Corpus Christi

So while we were still at Bay View RV Resort, we needed to take a trip to Corpus Christi, which was the real reason that we were going to that part of Texas to begin with.  But after spending all the time that we spent in Rockport and Fulton seeing all the sights there, we didn't have a lot of time left for Corpus Christi.  I mean there were plenty of things to see there, just that we had a limited amount of time, and it wasn't as close as we thought we'd be staying.

So we figured we'd take a trip from Rockport southwest down TX-35 down to Aransas Pass, head southeast on the Redfish Bay Causeway, TX-361 to the Port Aransas ferry crossing.  Even though at that time there were three ferries crossing the ship channel, it took about 1/2 an hour to be loaded onto the ferry to head over to Port Aransas.  We tooled around a little, then continued southwest on 361 on the barrier island called Mustang Island.  It's called that because there were at one point many wild horses on the island, with the story being told that horses were brought there and left by Spanish explorers.  There aren't any wild horses there now.  Lots of homes, rv parks, motels and condominiums as well instead.  And sand also since there's a beach.

Heading south out of Aransas Pass.

What a day for a drive, huh?  Of course, right now, we're stopped at the ferry landing, so we're not really driving right at this moment, ok?

Waiting for the ferry to unload.

Our ferry.  Not sure who he was, couldn't find out anything doing a cursory internet search, but he got a small ferry named after him.  

Welcoming sign (really, it's a water tank) after getting off the ferry in Port Aransas, Tx.

Apparently I have a pasture in Port Aransas, Tx.  Actually, it's a recommended nature preserve, click here!

Port Aransas has a building with a octopus on the roof...

And a shark coming out of the ground to welcome folks to a store.

If ya look at the above map, you can see that Mustang Island is really part of another island, Padre Island.  Or maybe it's the other way around with Padre Island being part of Mustang Island.  Route 361 goes the length of it and t's into Park Rd 22, where we turned left to travel further southwest, making our way to Padre Balli Park where we had a lunch of Subway sandwiches and walked the doggies for a while.  We thought a lot of Padre Balli Park as there were quite a few roomy RV sites there, although it looked like a parking lot with 30 amp and water only hookups, not unlike a lot of other RV parks.  But it's only $25/night, or $150/week, it's not bad for staying at the beach.

The beach at Padre Island, used by people and motorized vehicles.

The beach at Padre Balli Park with Bob Hall Pier in the background extending 1,240' into the Gulf of Mexico...

with Mikel May's just off the beach.

As it was getting further on in the day, we went through Corpus Christi towards the USS Lexington, which is now a floating museum.  You can find out more information about the museum part by clicking here.   We toured it until it we'd seen just about everything we could see on the ship, which was a bunch, and it was getting near closing time anyway.  It was very interesting seeing the many parts of it and getting to know a little about it's history.  It was nicknamed "The Blue Ghost" due to it's camouflage and the fact that the previous Lexington (CV-2) had been scuttled on May 8, 1942, and the new Lexington (CV-16) arrived at Pearl Harbor on August 9, 1943 to take part in the remainder of war in the Pacific.  It was decommissioned in April of 1947, recommissioned in August of 1955, and decommissioned again in November of 1991, when it was donated to the City of Corpus Christi as a museum ship.  It was very interesting to see the various parts of the ship and compare them to what I remember of the USS Wabash, which was more than a few years newer, but not necessarily better.  If you're in the area of Corpus Christi, I recommend that you take the time to tour the USS Lexington, especially if you're a history buff.

Picture of the USS Lexington taken as we're traveling over the Harbor Bridge.  That's why it isn't centered well.  Sorry.

USS Lexington Stats.

Katie in the XO's chair on the bridge.  Or is it the CO's chair?

Our day was going to last longer as we wanted to stay in Corpus Christi and watch the lights turn on on the Harbor Bridge crossing the Corpus Christi Ship Channel.  This is a nightly event, and you can see a short youtube.com video about it by clicking here, and see images of it here.  The lights were installed in December of 2011 and have since been thought of as one of Corpus Christi's iconic landmarks.  We were just too tired to stay and see it as we had to go some 30 miles to get back home, and I wanted to find an HEB with their freshly squeezed orange juice.  But as the HEBs in the area aren't that big, I didn't get any.  Darn the bad luck!

Our time was running out there and we headed to Carlsbad Caverns in a couple of days.  More about that later. 

Rockport, Texas

Rockport, Texas is a small town of less than 9,000 folks.  We originally wanted to go to Corpus Christi, but as Coast to Coast didn't have a park there but in Rockport instead, which is about 30 miles NE of Corpus Christi, and the price was only $10/night, we stayed at Bay View RV Resort near Rockport.  Actually, it was a little further up the coast nearer the village of Fulton, with a population of around 1,300.  I think of all the places we stayed at in Texas, we enjoyed our time in Rockport / Fulton, and Corpus Christi best.  The climate was mild with the high temps being in the 60's with lots of blue sky, and lots of nice, friendly folks as well.  There was even a sign on one of the buildings saying "Welcome Winter Texans", so I'm guessing that we're Texans now as we were there in the winter.  Goody for us.  The rest of y'all eat yer heart out, ok?

