End of the Year

Rockport, Texas

It get's louder the older you get... that's the sound your life makes as it goes racin' by! Don't waste no time on the junk that 'Don't mean nothin' '... focus on just the stuff that makes a difference... let that other crap just slide on by!
Brian from his blog “rv boon docking the good life”.
In my last few years I have reached a point in life that that saying really means a lot to me. I “knew it” years ago but only recently have been able to enact it with some success.

The empty food locker required me to go to the grocery store today. After a moderately successful trip to the HEB store, I headed down to the Wal-Mart to get the things that HEB does not carry. WHOA. Wal-Mart parking was totally full with folks roaming around waiting for a parking spot. Since I am not so good at waiting for non-essential things, my truck turned and ran from the crowd.

Back home the time was put to excellent use preparing a chicken stew for the next few days meals. As usual it was near perfect for lunch. After it has aged a couple of days in the freezer it will be perfect. As I write this at 9:45 pm I hear the wind from the cold front picking up outside. The next couple of days are supposed to be our winter time. It will be just right for hot stew and tea or coffee as I study my art book I got for Christmas.

There has been little black ants showing up every day or two. About three to ten will show up on the kitchen counter. Today I unpacked the cabinets and searched the entire kitchen area for their entry point. Not a thing showed up. I sprayed insecticide up behind all the appliances and at any point that a wire or tubing came into the rig. Tonight as I type two more of the little devils came out of hiding. I will win, but when WHO KNOWS. It seems every time I have to park under trees I get some kind of insect attack.

After a day of inside chores, I needed some walking time so I went to the beach park at dusk. The colors were pretty good, but I need to carry my tripod to get better time exposure shots. The first is the fishing pier at night. Very little action during the hour or so I was visiting folks.


The beach area looked pleasant and a few folks were enjoying the warn evening air by a stroll on the beach. It surprises me how few mosquitoes are at the beach park here.

And as I was leaving the view back toward the harbor seemed appealing so I tried a hand held long exposure again with moderate success. At least the colors were lovely.

I wish everyone a wonderful NEW YEAR and hope that you make time to get out and have tooooo much fun. TheOFM

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge

Rockport, Texas

The great news is that I have finished the addition of insulation to my home. The weather was 70 degrees and sunshine when I finished. Lunch was quick and easy, then I decided to go to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge for some adventure. The drive is about 45 miles from here through the flattest cotton fields I have ever seen.
The entry to the refuge is a dramatic change from the scenery a half mile back up the road. Here it is with salt water just off to the left and more beautiful live oak trees.


The parking lot is small and was heavily used today. There is a pond just behind the Visitor Center that is very attractive. Two ladies were enjoying the view and one asked the other if the alligator was real. I did not hear the answer, but the person with the question left and the other lady was watching very intently. Check out the alligator on the far bank to her left. About 10 feet of mean.

Since the refuge was over run with folks today, I just went on down to the end of the main road near the whooping crane viewing tower and boardwalk. The walk out onto the board walk was very pleasant and I met two young ladies from Canada visiting in Texas trying to have tooooo much fun.

On the way back I visited with a couple on their first trip into Texas. They live in Tacoma Washington of all places. They were also loving the cold weather here. In this next picture you can see the top of the tower where they have telescopes for looking at the area. The picture after it is the wheelchair accessible ramp for everyone to be able to get up there. This board walk is also ADA compliant.
If you have never seen a javelina, here is what 40 pounds of hardheaded mean looks like. It came out of the grass and started chowing down on a dead rabbit of all things. I never knew they ate meat too. Stench is much too mild of a description to call the fragrance of the critter. By the way they are not of the pig family.
This entire refuge is first class and the visitor center has some wonderful displays to help a person learn about the area.
Supposedly winter is coming in on Tuesday and leaving Wednesday night. That means I may have to put a light jacket on if it really gets down to 39 degrees. That is near blizzard conditions now days to me. Maybe that will be a good day to go to Corpus Christi to see what can be done to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM

