Funny graffiti along a street on the University of Texas campus.

An Educational Day

Today we decided to see a couple of of Austin's museums. It was supposed to be rainy--a good day for museum visits.
First we went to the Harry Ransom Center on the University of Texas campus. One of the world's finest cultural archives, the Harry Ransom Center houses 36 million literary manuscripts, one million rare books, five million photographs, and over 100,000 works of art. Highlights include the Gutenberg Bible (c. 1455), the First Photograph (c. 1826) , and major manuscript collections of James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, and Tennessee Williams, to name but a few. Of course we did not see it all but did see quite a bit.
The special exhibition going on at this time had to do with the evolution of writing. They had everything from early stone tablets to digital writing. Original mauscripts from authors such as Edgar Allen Poe and hand-written Bibles (in Latin) were all on display. It was very interesting to see all of these items in one display. The emphasis on writing as communication and how it has all evolved was very informative.
They also had a display about the evolution of the photographic image. There were images shown using many different photo processing techniques. There were prints on metal, paper, glass, and cloth.
After all that education, we grabbed a quick lunch at one of the campus eateries and headed over to the Lyndon B Johnson presidential Library. The Library is also on the University of Texas campus.
The main level of the library is an exhibition telling LBJ's life story and the story of his presidency. Many original documents such as the Civil Rights Act are on display. Slogans and buttons from the Kennedy-Johnson campaign, as well as numerous photos from the sixties brought back memories. The displays were very well done and even included background music from the era. This is a view looking up to the 4th through 7th floors which hold the document archives. There are over 31 million individual items from original signed bills to letters from kids who worte to the President. They saved everything!

The 10th floor housed a gallery showcasing the work and life of LadyBird Johnson. She was a very active First Lady and still today works towards many environmental causes for Texas. In addition, the 10th floor houses a 7/8th size replica of the Oval Office as it was during LBJ's term.
It is difficult to see the enormous telephone on the desk-such
a difference from today's technology. In the lower right is a console with 3 TV's. LBJ really liked to watch all 3 networks at one time to stay up with what the news people had to say about him. Imagine how many TV's he would need today to watch all the news shows at once!!

Well, our rainy day turned out to be a sunny 85 degree day. Not exactly an indoor type day but we really enjoyed our activities anyway.

Flowers on film

Yesterday we drove into Austin (about 45 miles) to visit the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The center is a botanical garden founded by the former First Lady to showcase many of the plants and trees native to this area.

It is still early Spring in this area of Texas and many of the flowers are just starting to bloom. One of our favorites is the Texas Bluebonnet (the state flower, I think). They are such a vibrant, blue color. It is not uncommon to find them mixed in with Indian Paintbrush as in this photo. The two types of flowers look nice together.
Bluebonnets are seen all over many parts of Texas, especially along the major highways. Actually, the program that promoted the flowers being planted along the highways was started by Ladybird Johnson. As Spring gets going, it is really nice to see the different varieties popping up .
Our trip to the Wildflower Center was an unusual photographic experience for Jim. When we arrived at the center, Jim discovered (much to his unhappiness) that his digital camera was not functioning. Of course, he always has a back-up and out came the old film camera. He has not shot a roll of film for several years but these came out pretty well. Hopefully, the camera will be repaired soon so he can get back to the digital camera.
It turns out that we picked a really nice sunny day for our visit. Today we woke up to overcast skies and a forecast for rain. With more rain comes more pretty wild flowers!

On the Move

On Wednesday the weather turned cold throughout the region and our spot at Port Aransas was no exception! Previously our lows at night were 60-65 degrees with high in the 80's. On our last day, the high was a chilly 50 degrees with a not so balmy sea breeze! It made our move not so pleasant.

We stopped by the local car wash and sprayed the motorhome to rinse off any possible accumulated salt. Poor Jim stood on the roof to spray it off and had a hard time standing straight in the wind! Brrrrr. Anyway, we got it all rinsed off which was important. We were on our way north. As we were driving through Corpus Christi, a truck hauling a load of poorly covered asphalt passed us and sprayed our entire front end with a fine spray of oily rock. Ugh!! So much for our fine cleaning job.

