We Visit the Texas State Aquarium

It was much warmer this morning 58F (14C) and sunny but not the bright sun that we’ve had the last few days. It was 63F (17F) by the time I returned to the RV about 35 minutes later.

Hmmm what to do today? Lots of choices. We still want to walk by the Bay in the downtown area and photograph some live oak trees where the great blue herons sleep at night and photograph the Corpus Christi skyline and the downtown lights.

Gordon outside the Aquarium

Well the choice was made to go to Corpus Christi but to go to the Texas State Aquarium. We arrived there around 12:30 p.m. and got our tickets. The dolphin show was set for 1:00 p.m. so we got our seats. It was 72F (22C) but windy so was fairly cool. As expected, the dolphin show was really good. They had four dolphins performing. After the show we did a tour of the rest of the aquarium skipping the snakes. We both hate snakes! They had some birds there as well as fish, snakes, alligators, stingrays and frogs. Check out the pictures.

The Dolphin Show

Other Fish Tanks & Stuff

Sea Horse

Royal Gramma or Fairy Basslet

Miscellaneous Fish

Sea Nettle

We arrived home via Ingleside, TX (not very picturesque) at around 3:30 p.m. deciding not to stay for the evening as Gordon’s photo cards were full. We’ll have to go back another day or another time.

Nice Day Today!

Although it was only 47F (8C) when I went for my walk this morning it was sunny and bright and you could feel the warm sun unlike other days when it's just been sunny but cold. When I got back to the RV it was already 51F (11C).

After breakfast I decided it was time to sit outside and enjoy it so I sat out and read for a while.

I was to call both of my sisters today but since I couldn't get a cell signal at the RV park (we're in a dead zone) and I had to go out for some groceries anyway I stopped on my way to the store and called both of them but got no answer so on to HEB and then to Walmart. When I came out from Walmart I managed to reach my younger sister and spoke to her and Danica, her daughter for a bit and got their news. I had hoped that my nephew, Nick would be at his Mom's today but his wife was sick so they didn't go over.

We went to Goose Island State Park for sunset and also so I could call my older sister. This time I was able to reach her. We're making arrangements to start our trek to Fort Myers to see them next Sunday. While we were at the park there was a glorious sunset, photo above!

Stay at Home Saturday

The guys are building a new fence around the new part of the park where people are putting in park models.

This morning was 45F (7C) and sunny with little wind for my walk around the neighborhood.

Gordon went out for sunrise but other than that we just stayed home today. I got the laundry done and used my new external hard drive to get my back up done. I also updated our expenses into my spreadsheet.

It reached 68F (20C) today and was bright and sunny all day although the wind did pick up a bit during the day. That’s it for our day!

Family Photo, Truck Service and Sandhill Cranes

I was up at 6:15 a.m. today and it was 31F! Gordon had turned the water off overnight and was gone to take sunrise photos.

We had an appointment in Aransas Pass at the local Dodge dealer for our regular truck service. This is about the first time that we reached the three months before we reached the required mileage. We were back around 11:00 a.m. taking the scenic route and saw three sandhill cranes but we didn’t stop as Gordon didn’t have his camera.

After lunch, a nap and my walk that pretty much ate up the afternoon. It was 50F (10C) at the high point today but very bright and sunny all day.

Late this afternoon we headed over to FM1069 (Farm Market 1069) which is the road where we see the sandhill cranes. We took this route back from Aransas Pass this morning. We saw lots of cranes both on 1069 and 188 on our way to Bayside where we DIDN’T see any roseate spoonbills. All the birds are still hiding from the cold.

When I say the pavement ends on Lone Star Road, it really ends!

Sandhill cranes

Sandhill cranes in flight

Gordon's sister, Carol (left) sent this photo today. Beside Carol is Gordon's daughter, Michelle and in the background his son, Ian and Ian's daugher, Lilly

We Have a New Microwave!

The wind in the palm(s) at Rockport

Driving through the live oaks at Lamar

Late afternoon sun in the live oaks at Lamar

I was up before 6:00 a.m. today having been awake since about 4:00 a.m. I don’t know if it was because I knew we had to be at Camping Clinic for 8:00 a.m. or if it was because I heard the rain start. It was 32F (0C)! Gordon had unhooked the water around 5:00 a.m.

We got our new microwave installed and were headed back to Fulton Oaks RV Park by 9:50 a.m. having cost us only an hour’s labor. We were set up again by 11:15 a.m. and headed to Taco Bell for a celebration lunch. We then drove around the Bay in town but although the sun was now shining brightly, most of the birds had elected to find a warmer spot so we headed back to the RV and had a nap. I had a horrible dream. I dreamed that State Farm Claims in Texas needed help and I went in to help them. For those of you that don’t know I spent 26 years as a Claims Adjuster at State Farm in Ottawa and hated pretty much every second of it!

