Two years ago, we enjoyed our stay when we camped at Goose Island State Park, just north of Rockport, Texas. We had heard it was hard hit by Hurricane Harvey, so we decided to see it for ourselves. The state park's campgrounds have been closed for over six months, but they were happy to open one section on March 1. We walked the main trail through the wooded section of the park, and we saw much evidence of the amount of chainsaw clean-up necessary since last August.
Those Texas Live Oak trees are tough. This big guy might have lost a few branches, but he survived the Hurricane. It felt good to once again be hiking on a trail, and Mark celebrated by climbing up into the middle of that big old tree.
These rugged old live oaks have sweeping branches that often hit the ground. We had to chuckle that someone thought it necessary to put up a sign to warn people of these "low lying branches."
With all the devastation around, it's nice to see subtle signs of spring and regrowth. Denisa is a sucker for a sweet little flower with feathery stamens.
But even Mark was intrigued with this strange looking bloom that was about the size of a tennis ball.
A little further down the trail we see that those buds open into a vibrant purple bloom on these thistle plants.
Goose Island is a sizable park. The half that just opened to campers has lots of trees, while the other half next to the Gulf is only open for day use. The long pier was washed away and some of the shore side of the park is still closed. But we could stand next to the bay for some great water views today.
It was strange to see these very popular water-front camping spots completely empty. This part of the park is not open to overnight guests yet.
It was good to see that all that salt water coming ashore had not killed all the plant life close to the bay. This yucca was covered with blooms three-feet tall, proving again that spring has arrived even among the destruction of the hurricane.
Just outside the state park is the pasture where the rare whooping cranes usually hang out. So we drove over to see if we would be lucky enough to spot them again. We stopped here with Denisa's Mother a couple weeks ago, and today we saw a smaller group of birds. We could see them with our binoculars, but they were too far away to get a good picture. So we left to make a circle next to the water and spotted this trio.
We have never seen them this close, so we just kept taking more and more pictures! As mentioned in my earlier blog, whooping cranes almost became extinct in the 1940's. They are the largest bird in North America, and at one time there were less than 50 left.
This is a family, with Dad on the left, Mom on the right, and their adolescent chick in the center of the picture below. They mate for life, and usually only raise one chick each year. The baby hatches in their summer home in northern Canada, and must be strong enough to make the 2,500-mile flight to south Texas in the fall. Seeing these birds that are more than five feet tall reminds us that we have wandered into another of God's wonders.
Cranes eat crabs and other sea life, so it was fun to see them wading in the water and doing some hunting as we watched. Have we mentioned how excited we were to see them so close?
The chick will stay with the parents through the first year, learning how to fly long distances and to hunt for food.
It was amazing to see such a big bird so close!
About that time we watched as a group of five whoopers appeared overhead. Even though the birds look pure white while standing, their black-tipped wings are evident when they are flying.
Denisa was so impressed that Mark got such clear pictures of them flying overhead! This is probably a group of bachelor whooping cranes. After spending a year with their parents, the youngsters usually band together in singles groups until they mate for life when they are 3-5 years old.
The group of five tried several times to land in the pasture beside us. But each time, the family of whoopers already living there were intent on defending their territory. The large male would charge at these five newcomers until they flew away. It was a fun "national geographic moment" to watch the territorial alphas scaring away these young birds until they took to the sky again. The young birds landed multiple times before they finally flew on down the coast to find a less guarded area.
After being so impressed with the whooping cranes, we were also treated to some close-ups of other shore birds fishing right in front of us.
These two little guys were only a few feet away from where we were parked at the beach, and they were very photogenic too.
Our next destination for the day was the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, about 30 miles north along the gulf coast. After such a rich wildlife sighting already, we didn't get to see even a single whooping crane at the wildlife refuge. But we did get to see a few alligators.
Those coots are swimming quite close to this big gator, who seems to be smiling as he watched them from the corner of his eye.
The most plentiful wildlife we saw were mosquitoes, which seemed to be thriving in this damp environment. In fact, Denisa got 17 mosquito bites before she got smart enough to put on some bug spray. She probably got most of them while chasing these swallowtail butterflies that were drinking the nectar of the dainty pink blooms in this field.