Bay View RV Resort was the second resort that we stayed at using our Coast to Coast membership on our trip.  It wasn't a bad park with the office and the maintenance staff helping us a lot by letting us get the right camping spot after rejecting two other spots.  And when we tried to get out of the second spot, the ground was so soft that we got stuck.  If it hadn't been for the maintenance staff bringing their skidsteer to our rescue, we'd have been stuck for a lot longer than 10 minutes!  It just wasn't the same as what we'd come to expect at Eastlake RV resort back in Houston.  But it was only $10/night, right?  What was I expecting!

Our campsite at Bay View Resort in Fulton, Tx.  From the look on Katie's face, I'm thinking she was wondering what I was expecting from a campsite as well!  The campsite we had just tried was in the background where the motor home is seen.  

As we were driving NE on TX 35 up the coast from Rockport on our way to Bay View RV Resort, we noticed a sign at a bar saying "belt sander racing".  After scratching our heads because we'd never heard of that sport before, we asked a couple of folks about it while we were in Rockport in the following days.  And they weren't really sure about it either.  So I looked it up.  The bar, Legends Saloon, has them every 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month from October through April.  It turns out there is quite a following with various belt sander racing associations as well as videos on youtube.com.  But I think that the best belt sander race is when the racers sit on the sander while it speeds down the course, like this one.  Anyway, we never went there, but I'm thinking that it would've been a lot of fun!

The community of Rockport has a lot of "Winter Texans" there, a lot of them in RVs.  There were many RV parks there, along with condos, apartments, and houses for rent.  There were a couple of museums there as well, probably more, but I'm only gonna talk about the ones that we went to.  The first one being the Rockport Center for the Arts.  It isn't a large place, I'm thinking that it's actually a former house for someone who willed it to the City of Rockport to be used as it is now.  Although they had a permanent collection, little of it was shown when we were there as the museum was being used to display art works of the local artists.  Anyone who came in was invited to vote which piece of art was the best one, be it a painting, photo, sculpture, or mixed medium.  The below photos are of the the best ones that I saw.  

Sorry, I don't remember the titles of the exhibits, or why I thought they were of note.  Regardless, I thought they were very good.  

The other museum we saw was the Texas Maritime Museum, which was across the street from the Rockport Center for the Arts, as you can see from one of the photos below.  There are four main exhibits there, as you'll be able to see from the link, with the biggest one being the LaSalle Odyssey exhibit.

A model of the La Belle, part of the La Salle Odyssey.  The real La Belle was found on the bottom of  Matagorda Bay, some 50 miles to the north east in 1995 after being sunk in 1686.  After being discovered and excavated from the bay, the relics were distributed to seven museums along the Texas coast from Corpus Christi up to Matagorda County Museum.

Another of the exhibits had to do with outboard motors.  There was quite a display of outboard motors, and I'm sorry that I didn't get a picture of it.  But I did get a picture with a brief history of them, and the man who picked up the ball and ran with it, Ole Evenrude.

If ya click on the link for the Maritime Museum, you can see a photo of what the outside looks like with a slight replica of a lighthouse with a railing around the top, which is an observation deck.  It offers quite a view of  the town of Rockport as well as Aransas Bay and Little Bay.  

Looking southeast to the Rockport Center for the Arts.  Aransas Bay is in the background, and our big Ram 2500 is parked in the center of the picture.

Looking further to the southeast towards Aransas Bay.  The white building in the distance is the Aquarium at Rockport Harbor, a small but good aquarium run by volunteers in Rockport.

Looking northeast from the Maritime Museum.  Texas route 35 is on the left side.  The body of water is the extreme southwest corner of Little Bay.  On the right side is the Big Blue Crab.  Below is a slightly, better picture of it.

The Big Blue Crab of Rockport, Texas.  Click on the link above for more information.  

As we love to visit mansions wherever we go, we found that Fulton had one as well.  The Fulton Mansion is located at 317 Fulton Beach Road in Rockport, where in 1874 - 1877, George and Harriet Fulton built their dream home.  It was built with hot and cold indoor plumbing, steel beams supporting the floor, and five inch pine planks laid offset on top of one another in the walls to withstand hurricanes.  I don't have a good picture of the front, but if you click on the link above or here, you can see lots of pictures of it.

View of the Fulton Mansion, from the back where the visitors center  is located, named "Oakhurst" because of all the oak trees in the area.  This is looking east towards Aransas Bay, which you can see in the distance.

This is a poster showing the lighting, plumbing and heating features of Oakhurst.  Ya may need to expand it to be able to read it easily.