After I woke up from my nap, I took my morning walk since I hadn’t taken it this morning. Again, nothing to see except a cardinal and the guinea hens that we saw a couple of weeks back.

Late this afternoon we took a trip over to Lamar and Goose Island State Park but again although the sun was shining brightly there wasn’t much around but it was a nice drive. The high today was 50F (10C).

Happy Valentine's Day!

YUK! Back to 40F (4C) weather and cloudy although there were a few sunny breaks here and there.

After breakfast, I made a trip to Walmart and got a roast of beef to cook in the crockpot for our Valentine’s Day dinner. There was a Valentine’s Day dinner dance here at the campground for tonight but I didn’t sign us up as we have to be up very early tomorrow to pack up and go to Camping Clinic for them to install our new microwave. Since we don’t have a fan above the stove right now, Gordon seared the roast on the barbecue – it worked really well! I expect this won’t be news to our brother-in-law, John who bakes on the barbecue.

We got some outside things done today in preparation for going to Camping Clinic tomorrow – tanks dumped, awning up etc. After that we went for a drive to Bayside taking the route where we usually see the sandhill cranes and again we saw quite a few but they were quite far away. Gordon got some of them flying, I think. There weren’t any birds at Bayside as it was so cold. We did see some on the way there and back but they were quite far away. When we got back to Rockport we walked along Water Street which runs along the Bay. We hadn’t walked there before. It was cold! Our high today was 50F (10C) but with the wind it felt colder. I walked a bit around the park when we got back to the RV. About all I saw were some black bellied whistling ducks.

Oh, and my camera is okay. It just needed to be charged!

This is an osprey that we saw on our way to Bayside today

A fishing pier along Water Street

We saw this mailbox on our walk along Water Street this afternoon

An egret and a fishing pier along Water Street

This display is outside an RV from people from Orillia, Ontario here in our park

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Short Trip to Port Aransas

This morning was bright and sunny and 56F (13C). I set out for my walk with my camera but when I went to use it, it wouldn’t work so I cut my walk short and returned home to read the Troubleshooting manual. I had also started charging the battery. The manual said to take the battery out for one minute and then put it back in so I took it out of the charger and put it into the camera and it worked.

Since it was a nice sunny day, after lunch we headed over to Port Aransas. We tried to find a sunset dolphin watch cruise but no luck so on to the Leonabelle Turnbull Bird Sanctuary where I took a couple of photos and my camera failed again. Gordon said that he thought it sounded like the battery was dead so I put the camera away and just enjoyed the day. I have lots of bird photos anyway. We went to the beach, the jetty and Roberts Point Park and then headed home. My battery is charging. Sure hope that’s all it is! So, no photos today.

We reached a high of 70F (21C) today, tomorrow’s high is supposed to be only 49F (9C) and rainy!!

New Hair Do and Some Walking

It rained a bit during the night last night and this morning was much warmer – 58F (14C) and partly sunny. I got up a little earlier as I had a hair appointment this morning. While I was getting up, Gordon was leaving to go and take photos as it’s the first bit of sun we’ve seen in three days.

I arrived early for my hair appointment and was taken right away. The salon is actually closed today but Melissa came in for me and a couple of other people so it was nice and quiet. I got my hair colored, cut and styled and this time after about 1 ½ years of procrastinating, I had her give me bangs! It will take a while to get used to having something on my forehead again!

I stopped at Bealls on my way home to see if they had any new sandals in but everything looked the same as it did last time I was in.

After having lunch at home, Gordon and I headed out to do some walking. We stopped at Connie Hagar’s Cottage Sanctuary and walked a bit around there but it had gotten warmer today and more humid so the mosquitoes were out in force. We also didn’t see any birds, the wrong time of day, I expect so instead we headed over to Rockport Beach and walked along the Bay side on the way to the fishing pier and on the beach side on the way back so I think we’ve gotten our exercise for today!

One of the trails at the Cottage Sanctuary

Birds all in a row at the beach

A snowy egret showing off his plumage at the fishing pier at the beach

The temperature got to somewhere around 70F (21C) today but it was mostly cloudy with only a few sunny breaks. At one point when we were walking on the beach it looked like we might get some rain but we were home by the time we got any rain.