We are now camped at Summit Vacation Resort, just north of San Antonio. In the 3+ weeks since we left this area, spring has sprung. All the trees are sporting new green leaves and the roadside wildflowers are starting to bloom. The nights are still downright chilly but the days are very sunny and warm. It is supposed in the high 70's today.

Yesterday we drove into the Costco in San Antonio to get a Jeep tire replaced (it had road damage) and stocked up on a few groceries. We also made arrangements to have some modifications done to the motorhome engine in a few weeks. The modification is supposed to increase our gas mileage and with the price of fuel, every little bit helps.

Today we are hanging out at home. Scrubbed all the oily stuff off the front of the motorhome--boy if we could catch up with that truck driver we would have made him clean it! Getting some laundry done and relaxing is the goal for the day. Sounds tough,eh?

A busy day

Well, things have quieted down around here now that Spring Break is over! We have always seen reports about college kids going crazy over Spring Break but had never actually seen it. The reports do not exaggerate. This scene from the beach was several miles long--music, kids,cars-it was really something. They have gone home now and the beach is back to normal.

Yesterday we drove into Corpus Christi to visit the Texas State Aquarium. It is a fairly large facility dedicated to the study of marine life in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico. It was interesting to see many of the fish, reef life and ecology of the area. The fish here are ones we were not familiar with so it was a good learning experience. They recently acquired the 2 dolphins seen here. They are certainly fun to watch. Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins like these are found in large numbers in this area. We have seen them from the ferry and when we were on the bird boat tour.

The other Corpus Christi attraction we saw was the USS Lexington aircraft carrier. It is permanently docked in the bay and operated as a museum. We stopped and looked at it from the outside and decided to save the inside tour for another visit.

We look forward to coming back and taking the tour. It looks like it will take a large part of the day and we did not want to hurry, so we have added it to our list of things not yet done.




When we got back from to Port Aransas from Corpus Christi ( only 30 miles away), we grabbed a quick dinner and went on an evening bay fishing charter. Fishing is one of the more popular activities around here, so we gave it a try. It was nice seeing the sunset and then the lights of the harbor and surrounding areas . The boat went out into the bay and we all gave the fishing a try. Karen caught 5 or 6 fish and Jim caught about a dozen, However, none of them were large enough to keep --so we threw them all back. It was fun to be out for a warm evening cruise and get practice fishing. Karen had not been fishing in many years. For the most part, the water was very calm which Karen (the easily sea-sick) really appreciated. It got a little rough when we got out near the harbor entrance but it was only a brief stop ( no fish biting) and the rest of the evening was quite smooth.....but no fish-Waaaaaaaaa!
We will have to try again another time.
All in all, it was a busy day. Aren't retired people supposed to rest??

On the Beach

We moved to Port Aransas yesterday. Our park, named "On the Beach", is--on the beach! Actually we are about 200 Ft from the beach and can see it from our front window. We are actually on the Gulf of Mexico side of Mustang Island. This island is one of the barrier islands that protect Aransas Bay and Corpus Christi Bay. Port Aransas sits on the channel that is the entry to Corpus Christi Bay. Although Port Aransas can be accessed from the south by highway, it can only be reached from the North by ferry. The channel is only about 1/4 mile wide but does not have a bridge. We took the ferry (see below). Be sure and click on the link to the map that shows where we are to see the island.

We are not alone here--it's Spring Break!! It's fun to watch all the college kids having a good time. We drove out on the beach yesterday and it was neat to see all fun going on. The beach is miles long so there is room for all.
This morning we woke to a heavy fog. Not as many beach goers today! The fog never burned off today but it is still 75 degrees.
Hopefully tomorrow we will go out and take some pictures. Jim is looking into trying the fishing. Everyone we talk to says there is lots of good fishing--It would be nice to have fresh caught dinner.

