Bay View RV Resort – Rockport, Texas – March 24-31, 2014

Winter in Texas is quickly drawing to a close. Although the calendar says the end of March, the weather is still chilly, foggy, and not a bit like Spring. Monday and Tuesday were damp, chilly and definitely more like a Texas winter day, with temperatures only in the low to mid-50s. However, there are still things of beauty that make us smile, like these flowers that we see while on our walks.

Healthwise, we are both feeling better. I’m attributing my ailment of Sunday (yesterday) to allergies, and although I was still being bothered with some congestion, I was much better. My voice had almost returned to normal. Dick was still battling coughing and congestion from his bout with bronchitis; his antibiotics had run out Sunday. What we really need is sunshine and warm weather!

Rain came Wednesday, but also with warmer temps. It was already over 60 degrees by 8 a.m. That afternoon we joined Bill and Carole, Jamie and Ann, Jim and Patsy for Pegs and Jokers at the clubhouse. The women took the men 2:1. Coolio! This was followed by happy hour, and the last dinner of the season at the clubhouse: hotdogs, coleslaw, baked beans, chips, and soda.

Thursday morning we woke to a cloudy but warm morning: 67 degrees at 7:30. The weather people said it would clear by noon, which it did. We walked along Fulton Beach Road and through our RV park for about an hour that morning. As we walked along the road, we noticed a stroke-impaired woman walking, then noticed she lost her balance and veered into a ditch. Dick ran to give her assistance, but she had made it back up to the road by the time we got to her. Thankful she wasn’t hurt…just muddy and wet.

We certainly weren’t disappointed with our venture into “birding” as we walked that morning.  Along Fulton Beach Road we saw a cormorant, blue herons, and the ever-present egret. Then, as we strolled through the park grounds, we saw 9 spoonbills, more ducks, a blue heron, and turtles. They were all out enjoying the day! And, here's a video of spoonbills feeding. We love watching them--they're so entertaining!

Spoonbills feeding

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks

Blue Heron

Cattle Egret

Looks like a loon, but it's a Double-Crested Cormorant
with a fish

Egret

Guinea Fowl that Dick saw on a motorcycle ride this week

Redhead ducks and Buffleheads

Spoonbills

Loggerhead Shrike

Just one of the dozens of turtles gracing our ponds

That afternoon, we played Pegs and Jokers yet again, with Bill and Carole, and Jamie and Ann. Unfortunately for the gals, we could not draw the right cards to give us any wins at all. We lost to the guys 4:0. Dang!

Friday morning dawned with heavy fog and 68 degrees, but the sun did come out by 10 a.m. Was a perfect day to enjoy the day outside reading. We were expecting friends Ron and Kathryn from Fredericksburg, Texas to join us in the park some time that day, to stay for a few weeks. (We enjoyed dinner with them at Moondogs a couple of weeks ago.) They arrived around 4:30, just as we were enjoying happy hour at the clubhouse. They secured a spot directly across from us, recently vacated by Bob and Sharon. So good to see them again!

Ron and Kathryn's 5th Wheel

Ron with Jiggers

That evening Dick and I met my cousin David (Minnesota) and his wife Monica, and their friends Dave and Joan (also from Minnesota), at Charlotte Plummer’s Restaurant on the water in Fulton, for dinner. What a treat to have visiting family from Minnesota! David and Monica were down in “the valley” near Dona, Texas visiting Monica’s parents who were wintering there. It was a short visit, but sure was fun!

L to R: Cousin David and wife Monica,  Joan and Dave,
me and Dick

Dessert at Charlotte Plummers: Chocolate Silk Pie

The sun was shining brightly Saturday morning, with temperatures already in the 60s by 8 a.m. No fog—no humidity! We walked along Fulton Beach Road for about 40 minutes, but saw only an egret. When we returned, we visited with Ron and Kathryn for a while during the park’s craft sale that morning. Kathryn was happy--she bought a couple pair of earrings.

That afternoon, we spent time on our patio with Steve and Karen (Wisconsin). They were getting things packed up for their departure on Monday. It’s so good to make lasting friendships; we’ll see them in the fall when we all return to Rockport.

That evening Dick had to go to the office to do a bit of work. When he was returning to the camper after dark he came upon some deer (there were at least 3) walking through the park. Wish he could’ve gotten a photo.

Sunday was another beautiful day. The sun was shining; there was a slight breeze…beautiful. We attended the 8:30 church service; the message, taken from John 17, was on the prayers of Jesus and how his prayers focused on giving, sending, and sanctifying. The bottom line is that those who reflect the unity Christ prayed about in this scripture, are those who are consecrated to his purpose. Here’s a link to the message: http://fbcrockport.net/online-sermons/

After church we had breakfast at Caroline’s Turtle Bay Café. Guess I needed another corned beef hash fix! And, Dick needed a bacon pancake (filled a dinner plate!) with cinnamon butter. YUM! That afternoon we just had to have ice cream at the ice cream social, followed by more Pegs and Jokers. The game is usually played with 6 or 8 players, but this day we extended it to 10! Women won 2:0! Yippee-skippee!! We played with Bill and Carole, Ron and Kathryn, Jim and Patsy, Art, and Alice. Fun times!