A Difference For Certain

Rockport, Texas
Foam and more foam. It seemed like I was cutting foam all day. The morning started with donuts, coffee and an egg and sausage dish someone made. A good bit of time was spent visiting with a few folks and the subject was restaurants worth eating at in the area. There was quite a bit of consensus about which ones were not worth the bother, but a little less agreement on which ones were the best. The two big name places here are on the don’t bother list. Eventually we all had a chore to do or get off to work, so I had to come back home to do something.
I ended up spending the rest of the morning researching my upcoming trip to Big Bend and the Guadalupe Mountains. About noon I fixed something so spectacular for lunch I cannot even remember what it was. Then I started on the insulation again. Here is a before and after picture of one of the kitchen cabinets.

By the time I finished for the night, I had added about three 4x8 sheets of R5 insulation to the trailer. Now an Arctic Fox trailer already has R7 in the walls and R18 in the ceiling so they are very good to start with. Now this one is even better. I can really feel the difference in the bathroom already. The cold spot near the closet is gone. Maybe it will feel better when drying off after a shower tonight.
Because I am so sore from all the twisting and turning and other contortions, my plan is to take a little road trip tomorrow to try to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM.

Continuing Insulation Saga

Rockport, Texas

Many folks stopped by to see what I was doing outside on the picnic table. I explained that I was adding insulation even though my trailer was insulated better than any I knew of that were being built. Most looked at me like I had three or four heads on my shoulders. The insulation that I add to my Rvs has contributed a lot to the comfort level in the trailer by eliminating hot or cold spots. Additionally when I lived in brix and stix houses I ran numerous analyses that showed that insulation at twice what is in my trailer was cost justifiable in less than 2 years.

I do not know what the payout is on my trailer, but the total cost is under $50 to add r7 to every where that does not cause a loss of storage. By finish of tomorrows effort I will have three 4x8 sheets of 3/4" insulation added to the trailer. It is 10 pm at night now and I can already tell that a cold spot near the bed is gone. This will help a lot when I get back out into the desert later this spring.

Tomorrow should finish out the adding of insulation. It would be nice to be a contortionist when doing this kind of work. The next step is touching up the paint to make the interior of the cabinets nice to view when the doors are opened.

An item I am still thinking about is putting shade screens of white painted plywood mounted about 2 or 3 inches above the roof like a solar panel to help fight off the hot sun during the summer months of the year. Since I do not plan to be in the snow country again for any large amount of time, a little extra shade may be good. Any suggestions???? All this work is getting in the way of having tooooo much fun. TheOFM

Time To Insulate

Rockport, Texas

Today was get ready day. After reading some postings on the Escapees Discussion Forum, I decided it was time to put the extra insulation into this trailer that I have put into most of the trailers I have owned. The Arctic Fox is already just about the best insulated trailer in the industry, but I can add more and save money and be more comfortable in the near future called summer A/C season. The trick I came up with is to measure the available space inside cabinets along the outer wall and ceiling to see what thickness rigid foam board I can install without interfering with the use of the cabinet. Base cabinets also get extra insulation.
Most rv’s have some small framing inside the cabinets that is about ¾” thick. That will let you cut foam board to press fit into the space available. I have used ½” all the way up to two layers of 2” depending on what I have for free space. If the foam is cut about 1/8” too long in size it will press tightly into place and stay until you want to pull it out.
I tend to use the polyisocynate type of foam since it has a larger R value than Styrofoam. Both are easy to cut with a knife to the exact dimensions needed. To make the surface that can be seen in the cabinet more presentable I paint the foam with crafters acrylic paint from the hobby store in a shade I find pleasing.
After taking some rough measurements and calculating how much foam board I need to buy, it was off to Lowe’s. The closest Lowe’s is over in Aransas Pass a whole 13 miles away. That translates to a whole 15 minutes in this traffic clogged town. I love it. I wanted 1” thick R7 but they were out of it and did not know when more would be in. After heavy consideration of about 3 seconds, I took three sheets of ¾" R5 to the checkout and then into the truck. OOPS short bed truck. The rough measurements I had taken came in handy as I trimmed pieces off the large sheets into sizes that would be correct when I get home. In a couple of minutes the truck was ready to go.


