Adventure Location: Chisos Mtns, TX
Adventure Date: 9/30/2018
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Our goal today was not to shoot over a hundred pictures but to visit the Chisos Basin in BIBE. We rolled out mid morning so we would be at the good restaurant in the Basin at the proper time. The ranger at the entry remembered The OFM and we had a nice visit. Then we headed for the main visitor center about 35 miles into the park. The speed limit is 45 mph in the park.
After a nice relaxing ride through all sorts of scenery the Chisos Mountains came into view. They are a nice looking range that has the claim to fame as the mountains surrounding the caldera known as the Chisos Basin. It is a fun trip to drive up into the basin.
We parked at the main visitor center in order to do some Christmas shopping. Total failure. But as we exited the building old Meanderthall OFM was looking at one of the mountains above us. What are you seeing OFM? I am seeing that ugly face in the mountain. I have been stopping here for about 50 years and this is the first time I have noticed the face in the mountain.
Really we responded. Yep he said. The right eye is open and the left eye is squinched closed. Then the big ugly nose sweeps down to to upturned nostrils. It is quite a sight. We had to agree.
At least the flower garden at the center had lots of nice flowers. Here is one example of the nice views and fragrances.
Sierra got us going and we rolled about 10 miles down the road to the left turn to head UP the mountains to the point of our trip today. When you head up the road (or down the road) please pay attention to the warning signs. There is plenty of evidence on the boulders and cliffs that way too many folks DID NOT AND PAID A HIGH PRICE. If you drive nice it is a very pretty drive up and over the pass and down into the caldera. Sierra found us a premier parking spot near the restaurant.
We need to point out that very few walking surfaces outside the buildings is level. We left Sierra to enjoy the cool air as The OFM Team headed into the restaurant. Naturally they have a trinkets shop to pass through to get to the restaurant.
The Teams were seated immediately at 12:12. The service there is good. The food is good. Don’t ask the price, just enjoy the experience. Out chicken tacos were really excellent and not ordinary. Even the beans and rice was especially good. The OFM did not even think of grabbing a picture of the meal because he was too taken with the view to hardly pay attention to the meal. Remember we get here at least once a year so he has seen it all before. What was he seeing? Here it is.
The world famous Window is your view.
He chowed down with vigor and every bit of food soon disappeared. The camera was grabbed and away we went to the shop at the entrance. At least at this shop we had some success with the Christmas shopping. We had more success at the convenience store by the lodge. Then it was off to the paved wheelchair accessible trail that hits lots of nice views inside the caldera and the world class view of the Window at the far edge of the loop.
When we first started the trail, the OFM made a point of looking back at the restaurant to get a perspective of his meal view. Here is the view he had.
The Window is directly behind us but a long ways away. We continued with the trail, but that will require another blog entry. There is lots more to tell about this day of having tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location: Stillwell Ranch, TX
Adventure Date:9/29/2018
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We cleared the park gate about 0830 this morning and made a left turn heading west. The traffic again was minimal all the way to Marathon. Gas in Sanderson was $3.059 a gallon and $3.329 in Marathon.
At Marathon we made the correct left turn toward Big Bend National Park (BIBE). From Marathon to the turn off to Stillwell Ranch the scenery is pretty nice for all of the 50 or so miles. However it was hot with Sierra telling us it was 91 outside. Sierra’s A/C did a wonderful job of cooling the OFM.
Once again we made a left turn at the sign for Stillwell Ranch and followed the road for 6 miles to the store. Along the way you pass through the notch in a hill and get this nice view of the ranch in front of you.
We rolled in to a friendly welcome. They have full hookup, water and electric and tent sites available. With the temps being so hot the wimp OFM chose a water electric site to keep us cool. Here is our crowded campground nest.
After setting in and getting some lunch into the body, we took a ride over to BIBE to get our free 7 day pass and check out some of the familiar hills near the entrance station at Persimmon Gap.
Dog Canyon is a trail the OFM has done a few times and is a reasonably easy trail for most folks. BUT it is a hot trail so take 3 times as much water as you think you will need. Cache a couple of liters of water near where the trail drops into the wash for your trek back to the parking. That will save you having to carry it all the rest of the way and back to the cache point. Please do not bother the other folks caches that you will likely see in that area.
