Another Road Trip

I woke up to 52F (11C) under partly sunny skies and no wind. We were supposed to have rain today but it didn't happen. My walk was uneventful except when I came around one corner there was a dog sitting in the middle of the road. I put my gloves on as you can never tell what a dog's reaction will be but it was the same dog that walked with Ellie and I the other day so I started talking to him and he ran to me wagging his tail, then his buddy joined him also wagging his tail and they both took off to play and ignored me. I'm sure glad because I wasn't looking forward to two dogs following me back to the campground.

Most of the morning was spent on the internet, then I decided to do a load of laundry. On one of my trips from the RV to the laundry room I met Jim out taking photos. He wanted to know if we were going to see the local fishing villages and I said that we thought tomorrow afternoon was supposed to be nice and sunny. Unfortunately there is championship football on tomorrow afternoon so we decided to go today even though we had some cloud, some sun.

Off we went, first to Seadrift where we took some photos. Seadrift has a couple of Easter Island type sculptures. Here's one of them.

Feeding frenzy at Seadrift Harbour

White among the brown

Shrimpers

A Seadrift house across from the park on San Antonio Bay

Then to Port O'Connor where we took more photos.

On our way back we stopped at the Bird Refuge. There were a few birds out but didn't take many photos there.

A fishing boat at Port O'Connor Harbour


This pretty great egret was hanging around a guy who was netting bait fish

It appears we have a problem with out windows in the truck. The only one that can operate the windows is Gordon from the driver's seat. None of the other switches work. Oh, for roll down windows!

Today's high was 72F (22C) and it promises to be quite warm overnight. Looks like the next few days will be fairly warm.

Going to a Shrimp Boil

This morning was cold again at 39F (4C) at 8:30 a.m. I heard the wind blowing and decided that staying in bed longer was a good thing but I eventually got up and went for my walk. I was going north trying to walk against the wind and that in itself was a good workout. For a while I felt like I wasn't gaining any distance at all!

Last night Gordon was searching for Airborne during the night. He seems to have picked up a bug from being out on the lake yesterday. We had run out so we needed to go to Walmart at Port Lavaca again today. I picked up two packs while I was there as well as some Contac. Then we get back and find that he's out of corn wraps!

So, I went to Plan B - instead of traveling all the way back to Walmart, I got out the bread mix that I brought along from Ontario for just such occasions and whipped up some gluten free bread. Sure hope this doesn't happen again as that's the last bread mix. There is a lady near our home base of Ottawa, Ontario that has put together packages of gluten free products as two of her kids have celiac disease and her bread mix is wonderful. I see their site is down right now as they're moving to a new web hosting company but if anyone's interested, they can phone. The bread mix is called Magic Multi Mix. To see their web page that isn't there right now, click here. I expect they will have a link from this site to their new one when it's up and ready.

It was colder and windier today but we did reach a high of 56F (13C). It was mostly cloudy with sunny periods.

Tonight was the shrimp boil at the rec hall. We went over about 5:15 p.m. They had cooked lots of shrimp with corn, potatoes and sausage. There was also macaroni salad, yeast rolls and garlic bread and quite a few desserts. I was good this time and didn't have any dessert. It sure was yummy though!

Now it's time to sit around and watch TV so all this food can just apply itself to the parts of my body where I don't want it!

I didn't take any photos at all today.

A Busy but Great Day!

I thought today was supposed to be cold but I guess the jet stream didn't dip as far as the weathermen expected so I woke up to 54F (12C) with only a little wind so I had a lovely walk. I must have run farther than usual because I cut 5 minutes off my time going around the long loop.

Ellie was going to Victoria to a Weight Watcher's meeting this morning and Jim went along so Gordon and I decided to go to Port Lavaca to fill up the truck from our trip to Rockport and Port Aransas this week, then while I was there I picked up some groceries at Walmart. Diesel was still 1.99.9 at Walmart. The best price I saw for diesel in Rockport was 2.15.9.