After arriving home exact measurements were taken for the surfaces that will be visible. Cutting commenced and then painting. Now considering that this is a 21 foot travel trailer, how much room is available to lay large pieces of foam board around for paint to dry. Outside was not available due to dust blowing and rainy looking clouds. So I had to give up my afternoon nap to make room for a place for the paint to reside while it dries. Lucky foamboards.

It is guaranteed that working in cabinets while wearing trifocal glasses is a literal pain in the neck. Sprinkles and darkness caught me before I finished as much as I wanted to get done. Tomorrow will be some more measuring and painting. Then the inside the cabinet fun will begin again. This is not the way to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM

First Time at Port Aransas

Rockport, Texas
This morning was thank goodness very uneventful. All there was to it was doing laundry, hanging the clothes up and making up the bed with fresh clean sheets. It will sleep well tonight.
Let me tell you a little about Port Aransas. It is an interesting ride from here. As you head south you go across, with the help of bridges, many small low lying islands. There are square miles after square miles of bay waters to fish in the area and then you get to the Gulf Of Mexico. Along the way you pass the trail heads for some Texas Parks and Wildlife kayaking trails through the swamp. It would be easy to get lost in the maze of shallow passages through the marsh grasses. I think I would want a very good map and GPS to be sure I can find my way back. I took a picture of the area through some tall grass leaves. Alas the camera focused on the 4 grass leaves and the marsh was a fuzzy blur. Looks like I ought to be more careful next time. As you get to Port Aransas (PA) the casino ship Texas Treasure is docked on the left. It looks like a decent ship to go play on.
Next you take the ferry ride of two minutes across a channel to PA. I followed the signs to the PA jetty. It is a short jetty, but was being enjoyed by a good number of folks. Apparently it is not accessible on the other shore line as I saw no one on that jetty. The first two folks on the left in the picture are in scuba gear and looked like they had just come back in from diving somewhere. I hope not in the channel. The jetty had a lot of fishermen busy on it.
As I looked back to the beach, I spotted a lot of folks having a great time playing in the water and on the each. There seemed to be a lot of merriment going on and lots of happy laughter.
One fellow was flying a kite that represented a pirate ship. The wind blowing through the sails made a significant racket. I took several pictures, but a kite does not hold still very well. This was the best of the bunch.

After leaving the jetty area, I toured some of the town. It was like most tourist towns on the Texas coast. Nice enough, but nothing really special I the little area I visited. It was getting late so I headed back across the ferry resolved to come back earlier in the day so I can explore more and look for tooooo much fun. TheOFM

Christmas Day

Rockport, Texas
In case anyone likes to wake up really fast, I learned how to do it this morning. Since the campground feast was to be at 1 pm this afternoon, I was a lazy bum (AGAIN and getting to be a habit I like) and got up late. So I stumbled around some and finally got my cereal put in the bowl. Wow, progress. Next was to get the soy milk out and poured into the bowl carefully so as not to splash any all over the table. Success again. My swelled head from all this superior morning activity must have blocked my vision as I sat down to eat. A hand (I do not know which) decided things were going too good and flipped the full bowl right over into my lap. Oh whoopee how exciting. Like to have removed my kneecap getting out from the table. So now the old fat crippled man is trying to recover and contain the spillage before it all soaks into the seat cushion. Partial success was the result and more serious cleanup followed. Finally wide awake, I went for it again. This time food in the tummy and nothing spilled. This was too much excitement. So I drove very carefully down to the pier with the pecans from Goliad State Park and proceeded to eat them while enjoying the standard issue beautiful weather of winter. I used some water pump pliers to crack them to get at the meat. After this mornings excitement, I was extremely careful about keeping body parts out of the jaws of the pliers.
A visit to old Rockport was somewhat interesting. The old section is about four blocks long by two blocks.
There is some successful effort to have this be an artists area to attract tourists. The artwork I could see through the windows was really very good. A visit to the shops when they are open is in order.
Later in the evening, I talked with an old friend from Washington, my son and sister about Christmas and having tooooo much fun. TheOFM

