Merry Christmas Y'all

We never thought we would be spending a Christmas in Texas!

Just goes to show ....
you don't ever know.......

We are still on the Gulf Coast at Goose Island.Weather is still decent, in the 70's, and we are still enjoying the serenity of these coastal bays and islands.
Last night was mesquite grilled steaks, big Christmas Eve dinner tonight of fresh local gulf shrimp and pasta, tomorrow morning is Romeo's Christmas Sausage, and tomorrow night Frankie is cooking locally sourced pheasant. Since our space is limited, and we do not need 'things', these are our gifts for Christmas.



We will be making a short trip back later this week and over the New Year Holiday to join Steve's family for a Celebration of Life for his much loved Uncle Roger. A dear and remarkable man who lived his life to the fullest. We will miss him, but will keep his legacy of making the most with what you have, with us forever.

We hope to see some of you during this short visit as time and weather allows.

So, here is a little flavor of the holiday spirit from our way.

Best wishes to all of you.

Is it only in Texas that Santa is armed?

Aransas Wildlife Preserve

Redhead Ducks

Black vulture

Blue Heron

Whooping Cranes

Whooping Cranes

Brown Pelican

White Pelican

Curlew

Elegant Terns

Snow Geese

Javelinas

Black Vultures on viewing tower

Alligators

Magee Beach at Port Aransas

After our last excitement we retreated to Padre Island for several days of calm and peace and surf fishing and eventually Doug and Frankie completed their long journey and joined us.

But the weather had cooled the day before they arrived. These winter storms last a few days then back into summer weather again for a few days. Then fronts roll in from the north again, coming down the long open plains of the midwest. This coastal area slides in and out of the fronts depending on how strong they are. After several gray, but warm by northwest standards (68-72) days, we decided to move on and see some more of the coast.
We crossed Packary Channel onto Mustang Island then drove it to the far east end and the town of Port Aransas. This is a small (pop. 3500) beach town that swells in numbers in the summer. Magee Beach is a 167 acre county park that includes a fishing jetty on the main traffic channel for Corpus Christi ports, a 75 site campground, huge parking spaces on the beach for primitive camping, and miles of flat sand for biking. Back into the low 80's for a couple of days and we are basking in it. We spend one day riding the beach until our knees get tired. Then down to the jetty to watch the surfers, fishermen, dolphins, huge sea turtles, pelicans, and the large boats that take on their inter coastal pilots right in front of us. Lots of action. We head out to the local fish market and buy fresh off the boat gulf shrimp and red snapper for a fantastic grilled dinner.
The next day we spend riding the back streets in the small town, out to the ferry dock, poking into the fishing tackle shops, and then chained our bikes to a post and had a late lunch at Beaches Cafe and Bakery where they have 27 microbrews on tap (my favorite-Austin's Live Oaks Brewery, Liberation Ale), Texas BBQ brisket sandwiches, and incredible desserts. A careful ride two blocks back to the camp for long naps and skipping dinner. Phew. Can't do that everyday.

The weather changes again on day 4 and a storm is brewing. Breezy on shore winds in the afternoon drive us indoors for dinner and dice games. Still warm, then a calm. Winds are predicted to shift from the north at 3 am and cool down.We watch on radar as the thunderstorms are forming north of us and running up into Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana, then running into the Pacific northwest storm and hitting Chicago with the upper midwest with snow and blizzards. Hard for us to complain about the weather that our area is making and causing us the inconvenience of 60 degree days when we see the horrible blizzard conditions, tornado warnings, and severe thunderstorms that spin off from where we are. 

Doug and Frankie's Pop Up A-Frame is good to winds of about 40 mph before there is the danger of damage if it gets 'tweaked' out of alignment. So at 3:10 am (these forecasters are so accurate) the wind went from calm to about 30 mph in one fell swoop. And the cool down was spectacular. From 74 degrees to 53 degrees in about 30 minutes. It was a rough night for them as the gusts were over 40, and once the wind starts, taking it down is even more of a problem. take out the supporting side walls and a gust can tear the remaining walls out before you can get them down. By noon the next day the gusts were down to about 20 and Doug managed to time the take down in between big gusts perfectly. So we head out east, down to the dock, take the free tiny ferry across the channel and onto a series of sand barrier islands connected by causeways and bridges and onto a peninsula and Goose Island State Park.

Magnolia Beach Birds and other Airborn Excitement

Roseate Spoonbill

 Quiet little spot on an inland waterway across the bay from Port Lavaca. This camping area is open to the public with free camping right on the shell covered beach, and a beautiful wetland just behind us.

Crested Caracara

Starting to look ugly out there

Reminds me a little of Jamestown Beach back home with a few scattered houses except they are all on stilts about 12 feet in the air. We settle in, get out our bikes, and do some exploring.

The marsh here has a small flock of Roseate spoonbills. So beautiful. Amazing pink colors. Also many hawks and herons. A sighting of the Crested Caracara too. (Photos stolen from web. My camera is not that good) Warm and sunny and very few bugs. Calm before the storm?