It is also important to start the trail with a full camera battery. There are not recharge stations in the canyon. The first time through there the OFM shot over a hundred pictures and that was with a film camera back in ancient times.
This picture is from the parking lane at the main road. The notch in the ridge under the clouds is Dog Canyon. Do’t worry about the mountain lions and rattlesnakes that roam the area. In all our roaming we have only seen one mountain lion and a dozen or so rattlers.
Back at Persimmon Gap is a very easy trail that is not on the free map they give you. It starts at the Visitor center and winds around to the left side of this small hill in the picture above. Just ask at the visitor center and they will show you where the trail starts. We normally only used less than a liter for this hike per person. As is usual for BIBE, always start a trail with a full camera battery.
This one place where the OFM actually can have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location: Seminole Canyon SP, TX
Adventure Date:9/28/2018
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It has been a day of adventures. Let us start with boondocking. It became wonderful boondocking weather about midnight last night. It was 64 this morning and 79 for the high today. All day has been a gentle breeze working in our favor.
The OFM had to get in a lot of walking today. One of the loops was over to the boondocking section of the park. It has nice pull through sites with paved roads and campsites. We stopped at the top of the nearby hill and took this picture. We have spent time there on several occasions.
There are lots of significant length trails in this park. Several of them start at the same point next to the boondocking area. These signs always amuse the OFM for some reason.
Hey there George. This looks like a nice trail for your morning walkabout.
The OFM has walked that trail several times in the past. Even longer ago when it was legal still, he and friends have mountain biked the whole trail. It was a lot of fun.
Since the internet has been down since we got here and most cell phones do not get signal, we have been doing other things. The OFM, today, finally finished some colored pencil art. This painting is titled Cold Winter Beach.
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| COLD WINTER BEACH |
Hopefully this post will be posted on 9/29. We roll in the morning and hope to have wifi at the next stop.
One thing for sure, we are not letting the lack of wifi get in the way of trying to have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location: Seminole Canyon State Park, Texas
Adventure Date:September 26, 2018
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We rolled late morning and made our first stop at Spur 406 Campground. The grass was about 9 inched high and the temps had the OFM sweating by the time he walked around the campsite. We decided that this location would have to wait and rolled on.
We got to Seminole Canyon SP just after noon. Lots of sites were available and we chose old reliable #3. Here is our nest.
After setup it was determined that the free wifi was worthless. It would not stay hooked up for more than a couple of minutes. So we are without wifi until we go somewhere else. Where will that be? We don’t know!
Since there is no usable wifi, it was time to meander a little bit. The park had a lot of rain recently so it is very green around here and the flowers are blooming.
The sage has a few blossoms which are really pretty as usual.
The verbena are really doing a great job of showing off in large quantity.
We were over in the brush when this nice picture came into view. It is of some old ranching buildings in the park. We thought it looked it looked nice framed in the desert vegetation.
This will be published when we can. In the meantime we are going to be out trying to have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location: Governors Landing Campground, Lake Amistad, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 26, 2018
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The OFM rving in the past has been notorious for covering lots of ground in a short time. After 11 years of rolling fast we are trying to slow it down. that is hard since it is not in his normal style of living. However our first day of this rolling we put in 305 miles to get from Rockport to Broke Mill Campground in Del Rio. It is the same run we have made a million times so we kept on rolling yesterday.
However in the quest to slow down the speed of travel we are staying two nights. The next few days have temperatures predicted to be on the upper end of our boondocking tolerance during the day. It it works out as hoped we have a 22 mile move for tomorrow. Then the next move is 23 more miles. How long we will be at each spot remains to be seen with temps having a big say in the matter. The first spot is full boondocking and the second is a state park. We shall see what happens.
As an aside we have a soft jello route chosen now. Our need to be back at Rockport in early November only allows this trip to be 34 days long. When the OFM laid out the trip today we checked how long it would take us in the previous style. It came to 6 days max. And now we plan on taking 4 and a half times as long. That is a major slow down.