The Night Before

Rockport, Texas
Twas the night before Christmas and not a lot is going on in the camper because TheOFM is tired. Today started with 41 degree coolness and got up to the lower 60's this afternoon. Both grocery store here had to get a visit from me to gather all the things I wanted for stocking the trailer. A new shower curtain and bath mat came home with me. My contribution for the Christmas pot luck made its way into my basket also. By the time I finished running around it was lunch time. WOW, even in small town shopping at the wrong time of the year can be crowded experience. My left side neighbor came into town last night and I visited with him before he headed back to Austin. They have put their travel trailer here as a vacation/weekend house. Personally I feel that that is the best way to have a weekend place. You can change locations every now and then to enjoy many places. In my previous life I had a lake house at Lake Somerville in a wonderful area. After 14 years of going to the same place I was ready for a change. Using a travel trailer to move occasionally makes great sense to me. Later in the afternoon I went one of the fishing piers and immediately caught a keeper speckled trout. However that was all the action in the next 2 plus hours. At least I met a fellow named Skip and we chatted for over an hour as he used up his bait by feeding it to small fish. Most of the folks I have met here are very satisfied with the area. Even the teens like the area in spite of little for teens entertainment in town. They have said again and again that it is not but 30 minutes to Corpus Christi for the young crowd entertainment and they do not have to put up with the traffic and crowds during the week.
There is a rumor around town that the Bass brothers of Texas own a prime piece of property right next to the marina and are trying to get set up to put in a casino. Now that would create a lot of tourist activity and a lot of folks trying to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM

Visiting Goliad

Rockport, Texas
An informational trip to the Victoria, Texas area turned into a day trip of great fun. The road out to Victoria was a new one for me. Even though the new part turned out to be long miles of cotton fields being readied for planting, I love new roads. The three RV parks I went to look at were all excellent and good places for a stop over some day. With a good bit of time to go until lunch, I decided that I wanted to see Goliad. Goliad is a very important place in Texas national history. For those that do not know, Texas was its own country before deciding to join the USA. They won their independence from Mexico and established their own country. Here is a picture of where the Texans lost their first major battle. It was to prove to be a costly mistake by the Mexican BUTCHER Santa Anna. His officers and men had accepted an honorable surrender by the Texans as all were decent military men. The Mexican officers and men were conducting themselves in a gentlemanly manner in accepting the surrender. I have no problem with these men. When the captured Texans were taken to the commanding officer BUTCHER Santa Anna in Goliad, he had the Texans shot down like rabid dogs and the bodies left to rot in the Texas sun. Many of his officers objected to this stupid behavior. After the knowledge of what happened at Goliad, there would never be another surrender by a Texan. The Union forces also found this out the hard way in the Civil War. After the BUTCHER Santa Anna got his ass kicked down near Houston by a small force, a detachment of Texans was sent to Goliad to give the murdered men a proper burial. Goliad and the Mexicans in the army at the time shall not be blamed for the BUTCHER Santa Anna’s horrible behavior. There is a wonderful memorial at Goliad to the men so horribly BUTCHERED by Santa Anna.

In the state park at Goliad is a very well done replica of the Mission Espiritu Santo. That I feel makes a wonderful visit and adventure all to itself.
I have been visiting this park for most of my adult life. There is something very nice and peaceful about it. A little before I left Texas for the Washington job, I visited here and the San Antonio River was flooding massively out of its banks. Here is what it normally looks like.
The river must have risen 40 feet out of its banks because all the campgrounds and day use areas were under water during this event. The park is back better than before and it was great before. As I wandered the park recalling times there with my young son and the things we did for fun, I heard a familiar crunching sound under my foot. I was startled and jumped back. When I saw what it was a world of memories came flooding back. It was the native Texas pecans from all the trees.