While Denisa was chasing butterflies, Mark has getting the bikes off the rack and ready to ride. There is a one-way paved road within the refuge that makes for a great bike path. It's a 13-mile loop to get back to the car, so we got some great exercise. We thought we could out-run the mosquitoes. But after riding in a swarm of those blood-suckers for a mile, we finally pulled over and applied bug spray. We probably should have done that sooner.
Spring is definitely in the air, and we are seeing more and more wildflowers blooming.
We were a little disappointed with the lack of wildlife sightings within the refuge. We did spot one feral hog and several deer, but it was a long bike ride with few picture opportunities. Denisa did have to jump off her bike to take pictures of an interesting thistle plant. It seems that swallowtail butterflies are crazy about it.
There were three butterflies swarming that single bloom. They were so enthralled with that nectar that they let Denisa get quite close with her camera.
The picture below shows the difference in the two sides of the butterfly wings. The top side has an entirely different pattern than the bottom side. Isn't that just magical that something so delicate and thin as a butterfly wing can be so detailed?
We love the hiking and biking that we get to do in so many interesting places. We especially enjoy the wildlife we some times encounter in the wild life we lead as full-time RVers.
In our travels, we love to meet new people that share our love for travel and adventure. Occasionally, we also meet people that have the gift of hospitality and make us feel like old friends immediately. We met a couple with both those amazing attributes this summer at a campground in Glacier National Park. So when we had an opportunity to meet up with Judy and Dennis again in south Texas, we jumped at the chance. They invited us to Pioneer RV Campground in Port Aransas, where they have spent over 20 winters. It was so great to see them again!
We got a good tour of Pioneer Park, including lunch at the rec hall. We also found that we could get to the Gulf Coast beach without even leaving the park. Dennis and Judy took us for a golf cart ride over the boardwalk and onto the beach.
The day before, we had walked on the beaches close to the town and Port Aransas, and saw mostly family groups enjoying beach time. Now we are several miles out of town, and it is a totally different scene as the beach is crowded with college kids here. The swim suits are smaller and the drinks are bigger. It was definitely a less family-friendly atmosphere, but we enjoyed our ride down the beach.
We also drove their pickup to different parts of Mustang Island. It was great to have tour guides that have come to love this island over the last twenty years. They took us to a birding area, where the wooden boardwalk is no longer open to walkers. It's covered with plant debris and it might be a very long time before visitors can get to that tower in the background. Dennis and Judy don't usually come to the island until January, but this year they made a special trip down in the fall to help with the hurricane clean-up in their park.
They also took us to the waterfront park where they like to eat a picnic lunch. They pointed out that there is always something to watch here. Sure enough, we spotted a shore fisherman's reel, and we knew that the fish on the other end of the line must be big based on the bend of his pole. We had a front row seat in the man vs. fish battle, so it was fun to watch him bring in this huge black drum fish. The bad news is that this size drum can't be kept, so after the pictures were taken, he was sent back to the sea.
Our day together also included going to church with them at the service at their park. That was followed by the Sunday evening ice cream social. But this was a special Sunday, because they were celebrating birthdays and anniversaries for July, August, and September. Since our anniversary is in August, we qualified for a free scoop of ice cream and a piece of cake. Those scoops of Blue Belle Moo-llennium Crunch ice cream were monumental in size! Mark doesn't have to be force-fed sweets, but Dennis was helping him anyway.
Judy is a great cook, and she is so nice to share recipes with Denisa. We enjoyed the yummy dessert that she made for our visit--peanut butter rice krispie balls. It's one of our new favorite desserts, and she even sent some home with us!
They also taught us how to play a new board game, and invited us into a group with two other couples to play. We had a great day with Dennis and Judy, and we were sad when it was time for us to go home. It was the first time for us to ride the ferry back to the mainland in the dark. We watched the lights of Port Aransas getting smaller as we crossed the water of the canal, and we bid a fond farewell to our friends. We will definitely be making the point to cross their paths again!
We are camped just a couple miles from the Gulf of Mexico, and we enjoy being near the water. We took a drive out to the bay to a spot we had "experienced" two years ago. We were standing at this same spot two years ago when we spotted a couple dolphins playing in the water in front of us.