More Clouds Today

This morning Gordon decided today that it was too boring to walk around here so we drove to Rockport Beach. He headed to the harbor to take photos and I headed down the beach to walk. It was cold – 49F (9C) but I was dressed for it. I walked along the beach side for a ways then walked on the Bay side. It was quite a good walk. There weren’t a lot of birds out but I did see a heron and all kinds of gulls and terns and a few oyster catchers. The photo is of Rockport Beach.

This afternoon I headed over to Walmart to pick up a few things then drove back along Fulton Beach Road. There were a lot of waves crashing against the shore but it didn’t seem that windy.

Our high today was 57F (14C) and it was cloudy all day again. The only good thing about the temperature is that it’s only 23F (-5C) in Ottawa.

When I got back I went for another walk around the park but that’s about it for today!

Another Cloudy Day

This morning was 47F and cloudy again. Gordon joined me on my walk so we walked toward the Lone Star dead end. He walked as far as the horses and took pictures while I continued. The only photo I took today was of a cardinal in a tree just outside the park which you will see here. Yesterday when we were out we got him a pedometer too. By the way, last week I averaged 9540 steps per day. They recommend that you keep track by week rather than by day. So I think I did pretty well.

There was a garage sale in the park today to benefit cancer. I had donated my old dishes. It seemed like it was well attended.

I started to read this morning laying on the couch and fell asleep early this afternoon and slept all afternoon. Neither of us slept very well last night so I was really tired. When I got up we both went for a walk around the park.

Not much happened today! For some reason it felt like Sunday to both of us.

A Very Gray Day!

This morning was only 56F (13C) and our high only got to 59F (15C). It was very cloudy all day. I had my morning walk around the neighborhood out Lone Star and south on Tenth and back. I sure miss the scenic walks I had at Goose Island and Mustang Island State Parks. Also Port Aransas was pretty scenic.

I’m running out of room on my hard drive on my computer. I still have the photos that I took at the beginning of our RV Odyssey on it so today we went in search of an external hard drive. Gordon has been backing up my photos on DVD but they aren’t easily accessible for me. We wound up at Radio Shack in Aransas Pass where I got a 200 GB for $99.99. Amazing! I remember when I got my first computer, a little Mac SE. I got a 80 MB hard drive when I went to visit Gordon in Dayton for $600+ U.S. and that was a good deal. This would have been in 1989. Now I have to get the files transferred.

So while we were in a spending mood, I also got a back up photo card for my camera and a card reader. Toys, toys, toys!

On our way back we stopped at Palm Harbor RV Park and Ancient Oaks campground (a former KOA) and had a look around. We’ve gotten spoiled here the sites are so large. Palm Harbor was dumpy but was right on the water. Ancient Oaks was better but not up to the standards that we have here for less money. They do have a pool and a hot tub that we don’t have here (but we don’t usually use them anyway) and it’s closer to the water but not that much closer.

Then we stopped at downtown Rockport and walked around a bit and I made a hair appointment for Monday.

Also today we made an appointment at Camping Clinic to take the RV in for the new microwave next Thursday and a truck appointment for its service for next Friday. Whew! Too busy!

Black-Bellied Whistling Duck we saw at Ancient Oaks RV Park pond

Colorful rocking chairs in front of a store in downtown Rockport

Housework

Just for comparison, here's the stamp that I refer to at the end of this blog.

It was 64F (18C) and cloudy this morning for my walk around the neighboring streets. We had some glimpses of sun during the day but they were few.

This morning I got the vacuuming done and the floors washed and prepared the laundry to get that taken care of. After showers and lunch, I got the laundry done.

As I didn’t have my 10,000 steps yesterday due to our cruise, I decided to go for another walk late this afternoon as the sun had come out and it was beautiful. We reached a high today of 73F (23C) although it was fairly humid compared to what we’ve had for a long while.

I didn’t take any photos today so I’m borrowing one of the flying whooping cranes that Gordon took yesterday. It’s such a beautiful photo! This particular photo reminds me a lot of a stamp that my Dad had. I think it was a 5 cent. He had cancellations of the stamp from every post office in Canada at the time and I remember that he sold the album (I think in 1968) and took a trip to England.

Whooping Crane Tour

Last night I slept with the window open and no electric heater for the first time in ages! This morning when I woke up it was 58F (14C) and quite foggy but sunny for my walk around the neighborhood area.

Yesterday we had made reservations to go on one of the Whooping Crane Tours out of Fulton. We left Fulton Harbor on The Skimmer under Captain Tommy Moore at 1 p.m. Captain Tommy knows his birds. We saw several families of whooping cranes, saw some flying and then got really close to a couple of young whooping cranes. It was an excellent tour, well worth the money. We were out for 3 ½ hours. We saw lots of birds but most were too far away for my camera.

