The Sun Finally Comes Out

Saturday, 11 January
Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas, Texas
Temps: LO 55F (13C) / Hi 73F (23C)

Yes, I know we shouldn’t be quibbling about overcast skies and coldish temps when people in some parts of the country are barely thawing out after the recent deep freeze.

So I won’t complain about the dreary days we had this past week … or the temps that dropped down to freezing a few nights … or the thick marine layer that one day descended like a thick veil over GWRVR (Gulf Waters RV Resort, in case you don’t remember where we are) … or the stiff winds that made it downright unpleasant to be outside for a few days earlier this week.

Nope, I won’t complain about them; I’ll just mention them.

With surgical precision, Mui replaces the DVD player of his laptop with a 1.5 terabite hard drive.  those are not specks of dirt in the pink bowl; rather, they are the screws he had to remove to get under the hood, so to speak.

OK, so no one likes the kind of weather we had last week.  But if I am to be honest, I didn’t mind being indoors.  We had plenty to keep us busy, including dental appointments in Corpus Christi for our six-month check-ups.  It was an especially productive time for me — processing photos, and writing catch-up posts for last September’s trip to Greenland.  And we even figured out what we’ll be doing May through mid-July.  No; not sharing those plans yet, but suffice it to say that we’ll be heading north and east.  No, don’t beg; I’m keeping mum for the time being.

Left: Snowy Egret
Right: Cormorant with a pair of blue-winged teals.

So as not to jinx ourselves, I’ll quietly whisper that having paid our weather dues, it looks like we’re finally in for the kind of weather the Port Aransas Chamber of Commerce likes to see around here.  Sunshine and comfortable temperatures.  Yes, today we had both; and if the forecasters are to be believed, there is plenty more of the same for the foreseeable future.

Celebrating the break in the weather, this snowy egret and blue-winged teal pair
are just some of the visitors to our pond at GWRVR today.

The turtles that live in the pond like the far shore where
they can warm up on a sunny winter day.

Like the birds, and ducks, and turtles that came out in droves to enjoy the beautiful day, we were also out to have some fun in the sun.  Our first stop was the Port Aransas Visitor Center where Tricia answered our questions and put together a selection of brochures for us.  She even tossed in a reusable mesh bag to encourage us to pick up litter when walking on the beach.  As you might imagine, she was thrilled when I told her about my “beach-litter challenge” to one and all (post here if you don’t know what I am talking about).

Our goody bag stowed in the car, we then headed over to the jetty for a stroll.  What a great place for a walk.  Next time, we’ll plan to go out earlier in the morning.  We didn’t see any of the sea turtles or dolphins that others have mentioned seeing at the jetty, but the pelicans were out in full force; as were the fishermen.

Huge granite boulders are easy and fun to walk on, and reach quite a distance out into the gulf.

Watch out Mr. Pelican; that wave’s gonna get you!

Instead of returning home the way we came via TX361, we opted to drive back by way of the beach.  Yup; the beach at Port Aransas is one of those that can be driven on.  It’s free unless you plan to park on the beach; in which case, you need an annual pass ($12).  Starting out from the jetty, the sand is so hard packed that you’d swear you were driving on pavement.  After a while, the sand becomes looser, but nothing that would really hinder a careful driver.  Along the way, we saw trailers and a few ancient motorhomes that were boondocking in the hard-packed areas, and lots of fishermen who had driven their vehicles clear down to the edge of the surf.

Let’s go for a drive on the beach!

With no vehicle access from the beach into the campground, we had to drive past Gulf Waters about 4 miles (6½ km) in order to get back on TX361.  We knew we’d have to do that, so it came as no surprise.  It might have been a roundabout way of getting home, but we had great fun driving the beach route.

Mui stops the car to pick up litter — in this case an empty beer bottle
that someone half buried in the sand!

Now that the weather is starting to improve, we’ll be out doing more stuff; so you might hear from us a little more frequently.  In fact, we have some fun plans in the works for tomorrow.

Lovely Day for a Stroll … and Join Me in a Challenge

Saturday, 4 January
Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas, Texas
Temps: LO 52F (11C) / Hi 67F (19C)

Can you believe it?  The sun finally came out for two days in a row!

And the temps warmed up, too — though not for long.  Another cold front is headed our way.  Our temperatures are expected to drop down to freezing for a couple of nights starting tomorrow.  Considering what the eastern half of the country is experiencing, however, we’re not complaining.

Gulf Waters allows rigs and cars to be washed — for a price.  Mui paid his $15 just days after our arrival, but didn’t feel like playing with water until he had a mostly sunny day.  So, instead of going sightseeing as planned, he took advantage of the turn in the weather to wash the rig yesterday and give it a wax job today.

What every RV’er needs — a Palm tree that grows wash & wax rags!

While Mui was busy spiffing up our home today, I made myself scarce and went for a walk on the beach.  The breeze was light; the skies were blue; the sun kept me comfortably warm; and visibility was good, with the sea-mist haze quite a ways away.

There is some sea-mist haze, but it’s not as bad as it gets when the wind is blowing hard.