Two years ago we had done the research on the Texas paddling trails that start here. Kayaks can be launched here into the Aransas Channel. By following the red or yellow "trails," we could paddle all over the bay. That day two years ago, we were so excited to be in the salt water, chasing those dolphins, that we forgot to watch where we were paddling.
That's when we hit the oyster bed under the water. The razor-sharp oyster shells cut our inflatable kayak in several places before we could reverse and get out of there. We paddled like crazy to return to the shore as the air was quickly escaping from our blow-up boat. We remembered the traumatic turn of events from two years ago well. So as we stood on the same shore today, now older and wiser, we thought about trying it again. Those kayakers out enjoying the beautiful weather right in front of us certainly tempted us. But what about those sharp oyster beds?
Call us crazy, but we decided to pump up our new Sea Eagle kayak, and give it another try. How do you think this adventure is going to unfold this time? Will we sink or swim?
We would have liked to explore the grassy maizes in the shallow water of the bay. But we soon found that oysters like that shallow water as well. So we threw our paddles in reverse and tried to stay in the main deeper channel. The good news is that there were no dolphins today to distract us.
There were, however, plenty of birds to distract us. As we got further from our launch point, fewer spots were available for bird perches. Every pylon had a bird resting on it, and this trio of cormorants let us paddle quite close.
But when we got a little too close, they unfurled those dark shiny wings and took off.
As we continued on our paddling trail, the three drilling rigs in the distance got close enough to take a picture.
Denisa has a weakness for lighthouses, and we had no idea that one was in this area. We kept paddling until we got close enough to at least take a picture of this privately-owned Lydia Ann Lighthouse.
Even though we paddled the kayak for miles in the bay, we kept finding posts and wooden boxes that the birds could set upon. We also knew that these permanent structures gave the oysters something to cling onto. Again, we gave this area a wide berth to keep those razor-sharp oysters away from our boat. We're so far away from our car by now, we're not sure what we would do if we sliced a hole in our boat.
We were a long ways from our put-in site when we saw this quartet of birds enjoying the views above the water. It was a perfect temperature, but the winds were beginning to pick up. So we decided to head back to the car.
We were both still smiling as we got back to our launch site. Our adventure today ended on a much happier note than two years ago. We didn't see any dolphins, but we arrived to the shore with our boat still inflated!
We hadn't planned to kayak when we left the motor home this morning. But the beautiful weather was just too nice to refuse the opportunity. Likewise, we hadn't planned to go to the beach today, but we found ourselves on the ferry to Mustang Island.
Besides the six ferries shuttling people to Port Aransas, this channel is also used by massive cargo ships. It's hard to define how huge this ship is, so we pictured a tug boat that was escorting it through the channel. The full-size tug looks like a toy boat. The dolphins that had eluded as in the kayak, were chasing the cargo ship. We caught sight of them playing in the waves pushed up from such a big boat.
We had a view of the beautiful blue sky and calm water as we neared Port Aransas.
This is spring break week, and we were surprised that the line to get on the ferry was only 20 minutes long. They had six different ferry boats running this afternoon, taking the happy vacationers to Port Aransas. Most of the hotels on the island are still closed from all the hurricane damage, so more people are having to stay on the mainland and take the ferry this year.
We parked the car near the pier, and took off for a walk down the busy beach. It was filled with family groups, out of school for the week.
There weren't many shells on the beach, so it was almost miraculous that Mark spotted this unbroken tiny sand dollar in the surf. As we held that tiny and intricate shell in our hands, we realized that we had wandered into another of God's wonders.
We also spotted this large jellyfish, which had just came ashore with the high tide.
We were glad to find the beach to be so family-oriented, with not a single crazy college kid in sight. Then we saw this unusual contraption. It was a big-wheeled skate board, powered by that kite catching the wind high above us. The "kid" rolling down the beach on this wind-powered skate board was older than us!
Denisa picked up a few tiny clam shells on on our four-mile walk up and down the beach. She had just enough to spell out a momento of this spring break walk on the beach.
We enjoyed every moment of the perfect weather day we were blessed with. We were in or on or by the water all day, and we're proud to say that we did not sink!
