Cloudy, Windy and Cool

Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day. It was a quiet one for us. We had lots of fog and cloud again here at Mustang Island State Park. The temperature this morning was 65F (18C). I decided not to take my camera on my walk this morning. I don't think this weather is good for cameras. Instead I took my radio and listened to the Corpus Christi Oldies station. They have a really good one.

It was cloudy all morning. I had seen some surfers down by the jetty this morning so Gordon went out to get some photos. I had a nap.

After lunch, we had a little rain and the wind started to come up. I spent some time talking with Dee from the rv-dreams chatroom on Yahoo Messenger and John on Facebook.

This afternoon I got restless so we went in to the Leonabelle Turnbill Birding Center, then to Paradise Pond, another birding place, then to Robert's Point Park and then the south jetty. Lots of fisherpeople out even though it wasn't all that warm. Sure was chilly out on the jetty even though it was 65F (18C) but cloudy and a bit windy.

Pretty flowers at the entrance of the Leonabelle Birding Center

Cute little grebe

A couple of coots

A tri-colour heron landed on the railing of the boardwalk right in front of me

This is Paradise Pond - due to the drought there's no longer any water in it so we didn't see many birds there.

Pelican giving me the eye. He had such a pretty soft-looking head.

One of the beach cars you can rent in town - they're expensive!

This is the south jetty - it goes way out into the Gulf so lots of people fish here

This pelican had a red marking on his face

Our high today was 71F (22C). It wasn't a very nice day but certainly better than it was at home.

Just a Laid Back Kinda Day

Low-67F (19C)

High- 73F (23C)

Today was a pretty laid back day. It was very foggy this morning and remained hazy for the day. I had a foggy walk on the beach. Gordon had gone in to Port Aransas to take photos at the Horace Caldwell Pier for sunrise. It's his favourite place here to take foggy photos.

Foggy sunrise photos


Seagull in morning light

A tent camper on the beach

Road going to the campground


Road to the beach

A bottle that washed up on the beach


I did the usual things, read both inside and out and spent quite a bit of time on the computer. There are a lot of Canadians here and someone stopped by to see where we were from while I was sitting outside. I spent some time this afternoon on Yahoo chat with Bill (The Shadow) of rv-dreams.com chatroom and uploaded some photos that I've taken to Facebook.

We were told today to watch for snakes. In December someone here found one under their rig. Not what I wanted to hear!

It didn't get too hot today but it was pretty humid so this afternoon I decided to take a nap, humidity makes me sleepy. It turned into a two hour nap and when I awoke there was a nice breeze!

Our First Day at MISP

Low-57F (14C)

High-79F (26C)

We had a little bit of sun, a little bit of cloud but very little wind today. We had two beach walks as well, one just after sunrise (for me). Gordon was out before sunrise. Then we both went out this afternoon.

Sunrise photos

Shells and sponges



A gull in the morning light

Condos in the distance

Afternoon photos

Looking toward the beach from the campground - it's over the beach grass and the dunes

They plow sand here with a grader like they plow snow at home

One of the little scurrying beach birds

Met this guy on the beach...and he followed me home!

Fishing in the Gulf

Pretty clouds over the dunes

This is the smallest Airstream I've ever seen!


I had a visit today from a lady who reads my blog. Her name is Esther and they are camped just down the way from us. They're from Alberta but she is originally from Ottawa.

After Esther's visit, Gordon and I went in to Corpus Christi to find a Superwalmart and we did find it although not thanks to Miss Pinky. She took us in a roundabout way but then couldn't get us to the location but Gordon found it anyway. We need to update our maps so we need a really good constant connection to do that.

We had dinner at Taco Bell and then home for a quiet evening.

We're At the Beach!

We got battered about by the wind last night. It was some of the worst we've seen since Carlsbad, NM four years ago. This morning was sunny, bright and calm although it was only 57F (14C) a 10 degree drop from yesterday morning but still not bad.

Photos of the pier at GISP just after sunrise


I went for a short walk this morning mainly to get some photos in 'golden' light. Then it was back to the RV for breakfast and to get ready to head out to Mustang Island. We did well with our tanks. Our gray tank was still registering 2/3 and the black tank was on full but still had a couple of days left to really fill it up.

We finally left the Goose Island State Park around 11:25 a.m. after dumping at the dump station. It was mostly sunny and about 70F (21C). We decided to go through Corpus Christi to get to Mustang Island instead of taking the ferry so it took a little over an hour. We were in our site here by 1:00 p.m. Sure glad we made reservations! They're full!

View of Corpus Christi skyline on our way through town

This roseate spoonbill was around to greet us near the office as we arrived at MISP.

While Gordon was setting up the dishes, I washed the windows. They were pretty dirty and had salt on them from being so close to the water at GISP. Then I vacuumed as I had cleaned the bathroom this morning before we left so we're relatively clean now!

We were finally set up completely including the satellite dishes by 3 p.m. so we went for a walk on the beach.

Our site

Seashell on the beach

Waves, sky and beach


Waves


The RV park - it's almost like a big parking lot but does have some grass.


