Time Flies When We Are Watching For Birds!

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Eleven days have passed since I last typed a post in this blog.  I knew it had been a while, but did not realize it had been so long!

Once again we have run into some problems with Wi-Fi connections.  On March 25th, I finally worked out how to reactivate the portable Broadband-2-Go we purchased several years ago, so that we have another option from our trailer, when service for it is available wherever we happen to be.

Since my last post, we have put some miles on the Honda and Casita, traveling from Galveston to Sargent, Texas and the Caney Creek RV Park - a happy find - to Port Aransas, Texas on Mustang Island, where Kurt and Tom Rieger will be sculpting sand later in April at the Texas Sand Fest.  From Port Aransas, we drove to San Antonio for two nights, then stayed in Balmorhea, Texas near Fort Stockton; Deming, New Mexico; and Sierra Vista, Arizona where we are now.  Tomorrow, we will move to Tucson for several days to a week. 

On the way to Caney Creek RV Park, we explored the drive-through San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge, where we saw our first ever Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher.  Amazing!!  We spent two nights along Caney Creek in Sargent, a tiny fishing town on the Gulf Coast.  The creek, more like a slow river, flows to the gulf through a network of canals lined by houses on both sides.  It looked very European to my untraveled imagination.  We parked under a wonderful shade tree at the park, slapped off the most annoying no-see-ums and midges, and did laundry and bookwork.  Every so often we need to take such an "administrative" day.  Duffy was doing his work for Kurt while I laundered away, cleaned the trailer a bit, and other such things that needed doing.  We did see a few birds in the campground and along the gulf shore. 

April is apt to be more of a "migrant" month than March has been, when we might find birds that are moving from winter grounds to summer climes.  But alas, here we are now, not in April.  Nonetheless, we did see some impressive sights, including the bird Port Aransas and Aransas National Wildlife Refuge are famous for:  the Whooping Crane.  There are only about 600 of these cranes left in the wild, and they spend winters at Aransas NWR, where they are protected.  We stayed at the I.B. McGee Park run by Nueces County, right off the Port Aransas Beach.  From here we could explore several different areas noted for birding:  LeonaBelle Turnbull Wildlife Reserve, The Sanctuary at Charlie's Pasture, the shore for wading birds, and other areas on Mustang Island.

On the morning we left Port Aransas for Corpus Christi, we took time to wash the grime and road dirt off our new trailer and Honda.  A futile effort.  It takes no time at all to collect oil, grease, dirt and tar from the road.  Now we look like new with a sparkling spit shine.  The road to Corpus Christi crosses the inter-coastal waterway by bridge.  Bound for San Antonio, we spent no time in this bird paradise, but said "goodbye" to the gulf coast leaving the road to Brownsville, Texas for another year's adventures in birding. 

We set up camp swiftly at the San Antonio KOA and planned our tourist attack on the city's famed areas.  The next morning, we gamely left the Honda at the campground in favor of a city bus ride into town.  Dropped off at the Alamo, we made that historic park and battlefield our first destination.  Both Duffy and I were impressed with the "development" of the Alamo into a park and museum.  A portion of the old brick walls have been converted into a shrine and is an active restoration project.  A conservator meticulously cleaning and restoring the walls by way of scaffolding discovered "new" inscriptions and evidence of colored designs (frescoes of a sort much like wainscot-level stenciling) not before detected on some of the interior walls and others, giving dates of establishment of the mission and of the battle at the Alamo.  The grounds are a well-preserved and maintained garden of enormous, historic oak trees, and cacti reaching well above our heads in some cases - like the 10-14 foot high blooming Yucca that must be very old.

Next, we strolled the Riverwalk amidst an array of umbrellas of bright primary colors sheltering outdoor diners, passed rows of potted Bougainvillaea, Petunias, Impatiens, Bird of Paradise, and Hibiscus, and listened to the music of water flowing from fountains.  Truly beautiful.  The place was teeming with people - tourists, joggers, business-men and -women enjoying lunch by the river.  Tourists floated by in flat boats operated by a guide giving history lessons to boaters and bystanders alike.

While we enjoyed the Riverwalk, our feet and backs complained.  A Mexican Restaurant, the Guadalajara Grill (shades of our trip there in 2010), was just the place to rest our bodies, fill our stomachs and quench our thirsts.  We bought tickets for the downtown on/off trollies labeled red, blue or yellow route, each circling the business center in a different direction, providing alternate views of San Antonio.  We road until we were tired of riding, walking and sightseeing, found the city bus that would return us to the KOA and boarded it on the same ticket used for the trollies, a pretty good deal.  Tomorrow, a new day and a new destination.

From San Antonio, we began to push harder for Tucson, adding additional miles to our drives each day.  From Central Texas we drove to Balmorhea in West Texas, where we camped at Balmorhea State Park, boasting the largest swimming pool in the country, if not the world, spring fed by San Solomon Spring.  I wish I could have taken a picture, but the pool, closed for cleaning, had been drained; the grounds closed for safety.  Good photos of it exist on the park's website.  Holding somewhere around 26 million gallons of water, it must be quite a site to see in operation.  The water that flows through is diverted to the Cinegas (slow moving water in Spanish) in the park that are home to waterfowl and other birds, endangered and protected guppies and pupfish as well as catfish, sunfish and others, and a variety of mammals.  The water that flows out of the Cinegas flows into Balmorhea Lake or is used for agriculture in the area.

The next day we drove through Van Horn, Texas where we stayed on our way to pick up our Casita.  This time we had a late breakfast, more like brunch, and filled the gas tank, pushing on through El Paso and Las Cruces, NM to Deming where we stayed at the Little Vineyard RV Park.  We stayed at this same campground last year on our way to Oklahoma and met a couple from New England with a new Casita.  A visit inside their Casita helped convince us to buy ourselves the new one we are using today. 

It was here in Deming that we learned by way of CaringBridge.com that our good and true friend Don lost his battle with leukemia after a valiant fight of more than a year.  Words fail to describe our sense of loss and caring for Peggy as she faces life alone in the days to come.  Our drive was quiet and thoughtful, each of us, Duffy and me, letting the news settle in.  Still, we drove on to Sierra Vista via Tombstone, Arizona, which is where this writing finds us at the Mountain View RV Park in Huachuca City, AZ just to the north.

Until Next Time...
Pam