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We’d been warned about Texas heat, and we’d thought … well come on, we’ve lived through Washington summers so how bad can it be?
The answer is, BAD. Somehow 95 humid degrees in Corpus Christi feels hotter than 95 degrees in Washington. We endured by lounging in our air conditioned trailer until early afternoon, then heading to Rockport Beach where a constant southerly breeze across the Gulf of Mexico and the lengthening shade of the cabana umbrellas kept things comfortable. Stepping into the clear water was truly like entering a bathtub -- Dorian waded out several hundred feet until the water was over his head until he finally felt a thin, cool water layer around his feet. On the other hand, the shallow water is great for little kids splashing, sitting waist deep in your lounge chair, and fishing.
Rockport Beach in Rockport, Texas
Do something, Frankie!
Frankie da Boid is clearly wearing mousse--likely as protection from the heat, or maybe just to look taller.
We were amused by these birds at our campsite...imagining the smooth-capped female urging the mullet-haired male to "do something!" about the impudent interloper in our camper window. And he did his best...every day coming back to tap, peck and fly at his own reflection. Nearby the campground we were amazed by the size of this over 1,000 year-old live oak.
At Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, we drove the 16-mile auto tour loop *very* slowly in the late afternoon, scanning the savanna-like landscape grasses, shrub and trees carefully for any sign of wildlife. We saw a group of whooping cranes which overwinter in this park, and who fortunately for us were delaying their spring flight back to Canada, along with numerous other water fowl. We drove the loop again less slowly as evening shadows fell across the road, fully expecting to see a lot more wildlife activity. But our big rewards came just driving the main park road at dusk as we headed out. Raised and fenced boardwalks afforded views of numerous alligators both big and small, and green-faced frogs in freshwater ponds. Along the road we saw oodles of deer, several green snakes, a pair of scurrying armadillo, and a feral hog family complete with 4 or 5 babies along the roadside hedge.
A boring picture of the hogs, but they are our first feral hogs (not counting the movie with Tim Allen), so it was exciting to us.
This guy was over ten feet long.
The marina at Corpus Christi
Note the boat icon in Google Map's directions, directing us to continue our trek via ferry! A first for us.
The evidence of Hurricane Harvey’s destruction last August was on display everywhere. Tyvek siding and blue tarp roofing abounded, and neighborhoods were chock-a-block with debris-filled construction dumpsters. In some waterside communities, it looked like a bomb went off. Makeshift signs proclaimed “Make Rockport Great Again” and “Rockport Strong,” and billboards advertised relief with delayed and inadequate Harvey insurance claims.
Would we come back here?
Would we come back here?
I'd gladly come back but I'm not sure I'd stay at the Goose Island Campground unless I could stay at one of the beach sites, which were closed due to Harvey storm damage. I think the LTE signal was adequate with my signal booster. I'd like to stay closer to some of the more popular windsurfing areas, such as Bird Island Basin, which is much nearer to Corpus Christi.
Spiders! Goose Island State Park is where we learned that you can see spiders looking back at you in the dark. If you hold a flashlight at eye level or use a headlamp, the spiders' eyes catch the light and reflect back at you. It's very pretty, like little reflective jewels in the night. At first, we thought we'd just been missing this hard-to-miss phenomenon our entire lives but later, after looking for nighttime spiders in other places, we came to realize that the Texas coast there just has an unusual number of nocturnal spiders. How many, you ask? While walking the dog at night, you could see several illuminated jewel-eyes looking back at you no matter where you pointed your light along the side of the road. The spiders tended to be comfortingly small, most of them.
Would we live here?
Would we live here?
See the above mention of Hurricane Harvey... The entire coast there looks like a floodplain. It's pretty, and parts of Rockport looked like the kind of place we used to dream about living. But in the very neighborhood that looked like a place for a dream home, about every fifth house was significantly damaged or destroyed. [Note to self: say something deep here about the price of paradise.] If we were ever to change our mind and decide the risks of living right on the ocean were worth it, we'd at least pick a less lazy coast that had the good sense and gumption to rise significantly out of the sea, not a lazy coast that bumped up just high enough to keep the water from rushing in on calm days and then went back to sleep.
We also couldn't help but notice that Texas-style libertarian approach to living that allowed industrial sites, complete with industrial waste, to sit side-by-side with housing developments. It's best when your neighbors can't outspend you in court, should you have a significant complaints, perhaps involving oil fires, etc.
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