One more Rockport memory......

And then I think I've told you about everything we did.
I loved the Heritage district (what I would call their Main Street). Altho there is a shopping strip with all the regular today stores.... like Walmart, Sears, McDonalds etc. Rockport's downtown is so very quaint and charming.
One thing I did admire down there was their unabashed love of COLOR. They are certainly not shy about using it anywhere and everywhere. Not only do they paint their little stores in bright oranges and greens and purples....but many of the older small shanty homes boast the same wild shades. Sometimes we would be just driving around in the residential district and looking at all the regular homes.....then wham.... suddenly there sits *shartruse*!!
Or tourquoise! It was so fun.
Can you imagine living in one of those homes? I bet the people are a blast. haha

See the General Store? (purple with yellow posts by the tourquoise store) That's where I bought my Jim Shore figurines.

Don't forget you can click on the pics to enlarge them.

The day after Easter....

I hope you all had a good Easter. After church Dan, Gina and kids came for dinner and spent the day. Alivia modeled her prom dress. It is even prettier 'in person'. And Scotty surprised us by stopping by for a bit. It was so good to see him.

I've been putting the boarders on my Old World Santa's redwork. I know how I want to quilt the sashings and the background but still haven't settled on what to do with the outer border. I'll keep thinking and looking at it and It'll come to me.

I've got to start de-cluttering my sewing room. It seems like it has gotten much smaller since we came home. heehee I just have too much *other stuff* in there and I need to reorganize a bit.

Perhaps a Garage Sale. Maybe?

Maybe not?

Schoenstatt Shrine.

I thought I'd tell you about the Shrine we went to while we were gone.

Across the bridge from Rockport is the tiny town of Lamar. This is the place that has the huge tree that I told you about in an earlier post.

And... there is a 100 year old Catholic church and this Schoenstatt Shrine. (Schoenstatt translated from the German language means: beautiful place.) And it's setting is just that.

From the outside it looks like just a small little building. But the inside has this ornate wood carved altar and there are only about three pews on each side so it is very small. Just right for a quiet peaceful meditation.

This is where the Sisters come each day for their devotions. And if you notice (in the top pic) the door is open. They were there praying. They began to come in to pray just as we were leaving the building.

We walked to one of the quiet spots they have along a path. This is just one of the small areas they have scattered along the path.

This was just one of those small days that we had and quietly enjoyable. Just wanted to share with you.

Another memory....

As I've already told you.....one of our favorite things to do and places to go was to the Rockport harbor. There was a cement wall there and we could park along it and watch the fishermen and the far distant ships and even saw my first dolphin there.

And of course the GULLS!!

Loved feeding those birds. In this pic Don had just threw out a whole piece of bread and they were all after it. (click the pic to enlarge) See the closest bird to his knee? That's the first one to grab it. And then the fight ensued!! Talk about screeching and screaming. :)

When we first started feeding them we would just throw pieces of the bread out at them and they would dive for it. But finally, after several tries....I was able to hold the bread in my fingers and they would swoop in and grab it from me. Kinda scary at first!!

And then there's these two clowns.... I guess they wanted an up-close-and-personal look at what was going on inside. heehee They stayed there until we were ready to leave. The one on the right was really lazy tho. I would throw pieces toward him....and if the bread didn't land right by him so he could just reach out and get it....he didn't bother.
He sure didn't exert himself.

On our way home this foggy day we drove by this Great Blue Heron just hunkered down by the water. The fog was so thick that day and I missed getting a pic of the cluster of ducks that we saw. Looked like they were in the sky (we couldn't make out the water) :)

I'll post more later. Bye for now.

Texas State Aquarium

Thought I'd catch up on a few of the activities we did before we left Rockport. One day we drove to Corpus Cristi to the Aquarium. It was very easy to get to since it's right on the North side of Corpus (which is where we were coming from).

