Old Times and New

We spent the first 50 years of our life in and around the Dallas area. (Actually I didn't arrive until my sixth b'day, but that only matters when I try to call myself a "real" Texan.)  Jan and I have always been water and beach lovers, so many of our family vacations when the kids were still kids took us down to the Texas coast. The waters of the Keys, it isn't and the scenery of the Pacific, it isn't, but it's what we have here and we still love it - especially then when we really didn't know any better. The half-dozen times we made the trek were split between the Port Aransas area just northeast of Corpus Christi, and South Padre/Port Isabel just north of the Rio Grande border. The nearly 200-mile longer drive (about 575 total from home) to Padre meant much bluer waters and great fishing in the Laguna Madre - The family caught over 50 sand trout the night before this photo of David and I was taken. The fishing was good up in Aransas Bay and Mustang Island, too, and these vacations were always wonderful and memorable family fun, and laid the groundwork for further adventures for us all on and by the sea.

Our camping memberships give us a "free" place to stay in the historic Rockport/Fulton area of the coast just 15 miles from the ferry which still carries motorists from the town of Aransas Pass the thousand yard passage across the intracoastal (the GIWW) to Port Aransas on Mustang Island. We wondered again, while we waited in line for over a half hour for one of the five ferries making the run, why they don't build a bridge over this short gap. We figure that a continuous span would have to have such a long entrance/exit roadway on the island-side to allow for the 55-foot clearance requirement of the ICW that the merchants and property owners have vetoed it. That leaves an opening span with all it's own costs and built-in wait times. Besides, this lends an air of adventure for the many landlocked families who visit here just like we did 35 years ago.

Besides enjoying the Gulf beaches, there is a very nice city beach in Rockport on Aransas Bay.

Fulton and Rockport have a variety of historical structures, including the beautiful Fulton mansion, and the Texas Maritime Musuem.

The waterfront park has a very nice collection of cast bronze and stone statuary.

And, as usual, our travels put us in touch with friends from our liveaboard life.

Dusty and Janet Libby paid us a visit. They swallowed the anchor a few years ago, and settled in Victoria, TX after many years of Caribbean cruising and travels.

Jay and Buffy Corzine have moved back to Texas (on a sailboat right here in Rockport) after spending a few years in South Florida, where I worked with them at Bluewater Books and Charts, and the Keys, where we shared Boot Key Harbor waters. After stints of home ownership in both Florida and Texas, they are now enjoying the liveaboard lifestyle again at the city marina in Rockport. They have re-explored the Texas coast (they lived aboard here              before  moving to Florida) and have written the very best Cruising Guide to the Texas Coast ever! They work right out of a little office next to their boat slip - how handy is that? When we saw them, they were waiting for a little cooler weather to go gunkholing along the local bay waters - can't do too much research.

A REALLY Nice Visit

We have been on the road now for 4 1/2 years, and have managed to visit our son David and his family four different times. The first two (a total of three nights) were on our initial drive out west (and back) when we were trying to see if RVing was in our future (instead of continuing living aboard maybe a trawler.) At the time we were the proud owners of a 2000 29' Jamboree, a cab-over camper on a Ford van chassis (can it be that it was only four years ago??) and we stayed outside their single-wide.

On our next two visits in 2008, we were in the area for weeks, but the

80-mile round-trip drive from our (free) RV park to their home limited the amount of quality time we had together.

This time we bit the bullet ($-wise) so that we could spend a week only two miles from their door - HOW NICE! - lots of good times, a real chance to catch up, and catch up we did. Thanks SOOO much, David and Yvonne and D3.

We even had time to revisit a few of San Antonio's many tourist  attractions, like the Alamo and the Riverwalk. It's a big city, but still has a lot of small city charm.

Lookin' fer W (Dubya)

Well, we've left the cozy confines of the Metroplex behind and are spending Memorial Day at a nearby campground on lovely Lake Whitney. Two weeks here just lazing about while we wait for grandson D3 (David III) to finish up his school year. (No sense wheeling into San Antone while his days are filled with learnin'.) Except for the holiday weekend itself, this is how crowded the grownups' pool complex stayed. The 95 degree heat wasn't so hard to take - floating around on the cool, clear water - but the half mile hike to the pool could be brutal. Had a mighty tasty Texas-sized steak dinner with everyone to celebrate the holiday.

George W. Bush's Western White House is located a short twenty miles away outside of the bustling metropolis of Crawford, TX, population 705, so we thought we'd take a drive over. Pictured here is the lunch counter/ convenience store/ gas station on the highway - about the only business in town - where we found out that the Prairie Chapel Ranch which the Bush's bought in 1999 was about 9 miles outside of town. (How did they find this place????) We finally stumbled across it on a little feeder road, only to be stopped in our tracks by a serious barricade (had to keep out the likes of Cindy Sheehan) and a seriously-armed U.S. marshal. In our wandering we came across the Prairie Chapel Baptist Church where daughter Jenna was married in '08, but we didn't get a picture of it, dang it!