Our 2nd full week here in Rockport. Our
winter activities director has arrived so our schedules are beginning to fill!
Friends Bob and Sharon from Missouri arrived
Tuesday; David and Marihelen from northwest Texas arrived Thursday; Eugene and
Marjory, and Alice from South Dakota arrived Friday; and, Roger and Mary from Michigan arrived Saturday.
There will be more arriving weekly.
Temperatures were in the low 80s early in the week,
but cooled to the mid-70s later, bringing the humidity down, too. Oh, so nice!
Beautiful sunshine, a lovely breeze off the Gulf, and wonderful temperatures—just
like we like it!
We joined park friends at Ed and Angie’s for happy
hour on Monday and then had dinner at Whataburger. I didn’t feel like cooking,
and we’re always in the mood for one of their burgers. We had a buy-one-get-one
coupon from Dick’s trip to Seafair last week, so we made use of it. Yummy
stuff!
That evening Dick and I joined friends Bill and
Carole, Patti, and Carol at the clubhouse to play Pegs & Jokers—the first
of the season. Patti played as Patrick on the guys’ team. The gals won 2:1 over
the guys! What a way to start the year!
Tuesday morning we walked through the park and along
Fulton Beach Road, seeing a spoonbill, egrets, a great blue and a tricolored heron,
and an ibis in the park; along the road we saw a heron, egrets (one catching
and eating a fish), and a little kingfisher.
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| Ibis |
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| Roseate Spoonbills |
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| Tricolored Herons |
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| Great Blue Heron |
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| Great White Egret |
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| American Coots |
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| Great White Egret and a Little Egret |
Dick worked for most of
the day, and while he did that I made raspberry and white chocolate scones.
Boy, were they good!! Just before 4:00
we headed to Butch and Laura’s for happy hour. Having just arrived, this was
Bob and Sharon’s first happy hour of the year.
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| Panjos: Bob and Sharon, and Lynda |
Being a Tuesday, we
decided to continue our weekly tradition of pizza at Panjo’s. Bob and Sharon,
Lynda, and Dick and I ate our fill, with some to take home. YUM-YUM!
Dick walked the park
again on Wednesday, seeing egrets, ducks, a tricolored heron and ibis. It’s so
cool to see them in their natural habitat. While he was out I made chocolate
chip cookies—just one of Dick’s favorites. That evening he played Texas Hold’em,
coming home $2 to the good!
Thursday was laundry
day, after breakfast from Whataburger (love their breakfast sausage-egg-cheese
sandwiches!). The skies threatened rain all day, but didn’t open up ‘til just
before 4:00 when we were due at Prescott and Pat’s for happy hour. And, man,
did it rain! It wasn’t just a casual shower.
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| Happy Hour at Prescott and Pat's, in between the raindrops. |
That evening Bob and
Sharon, David and Marihelen, Dick and I tried out a new restaurant in town: the
TomCat Grill. Food was pretty good, but service a bit slow. We didn’t mind, though,
since we really enjoy one anothers company and spent the time laughing and
talking. We noshed on fried shrimp baskets, fish ‘n’ chips, and a
black-and-blue burger. It’s a BYOB eatery, so we had plenty of iced tea—both sweetened
and non-, and Pepsi. We’ll try that place again.
Friday morning, Dicks
walked the park and Fulton Beach Road. He saw herons, an ibis, egrets,
buzzards, a kingfisher, and pelicans.
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| Lark Sparrow |
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| Brown Pelican |
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| Fulton Beach Road vista and trees across the road--quite a contrast! |
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| Tricolored Herons |
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| Buzzards |
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| Kingfishers |
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| Me at the water along Fulton Beach Road, one of my favorite spots to sit and listen to the waves. |
After he worked for a while, he hopped on
the motorcycle, riding 50 miles through Aransas Pass, Portobello RV Park looking for Wisconsin friend Dave and Fulton,
before returning to the park. That evening happy hour was at Robin’s—there must’ve
been 35 people there! Fun times.
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| Happy Hour at Robin's |
Temperatures continued
to be pleasant through the weekend. Saturday morning we woke to 60°! Dick
worked and I finished up some knitting projects (I was able to block them
outside on the picnic table). So nice to be able to be outdoors!
After happy hour at
Butch and Laura’s, we went to dinner across the highway from the park to Stevie
Lew’s BBQ Kitchen, with Bob and Sharon, Lynda, and David and Marihelen. They have a
wonderful $6.99 rib plate special that some of us enjoyed; the rest had pulled
pork sandwiches. They all come with sides of potato salad, creamed corn, coleslaw, and/or beans. Good stuff! Stevie Lew’s also makes homemade vanilla ice
cream, cherry and peach cobbler, which was very tempting. All but Dick and I
had ice cream—some vanilla, some rocky road. We returned home stuffed!
Sunday morning we
attended First Baptist Church. Youth Pastor Jordan Mims brought the message
(Pastor Scott Jones was away for a week—he had just finished his doctorate, and
his father had passed away, so he needed a little break. Jordan’s message was
taken from Mark 1:1-20, entitled, Follow
the Way. Jesus tells us in this passage to do 3 things: Repent (requires
transformation of the mind to desire the reality of the Kingdom of God); Believe
(believe the truth of the Gospel and who Jesus is, and to trust Jesus for who
he claims to be); and, Follow Jesus (it’s more than following to arrive
at a destination, it’s more than just learning about Jesus and the Bible, and it’s
knowing that sometimes following will lead us into difficult situations).
After, we stopped in at
the Oyster House for breakfast. Dick had blueberry pancakes (as large as a
dinner plate!) and sausage, while I ordered corned beef hash and eggs. We’ll
probably go back…
Later that afternoon,
after watching a few hours of football, and before the Seattle Seahawks played,
we went to Steve and Marty’s for happy hour. Since the weather is so nice it’s
hard to spend too much time indoors!
That’s it for this
week. We’ll have more to report next week now that our activities calendar is
filling up. Stay tuned!
Hugs,
RJ and Gail
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