This Coastal Oak is over 1000 yrs. old. It's trunk is 35+ ft in diameter. It's known as "The Big Tree"--imaginative name,eh?

Which one of these is NOT like the others? Read the narrative below for this pink fellow's story.

Bird Tour by Boat

This morning ( at 7:30 !-ugh) we embarked on the M.V. Skimmer for a trip to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. It was pleasantly warm with calm seas and a nice breeze. Aransas Bay is long, narrow, shallow (averages 3 feet) and full of birds.
The main object of the tour and the biggest reason most "birders" visit this area is to view the Whopping Crane. The world's only wild natural flock of whopping cranes has a standing reservation at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, about 45 minutes north of Rockport. The small flock of the continent's tallest bird journeys 2,500 miles south from Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta, Canada to the protected habitat of the Texas refuge.
The cranes stand nearly five feet tall and have a wingspan of eight feet.
There are just over 200 birds in this group here in Texas. We probably saw 30 to 40 today--a large portion of the entire known population.

We also saw NUMEROUS other birds-too many to list. There were a few people on the trip that were really into bird watching and they had their lists out so they could mark off each species they observed.

The tour captain has a sponsorship deal with Nikon Optics. The had a number of Nikon spotting scopes available for use as well as a number of pairs of Nikon Binoculars. Using the best Nikon Binoculars really made a difference in what we were able to see! Jim was quite pleased that the captain had a special adapter for his camera that turned the spotting scope into a 900 mm lens. Some of the shots here were taken with it.

These little birds are American Oyster Catchers. We especially liked their bright orange beaks which are strong enough and sharp enough to open oysters.








We came upon an island where there were about 20 Great Blue Herons "hanging out" in one of the trees. These large,grayish -blue birds are great fishermen. It is highly unusual to see so many in one area. Spring breeding time must be near!
One highly unusual site was the flamingo in the photo above this narrative. Pink Flamingoes are indigenous to Florida--not Texas. Speculation among local bird experts in that this young male was blown off course and away from the rest of his kind by last year's hurricanes. The bands on his legs were applied in the Yucatan Peninsula area of Mexico before his migration. The experts are hoping he will figure out that he does not belong here and move back to his normal habitat. He is the ONLY one of his kind in this area!

It was a fun tour. On the return trip the seas were a little rough but Karen did not get sea-sick. As some of you are aware, that has not always been the case, so that is a good thing!

To the Shore!

We moved from Lake Corpus Christi yesterday and now our home is Bayview RV Park in Rockport-Fulton, Texas. It is about 35 miles up the coast from Corpus Christi, on Aransas Bay. Both of us love being near the shore, so this is a nice change.
We spent yesterday afternoon and today wandering around the area. Yesterday was very sunny and warm (about 85 degrees) but today we encountered coastal fog for the majority of the day. Wonderful ocean breezes kept us comfortable.
Gulf shrimp are plentiful (wonder why??) and we stopped at a local seafood market and picked some up for later. The markets have a variety of fish also and we look forward to trying them out.
Our campground is less than mile from the shore. We came across this group of pelicans near there.
Although we seen more than our share of brown and white pelicans, this is the only place we came across where so many of them congregated. A few of them perched on the pilings and a another group swam up to us when we stopped. I'm sure they were expecting a handout! Up close, their bills look like they could do some serious damage. The are pretty large birds with wing spans of 5 feet or more. They were fun to watch.
Tomorrow we are taking a boat tour to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge so hopefully we will have more photos and stores to tell then.

Fishing Report

Lots of fishing..No fish!! Aw, but you know "A bad day of Fishing beats a good day at work!!" I'll be out early tomorrow morning and try again. Wish me luck!!

Wildlife tour

Today we made a return visit to King Ranch to take a wildlife tour. Since the ranch is such a vast undeveloped area, it is home to abundant wildlife as well as large numbers of birds.