Here in Del Rio they have had great late summer rains and it is wildly green all over the place. The flowers are spectacular and glowing. While photographing Governors Landing Camping today the OFM was surprised by some glowing red in the brush ahead. He carefully, lots of thorns, made his way into the brush to find these nice flowers hugging some prickly pear cactus.
Here is an enlarged view of one of the flowers. They were about 3 inches across and glowed in a manner the camera could not record.
While we were at the campground the OFM walked down the trail a little ways to take a picture of the floating fishing pier. We thought it might be high and dry due to the lake level being so low. NOPE. The pier was still floating. It must be moored over some fairly deep water. It is a steep hike down to it.
There is certainly a lot of places around this lake for doing all sorts of fun things from fishing, hiking, photography, water sports of all sorts, some cliff climbing and the list is as long as your imagination can make it. It is difficult to run out of things to do for trying to have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location: Rockport to Del Rio, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 25, 2018
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The OFM got it together pretty good this morning after a rather restless night of what if worries. Breakfast was at Whataburger. Then Sierra took us for a goodbye to Rockport at the Harbor. Even the rising sun was waving goodbye to us.
Then it was on the road for the next seven hours. The best part is that traffic never got any denser than what it shows in this picture taken about thirty miles along the interstate coming out of Corpus Christi.
The OFM was really ready for the first rest stop at Whitsett. He stiffly got out of Sierra and stumbled around for a few minutes checking bearing temps and the trailer tires for trouble. Every thing was just fine so he went inside and got himself a package of powdered donuts. Then we hit the road for two more hours.
Then at the next rest area near Sabinal he got out and walked a bit extra to loosen his body. He says he gets stiffer easier and more often now than last year. But he was soon back in the rig rolling those tires. About the time was 6 and a half hours of driving we pulled into Broke Mill Rv Park in Del Rio Texas. It was 92 degrees and we wanted AC for the night. It is a nice place we have stayed at before. It is nice when folks call you by name when you walk in. The big surprise is the original owner sold the place yesterday. The new owners were there and the Teams met them. Nice folks.
Here is our two night campsite. The OFM wants to check how things are here in Del Rio for future boondocking again.
So tonight is meant to be an easy night for the OFM to get some extra rest because tomorrow the Teams are going to go crazy trying to have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location: Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 24, 2018
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In this picture Gavin is teaching Nana (his mom’s mother) how to properly color so they can have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location: Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 23, 2018
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Last evening the sun and clouds were acting silly so the Teams headed out for a picture or three.
This first picture was originally supposed to be a neat picture of the sunlight reflecting across Little Bay. By the time we had shot the reflected sun a few times it was apparent it was not going to be anything special. So we sat there keeping the mosquitoes company while waiting for inspiration. In a moment or four a bird flew in and landed near a nearby bush. Very shortly the sun light reflection came over to put the spotlight on the birds activities. This is the neat picture that resulted.
After that fortunate accident Sierra took us for a ride over by the harbor. As we approached the remaining natural light took on a wild color. The camera was grabbed and the picture taken. This is very close to the actual color of things for about three or four minutes. We had never seen this hue of light in the area before but it was another neat experience.
The medical panic is over so the Teams had a big meeting about our situation and a vote was taken. The vote was 823 to 0 in favor of a vacation of rolling tires. Great. Now where to roll the tires. Well that "where" item was a little less easy to chose. After many votes the final winner by a vote of 710 to 113 was “higher elevation”. So we are heading to “higher elevation” on Tuesday morning. We all agreed we needed to be back at Rockport before the cold weather got us so we plan to be back the first week of November.
Today was a bright, hot, burn the skin on your arms sunny afternoon perfect for getting ready. The OFM has started the check list for rolling and tomorrow is laundry, shopping and put the trailer hitch back on Sierra day.
We have already plotted five possible routes to “higher elevation” but all of them start with Rockport to Hondo Tx as the first leg of the adventure. After that we do not know exactly what our route will be. Most likely we will be in the North Texas to Northwest New Mexico area for trying to have tooooo much fun in “higher elevation”.
