Port Aransas, TX

After Mission, I drove to Port Aransas, TX.  Port Aransas is on Mustang Island, which is just next to Corpus Christi.  I stayed at a “RV Resort” by the Gulf.  It was a short walk on the boardwalk over the dunes to the beach.  If you look really close at the horizon, you can see some oil rigs out at sea.  At first I didn’t like it, but after a while I didn’t notice them. 

They allow driving on this beach, which I don’t really like but it wasn’t too bad.  I did see a few things that I had never seen before.  When walking one morning on the beach I saw what I thought was a worm on the beach.  As I got closer I realized it was a seahorse.

He was still alive.  He would curl his tail up and a couple of times he looked at me.  I guess he really just moved his head, but it looked as though he was looking straight at me.  I found some plastic and scoped him and the sand just around him up, then I put him back in the ocean.  The next day I went to the Texas State Aquarium and while there I asked about him.  They said it is extremely unusual to find seahorses on the beach as they live in more grassy areas.
The aquarium was interesting.  They had some shows, but not SeaWorld type shows.  While we did watch the dolphins jump, they were really just showing us how the dolphins work with the trainers.  They also had turtles, birds and other animals. 


Port Aransas has several bird watching spots.  One of these is a neat park just beside the shipping channel.  It is about a mile long with much of this as boardwalks over the wetlands.  The city bird of Port Aransas is the Roseate Spoonbill.  If you have been reading my blog all along, you’ve seen several pictures of those so here’s another one.  But this one is a bit different, he is looking backwards with his bill on his back. 

The trail was interesting, at the beginning you are next to the shipping channel and on my first trip a huge ship came through and I watched the dolphins jumping in front of the ship.
Then the boardwalk began.  You could walk or bike it – I did both!
Below is an egret (I think!) having a bad hair day.
Actually it’s just extremely windy.  Here is the same bird just seconds later, but this time looking a different direction.
I believe this is a Long-Billed Curlew, I found him interesting. (edited Feb 2013 to correct name of bird!)
 
Something else I did that was quite different was I went to a funeral.  It was a whale funeral.  Well, maybe not a funeral but it felt like it.  A 48 foot whale washed ashore about a mile from my campground.  I rode my bike on the beach to look at it.  By the time I got there, they had already dug a trench in the sand dunes and dragged the whale into it.  So it was like looking at him in his grave.  They said that he had been dead for about 2 weeks, so it didn’t smell great, but it was interesting.  The people at the whale were not tourist, but experts who where measuring him and trying to determine what type of whale he was. They know he was a baleen whale, but while I was there they hadn’t determined what type. 

My campsite was just next to a small pond.  It was interesting to be able to watch the birds at just about any time of day from inside my RV.  Below is the view out my back window.
During my stay, the full moon in January was the biggest full moon of 2010. 
I went on a boat tour to look for the Whooping Cranes. The Whooping Crane is an endangered species.  There are only about 250 – 400 left in the wild and they winter in Aransas National Wildlife refuge.  This is North America’s tallest bird.  The best way to see them is on a boat tour.  We saw quite a few at a distance, but these 2 were a bit closer. 
My last day there I went to Padre Island National Seashore. It was a cold, windy and foggy day but I wanted to go so I did.  The beach was pretty much the same as Port Aransas, but it did have more sand dunes.  They also had more Portugese Man o’ Wars.  I had seen tiny ones before, but this one was probably about 6 – 8 inches long. 

From Mustang Island, you can take a bridge to get to Corpus Christi or you can take the ferry to Aransas Pass.  The ferry was interesting.  My first 2 times I was lucky enough to have one of the front spots.  A few times I watched dolphins as we crossed. On an extremely windy day I thought if the ride was longer I might have gotten sea sick!  The picture below was taken from the ferry I was on – watching another ferry come in.

In my previous blog, I forgot to include this funny picture.  It was an extremely cold day and I guess the birds were huddling together to stay warm.

I’m currently in Van Horn, Texas.  It’s just an overnight stop.  Tomorrow I think I will stop in Deming, NM and stay a couple of days before heading on to Tucson for a few day. 

Mission, TX

After Sanibel, I went back to Georgia, first to Winder, GA and then to the North Georgia Mountains.  I ended up staying a bit longer than I expected because my mother had surgery.  This was during the time that the cold weather hit everywhere.  I was really concerned about how to survive in the RV.  I wasn’t so much concerned about me – I can stay warm.  But was concerned about the RV itself.  I managed to make it through the weather with just a few minor problems. 

