HALFWAY BENCH

10/27/21

Acrobatic Grasshopper

 

Adventure Location: Rockport,Texas

Adventure Date: 10-27-2021

Click the picture to enlarge it.



Very active and busy describes today. Tonight we will tell the tale of the Community Park walk.

We pulled Sierra into the parking lot in Mid afternoon and got settled in. The wind was howling like a love struck coyote. Check out these flags and Halloween decorations.



The flags were about to come apart it seemed as we started our walk. The mosquitoes did not have a chance in the 25 + mph winds we were glad of that.

We started on the walk and quickly noticed the contorted clusters of live oak trees swaying heavily in the breeze.



Live oak trees always grow in clusters of weird shaped trees.

We noticed a medium size grasshopper land on the path near us while getting the tree picture. As we watched the grasshopper, it gathered its legs and launched itself up into the wind. The next thing we noticed was the air born hopper flipping end over end in the wind for a few feet. It finally landed on the path and flopped around for a few seconds while it got back on its feet. This time it walked over to the grass to get off the pathway. Yep the wind was strong.



This is an attack stick from the trees. This was about the average size that was getting naturally pruned from the trees. They did not hit us hard enough to hurt or scratch our skin. But there was a lot of them for the whole walk of 1.5 miles.

The trees had another trick in their branches. The .45 caliber acorns were getting knocked out of the trees and attacking the walkers. They did not damage anyone we saw but you could definitely get a nice bonk on your head.



On the far end of the pond we noticed a 24 inch gar just meandering along like an OFM at the beach.



It just piddled around and slowly swam off into the main part of the pond.

By the time we got back to the start point for this 1.5 mile walk the OFM's feet were demanding new foam liners for the shoes. So we guess we will be at Walmart in the morning before we take Sierra to the repair place for the serpentine belts operation. Tomorrow looks like another busy day but will be expensive we are sure. And that is not a great way of trying to have tooooo much fun.





4 comments:

  1. While in Alaska the temperatures would drop to fifty-below and the serpentine belts would shatter when starting the truck. I carried extra belts and the wrenches necessary to change them in the truck. The natives would cover their smowmobile engine cowls with quilts and preheat the engine compartment with a catalytic heater to start them when the weather was that cold. We had an Alaska thermometer that went down to fifty-five below and one year the mercury dropped into the bulb.
    I am rambling, but the mention of changing the serpentine belt brought back memories.
    the Ol'Buzzard

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  2. Windy here too, the second day of it. At least tomorrow down to only 20 miles an hour with 30 gusts.
    Hope yours slows down and you are not thunked by an acorn or twig.

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