Adventure Location: Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 22, 2018
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Riding around looking at the Rockport and Aransas Pass progress with Hurricane Harvey recovery was the big event for the day. A little cleaning of the trailer wiring connection to Sierra took a few minutes and 437 mosquito deaths.
We have a couple of pictures from down by the Rockport Beach to share. The first one is a major canyon that the rain and flooding cut through the land into the beach.
Notice how wide and deep it is and the volume of water racing to the gulf. Yep it was nearly a disaster. Close to 14“ wide and 2“ deep it required 2 foot scrapes to complete the closure to prevent other massive erosion. That sounds like a lot of the news nonsense that comes from many stations.
Actually the rain storms did drop enough water to cause several of these cuts from the grassy picnic area to form. They quickly had the beach rakes and tractors out raking the beach smooth again.
This next picture is the beach that evening with a bit of cloud scenery.
As you can tell it was an easy day of trying to have just a little fun and rest for a change.
Adventure Location: Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 21, 2018
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Now we get to the good part. The difficulty of getting water to the flushing wand had bedeviled the OFM for many years. A few nights ago he realized that the bathroom had two water supplies available and all he had to do was tap one of them for the wand water supply. After messing around a bit he figured out the shower supply from the faucet to the hand shower could supply the water needed. A really great side effect was that the water could then be supplied from either the campground water or the on board water supply like when boondocking. There is not always a water supply available when dumping so this will be a big asset to the Teams.
We had the wand with a female hose connection and the shower hose had a 1/2“ female pipe thread connection available when the shower nozzle was removed. So it was off to a building supply store. After some messing around this device was put together for about $15.
The shower hose screws to the nipple and a short water hose to get over to wand screws onto the hose connection part. These next two pictures show the whole story.
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| In The Tub |
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| The Wand Assembly |
A major improvement is that the OFM can control ALL the water from inside the Castle’s bath room. The tub faucet turns the water on/off. The wand is right at his left hand to control the spray direction. It works like a wonderful charm and is a one person operation. That is really important if you are a solo traveler like the OFM.
This wand is one of those with four holes at 90 degrees. We were not sure the flow rate and pressure coming through the Castle’s pipes would be great enough to make the streams of water be strong enough for the job at hand. So we pulled the shower curtain nearly closed to test the spray.
On with the water and a big YIKES erupted and filled the bathroom as the spray went everywhere. Yep there is plenty of pressure and flow volume to do the job. That 35 gallon black tank got a good internal washing with the new easy to use system. It took less than 10 minutes to put everything away so it will not be a pain to set up either. It certainly is a lot less mess and bother than the water hose through the window and needing two folks.
We really doubt that we will be doing this as a way of trying to have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location: Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 20, 2018
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This mornings eye test showed a normal old man progression that leads to cataract surgery and new lenses. So everything is OK but deterioration will have to be handled in the future.
Now for a better topic.
FLUSHING WATER FOR RV BLACK WATER TANKS
After 45 years of using RVs of several types the OFM thinks his opinion is accurate but not the only one that works. If an RV of any type is on the road frequently and the black tank treated properly, the black tank needs no other treatment. The sloshing of the fluids in the black tank will keep the tank plenty clean enough to not have build ups to cause trouble.
The troubles can come when the rig is not moved for months on end ( like five months of visiting the grandkids ). Most RVers know to leave the black tank valve closed and have a good amount of liquid in the tank. Leaving the valve open frequently lets the water run away from the solids and build very strong dams of solid muck in the tank. Dynamite will break the dams up but sometimes it causes minor other trouble. Then when using the toilet be sure to run a bit extra water into the tank so it will keep things flow-able.
So what do you do to keep a stationary black tank from getting constipated. You flush it! There are several wands/rods on the market for that purpose. We have tried several and when used properly they all worked well enough.
The trouble has always been getting the water to the wand to do the work. Most folks run a water hose through the RV interior and over to the wand. A few others are lucky enough to have a usable window in the bathroom. They remove the window screen and run the hose right into the bathroom. On the Castle this route was available.