Deer exist on the ranch in large numbers. In fact, they do hold hunts for deer to help manage the herds. We did see quite a few deer today but of course they are often hard to spot. They are fast movers, too!
We saw a large number of turkeys also. Some of them were quite large. Just think how big they will be by Thanksgiving !
We stopped by a lake when large numbers of birds congregate. Our guide was especially knowledgeable about birds and was quick to point out many different species. Some of the birds we saw are native only to this area of Texas. This Green Jay is one of those species. We particularly liked this little guy because of the almost tropical colors. We have never spent much time watching birds but we have learned that this area of South Texas is a destination for serious birders because of the large number of varieties found here.



As we were scanning the lake for other species of birds, we saw this large fellow swimming near the shore !
Our guide informed us that the small lakes on the ranch are home to numerous alligators. That surprised most of us--we thought they lived in the Louisiana and Florida swamps.
When we started really looking at all the logs across the lake, we spotted these 2 fellows sunbathing.
We were glad they were on the other shore !
The tour was very informative as well as a fun way to spend the morning.
When we got back to our campground Jim decided to take advantage of the free fishing in Texas parks. No word yet if he is actually catching fish or just fishing!!

Harbor find

We were driving around Corpus Christi Harbor this afternoon when we came upon this wooden ship anchored along the street.
Built in 1992 by the Spanish government, this exact replica of Christopher Columbus' ship Nina sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage. This ship and it's companions, the Santa Maria and the Pinta arrived in Corpus Christi in 1994. The other 2 ships are on display at the Museum of Science. We may have to check that exhibit out. Apparently they are open to guided tours. In addition, the museum has a display of artifacts from shipwrecked Spanish galleons that plyed these waters long ago.

This ship is very small and primitive. It is a wonder that Columbus made it all the way from Spain. What an uncomfortable cruise !!!

Interesting fact

The interesting fact we learned today is: WhataBurger was founded in 1950 in Corpus Christi and is still the headquarters today. We were wondering why we were seeing SO many of them.

This large 2 story version is right onCorpus Christi Bay.

King Ranch

Today our travels took us to Kingsville, Texas--the home of home of King Ranch. This ranch (the size of Rhode Island) is a National Historic Landmark and is thought to be the birthplace of the American ranching industry. It addition, the first American Quarter Horses werer produced here.

We took a guided tour of a small portion of the ranch. They a showed us a few of the 60,00+ cattle and 300+ Quarter Horses as well as some of the historic buildings around the ranch. The main house has over 15 bedrooms. We only got to see the outside. It was interesting to learn some of the history as well as how the ranch works. It is it's own city complete with colonies of resident employees and 3 schools for all the kids.

We took a trip to the historic part of downtown Kingsville where the saddle shop is located. They make individually crafted saddles by special order. It was interesting to see how much work goes into a saddle.

Oysterfest

We are continuing to enjoy this part of Texas. It has been very warm--in the 80's--with nice breezes and cool evenings.
Yesterday, we attended the Rockport-Fulton 2006 Oysterfest. It's a local festival that benefits the volunteer fire department and celebrates the oysters harvested from Aransas Bay. One can never have too many oysters (or any seafood), so we checked it out. The arts and crafts were fun to see and the fried oysters were yummy. It was held next to the harbor and we also saw local fisherman unloading HUGE bags of oysters. Those bags weighed a few hundred pounds apiece ! Although, we did eat a few oysters at the festival, there was a limited selection and we were hungry when we left. Of course, we were in a coastal town and finding a small restaurant that served seafood at a reasonable price was NOT a problem. Picking one out of the many was the only problem.




We finally settled on a Cajun restaurant called The Boiling Pot. They served local shrimp, blue crabs along with corn on the cob all boiled in Cajun spices and served directly onto the table. A whole pile of finger food!! It was messy fun and quite tasty.
We did some looking around this seashore area north of Corpus Christi and really liked it. Next week, we will be moving to a campground near here and are looking forward to our time near the ocean.