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