The back to the RV to pick up our shower bags and headed over to the campground showers. Sure felt nice. Our high temperature today was 82F (28C) under bright sun. Feels like summer here! One of the nicest days this winter!

Our Last Day at Goose Island

It was 67F (19C) and cloudy again this morning. I went back to the wooded campground and took the trail that joins the three wooded campgrounds, then walked part of Turks Cap Trail again. I rarely see anything there but I just like the trail. There aren't any trails at Mustang Island only lots and lots of beach!

It really looked like rain again this morning but decided to take my chances and although I felt a drop or two it didn't rain till after 10 a.m. and then not very much. It is nice to see that the frog pond has filled up again. By the time I got back to the rig this morning, the wind had picked up and it got really windy during the day. The forecast was 50mph gusts and I believe it. So we didn't do much, just hung around the RV. I read and had a nap.

The frog pond



Mid-afternoon we took a little driving tour around St. Charles Bay but there weren't many birds out because of the high winds. On our way out I took this photo of the water splashing up just past Stinky Beach. Then we drove into Rockport along the Fulton Beach Road, again not too much going on so we came home. I went for a nice hot shower in the nice showers here. Not looking forward to the showers at Mustang Island State Park!

Water splashing up on shore from the wind

Pretty pink wild flowers down by St. Charles Bay

Birds of a feather stay together out of the wind


One of the downtown shops
Colourful stores in the downtown area



I spent the rest of the afternoon planning the rest of our 'southern' six months and a proposed route to return to Ontario.

Water splashing up behind our rig late this afternoon


Our high today was 74F (23C) with very little sun and lots and lots of wind!

Thanks to Bill and Tom last night from the rv-dreams chatroom, our kitchen faucet is now back in working order. Gordon located the set screw and got it all back together this morning.

Laundry, Groceries ......... NAP!

I woke up to cloudy skies looking like it might rain and 67F (19C). I dressed for rain but only walked/ran along the bay area as I had things to get done today.

After breakfast I got the laundry ready. I had changed the bed yesterday in preparation. Don't want to do too much in one day!

As I've mentioned before Rockport's laundromats leave much to be desired and I was going to wait until we got to Mustang Island to do laundry as I know there's a nice laundromat near Mustang Island State Park. However, we were running out of clothes so I bit the bullet and went to the laundromat that I went to two years ago hoping that things had gotten better. Well, they have but not a lot. There is now an attendant so no bums sleeping on the tables however the tops of the machines are still rusted off and if you don't put the top on just so it goes to unbalanced and no matter how you move your clothes around it doesn't help. Lots of washers and dryers are out of order and the dryers that do work have idiosyncracies. One of them has to be lit every time you put a quarter in it so you have to call the attendant and you can only put one quarter in it at a time. In fact most of them will only take one quarter at a time. Anyway, the laundry's done, the grocery shopping's done and I'm home again.

I turned on the air when I got home. We could do without it but the humidity is making things inside feel damp so thought it could do with some drying out. Apparently when I was out the power was off in the park as they were replacing a transformer over at the rec hall. It was back on by the time I got home. Timed that right!

View from our rear picture window


Logistics - how is the guy with the HDT on the right going to get in front of the fifth wheel to tow it out of there? That's one reason why we never park this way.

After putting away groceries, I lay down to read and take a nap. It was just too windy to sit outside, although we did reach a high of 76F (24C). We did have some rain while I was on my way in to Rockport but other than that it's been cloudy with sunny periods.

When I was doing dishes tonight the faucet came apart. Hmmm what do we do now?

Sunday around GISP

We slept with the windows open last night. It sure makes for a good sleep. When I got up at 7:30 a.m. it was already 65F (18C). I headed off for the wooded area and again walked part of Turk's Cap Trail. I didn't see any wildlife other than a few birds. Also stopped at the bird feeders and hung around long enough for some birds to arrive. The cardinals were so pretty!

Interesting old tree

More trail photos

I thought this was a cute pose

This is Lief, the Alaskan Malamute

I then took another trail from the bird area which goes to the next camping area. This area has a lot of low trees so it's mostly for small RVs and tents. As I arrived I saw this beautiful big dog. He was just gorgeous. He's an 18 month old Alaskan Malamute named Lief. I patted him for a while. Such a friendly dog, but huge!

From there I headed back to the RV park for breakfast. The morning was spent on the internet, then reading outside, then back inside to get my geocaches logged. I guess I didn't log one of the ones from Arizona last year and there were a couple that I hadn't logged from Indianola this year so that is now done, I have my number of caches logged on my sidebar - now 16. I spent some time on the geocaching.com site today trying to learn something about it. Can't say as I know everything now but I know more than I did.

It was very windy today but we did reach a high of 74F (23C). It wasn't a very nice day to sit outside though.

This RV came in this afteroon towed by a huge semi, boy was it noisy!

Late this afternoon we went out for a drive and saw the whooping cranes at the feeder again, then we tried to find some deer but no luck there so we came back and had dinner at Pop's. Gordon had tacos and I had an oyster Po'Boy. It was yummy!


We stopped first at the bird feeders in the park and saw a lot of male cardinals and a few female.

One of the whooping cranes

Pops

This fish is made out of beer caps