It always seemed guaranteed the hose would track lots of trash into the RV to help make a mess. If the hose fitting leaks it becomes a big mess. Yes we have experience on the big mess part. Take our word for it, it is much better to have a human both inside and outside during this type of operation. The outside human must stay near the shut off valve and pay attention to the cleaning operation and NOT be socializing.
Today we found a better solution. But it will take another whole blog entry to show the DEVICE the OFM built and how it almost makes flushing the black tank an effort of trying to have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location:Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 19, 2018
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The pier rail was damp from the morning dew as we headed out to catch all kinds of fishes, we hoped. As the Teams walked out a few small orange bumps were spotted on the hand rail. The closer we got the more they looked like toadstools.
When we got closer it was obvious they were fungi growing from a convenient crack in the rail. They were cute. The OFM put a hand down next to them to give perspective to the size of the heads.
This was a couple of days ago and we have not been back to check on them. For all we know the monstrous mosquitoes may have eaten them.
Today was eye doctor inspection day for the OFM eyes. Tomorrow will be a final test for this year for the OFM. The news is that yes the cataracts are enlarging and when they are far enough along they will be eliminated. The eye doctor was pleased that nothing funny or unusual was going on. In fact the retinal scan showed some serious healing on a trouble first spotted a couple of years ago. In fact the damaged spot shows about a 50% healing has occurred.
The doc and the OFM had some serious exacting discussion about the future of the OFM eyes. The doc feels that they are at least a year away from being ready for surgery as a minimum. The growth of the cataracts are slow and it could easily be a year or two longer than that. Also the prescription for the OFM glasses has not changed enough to bother with new lenses. So now we are good to go after the final test tomorrow.
Now all we have to do is find a location without mosquitoes for trying to have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location:Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 17, 2018
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Our adventure today was a drive to Corpus Christi and the big loop back through Port Aransas. While we were gone Corpus has made good progress on the new bridge over the ship channel. We have no idea what it will look like or where the roads will flow afterwards. However for now the roads flow is not very well done with all the construction intruding into the traffic lanes.
We made it through and on down to Packery Channel without any real trouble. After parking at the Packery parking lot, the OFM decided we would do some fishing. The gear was assembled and away we went. One nice picture was taken.
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| Packery Channel |
The temperature was approaching 90 before too long and the OFM had to call it quits. The Vietnamese lady fishing nearby was giving the watchers lessons in proper fishing techniques. She was boxing another big fat croaker about every ten minutes. The OFM was envious.
The trip through Port Aransas showed that a lot of Hurricane Harvey work has been finished. However there is a lot left to do. One thing the OFM had forgotten was the ferry to get back to the mainland. It took about a half hour of waiting before we loaded. Here is a picture of our beautiful view from on the ferry.
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| Port Aransas Ferry |
We have to remember to factor the ferry time in on future trips over to Mustang Island.
After a good supper of chicken fajitas, the OFM took us down to the harbor to relax from the busy day. He grabbed a rod with a 1/2 oz silver spoon on it. The first cast resulted in catching a really pretty 12 inch speckled trout. It was put back in and not other fish were hooked. However we did get a lot of hits that we could not hook. Our guess is that the fish were too small for that large of a lure.
But the water was pleasant and the day cooled down to 82 with a gentle breeze. It was a nice way of bringing to a close a great day of trying to have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location:Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 16, 2018
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The OFM had a big bowl of pig slop for lunch today and declared it a major success. It is in the do this again folder.
Then most of the day we paid attention to the new rain storm flooding and drove around to see how bad it was in the rest of the town. What a mess!
This afternoon the OFM went to the concrete pier at the harbor to fish for a while. He put in about two hours fishing with a silver spoon and a gold spoon. He had better luck with the silver spoon.
Both spoons caught the foot long Ladyfish that were running amok around the pier. They are a very active fish like a small tarpon. How do we know they are ladyfish? By the pretty pink TU-TU they wear.
But the silver spoon suckered the 24 inch redfish into biting. The redfish put up a good battle for several minutes on the light equipment the OFM uses. It was a very pretty fish and the small children that had come over to see what was caught were impressed. After unhooking the fish, it was returned to the water to grow up to be a bull red.
