Part C

Well, we did it. We pried ourselves loose from Goose Island State Park. We headed south.

We got fogged out of every attempt to go out on the birding boat. Maybe next trip. I should mention that fog is a real treat for us. We don't get much fog in the dry climate of Colorado. It reminds us of our youth.

Judy found a really neat shirt with a roseate spoonbill, and a great egret on it she wanted in a shop in Rockport, but they were out of her size. So "Dovie" was kind enough to paint one up for her at home Saturday and Sunday, so we could pick it up Monday on our way out of town.

Found a racquetball court in Fulton just before we left. We played for an hour just before we picked up the shirt. There is not much racquetball going on in Fulton. The girl at the club said there are four people who use the court. It clearly has not had any maintenance in years. There are two giant screw eyes sticking out of the side walls so they can string a net to play walley-ball. A hole has been kicked in the bottom of the back wall (and then stuffed with paper towels) and there is loose plaster all around it. The ball comes off the front wall so dead, that I hit it a couple of times, then hit it to Judy and said "Oops. I broke the ball. Let me get a new one." But then checked the ball and found it was still intact. Even with a new ball, every hit came off the front wall like a freshly broken ball. All in all, a bizarre racquetball experience, but it sure felt good to hit for awhile.

Spent a little time on the gulf. Got to watch a flock of thirty black skimmers feed for as long as we wanted to stay in the area. Their lower mandible is longer than the upper. They fly just above the water with their lower bill cutting right through the water as they fly. They fly around and around out in the waves and in as close as the water receding from shore after each wave. You can see their heads snap everytime they snag something. Looks like an advil life to me. But then, come to think of it, that's what I have already.

Judy is having a rough day today. We crossed on the ferry boat at Port Aransas, watching the pelicans and dolphins. Then, at our favorite Port Aransas lunch place, she had to eat so much shrimp and fish and chips, that her stomach is still upset. Of course she had to eat it all to prove that she really needed it all, because she refused to just share some of mine with me.

Then we had to drive over a hundred and fifty miles today, and she got overtired and cranky. Things are a little better now that we're stopped for the night. But she doesn't want anything for dinner but Alka-Seltzer, and she doesn't find the noises coming from her stomach nearly as entertaining as I do. Nothing another ten or twelve hours of sleep won't fix.

So we're in a County Park just outside Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, on the twenty-sixth parallel. Can't go much farther south in this country. We're at the same latitude as Miami. We'll get up and bird this park tomorrow morning, go take a look at Laguna Atascosa after that, and probably finish the day in an RV park at the southern tip of South Padre Island. There is a lighthouse state park there we need to take a look at.

Got a good look at an Aplomado Falcon. Very rare. Very beautiful.

Still at the park outside of Laguna Atascosa. Just at dusk last night, a great pack of howling coyotes within fifty feet of us. Later, Judy and Annie finished Annie's last walk for the evening abruptly. Out in the dark walking by themselves, the bushes started rustling, growling, and snorting right next to them. Annie decided she'd rather be in Judy's arms. She leaped there all by herself. Judy decided Annie didn't really have to pee anymore that night. My guess is they had a close encounter with javelina in the dark.

Parked on South Padre Island. Our goal was the county RV park here. But it turns out they only have a little over a thousand RV sites, and you can't get in without a reservation. It's not what we're used to. It's a lot like making a reservation to camp in the middle of a city. Unhooked and explored with the minivan, and found a dry-camping community out on the flats on the Laguna Madre side of the island. There are twenty or thirty motorhomes parked on the sand next to the dunes. We'll park about five hundred yards out on the flats at the waters edge. The middle part of the sand looks pretty soft, but there are some nice hard packed tracks across it. I checked the weather radio, and high tide will be at 6pm. I'm sure we're parked above any recent high tide levels... Nice marsh birding boardwalk at the Convention Center. Saw a clapper rail and a marsh wren.

OK. I was right. We were above the high tide mark by almost ten feet of essentially level sand. Pretty smooth huh?

It tends to be another five degrees or so warmer on this end of the island, and this far south. We'll have highs and lows in the seventies and sixties. But there is just something about this whole southern section of Texas that we don't enjoy as much as a little bit back to the north; up around Corpus Christi. Or maybe it's that there is something about the northern end of the island we enjoy that is lacking down here. Anyway, we'll go back up to the beach to Malaquite campground on North Padre Island to finish up our trip.