Zooming into the distant sea-mist haze, that end of the beach looks like a parking lot.

I love the beach here.  This time of the year there are few people around.  Although today being such a lovely day, and Saturday to boot, there were more people out sunning, walking, biking, driving, and fishing.  Most of them were at the far end from where I was walking, though, so all was good in my world.

I have a question for you?  Do you stoop down and pick up litter when you encounter it on the beach [you could actually insert any habitat in lieu of the beach]?  We do.  Although oftentimes we forget to take a bag with us, so our efforts are more limited than we’d like them to be.  Well, today I saw three separate incidents on the beach that made me resolve to become a better steward of the beaches on which we so enjoy strolling and otherwise spending time.

One of the many jellyfish that littered the beach like so many cow patties to be tip-toed around.

It all started when a young couple driving a cart on the beach stopped to look at a plastic bag that had washed ashore.  The next moment, they were driving off; the bag still lying on the sand.  Within minutes, a biker came to the same spot, saw the same bag, swerved to avoid it, and rode off.  It wasn’t long before a young man strolled by.  Again, the same bag.  It stayed on the ground after he passed by without so much as glancing at it.

Rainbows in sea foam.

By the time I had these three encounters, I had already criss-crossed the width of the beach to dispose of small handfuls of litter in the trash bins located at the base of the sand dunes.  Nothing big — a couple of bottle lids, some broken pieces of styrofoam, some balls of fishing line, one or two crushed plastic bottles filled with sand.  I added the aforementioned bag to two others I’d already picked up and threw them all in the bin at marker 49.

This was the biggest piece of litter I picked up off the beach today.
It was lying on the sand within a few yards of some sun worshippers and fishermen.
Too bad I didn’t find it until I was almost back home; I could have filled it with even more litter.

So here’s my challenge to all of us.  The next time you go for a stroll on the beach, pick up just ten small pieces of litter — more would be better, but all I’m asking is ten small pieces — and throw them in a trash bin.  If there are no trash bins — and often there aren’t — dispose of them at home.  Can you imagine what an impact we would have if we all did this?  And how much bigger that impact would be if you issued the same challenge to your own blog followers — especially since many of you have much bigger readerships than I enjoy.

(And if you’re not a beach-goer, you can apply the same challenge to your preferred walk/stroll/hike habitat.)

I PICKED UP A COUPLE OF THE BIODEGRADABLE DOGGIE-POOP BAGS FROM THE STAND
AT THE BEACH BOARDWALK HERE AT gULF wATERS.   mY LITTER PICK-UP KIT IS READY
FOR ME TO GRAB-AND-GO THE NEXT TIME I HEAD OUT TO THE BEACH.

I returned home to find Mui finishing up the Phaeton’s wax job.  A few more minutes of elbow-grease and he was done.  Although the breeze had picked up, there was enough sun on our patio to encourage us to eat lunch al fresco in the company of common grackles that were flitting about.  They didn’t come begging for food while we were eating.  I guess that means that the patrons of this resort don’t make a habit of feeding the birds.  That’s a good thing.

After bathing in the pond that fronts our site, this common grackle perched
on the back of a nearby bench to preen himself.  I’ve been told that as long as
the bird’s eye is in focus, a photo will pass the test, so I’m keeping this picture.

Tomorrow the weather pendulum swings the other way.  Who knows when the sun will grace us again.  I’m glad we made the most of the good weather Mother Nature gifted us with these past two days.

A Quiet End to 2013

Tuesday, 31 December
Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas, Texas
Temps: LO 42F (5.5C) / Hi 47F (8C)

So many of you out there are doing year end reviews, which I’m enjoying reading.  I admire you.  Every time I get started, I get bogged down with trying to pick out the highlights of our year on the road — don’t even get me started on doing the same for our vacation off-road.  So I’ll just have to be satisfied with a wrap up of our 13 days since arriving at Gulf Waters on 19 December.

        This female great tailed grackle stopped by our site today to say Happy New Year!

I mentioned in the previous post that we haven’t been doing much.  The culprit partly being the weather.  Most days have been downright gloomy with grey skies, and measurable rain on four of the days — not counting the ones that were drizzly on and off.  We had one day of full sunshine with cold temps; and several days when the sun teased us by peeking through the clouds.  The temperatures ranged between 47-71F
(8-16C) for our highs and 41-61 (5-16C) for our lows — and that’s without the wind chill from the almost constant wind.  The higher end of those temps were few and far between!

The weather doesn’t stop feathered friends, like this GBH, from coming by to visit us.
sorry about the dirty window :-(

Could we have bundled up and gone out to explore the area despite the weather?  Or gone into Corpus Christi to visit some of the indoor attractions?  Yes … on both counts.  But we have so much catching up to do from our vacation that we decided to just sit still and do that for now.  The weather is bound to change, and when it does, we will be sure to take advantage of it.

For a minute I thought this pelican was going to overshoot the pond and land on our roof!

Besides, we will have plenty of time to see what the area has to offer.  We managed to **EXTEND** our stay in Port Aransas/Corpus Christi through the end of April.  We’ll have to make a few interim moves, but we really don’t mind as they will give us a chance to get the wheels rolling briefly for what is going to be our longest stay to date in one area.