I was always catching it in Washington because “everything is bigger in Texas, right”. Wrong. That is just a reputation that others try to put on Texas. The native pecans are very small, but have by far the best taste of any pecan I have ever had. They are a cantankerous little nut. The nut makes you earn it to get the meat. The taste is worth the effort though. After this fun I went into Goliad to find some lunch. As I toured the old historic district, more good memories from my previous life came to me. Here is a couple of the old buildings still in use.

As I made my way around the town square dominated by the beautiful county court house, I came to this restaurant.
It is in the old hardware building. I had eaten there six or seven years ago and it was excellent. So in I went. The owner greets you at the door and you go in and pick a spot to seat. The day special I had was turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, green beans, homemade roll, yams with some type of little bean added and excellent gravy. The platter it came on was very full and the food measured (yes I measured it) just over three inches high. The preparation was perfect. The folks were friendly. The service excellent. I will be stopping there again. OH the bill was drive out $9.50. After that FEAST, I went walking a little around the town. I believe I will have to come back to the state park and give this town a much closer look for having tooooo much fun. TheOFM

Port Aransas Ride

Rockport, Texas
It is brisk with a strong wind blowing tonight. I spent a lot of the day looking around the area. First was a wonderful fast walk along the beach and back along the ski basin for a total of 3+ miles. My knees were starting to moan a lot so I quit after that. Several folks were doing kite pull them on boards things out in the water. There was a nice older lady over near the Key Allegro channel that had caught two nice specks already this morning. Later in the day I took a look around drive to Port Aransas. There are some impressive shipyards there that have no place to pull over and take pictures. The naval yard is in Ingleside which is next to PA. All in all the rockport area is a lot more desirable than any of the rest of the middle coast of Texas. This evening I went to Walmart to try to get a certain fishing lure that the Beach Park attendant told me was his best one. They were out of course. Last Monday when I went to get the Electric Chicken lure, I was sure I would be out of luck. Not quite, I got the last package that day. This evening I went to the pier and watched an pleasant gentleman feed live shrimp to the small perch all around the rocks. He was trying to catch them to use as bait for red fish. At the price of live shrimp, I am afraid I would have to take them home and eat them instead of feeding them to the perch. This evening I have been on the Internet searching for a campground that sounds good and is inland enough to get away from all this wet salt deposits on the truck and camper. Since the campground will not allow you to use 15 cents of water to rinse off your vehicle it gets expensive stopping at car washes. I do not understand these campgrounds. They irrigate with sprinklers but do not want you to use the water to wash your rig first!!!!! The manager of Horn Rapids up in Washington had the right idea. Keep the rigs clean so the park looks good and wash your rig so he has to irrigate less. Seems like a better way to go to me. A few years ago I used to go over to Victoria TX for some fun and frolicking. Upon researching campgrounds, I found three in the area that sound good. There is also two golf courses there. Tomorrow I will hit the road to check them out. The distance is only 60 miles. A major important point is that the Texas State Zoo is there to go to to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM

Down To The Museum

Rockport, Texas
The maritime museum down by the harbor was today’s big adventure. The building is a very pleasant structure to view from the outside. At night it is lit up with about a gazillion Christmas lights and a flashing beacon in the cupola at the very top.
Inside I had a neat surprise. I was allowed the senior discount, so the admission was $4 instead of $5. Usually I am doubtful about the value of these small town museums, but this was well worth the cost. After entering the gift shop and going around a corner you find yourself in a two story room designed to appear like a ships interior. Centered in the room is the first of about two dozen model ships all done from scratch. No kits for these ship builders. The big one in the center of the room was about five feet tall and a beautiful example of great craftsmanship. The others are scattered through the building with signs telling the story of the real ship next to the model.
Up on the second level was a station set up to let you assume command of the vessel. The controls all move and have a feel like the real thing in action. I bet this section gets lots of kid play. It was well done.
From up on the third level where the beacon light is visible, I took this shot of the Rockport harbor. Look closely to the lower left and you will see the whooping crane statue of a blog or two ago. The water is a beautiful green with a visibility of around four feet into it
Outside of the museum is several large exhibits. This one is the escape pod used on oil platforms. It holds about 25 folks who have to strap in with seat belts. The boat is self-righting if everyone is strapped in. It even has an external sprinkler system to flush burning oil off the boat if caught in an inferno situation. The bad part is there is no provision for toilet requirements. However it is thought that rescue will be within a couple of hours and the training teaches the driver to stay near the accident to make finding them easier.

This is another survival pod of a different style and not the least bit more comfortable.

Tonight I went down to the main pier to see what the area is like at night with a big moon shining. The wind was a little brisk and the temperature 68. The white caps of the waves were catching moonlight and almost glowing as they rolled in to the shore. Exquisitely beautiful would be an understatement. In all my years of Gulf Coast life, I had never seen this effect before. The event was definitely an experience I will remember for a long time.

Several of the boats in the harbor have full time residents living aboard them. Many of the boats have Christmas lights all over them. If it works out tomorrow night I will take my tripod down there and try to get pictures that can be put into the blog. Some time today I went to the cheap private golf course to see about the cost of playing there. $200 sign-up fee and $100 a month for a 9 hole course that is in need of good maintenance. It is about 5 minutes by truck away. The other course is the upscale one. $5000 sign up fee and $350 a month. Definitely too expensive for me to use while trying to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM

Pelican Inbound

Rockport, Texas
A day or so ago I spoke of how elegant the landing of a pelican is. Today I took as many pictures a necessary until I finally got a shot of a landing. It is spectacular.
After going to the library to get some new art books, I noticed the master gardener demonstration garden next door. The side yard was inviting and very fragrant.

Then around to the back yard, the Asian Garden.
This tree with the spikes caught my eye since they, or one like it, had caused me a lot of misery in South Viet Nam back in 69-70. It is a beautiful tree though. Back in front was a neat birdbath painted like a light house with a seahorse in the bath section.
All in all this was a wonderful interlude with a huge amount of fragrant bushes and flowers to admire and experience. There was even a children’s garden to help show the kids how gardening can be tooooo much fun.
In the afternoon I went to the beach park for some exercise. There was a burn off of brush on the barrier island about 6 miles across the bay. I think it is St. Joe Island. At first I thought a petroleum barge was burning, but binoculars showed it to be the island in flames. This also provides a nice shot of the grass area just inland from the beach.

Along with the exercise was several things of interest. But first let me tell you about the facilities. This park runs for about a mile and a half along the beach area. At each end and in the middle are restroom facilities, just what an old fat man needs. At the facilities at the north end was some carpeted platforms that were perfect to use for floor exercises like crunches and pushups. The scene was great for it looked out on the special swimmng area roped off from the rest of the boating area. That is Key Allegro in the background with the half million dollar and up homes.
This is great. I can start out at the entrance, jog along the beach to the north end, take care of business, do floor exercises in the shade of the balcony and then jog back on a different path for a round trip of 2 ½ miles total. For those of you in the cold weather, here is a picture of a lady and her kids playing in the water at the beach ON DECEMBER 20. Eat your heart out Kevin. Of course I had to stop in at one of the fishing piers to try my luck. It was a bad day. The fish kept hitting the tail of the lure and biting off small parts of it. So in an hour I had 25 or 30 serious bites and 5 or 6 hookups but lost all the fish without seeing them. At least the porpoises showed up to give us a nice show for about 10 minutes. The are fun to watch and maybe I can learn from them how to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM.