Gordon and I with the Whooping Cranes in the background

Cormorants drying their wings on the breakwater in the harbor

When we returned to harbor the oyster fishermen had returned and were unloading their catches. Lots and lots of oysters!

It was mostly cloudy for our tour but the sun came out on the way back and made for some nice photos of the fishing fleet.

Some of the fishing fleet

Unloading oysters

More Places to Go

These are the black pigs (javelina??)

Today was a really nice sunny day with no wind and 55F (13C) when I got up this morning. I walked around the area starting out going east on Lone Star for a change. I saw a great egret walking right along the road on Tenth Street and a cardinal in the tree just as I was entering the park.

After breakfast and shower, I headed over to WalMart to pick up a few things then came home for lunch.

This is the part of the sign I wanted

This is the complete sign

After lunch we headed north to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge hoping to spend some time there. We were there two years ago but I had a really bad back then and wasn’t able to walk very far. However, it was not to be. They were doing a prescribed burn so we couldn’t go very far into the park. We stopped to see the alligator behind a fence and then started on a trail but it was very muddy so we came back and drove as far as we could into the park. We took some photos of the burn and then left and headed for Refugio where I wanted to take a photo of a sign I had seen. On the way there we saw all kinds of deer and quite a few sandhill cranes. We took our sign photos, looked around Refugio again, then drove on.

At one spot, we pulled off the road going toward a fishing pier and saw two black wild pigs (could have been hjavelina, hard to tell). We drove back via Bayside and took some photos as we were close to sunset. We did a bit of back and forth from Rockport back to the sunset spot. We got home just at twilight – very tired!

Our high today got to be 72F (22C) and it was sunny and beautiful all day!

Seeing Some of the Area

This morning was nice and sunny and 53F (12C) and I did my usual walk along Lone Star and then around the RV park.

It is so sad to hear that 18 one year old whooping cranes were killed in the tornado that hit Florida last week. All 18 had flown with an ultra light plane from Wisconsin in the Fall. To read the story click here.

Late this morning we went out and stopped at the Chamber of Commerce in Rockport to get information on birding spots. Then we started out for one of them, Aransas Woods. It turned out to be a dud for birds. All we saw was one great egret far in the distance. We did however walk about ½ mile through supposed trails with grass and bushes and wet spots so we didn’t stay long. We then took FM1069 which is the road we sometimes take to Bayside and where we’ve seen sandhill cranes before. The birding hot spots map showed some roads that run off of FM1069 and the first one we took we did see sandhill cranes, but only three of them. We took another road and saw some other birds but most of them too far especially for my camera.

Photo taken at Aransas Woods

On our way back we stopped at Camping Clinic and they received our microwave today but can’t put it in until later this week. He’s supposed to call us.

We took the Beach Road part of the way back and saw lots more birds especially at Little Bay which is within the city limits. We stopped at Fulton Mansion as well which was the home of the man that the town of Fulton (where we are now) is named after but it’s closed on Monday and Tuesday. So our final stop was at a little fruit market along the highway where I got some oranges. Prices of oranges in my opinion is way too high. They are cheaper at home! HEB wanted $1.99/lb for naval oranges last week so I didn’t buy any. The guy at the fruit market told me navals were out of season but there were still a few in the bin so I bought a few and the price was much better. It cost me $1.34 for 4 oranges. Now we’ll see how they taste.

Looks like a bird convention!

Fulton Mansion

Sandra on the grounds of Fulton Mansion - note my new hat

Our high today was 66F (19C) but after a sunny morning and early afternoon it got cloudy during the later afternoon however there was a sunset that Gordon took some photos of at the bridge at Copano Bay.

A Slow Relaxing Sunday

I didn’t feel well during the night so got up and came out to the couch and eventually fell asleep. When I woke up I didn’t feel like walking so stayed on the couch and read, did puzzles, watched TV etc. It was really too bad as today is the nicest day we’ve had for some time. The high reached 65F (18C). Around 3:00 p.m. I decided to go for my walk so I walked to where the pavement ends on Lone Star then came back and walked around the campground and sat for a while on the swing at the pond enjoying the day.

This pond is right across the road from the entrance to our RV park

We went out for sunset tonight and ended up near Bayside as that’s the best place to get a sunset over Copano Bay. Even though it was still 63F (17C), I was glad I had brought my wind jacket as once the sun goes down it turns cold.

Tonight's sunset

We won’t be watching the Super Bowl tonight but I expect there are a lot of people who will!