Of course since the OFM was afraid of rain, he did not carry the camera to take pictures. But catching all those fish this afternoon made it a great day of trying to have tooooo much fun anyway.
Adventure Location:Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 15, 2018
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It was a strong rain most of the night until this morning. The flooding was enough to be a trouble for sure. After the flooding had gone down a few inches the OFM took a couple of pictures of our “yards”.
This first one is of our utilities side of the Castle. The water had been up to the bottom of the tires.
This next picture is from just behind the door of the Castle looking out to the campground road. There is a small light brown debris line near Sierra where the water had been up to. It was still about four inches deep in this portion of the yard.
Several streets in the area were quickly blocked by the city as not safe due to flooding. They did a pretty good job of it in our opinion. At this time, 2000, there are still streets closed but the draining of the flooding is making pretty decent progress. With a little luck it will be all off the roads by morning.
With the fishing places such a mess from the storms last night, the OFM busied himself with some house cleaning. Then he remembered the ground pork he had purchased yesterday and decided to cook it as a stoup. So the meat and vegetables got together and made a very good pot of ???????
We finally decided that cooking up some pig slop was a great way to trying to have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location:Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 14, 2018
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The OFM rolled out of bed early this morning. Got himself ready and headed to the Whataburger for a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes and a biscuit with strawberry jelly. The drink was tea. Cost less than $6. What is the rush you might ask, but probably not.
It seems he knew the rain storms were to start mid morning so fishing would have to be first thing in the morning. Sure enough he drove us down to the harbor. Parked. Grabbed his gear and headed out onto the breakwater. The green arrow point is to the breakwater he meandered around upon. Results were sad. No fish.
It was a nice time of fishing but soon the bad weather coming from the left of the picture arrived and this picture taken later in the day is what we had for weather most of the rest of the day. This was taken from inside Sierra because we dared not lower the window for fear of flooding Sierra.
A little before evening the clouds broke up a little bit and the OFM Fishing Team hit up the wooden pier at the Rockport Beach for some more fishing. A single ladyfish was hooked but flopped loose just before coming over the handrail of the pier. The openings in the sky came and went every few minutes. This is what they looked like over the water.
We would get about 20 minutes of fishing weather and a half hour of torrential rain. After a couple of those cycles we called it a day of trying to have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location:Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 13, 2018
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We ran around today accomplishing more tasks that needed attention. Starting and stopping several times all over the area. When we decided to take a break and watch the waves a few minutes we headed to the Beach Park. But first a necessity stop was made at the Harbor public restrooms.
On coming back to Sierra, the OFM climbed into the seat, hit the start button and nothing happened. A couple of more tries and he knew we were in trouble. OOPS his phone was at the Castle. A quick look around could not see any of the old fishing buddies. The Aransas County Navigation District office was just across the street. So the OFM desperately strolled across the street.
Entering the door he was nicely welcomed. After explaining his plight, the nice lady at the desk offered him to use a phone to call the roadside assistance the Teams has. As that call was being made, one of the resident boat dwellers ( a marine style of RV life) came in to get his mail. After he heard our plight, he generously offered to walk back to his boat slip and get his car to jump Sierra.
He and his wonderful puppy went back and was soon back to the site of the stress and the OFM. The vehicles were jumped and Sierra fired right up. Massive Thank Yous were given out and we headed to Walmart.
Thirty minutes later and $185 broker the OFM Teams were on their way. We also replaced our jumper cables that had insulation crumbling from them with new ones. It was an expensive afternoon but at least it was where we could get wonderful folks to help. We feel fortunate that the flat tire from last week and the failed battery today did not happen on the road from Alabama. We still do not recommend either event as something for trying to have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location:Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 12, 2018
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We finally got to do some real fishing for an hour or so this afternoon. The wooden pier at the Rockport Beach Park was chosen as the location for the effort. The big concrete parking lot in front of the pier was partially flooded. Therefore the OFM decided to park in the middle row of spots since they did not have the rain water puddled on them. When we had the gear ready we headed for the pier entrance walk but it was rainwater flooded. As we made our way around the large puddles, the OFM stopped and took this picture of this north end of the park.