Other RV Parks

Rockport, Texas
After a lazy morning of goofing off, some cleaning and generally being a lazy bum, I got out and looked at some of the other rv parks in the area. So far I like where I am best as far as location is concerned. A couple of others were a little nicer to go with their higher price, but the location was not as good. My site is only a few minutes by bicycle to the old shops area, the fishing area, the kayaking area and the general beach area. Typical for a small town there seems to be a lack of excellent restaurants, but a good number of places serving good local style food. There is a new Chili’s in town, but I do not prefer their cookie cutter food that is just like all the rest of the places like Chili’s. On a whim caused by folks in the blogs bragging about an rv park near Riveria Texas, I drove down there this afternoon. It is a very nice park about 12 miles out into nowhere from the closest town and about another 15 miles to any serious services. That is some very flat country out there. I took one picture of a lone sailboat flitting around in the wind near the park. At least it was warm enough to be out playing in the water.
The RV park itself is very nice and well laid out. There was even a fellow bringing in shrimp and oysters to sell to the Rvers and at a decent price too. After visiting with the folks a little while, I headed back to Rockport. All told it was a 200 mile trip, including a wrong turn in Corpus Christi that put me into a bunch of one way streets with no apparent way to go back where I needed to be. At least I had a safe tour of the less upscale portion of the town.
On television tonight was a great program about the high tech things available to help winemakers to a better job consistently. Back when I mad a lot of wine, it was pretty much trial and error with guidance from several manuals I had. To my surprise many folks really like what I made. However one must be careful sampling too much wine as the calorie count is very high. It is a carefully studied and verified fact that too much wine consumption causes leather belts to shrink. Of course all this research was done in the name of having tooooo much fun. TheOFM

Fish, Fish, Fish

Rockport, Texas
Since there are so many things to do while not working, I decided a couple of days ago to set an alarm clock again. Now I get up at 7 am so that I can get in more touristing. Today proved that that is a good idea, because I ran out of daylight way before I got finished with my things to do. WOW this not working is a lot of work. Once again I had to cull a large quantity of pics for the blog. The first order of business was to get a library card. Usually it involves a bunch of questions that involves where I live normally and all that other fixed dwelling stuff. Not this area. They love snowbirds since over 50% of their economy come in from folks like me. The very nice lady at the library counter immediately understood when I said Snowbird and took care of me in just a couple of minutes. A driver license and where I am parked was the limit of the requirements. She even gave me a quick tour of the library and pointed me to the books I wanted first. Talk about service. WOW. I am really liking this area even more. Tonight while fishing on a public pier, I talked to a wonderful Mexican lady from Chicago. She and her husband have been here 11 years and have no intention of ever leaving. The only thing she thought might be less than the best is all the traffic from the snowbirds. Why today I even had to wait for a car to cross the intersection before I crossed the road while walking. This is heavy traffic???? I love it. There is even three grocery stores in town.
A visit to the Chamber of Commerce yielded so much information I needed a bag to carry it all out, and I was being choosy. They even have a visitors check list of over 50, yes 50, things for a tourist to see or do in this little 8 mile by 3 mile section of Texas. I thought I was already loaded with too much to see and do, but now there is even more.
The nearly extinct whooping crane is sort of the mascot of the area. Right down in the main harbor area is a wonderful statue dedicated to the whooping crane. It is located right behind an artists building of some kind. I have not been in it yet. The statue is very large and well done.

Just north of the statue is a bulkhead along the waterfront. While watching some pelicans feeding, I noticed porpoises feeding in the deeper water.
Did you ever see a pelican come in for a water landing? They land very graceful like a rock. A huge splash and some flapping around then they are floating just fine. When they take off it is not much better, but once airborne they are very agile.

Adjacent to this area is a public pier that is concrete topped and has a handrail. It is very nice. So I start out to visit with any folks willing to talk. First thing this fellow comes walking back to his vehicle to put a nice speckled trout on ice. He said this was smaller than the one he caught a few minutes ago. He was through since he had all the fish to eat that he needed for awhile.