I’m extending this blog to include Monday, to start the next on tomorrow, April 1. Monday we said goodbye to Steve and Karen (Wisconsin), and to Larry and Terri (Michigan). There were 32 campers pulling out today. Winter Texans are heading out…sad…

Dick and I walked Fulton Beach Road again…so beautiful with the sun shining and a wonderful breeze (more like a wind!) off the Gulf. Oh, how we love this place! Afterward, while Dick worked on stuff for the park, I sat outside reading, and just enjoying the day. The park was so quiet.

After Kathryn and I made a quick trip to H.E.B., a Texas-based grocery store, Ron and Kathryn went with Dick and me to Panjo's for pizza. Again, I say, YUM! While we were there, a gal in the booth behind us attempted to move the bench I was sitting on, not realizing that hers and mine were attached. That precipitated a conversation with her about where she and her husband were from: Two Harbors, Minnesota! Their names were Curt and Mary Joy and, they know friends of ours from Two Harbors (Don and Gloria, and Dwight and Rogene), whom we met while camping in Grand Portage, Minnesota! Small world! 

That’s it for this week. Hope Spring comes quickly for you all!

Sunset over the Bay View pond

Hugs,

RJ and Gail

(P.S.: Happiest of Birthdays to MacKenzie, who turns 13 today! We love you!)

Bay View RV Resort – Rockport, Texas – March 17-23, 2014

Winter just doesn’t want to leave us alone. It’s St. Patrick’s Day and the temperatures were a very chilly 48 degrees when we got up. Where, oh where is the sunshine and 80 degrees? We feel we need to don our woolen knickers and mufflers before we venture out!

Last week I mentioned that Dick had come down with a terrible cold. He’s still suffering (as am I from listening to him cough and hack day after day…). However, Monday he finally decided to see a doctor, only to get the diagnosis that it was bronchitis. A visit to the pharmacy at our local Walmart, he comes away with antibiotics, codeine-based cough syrup, as well as over the counter cough syrup. They’ll all either cure him or kill him!

While he was gone I made coconut crème bread pudding for the St. Patty’s Day potluck dinner at the clubhouse that evening. Dinner was preceded by happy hour; almost everyone, Irish or not, donned their Irish finery to celebrate—but not quite like Blinky (Ida) or Fuzzy and Judy!

Ida's earrings and necklace blinked --
hence, her name," Blinky."

You may be interested in a little history of St. Patrick.

As you know, on St Patrick's Day it is customary to wear shamrocks and/or green clothing or accessories to continue the tradition of the "wearing of the green”.  St. Patrick is said to have used the 3-leafed shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagan Irish. Much of what is known about St. Patrick comes from the Declaration, allegedly written by Patrick himself. It is believed that he was born in Roman Britain in the fourth century, into a wealthy Roman-British family. His father was a deacon and his grandfather was a priest in the Christian church. According to the Declaration, at the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Gaelic Ireland, where he spent six years there working as a shepherd. It was that during this time he "found God". The Declaration says that God told Patrick to flee to the coast, where a ship would be waiting to take him home. After returning to Ireland, Patrick went on to become a priest, and worked to convert the pagan Irish to Christianity. The Declaration says that he spent many years evangelizing in the northern half of Ireland and converted "thousands". Tradition holds that he died on 17 March and was buried at Downpatrick. Over the following centuries, many legends grew up around Patrick and he became Ireland's foremost saint. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick's_Day)

During happy hour, friend and resort neighbor, Steve, entertained with his guitar and voice.
 

Larry and Steve (on guitar)

L to R: Margaret, Sharon, (Gene in background),
Gail, Marcy and Lyn

And, the park “artists” showed their work. During the winter, one of the activities was a painting class taught by Lyn Bezemek (Michigan), who is also the resort chef when she’s here. This year the class attendees painted cowboy boots and scenery; here’s a sampling of their work.

Lyn prepared a fabulous Irish stew, while the rest of the dinner was supplied by resort campers. There were salads of various kinds, and of course, desserts. YUMMY!

Dick spent a terrible Monday night, coughing and hacking for most of the night. Finally drugged enough, he slept fitfully, of course keeping me awake, too. Oh, the crosses one must bear for loved ones!

Tuesday’s weather was beautiful, reaching the low 70s with sunshine most of the day. That afternoon our friends Karen and Steve, and Marty and Steve joined us at our camper for happy hour outside. We so enjoy their friendship; there’s never a shortage of conversation.

It appeared that the weather was finally turning around. Wednesday was another beautiful day with temperatures reaching almost 70. Dick is on day 3 of his antibiotics and we’re seeing a little improvement in his health. That afternoon, prior to happy hour at 4 p.m., we joined Jamie and Anne, Alice, Bill and Carole, and Art for a couple rounds of Pegs and Jokers.  Men and women tied 1:1. Dinner was spaghetti and meatballs, salad and bread. Yum! And, I didn’t have to cook!