We are the blue dot, the pink box is the tornado warning area

 The next day the weather takes a detour. Thunderstorms form in this part of Texas with warm gulf air meeting cold air coming down the plains. Can't see them on radar until they are right there on top of you. Hard to predict. This part of the 'coastal bend' usually gets the worst of the weather. So it starts to get ugly around noon and by about 2 pm we are hearing the thunder and the lightening across the bay. Quite a show even in daylight hours. We check our radar maps and see that we are on the lower edge so it is forming north of us and looks like it is moving north and extending all the way up to Ohio. Wow, that is a big line of storms! We are indoors reading and cozy watching this storm. Then about 4pm it engulfs us too. We look at the radar again and see that we are in trouble. Constant thunder and lightening strikes all around us. Then a searing whistling sound, loud electrical crackles, blinding flash of light, percussion that rocks the van. Wow, not a direct hit but very, very close to us. Not so much fun now. Raining hard but still hot so we have to close windows and it makes us steamy even in our shorts and t's. We sit tight, unplug everything, turn off phones, and watch nearly constant bolts all around us.

By 5 pm the main bolts finally passes a little although there is still constant lightening. I turn on the phone (love that Iphone) to see the NOAA Radar again and see a tornado warning. Shit. It is 12 miles from us, but arrows show it is heading away from us ... then other arrows show adjacent storm cells going the other way. Storms are swirling around. Now what?

 Steve jumps out and quickly loads the bikes in case we need to make a fast exit. We can leave the other stuff behind if we need to. We get out maps and try to see where we might go if it moves our way. Nothing. We are about 25 miles from town and that road swings into the direction of the tornado watch anyway. It's dark. Most of the houses around us are vacant this time of year and up on stilts with no first floors. We decide that the concrete bathroom building a few hundred yards away, while small, and without doors, is our best evacuation plan.

We are not in a panic, but are not being stupid about this either. Other folks here on the beach too in various RVs, but with lightening and the dark there is no communication between us. No one dares venture out.  Since this is a free camping area there are no hosts or authorities around so we are on our own. We get out our weather radio and tune in the storm alert warning system. We wait. We watch. We sit in the dark and talk about the light show. We wait some more. We check the NOAA site again and see the tornado warning has been extended again. But now it looks like it is moving away from us to the south into Aransas Wildlife Refuge and then out over the water. Phew. We relax a little. We wait. Another 45 minutes passes and NOAA lifts the tornado warning. Lightening continues to move off a little farther south over the gulf and we see the sky lighting up for the rest of the night but the thunder is distant.

Exciting.
Good for our adrenalin production.
Clears out the sloggy spots in our circulation systems.
But don't want this level of excitement again.

We talk to one of our neighbors the next morning, he is about 300 yards away, and he says the big bolt hit behind us and in front of him. Too close. Don't think tornadoes are normally a big problem in this area, we see lots of hurricane evacuation plans to go way inland, but no tornado shelters. And we have not seen any tsunami warnings anywhere here. Guess that is just a west coast thing.

Weather is warm and sunny again the next morning just like nothing ever happened, and we stay for a few more days. Heading west again to see Aransas Wildlife (tornado ground zero) and the wintering whooping cranes and camp at Goose Island for a few nights. Maybe another Clash of the Titans thunderstorm coming on Sunday night, but we hope to be back on Padre Island by then. It seems to be a little like Sequim, with a blue hole, and the storms moving around it.
We hope.

Texas Bird Trail

This stretch of the Texas coast is full of marshes and wetlands, and refineries, and oil ports, and chemical plants, and divine beaches and great herons, fantastic birding, and big mosquitoes. What a combo.
Spent one night at Quintana Beach and Neo Tropical Bird Sanctuary. (Not sure what that means). Very tropical, palm trees, thatched huts, Hurricane Ike damage from 2008 nearly repaired. Oil tankers sliding by just over the trees to load and a large nitrogen plant out the other side. Very surreal.  Mosquitoes so bad they bite while you walk and through your shirt. So, guess we are in West Nile Virus country too. We don't usually like to use bug repellent, and what we had was probably 15 years old, and not very effective. So we stayed behind our screens and used their free wifi and took showers and limited our outdoor time. Next grocery stop we got the big can of spray and will just have to learn to deal with this in the wetlands areas. Padre Island had no bugs, so another reason to "go home" eventually.

Moved on to Matagorda Island Nature Park. 1600 acres of wetlands and beaches at the mouth of the Colorado River. Really like this place. Crowded when we arrived on Saturday as the Casita trailer club was here. Must have been 60 of those cute little rounded fiberglass rigs and several scamps too. They all left on Sunday and we settled in with only 4 or 5 rigs left in the campground. We can do long term stays here and they rent kayaks, but we need a rig to be able to get them into the east bay and wetlands and we are not good enough for any of the surf or ocean waves close by. Took a long bike ride on the beach and into the wetlands. Birding here is great. Lots of herons and egrets around us and sandpipers and plovers on the beach. Lots of hawks and falcons. Trying hard to identify them all. Wish we had a better camera to snap them for later study.
 Huge long dock goes out for fishing and folks are lined up and pulling them in regularly. Surf fishing without having to get wet! Water here is very silty and dark. Mosquitoes only bad early and late. We will head out today for Magnolia Beach and Aransas Wildlife Preserve to see the wintering whooping cranes. Supposedly the only place they are other than northern Canada in the summer. Then slowly moving our way back towards Padre. Can't seem to find a reason to leave this area. We will stay at least through the holidays and maybe much longer.

Doug and Frankie are on their way. After tolerating several weeks of gloom and rain they have made it through a hole in the weather, barely skirted through some of the CA downpour and will be here in a week or two. We are looking forward to camping with them. Good pals and a lot of fun.
Working on some of you also to come enjoy a winter break with us.


Life is short...., we are all getting old,  jump on new adventures while you can!