The mansion had a long a varied career after the Fultons left it, so that at one time, the yard in front of the mansion was an RV park.  The Texas Historical Commission took over running and maintaining it in 2008, and when were there, there were docents on the 1st and 2nd floors in period dress telling about the Fulton family, the mansion, as well as trivia surrounding the it.  The basement is a self guided thing, and the third floor is used as offices and inaccessible to the public.  But if you're in the area of Rockport, or Fulton, or even Corpus Christi or other cities to the north or northeast, be sure to drop in there.  Like lots of other mansions, it's a marvel to see.

Ok, I'm thinking this post is a really long one as well as being late in being posted.  Wait patiently for the next one which will be shorter talking about Corpus Christi.



Padre Island

art community and museums in Rockport

mansion in Fulton or Rockport

Corpus Christi bridge light show

San Antonio

Ok, now that I've got the pictures of Larry, Moe and Curly out of the way, we can go on to more current events in our trek to staying at Emerald Cove Resort near Parker, Az.

We left Canyon Lake about the time that a cold snap was coming down to Texas, and we couldn't stay in the campsite we were staying in there as it had a previous reservation for the day we were leaving.  So rather than pack up and move to another campsite that may or may not have fit us at the resort we were staying at, we just decided to move on down the road where it would be closer to our destination at that time, which was Rockport, Tx.  And we couldn't go there because our Coast 2 Coast reservation at Bay View RV Resort wasn't available until a couple of days later.  Besides, the further south ya go, the warmer it gets, right?  Well, maybe not.

So after packing up and travelling the 50 miles southwest to River Walk RV park, we only hooked up our electricity as connecting the water or sewer were unnecessary as we had plenty of fresh water and tank space on board.  Along the same lines, we did a minimal of setting up because we were only gonna be there for two days.  Then, not wanting our spare time to go to waste, we sought out the McNay Art Museum which we thought would provide us with a couple of hours of looking at different paintings.  And while it did that, we thought it'd have more historic paintings in it, which it didn't.  I mean there were historic paintings there, but the founder of the museum, Marion Koogler McNay, wanted the museum to be a modern art museum, so there were more pieces of modern art, which doesn't mean as much to us, than historic art.  So we were somewhat disappointed for not being able to see more, but that sometimes happens when ya go to an art museum.  

Getting back to the rig, we noticed that it was getting cold enough that the furnace needed to be turned on.  However, the furnace didn't want to turn on, even though I'd set the thermostat higher.  It was then that I decided to check how much propane we had left in the tanks, and found all three tanks to be empty.  As it was going to get below freezing that night, it was very important that we have propane for the furnace to work and keep the pipes in the basement from freezing.  I disconnected two of the tanks, put them in the car and set out on my trek to find a place to refill those two tanks.  My first stop was to go to the office to see if they would be able to tell me where to go to find a refill spot.  I went to the resort office to find out where propane was readily available in the area, and found the staff bundled up trying to stay warm with electric heaters blowing in their direction.  I was blessed to find out there is a convenience store less than half a mile away with pre-filled 20 pound bottles of propane.  However, the price was outrageous at $30 a bottle.  But it was a convenience store, right?  So I really shouldn't have cared about the price.  NOT!  What's more, the bottles were kinda light, and I later found out that the bottles sold there aren't always filled completely, which kinda added insult to injury.  So while them pre-filled bottles are convenient, ya really pay for it!  That is that's how it was at that convenience store.  I'm thinking that it'd be a little different price at Wal-Mart, or some other big box store that sells them.

Not letting any days go to waste while we were there in San Antonio, we ventured out the next day with the idea of seeing a couple of things at least.  Maybe the Alamo.  Doing our research, we found there was Fort Sam Houston located a couple of miles away.  I don't know why we didn't quite understand that it was a working US Army fort rather than a historic point, but we didn't, and drove up thinking that we'd be able to get a tour of the facility.  However, when we got to the main gate, there was a sign pointing to where visitors would check in.  And when we went to check in to see what we could see, the man behind the counter looked at us kinda weird and said that we'd have to wait till a certain time that I don't remember now.  As we didn't want to just sit around, we headed on down the road to see the Spanish Governor's Palace in downtown San Antonio.  Parking is at a premium there, and we decided that the cost of parking wasn't worth the cost of seeing the palace, but you can see it if you click on the link above, or see pictures by clicking here.  It had an interesting history before it became famous for what it was, being a bar, a clothing store, a produce market, a tailor shop, and a school.

So we headed off to see the Spanish frontier missions of Mission Concepcion and Mission San Jose.  Just like the missions of California.  The first three below are Mission Concepcion, with the ones below it being Mission San Jose.

Didn't know it at the time, but there are active congregations there which is why there are lights inside.

Ok, there ya have the blog posting I've been "working" on getting done for the past ...how many days!  I hate it when I forget things.  Hope all are well, next post will be coming...