Dick worked for a good part of the day Thursday, on things for the Resort office. I did some things around the camper, then spent a good part of the day knitting. That evening, as a “last supper” of sorts before friends Marty and Steve, and Lawrence and Ann leave, we decided to get a group together to eat at Hatfield’s Barbeque in Rockport. We noshed on ribs and brisket, potato salad, green beans and corn on the cob all the while entertained by a local musician (who sounded a lot like Willie Nelson).

L to R: Marty, Karen, Anne, Judy, Gary, Lawrence
Steve, Dick and Steve

Afterward, Lawrence and Ann, and Gary and Judy headed down the road to Ingleside to play bingo, while the rest of us hit the local Dairy Queen to top off our meals with dessert. No disappointment there!

Dick had another bad night, due mainly to BBQ indigestion we think. (Gosh, I hate when he’s not feeling well!) After breakfast Thursday morning we walked about 2½ miles along Fulton Beach Road, seeing our friends the blue heron, redhead ducks and a spoonbill. When spoonbills fly the pink in their feathers seem to be amplified 100-fold to the brightest pink—just beautiful! 

One of the highlights of the walk was watching a blue heron “dine” on his catch of the day—looked like a small catfish. Here are two videos taken of this delightful scene (someone walking too close to the heron scared him away in the first one).

Part I - Heron eating fish

Part II - Heron eating fish

We needed a few items at Walmart, and Dick wanted to pick up a t-shirt for friend Bob in Washington, so after our walk he took off on the motorcycle to do his shopping. While out, he stopped at the Rockport Cemetery to take more photos of the wildflowers growing in abundance there (see last week’s blog). He also stopped at the local farmers market to pick up yet another bag of grapefruit (our 8^th  since we arrived in November); we have just another couple of weeks until grapefruit season is pretty much over….sad…)

George Fulton was founder of Fulton, Texas; for more
information on this great man of Texas, go to
this site.

Alby's, a local fish market, buys tons of oysters from the oyster boats coming in to Fulton Harbor from Copano Bay, then shuck them and sell them. This is just one of their piles of oyster shells behind their establishment.

Friday evening we had dinner at the Boiling Pot Restaurant with friends Larry and Terri (Michigan). The Boiling Pot is a unique place: white paper is spread over the table, and after you’re seated a bib is placed around your neck by the wait staff. Décor is hand-drawn pictures and notes written the white paper and tacked to the walls and ceiling. Seafood is plentiful with your choice of full meal deals with Dungeness, blue and king crab, shrimp, crawfish, sausage, corn on the cob, and red potatoes; or individual selections of shrimp, crawfish or crab. We split a full meal deal among the four of us, without crawfish, and did not go away hungry! Larry and I also ordered gumbo, but it was so spicy and rich I couldn’t eat it all there. (I wanted to save room for the other good stuff!)  The pot of seafood is literally dumped on the table for us; no utensils here--just fingers and wooden mallets! Loaves of fresh wheat bread were in abundance, too, to help assuage the spicy-ness of the dinner. Seasoned Cajun-style, the food was really good—and plentiful! YUM!

After dinner we headed to another local eatery, Alice Faye’s on the Bay restaurant, located along the water in Fulton. While we enjoyed the ever-good margaritas, we were entertained by Jul and The Chrome Wheels Band. They’re an acoustic duo that “plays a variety of popular rock/funk/blues/country/reggae----and more”. Apparently, they also have a larger band, not with them this night. They were pretty good! Thanks, Larry and Terri for a really fun evening!

Saturday—day 6 for Dick on antibiotics. We were finally seeing a real turn in his health, so much so that we took a walk along Fulton Beach Road to see what we could see. Although a bit foggy, we did see egrets, buzzards, a couple of blue herons, an osprey and a loon (yup, they winter down here). It’s almost the last for the flowering yucca plants, too.

Osprey

Buzzards

That evening was an end-of-the-year get together for all us “Winter Texans,” held at the clubhouse. We all brought snacks to share, and our beverage of choice, all the while listening to the juke box and chatting away. A game of Pass the Aces was going on, as well—as I said there is never a shortage of things going on around here! I made “olive cheese puffs” for our contribution to the snack table. They really went over well; a good time was had by all.

These tables were loaded with snacks for
the get-together.

Pass the Aces

Sunday we say goodbye to Lawrence and Ann, as they head north to home in Canada. After breakfast with Marty and Steve at Copano Bay Café, we also say so long to them, as they head out to Lake Charles, Louisiana and on to Florida before they go north to home in Michigan. So sad to say goodbye, but the next 7 months will go by quickly, when we’ll be reunited here at Bay View.

If you know Dick and me at all, you know we share just about everything...including maladies. I woke up Sunday morning with a scratchy throat and a voice that sounded like it was coming from “way down under…” I wasn’t really coughing; I just sounded bad. We’ll let you know next week how this progressed, or if I was able to beat it. Stay tuned!

That’s it for this week. Hope all is well with you. Drop us a line; we’d love to hear from you, and what’s going on in your lives!

Hugs,

RJ and Gail