The thermometer in the truck reached 66F (19C) when we were on our way back to Powderhorn from Port Lavaca which was our high for todayl

It was so beautiful that when I got back I sat outside and read while I had my lunch and Pyro came to visit. I had suggested to Gordon this morning that since the weather was so nice, he talk to Delmer about going out in the boat today. I decided to go too so after lunch Delmer took us around Powderhorn Lake for about 2 1/2 hours. It's amazing to me to be out on the lake in a boat on January 15th and not freeze to death.

Here are some photos from around Powderhorn Lake.




We were invited to Ellie and Jim's for dinner tonight so we walked over at 5:30 p.m. We had a lovely dinner of pork roast, baked potatoes, green beans, broccoli and cornbread with angel food cake, strawberries and cool whip for dessert. Gordon had his berries with cornbread. After dinner we chatted for a while then it was home to do my blog.

Mr. Bo Jangles and Jasmine


Ellie and Jasmine



It was a busy but very nice day!

5/5!

There was no wind this morning and the temperature was 44F (7C) at 8 a.m. I walked and ran the long loop again. Having Ellie here is giving me energy! When I got back she was just leaving for her walk. We decided to go geocaching.

Unfortunately there's not too many geocaches in this area and many of them are virtual so today we did three virtual and two regular geocaches. So to explain the title of today's blog, we found five out of five!

The first one we went to find was a regular geocache. It was a large container and in it Ellie found a travel bug! We haven't decided if it will go to Canada with me yet or not but that's a possibility. Otherwise Ellie will take it to a different state.

Ellie looking in the cache

Here's the travel bug


The second one was a virtual cache. This is one where you find the answer at the location and then email the person who came up with the idea.

The third one took us into town, while there I took a photo of the lighthouse in Port Lavaca. This cache was also a virtual cache. In the photo Ellie is looking at one of the plaques in front of the lighthouse to identify the answer to the virtual cache.

From there we headed north to the Palacios area (about 25 miles) and found another one. This one was a regular cache as well in a waterproof matches container so it was pretty small. Here's Ellie holding it up.

Then back to our area again for another virtual cache find. In this one we had to identify the snake!

Ellie's GPS does much better than ours for geocaching but Miss Pinky drove us to the right area. We're going to try again in the Rockport area as there are many more there than in this area. So for anyone living in the Port Lavaca area, you need to hide a cache, go to geocaching.com to find out how to do it. It's a fun hobby and basically free except for the fuel to get you there. It works well for RVers because you're always in different places so you have new geocaches to find all the time! It was a fun afternoon!

Today was a decent day with a high of about 63F (17C) but the breeze was cool. Definitely a sweater day but much, much better than winter coats and boots! We had the door open to the RV all afternoon to let the sun in to warm it up.

Road Trip to Rockport and Port Aransas

Today's blog will be mostly in the form of photos. It was pretty cold this morning with the wind but the temperature was about 48F (9C) when I got up. Today's plan was to go to Rockport and get our reservation made at Goose Island State Park for when we leave here. We've signed up for two weeks beginning January 28th and we're promised a site by the water but not guaranteed that we will back on the water. We may be across the road.

This sandhill crane photo was taken on our way going north on the road toward Port Lavaca.

Here we are on our way to Goose Island State Park through Lamar, TX.

This is the sign for Stinky Beach at Goose Island State Park.

And this is Stinky Beach

On to Rockport, we stopped at Big D RV Resort and had a look around. I knocked on Deb's door but their truck was gone. I couldn't remember which site Donna is in unfortunately. As it was lunch time Gordon got his lunch at Taco Bell and then stopped at McDonald's so I could get a salad. We then went down by the picnic tables near the harbour but ate lunch in the truck as it was still pretty cold and windy even though the thermometer in the truck was reading 61F (16C).

This photo was taken across the road from the Harbour which is across from the Chamber of Commerce. We had stopped there to see what was happening as there's a lot of new building going up around Rockport and they've done quite a cleanup around the Harbour.

This photo was taken as we were crossing Redfish Bay on the ferry. This barge was being pushed toward the Corpus Christi Harbour.