We made it onto the pier and started out on it. There was a bird swooping down attempting to catch something in the water. After a couple of tries the bird finally flew away with something fishy in its claws.
It was too far for the camera to get a good shot, but the OFM shot anyway. After severe cropping we have this picture. Notice the fish tail sticking rearward from the claws area.
The massive rains for a long time here have a lot of fresh water roaring down into the bays. That usually means all the salt water fish have left to go into the Gulf of Mexico. However the bird gave us hope.
So the OFM cast the lure out near the sand/water line and started trolling as we walked out the pier. It was not but a few steps when something grabbed the lure and the fight was on. It was not much of a fight but at least it was a fish. When the fish was landed it proved to be a small redfish. That was another good sign to the Teams.
The redfish was sent back into the water to grow up and we continued out on the pier. The OFM took several more pictures of things of interest to him. The wind was strong and the water rough but the water was perfect greenish like it should be.
A few minutes more fishing and the OFM changed to a curly tail lure to see what it could cause to happen. The OFM was jugging it up and down near the end piling getting used to the action of the lure again.THEN out of nowhere a Spanish Mackerel about 18 inches in length came roaring in and grabbed the lure. We had no idea the mackerel were already here so the lure did not have a bite leader. Sure enough when the mackerel hit the end of the line slack it bit right through the monofilament leader and was gone. It was definitely an exciting few moments with the water being thrown all over and the jerk on the pole.
Here is a picture of the yellow braid line and what is left of the lite blue mono leader. The OFM has a chore in the morning of making us some bite leaders to use since we know the mackerel are in the area. They are ridiculously fun fish to catch and eat.
It seems like it might be a great year for catching lots of other fish in our efforts of trying to have tooooo much fun.
Adventure Location:Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 10, 2018
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It was amazing that the long list of things to get done here in Rockport only took today to finish. Sierra was inspected, the OFM has eye doctor appointments and etc. We even got is a little fishing.
There is still a noticeable amount of hurricane Harvey damage yet to be done. Next to the Market Street pier where we fished this afternoon is this motel pier waiting for a little touch up work with the repair crews.
The motel appears to be finished with repairs and back in business now.
The public fishing pier is a rock groin with a paved walkway on top and a good handrail. The rocks in the water get a good coating of vegetation that brings in bait fish which in turn brings in nice fish. Here is a picture of our lure over some of the rocks in about four feet of water.
The OFM Fishing Team did not get any bites. It has been having heavy rains around here for days so the bays are running very fresh. Most likely we need to go to the channel running into the Gulf to find some catchable fish. That will have to wait a few days yet.
And when we exited the pier some pretty yellow flowers were waving Bye Bye to us.
A good part is that it is only a few blocks up the road to a decent BBQ place. It was very good and now the OFM keeps hitting his head on the keyboard from nodding off to sleep.
Getting all those chores done is great for tomorrow and trying to have tooooo much fun meeting with old friends.
Adventure Location:Rockport, Tx.
Adventure Date:September 9, 2018
Click a pic to enlarge it.
The morning started with light rain and continued to have light rain almost all the way to Rockport. It was an uneventful trip other than the light rain. We arrived at our new nest for the next few months. When the owner got home from grocery shopping the OFM helped her get the groceries into the house and then visited with her and her husband until it was time to pay out some money. Here is the Teams new nest.
Since it was after noon the OFM hot footed it over to a good Tex-Mex place and chowed down big time. Then walked next door to the fishermans dream toy store named Tackle Town. Yep we watched him unload some money into their pockets. But good toys always cost money. After posting tonight the Teams plan on fixing up some surprises for the fish.
For the rest of the day we toured the area to see how well it was recovering from Hurricane Harvey. Down at the Beach Park one of the pavilions is well under way to dismantling. There is four pavilions and this is the first on the repair schedule.
After that we toured more of the town, got in a couple of fishing efforts of a half hour each, checked out the harbor and the Rockport Beach Park where we purchased an annual pass.
A few other minor things were also done, like setting up the Castle for living in and unpacking Sierra. Of course we did hit up Whataburger for supper. Tomorrow is Sierra state inspection time and then the Teams get to run wild trying to have tooooo much fun again.