I was expecting the frozen valves because I decided not to wrap the valves in warming tape, but that wasn’t too bad to take care of.  The one thing that I didn’t expect was that my tow bar froze.  I don’t know if the oil on the bar froze or there was water in it, but I couldn’t pull the tow bar loose to hook it up.  It took me about 30 minutes to get it unfrozen!

After my mom’s surgery, I left the area the day before the bad ice storm hit Georgia.  I stayed one night in Alabama, Louisiana and Texas before arriving in Mission, TX. 

Mission, TX is known for “Winter Texans”.  Typically it is warm in the winter so many RVers come there for the season.  I stayed in Bentsen Village RV Park, which is right next to Bentsen – Rio Grande Valley State Park.  This is a very nice RV park.  While there wasn’t as much space between sites as I like, it wasn’t as close as some.   They had several park like areas throughout the campground.

This area is known for birding.  One thing I read said that it was one of the top ten spots in the nation.  As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t know that much about birds, but I do enjoy watching them.

It was kind of funny, I was intrigued by the Green Jays and the Kiskadee’s and they are common birds in the area.  But I just hadn’t seen them before.   Other people (Those who knew birds) got excited about  birds such as the Rose Throated Becard, which is apparently rare in this area.

Kiskadee - 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green Jays in the feeder -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green Jay after a bath -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oriole (I think an Altamira Oriole) -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw both a Screech Owl and an Pygmy Owl, this is the Screech Owl -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rose Throated Becard -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was also other wildlife.  I saw a small bobcat one morning, but no picture as I was riding my bike when he crossed in front of me.  They have a big population of javelinas.  One day this mom and baby walked extremely close to me and I started getting a bit nervous, they do have big teeth!  They eventually walked away and a man close by said that she was probably begging for food. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other than riding my bike and hiking in the park I didn’t do too much here.  The last half of my stay here got warm, more what I wanted.  It was in the 70’s for several days!!  I’m currently in Port Aranasas and will blog about that later.

Sanibel – part 2

My sister and her family arrived 2 weeks into my 3 week stay.  They are from Wisconsin, so of course the first sand sculpture they made was a snowman!  Below is Parker and Summer and their snowman, I mean sandman -

Below is work on their Sanibel Holiday greetings and the final results -

  My sister, Amy, and 2 of her daughters, Chelsea and Morgan putting the finishing touches to the Holiday greeting!.

Above are my nieces and nephews around the snowman – Gavin, Morgan, Parker, Chelsea and Summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morgan asked her mom to take a few pictures and I snapped some while Amy was taking “official” pictures.

I visited the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp sanctuary twice while in South West Florida.  It’s a beautiful place.  I didn’t see as many birds this time as I did in March, but it was still a great place to visit!

If you look closely at this swamp lily, you will see in the lower right and corner a small tree frog.  Below is a close-up of him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also went to Shark’s Valley in the Everglades twice.  The first time, I went by myself and rode my bike around the 15 mile trail.  The second time I went with my Mom, brother-in-law (Tom) and my nephew (Gavin).  Tom and I rode bikes around the trail, while my mom and Gavin took the tram.  Unfortunately this day was a cold and we didn’t see as much as I did the previous week.

Part of the welcoming committee.  He is guarding the bike path that you can see at the bottom of the picture.

Even the birds like the bike/tram path!

My mom and I rode our bikes to the campground that I was supposed to stay at.  They have a mini-zoo in the campground.  Below is a picture of my mom getting to know a campground resident -

Other sand and shell sculptures by my sister’s family are below.  They joked that they should put out a tip jar because so many people took pictures of them.  The picture below is a fish that they did created using pen shells as the scales. 

The starfish above is made out of urchins.  There were thousands of these urchins on the beach this trip.  I’ve been to Sanibel many times and never seen this many urchins.

They also made a large sandcastle.  Below is a picture of the castle and then a close-up of the center part to show the detail.

A few pictures of folks just goofing around -

Morgan and Summer, Summer is the one upside down!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parker found a coconut and decided to see what it tasted like!

 

Parker, Chelsea and Summer out for a run on the beach.

 

 

 

 

 

Chelsea showing us her fish face--

 

 

 

 

 

This isn’t something we made, but I found it on one of my walks on the beach.  Somebody had made a Christmas tree out of shells and seaweed.  Notice the starfish on top of the tree.

I’ll end with a couple more pictures of the beach -