On down the pier was another fellow who was nice to visit with. While we were talking he pulled in a larger spec. This one measured a little over 20” when it calmed enough to be measured. He did not keep it because he too already had too much fish in the freezer at home. And this is the slow season????
One more fisherman came along who was using dead bait on the bottom. He was content because he was actually fishing for large blue crabs and had caught four already. He wanted two more to make a small crab gumbo for him and his wife. When they want crabs he comes down and catches them so the food is very fresh. In several years he has failed to get the crabs he wanted only twice and had to come back the next day. Keep in mind I was on that pier a total of 20 minutes. One neat thing about pier fishing is the very low cost. Even if you buy one of the special aluminum carts to carry you stuff, it is still cheap. The carts cost about $200 and last a few hundred years. I have not had my camera when I saw one in use, but I will eventually get a picture of one. About 5 pm I went over to the other pier in the beach park and caught three specs and many got away. By 6 pm I was in my truck leaving. Now this is a good way to have tooooo much fun. The worn out OFM.

Memory Lane

Goose Island State Park, Rockport, Texas
Today was a trip down memory lane the first thing this morning. My son got one of his earliest camping trips in this park. I located the campsite we were in that time and it still looks like when he was here. Over in the playground are the swings we played on. The high slide is gone, but the long chain swings are still here. In the picture you will see a set of regular height swings and then the tall set. They are exceptional fun for sure.
This wind blown tree is typical of most of the live oak trees in the area. The prevailing and frequent wind has twisted the trees into many different shapes, but always windblown. They are beautiful. The largest live oak is here also and my son and I once used one of the drooping limbs for a swing. Since some idiot a few years damaged the tree, the Parks and Wildlife have fenced it off so you are not supposed to climb on it an more. For some of the doubters in Washington, I took a picture of one of the channel bass, or Redfish as they are called down here, that a fellow was cleaning at the boat ramp. This is about the minimum size you are allowed to keep. He and another fellow limited out and also had a few other fish. The fillets off this these sure looked like a good meal in the making. Later on they get a lot bigger, in the 36 -40 inch size.
The fish cleaner had a big audience of “friends” waiting for the left over’s. He tossed a fish carcass in the water and one big fight started. However the fish carcass was to big for these pelicans to get into their mouth to swallow. At one time five pelicans had hold of the fish fighting over it. It was quite a tussle there for awhile, with a lot of squawking and wing flapping.
Just up channel from the boat ramp is some proper oyster reefs for those that have never seen them. The brown “mud” flats ore covered with oysters and are slightly submerged when the tide is in. There are several types of birds that feed heavily among the oysters during low tides. The best I could tell they were eating some kind of worms that live in the mud. A very little known fact is that when the tide is barely covering the oysters, they make a lot of noise. If you sit quietly in your boat next to them you can hear all sorts of clacking of the shells, water being squirted and other noises that I have never been able to identify.
The reefs can be very good for catching fish around. There were three folks that had waded way out into the bay to fish a channel amongst the reefs. I caught this picture of them as the day was waning. They are little dots way out near the horizon. This was shot with a three power telephoto lens, so you know they have a long walk back. Now these waters have stingrays in them. Believe me you do not want a stingray to stick his tail barb into you, so you shuffle your feet while walking. I once had a small one about 2 feet across slap the side of a plywood hull boat was in. The barb went through the 3/8” plywood. It just broke of the stingray and stayed in the boat hull. There was never even a leak around the penetration during the time I was around the boat after that.
Whew. I had a busy day. I have visited the new RV park and it is very rustic, but sufficient and cheap. I will be moving tomorrow for a month. Hopefully my budget can recover some even if the stock market doesn’t. Just an aside, I shot 58 photos today to cull down to these shown here. The first draft of today’s events was seven pages. It took a good while to get this old wind bag deflated enough too fit into the blog. Maybe I am having tooooo much fun. NAH! TheOFM