These two brown pelicans were in the same spot the next morning;
I wonder if they have to pay a fee to camp overnight like the rest of us!

Our first move will be a very short one — to another site for six more weeks here at the resort when our initial month is up.  That will bring us to the end of February.  Then we’ll move to NAS Corpus Christi for the month of March — unless something opens up here at Gulf Waters … the problem thus far is Spring Break week.  Regardless of where we end up for March, we’ll be back to Gulf Waters RV Resort for April.

On one of the colder evenings, Mui used a Turkish recipe to make a yummy red lentil soup.
Thanks to our Blendtech, the soup had a nice creamy consistency.

Leaving our future plans behind and returning to the here and now.  Whenever the sun deigned to grace us, we took advantage of it to go for walks on the beach.  In our travels, we’ve found some beaches to be more walkable than others.  The beach that fronts the campground here is level, wide, and well-packed without being hard on the feet.

The beach runs 6.3-miles (10 km) along the length of Mustang Island.  On a nice day, that would be a great walk.  For now, though, we’re making do with shorter walks.  Most of the time, I resist the temptation to stop and take photos in order to get the most exercise value from these outings.  On a couple of occasions, however, the temptation proved too much for my trigger [shutter] finger!

“Hmmm, fresh sushi,” says the ring-billed gull, as it …

… picks up the fish to carry it off before one of his friends steals it away.

Sanderling

Willet

The great blue heron keeps an eye on the fisherman … hoping for a free meal perhaps.

Not everything on the beach was pleasant, however.  Two days ago, we came across a dolphin carcass on shore.  So sad.  I took pictures with the intention of sending them to the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network (TMMSN) when we returned to the campground.  As it turns out, we saw a couple standing guard over the dead dolphin on the way back from our walk.  When I asked, they said they had already reported it and were waiting for a removal team from Corpus Christi to arrive.  An article I later read on the topic of these strandings said studies are underway to understand why dead dolphins are washing ashore in recent years; red tide and the BP oil spill have apparently been exonerated.

So sad; even in death, the dolphin looks like it’s smiling.

Don’t want to end on a sad note, so I kept a few of my sunset photos for the end of this post.  We’ve not made it to the beach for sunrise yet.  Frankly, I am waiting for warmer temperatures before I venture out in the wee hours of the morning.  But we have glimpses of colorful sunsets from our site, so we do get to enjoy them without venturing far.

From behind our site …

… from the front of our site.

And so … we’ve eaten our New Year’s Eve tapas and have drunk a toast or two to a great 2013 and a happy, healthy, and travel filled 2014.  Don’t think we’ll make it to midnight to see the ball fall in Times Square, but other places around the world have already rung in the new year … that’s good enough for us.

Happy 2014 and Happy Trails to all.

Wasn’t Going to Say Anything, but …

Saturday, 28 December
Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas, Texas
Temps: LO 52F (11C) / Hi 56F (13C)

As slow as our days here have been, can’t believe it’s already been over a week since we arrived in Port Aransas.  It’s been cold and cloudy most of the time, with the sunshine gracing us briefly and infrequently.  Aside from a drive into Corpus Christi to run some errands, we’ve not done much more than a few long walks on the beach.  That’s OK; the weather will eventually start cooperating and that will be our cue to go out and enjoy the area.  In the meantime I am using this time to process photos from our “vacation from the road.”  I’ve already managed to get a few blog posts up for Greenland.

Speaking of which … not wishing to be pushy, I wasn’t going to say anything about the vacation posts I am writing on my other blog — Two to Travel.  But then Judy (of Travels with Emma fame) left a comment in which she said, and I quote: “… Have you thought of mentioning this blog again on your other one?  I would hate to have folks miss this journey.”

So here is the mention she suggested I make.  If you’d like to check out the wonders that beheld our eyes and read the stories that go with them, click here for last night’s post.  If all goes as planned, I’ll have another one up late tonight.  Posts will appear sequentially in the archives for anyone who decides they want to follow along.  (I’ll eventually back date all of the posts so that they fall into the correct timeline.)

Heading into the Ice Belt in Disko Bay.
(Yes, that’s Mui with his video camera.)

Come along and keep us company as we relive our vacation in words and images.

X-Stitch: Big Cats

Friday 27, December

In the summer of 2004, Mui and I went on a photo safari in Botswana, Africa.

After spending time with this lioness and her cubs, Mui’s love affair with big cats was sealed.
(Our african safari predates the blog; click here for a post with links to my write up and photos.)

Hoping that we would see the big cats while on safari, I started stitching a gift for Mui before we even left on our trip.  I managed to finish it in time for his January birthday the following year.

As is the case with all of my other cross-stitch work, Big Cats is in storage at the moment … awaiting the time when we will get off the road, and buy a stix & brix home where it can once again decorate our walls.

P.S. Yes, we did see the big cats of Africa while in Botswana … lions, leopards, and cheetahs … and it was a thrill indeed to encounter them in close proximity in the wild.