A white pelcian posed for me as we reached the ferry terminal at Port Aransas.

Our first stop was the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center. This is a great blue heron. He was really close and stood there so long without moving we started to think he was a decoy!


There was also a tri colour heron that wasn't at all skittish.


And a reddish egret was sitting on the pier when we went to leave. Unfortunately it's blurry!

From there we went to Mustang Island State Park. There is also lots of building around Port Aransas and a lot of beach houses that have been built on the way to the state park. They wereb't there two years ago!

This photo shows the 'host' rvers spots in relation to the Gulf. You can see it's quite a ways away.

And the beautiful waves!

Here's the beach. Mustang Island SP has a glorious beach!

My footprints in the sand. Unfortunately it was too cold for bare feet so you'll have to make do with sneaker prints.

Some boondockers on the beach in Port Aransas.

This dolphin was going along for the ride on the breaking waves in front of this ship.

We also drove by the Horace Caldwell Pier in Port Aransas and stopped at another fishing pier that always has pelicans around that are very nearly tame. They're waiting for fish from the fishermen.

And here we are on our way north toward home. We got home about 6:15 p.m. or so, tired but it was a really fun day!

We left Ellie and Jim at home today to get things done and from her blog it looks as if they got a lot accomplished.

Stuff

I was listening to the radio on a Victoria, TX radio station before I got up this morning and it said the temperature in Victoria was 27F (-3C). Brrrrrrrr! I was happy to see that it was 40F (4C) here. It's often warmer here on the coast than inland only 1/2 hour away, thank goodness! It did quickly warm up and was bright and sunny with no wind.

The plan today was to go into Port Lavaca for some groceries and Ellie decided to accompany me. We got that done and were home around 12:30 p.m. Ellie and Jim were going to Victoria this afternoon and I had some things to get done around the RV.

This afternoon after a nice shower, I sat outside and read for a while. It was nice in the sun. Our high today was around 62F (17C). I also watched the pelicans diving for fish. They are so funny. All you hear is a 'plop' now and then as they hit the water. They aren't the least bit dainty about it!

Late this afternoon I came in and made stew in the Dutch oven. It's not for tonight, it's always better made a day ahead. It just seemed like the right kind of weather for stew although this afternoon here was really nice, the nights are colder than they have been.

Photos today were taken around the RV park.

Finally Meeting Karon & Exercise

It was much colder this morning at 44F (7C) but at least the sun was out. It was windy but not as windy as it has been. I got up a bit later and didn't start out on my walk till about 8:15 a.m. I did the long loop again.

Ellie came over while I was having breakfast to let Gordon know that Jim was heading in to Walmart and had seen a large flock of sandhills on the way in so Gordon went off to find them. When they heard the truck though, they took flight! So he got a few flying photos.

A little while later Ellie came over again to tell me that Karon (Discovery Travelers) had gone to Rockport to pick up her mother-in-law and was heading north. She was going to meet her at TX35 and guide her back into our little warren. She said she hoped she could find it so I said I'd go along with her. I got Miss Pinky out of the truck to take along. We were traveling on TX316 when Ellie's cell phone rang. Karon was already on 316 so we just pulled over and waited for her and led her back to the RV park. It was so great to finally meet Karon. Two years ago when we were in Rockport, Karon sent us an email wanting to get together but we had left that day and when I picked up the email we were already in Beaumont, TX. So finally we got to meet! They only stayed a few minutes as they had a long drive ahead of them to get to where Karon's RV is parked.

Karon and her mother-in-law

After lunch I walked down to the pier and took some photos and then went next door and asked Ellie to come out and play so we went for a walk around the long loop again. I needed that to help me stay out of the cookies. I've been having a real sweets craving lately.

This is either a long or short-billed dowitcher, apparently they're hard to tell apart .

Willet
When the north wind blows it blows water from our little harbour out into the lake

When I got back it was back on the couch for me with my book, a chocolate bran muffin that Ellie had given me (Weight Watchers 1 point) and a nap!

I think we might have reached a high of 55F (13C) today.