From our digs at Bay View RV we drove to the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History in downtown CC. There must not be too much science in this part of the world because most of the science exhibits were pistols, muzzle- and breech loading rifles, cannons and a truly great collection of minerals and crystals. They have some nifty historical stuff, too, like stagecoaches and wagons. I give the place a B-.
From there we wound around on some extremely circuitous Corpus Christi streets before heading back home through Ingleside where the waterfront is decorated with offshore platforms and really enormous cranes on barges and
pulled up to the docks. There are even bigger dockside cranes; the biggest I have ever seen. They are also building a huge tower structure that appears to be about 300′ or more across the base and shaped like a skinny pyramid that looks like they will float offshore and then stand up in deep water. More giant cranes in the yards here.

We drove the loop from Fulton to Rockport to Aransas Pass, over the free ferry to Port Aransas on Mustang Island, south to Padre Island National Seashore. From there we drove into (actually, sort of around) Corpus Christi and Portland and finally back to Aransas Pass to close the circle.
Peg & I both liked Fulton but Rockport is a conglomeration of really big beach houses owned by the affluent. Aransas Pass is unremarkable but the free ferry to Port Aransas is great fun and the wait was short. Port Aransas is about half Fulton and half Rockport.
The PINS is a big salt grass prairie which means it seems to be an enormous bog. There are tons of birds but the seashore looks very similar to other beaches with shitty surf.
The roads we took to skirt Corpus Christi were uncrowded. We shot right through. CC is an ordinary looking part of the world; no nifty architecture was noted. We did get some pix of a house being built in Rockport with a bit of masonry and a ton of Styrofoam wall units. No shear transfer or framing hardware could be detected. Don’t kick the walls when the place is done unless you want to make two rooms into one.
We made the return trip to the Invader through Fulton where we bought diesel for $2.449/gallon and stopped at the Boiling Pot for seafood. It was tip-top. The restaurant itself is decorated with extensive graffiti provided with by an international clientele. The tables are covered with butcher paper and they tie a bib on the customers because the food is messy. We had a Boudin sausage which was a bit lively followed by shrimp in the shell, corn and potatoes which they bring in a bowl and just dump onto the table. There are two or three sauces included along with melted butter for dipping. They also serve you bread with about ¼ pound of butter with which to lube it. We chased it all down with porter. Lucky they bibbed us up in advance because after pinching off the shrimp heads shit squirts everywhere. About $40 takes care of two adults.
On the way from the restaurant to the Invader, we decided to take a look at the Fulton Airport to see if we could find out what was making the droning noise we could sometimes hear in the RV park. The airport access road has a cattle guard; a concept we have not noted before in our travels. We did not find any aircraft-related reasons for the racket but we did discover a gas flare running in the trees between the airport and the campground. When we shut off the engine, we knew right away what was making the noise – the gas flare. There were houses near the flare. They must really appreciate the constant loud screeching of the flare which additionally provides illumination after dark from the pillar of fire atop the stack.

Driving day. We left San Benito and Fun N Sun for a little backtracking and ultimately on to Rockport, TX to the Bay View RV Park. Rockport is probably 40 minutes NE from Corpus Christi on the north end of the intracoastal waterway that extends from here back down to Brownsville. When we first arrived they assigned us a spot that was short and sloped left-to-right such that nobody would have sufficient blocks to lift both left tires about 4 or 5 inches. We drove back to the office and asked if we could just pick an empty space and they said okee-dokee. We ended up going to another loop and pulled into a beautiful site in a canopy of oaks. There were great doggles around which I promptly bribed with Pupper-Ronies. They dogs all thought I was a stand-up guy after that.
Peg got out the anti-gravity chaises while I hooked up the utilities. We spent a good part of the afternoon taking it easy in the the dappled shade of the oak canopy checking out the dogs, squirrels and birds.
Late in the afternoon Peg asked me what was the dull roar that you could hear when everything else was silent but I didn’t have the answer. It sounded like a distant plane engine but it never got closer or further away. Strange.

Horror of horrors, we did the wash. Fun N Sun’s washing machines and dryers were great and we were in and out in less than 2 hours.
We did a bit of prep for tomorrow’s departure.

