Travel Day!

 

All the way from The Valley back to Port Aransas.  150 miles.  North on Highway 281.  Through the border check point (50 miles north of the border) for illegal drugs and aliens.  They didn’t find any.  To our benefit, they determined we didn’t have any *without* having to search through every cabinet inside and out this time.

 

Right after the border check point is the Highway 281 Rest Stop.  It’s in the median between the northbound and southbound lanes of the highway.  There are large oaks, picnic shelters, tables, paths, old buildings, and scrub forest on either end.  We always have to stop there and take a quick walk around for birds.  Later in the year we would get a good Tanager or Oriole.  This time we got some usuals: cardinal, green jay, titmouse, yellow-rumped warbler, ruby-crowned kinglet.  We got a blue-headed vireo too; our first for the month (on the last day of the month).  Now, starting tomorrow, we’ll need one again.

 

We drove on.  We turned right on Highway 44 and watched for Mountain Plover in the plowed fields, but we didn’t see any.  We turned right on Highway 358, South Padre Island Drive (SPID) and drove through Corpus Christi.  Nice and familiar.  We watched Oso Bay and Corpus Christi Bay appear on the navigator map and in front of us.  We crossed the big bridge; the one over the Intracoastal Waterway; Snoopy’s Fish and Chips below to the right.  We didn’t stop.  We turned left on Highway 361 onto the island.  There is still standing water and White Ibis in the roadside ditches.

 

We went south for the winter.  Now we’re back.

 

Life on the beach.