we liked so much.

There was also another couple here at Mustang Island from Ottawa, Pat & Terry left this morning for South Padre Island so we may see them again. The RV world is a small one!

At sunset we went out to see if we could find a place for photographing sunsets but tonight's sunset was a bust so we continued into Corpus Christi as it was time to update Gordon's phone. I had been forced to upgrade mine earlier since I dropped it and it didn't survive. He got the same phone that I have. After that, we stopped at Taco Bell for dinner and then headed home.

We Arrived at Mustang Island State Park Today!

We left San Antonio at about 10:30 a.m. under cloudy skies and 66F (19C) however we weren’t very far out of San Antonio when Gordon looked at the thermometer in the truck and it had climbed to 83F (28C). Our drive was under partly sunny skies until we were nearly at Corpus Christi then it was sunny and still 83F (28C). We arrived at Mustang Island State Park after just over a 2 ½ hour drive and got checked in. We’re finally got finished setting up around 3:30 p.m. It seems the farther south we are the more difficult it is to find the Starchoice satellite but we finally got it and we have TV and internet again. We’re here at the State Park for a week and while we’re here we’ll check out campgrounds at Port Aransas and/or Rockport to see where we’ll be over Christmas and New Year’s.

I got an email this morning from Amazon.com stating that I had ordered something from them at a cost of nearly $2500.00. Since I hadn’t, it freaked me out and although it said that I had ordered it on a credit card, it didn’t say which one so I proceeded to call my credit card companies and check this out. None of them had authorized that amount so I called Amazon and was advised that the account number I had from my email was not theirs. I was told that they were aware of this scam and were working on it and not to worry about it so if anyone gets an email from info@amazon.com stating that you’ve ordered something, it’s best to call Amazon and check.

After we settled in, we took a walk down to the beach – see me pictured below.

Our site at Mustang Island State Park