We drove over to south Padre Island to give it a sniff. It is infested with tourist traps, overpriced restaurants and gigantic hotels that must cater to a tourist trade some other time of year because nobody was around any of them. Peg and I were equally unimpressed. We did find a restaurant called Rincon Something in Port Isabel which had great fish and shrimp and beans. Peg’s fries tasted packaged and frozen and the onion rings I had were nominal but everything else was tip-top. From Rincon Something we went back to the Invader.

We loafed all day. Our excuse may be bad-looking skies, drizzle or no excuse but we fucked off all day watching movies on TCM. No productive labor of any type noted.

We started our adventure today by going to the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, located on the muddy banks of the Rio Grande between Brownsville and McAllen, TX. Again we were obliged to enter w/o paying a fee as a benefit to the $80 access card we bought from the Feds in Gold Beach, OR last July. Another $10 we didn’t have to spend.
We climbed onto a tram that they drive around the refuge. If one does not tram the place, one gets to walk on trails but not the tram road & it was muddy from recent rains. The tram ride is great but the woman narrating kept reminding us that everything was connected (which it isn’t) and the usual crybaby spiel about how little of the coastal salt marsh is left.
There are tons of birds, even now in February. Around the visitor center they feed the birds and the place is jumping with red-winged blackbirds that make a variety of great sounds and have an amazing display when resolving disputes. The normal appearance is a black bird with a red border at the front border of the wing. When flying or having a dispute the birds show epaulets of yellow and orange that is very vivid. A gorgeous group of birdbrains.
We skedaddled from the SANWR to a Costco in McAllen or Pharr, TX. It is difficult to differentiate one from another. From there we headed home.

We went to eat at Cracker Barrel, a local chain, for breakfast. Their chicken-fried steak was nominal. No match for Jake’s in Bend or Dean’s in Clackamas. The rest of the food was good although we got some grits and they seem to be made from white lumpy spit. Perhaps I will get used to the acquired taste for this stuff. I anticipate it may take a while.
Across the street was a Bass Pro Shop which we decided we needed to see. It is a Costco-sized store devoted to fishing, a little sporting goods and some high-end apparel. Interesting but not up my alley.
The next stop was a Home Depot which initially even the Garmin could not find despite the ubiquitous paving. Back to the Invader for movies since the weather is still shitty but looks like it is improving. The sun came out just as it set.

We drove south to Boca Chica which is the southernmost spot in Texas. We ended up with the Brownsville port channel and some mud on our north side, the Gulf of Mexico to the east and the Rio Grande and some mud to our south. It was the first time for both Peg and me to be standing on US soil and be seeing an ocean other than the Pacific. Oceans look remarkably similar.
The drive from the freeway to Boca Chica is mostly through uninhabited area and there is a shitload of birds, most of which we have not seen before. We saw some Crested Caracaras, which are like big hawks or small eagles. Very impressive species.
We also drove through the Port of Brownsville where they had parked offshore platforms which are the biggest pieces of portable equipment I have ever seen. We continued to Port Isabel and then returned to the Invader.
All of the driving we are doing here with the Garmin as the navigator since the sky is overcast and my usually great sense of direction seems to be haywire and, despite paving everything, the Texans have created highways which only extend to places in which one has no interest or go in circles. They even have designated turnaround lanes since, no matter what direction you are pointed, your destination lies on some other vector and it is usually 180 degrees off.

Driving day. We awoke pretty early for us (+/- 7:00 AM), got the Barbarian Invader and Charlotte Taylor Wilson coupled up and departed Lake Medina for a state park campsite in some place called Three Rivers south of San Antonio.
Unfortunately, we did not elect to stay in that state park because it was ugly and we also saw a sign in the park telling us how to act nicely around the local alligators. Alligators? I never thought about alligators in Texas, probably since I am quite ignorant about the range of very large flesh-eating reptiles.
We continued south to the Harlingen, TX area and ultimately arrived at a park in San Benito strangely called “Fun N Sun. The staff was a bit bollixed up and we may have flubbed it because we initially made our reservation through RPI and this was an Encore park so they initially presented us with a bill for $308 for 7 nights which we told them we would resolve in the morning. RPI had quoted us a price of $215.
We reviewed our contract with TT which indicated we get 90 nights per year at $20 a night in Encore parks. We called RPI and Encore, got the reservation unfucked, went to the office and resolved the whole thing for $154/week including tax.
Getting the Invader set up was challenging in that the first spot we got was too short, the next one had no power but the third one worked out without too many issues.