It is a very small .... but very well put together..... attraction. I was able to get a wheelchair to get around and there was an elevator to go to the lower level. They schedule several different presentations throughout the day.

One of the presentations was Dolphin training. There were three gals that demonstrated how they train them and we watched from the outside the pool. We later went down behind the 'rocks' where there was a huge underground viewing window.

This is before the show started and we were just waiting.

Here are a just a couple of the many many pics I took as we watched the 2nd show down below thru the big window.

There were three male dolphins and this pic was taken after the show was over and they were just swimming around.

This is one of the dolphins playing with a ball. He would grab this ball and lay it down on the bottom of the tank .... then roll his body along the ball all the way down to his tail till the ball would pop out and float to the top. Before it would get to the top he would turn around and grasp it again and start all over with his rolling the ball. He did this over and over again. Sometimes he wouldn't be fast enough and the ball would make it to the surface. Then he would grab it as he flew out of the water and zoomed back to the bottom. Fascinating. We stayed down there and watched them 'play' until they put them into the other pool for the night.

This was one of our memory highlights.

There was one section that had 7 to 10 tanks of different jellyfish. I tried to get pics but I couldn't take a clear one. I tried over and over and not one of the pics would turn out. See how blurry. They were ALL like that. I finally gave up and figured it must be because they give off an electrical current that disrupts the water. ???

Anyway.... each tank had a different kind of jellyfish. Some glowed different colors and they were all different sizes. Awesome!

Another tank we saw had these....

Seahorses! I was surprised how big they are. See Don's head?

And one more tank..... This pic is only of the far right side of the tank. This was huge tank and it was where another demonstration was given. A diver went in the water and hand fed the fish as a lady outside told what she was feeding and the type of food that each fish ate.

In this pic you can see the Sea Turtle, a Stingray and the very elusive Mora eel. They only come out to eat in the late afternoon. Otherwise they stay hidden in the rocks and caves.

We're home....

Seems like forever since I've posted. Of course I was without a computer!! And of course Paul didn't stand behind what he said he would do. He never did send the mother board. So I just had to shut down the puter and wait till I got home to post any more.

We left Rockport a day early to avoid the rain and pulled into Grand Prarie on Thursday evening. We spent 10 days at Loyd Park in Grand Prarie to visit with Deb, Jim and Jessi. Our campground was about 8 miles from their house and easy to get to. I'm starting to get around a bit better each time we go to DFW area and getting more familiar with the major roads.

We all went to see "The Bucket List" and ate popcorn and drank pop and loved the show.
During our whole stay we ate lots of good food (and some soup that was not so good) heehee.
One day for lunch Deb took us to the Cheesecake Factory. OMGosh!! Delicious!!
Don helped Deb put edging around her flower bed and lay in lava rock. I supervised. :) It looks nice. Jim drove us around to see some of the sites and we went to a small up-town grocery store. Not like our grocery stores around here. More like a bread-dessert bakery-deli -cheese and meat counter that sells wine and unusual condiments. Yum Yum Yum.

We started home on Sunday and stopped overnight at Newton. It feels so good to be home!! We've spent the last two days getting the camper emptied and things put away. Poor Don!! He has to do all the carrying since I can't do that much because of my knee.
So I'd better get back to organizing things again.
I'm off.

It's a foggy morning...

Good morning all. I'm still babying this thing along. Grrrrr!!! Haven't yet received my new mother board from Paul so I can fix this. I've even had my two USB ports go out on me for several days. So I lost my external mouse and my WiFi booster. But they're back again this morning so I can at least navigate around at a bit faster speed.

I'm not going to post any new pics till I'm fixed since I'll probably loose them all when I replace the board. Now that really makes me mad!!@#$%@! ;)

Sunday we wanted to go back to the Island again. So we headed out and was merrily driving along....till we got about 1 mile from the ferry landing. Whoe!! Traffic!!! The line was backed up for a mile to get on the ferry to cross. We turned around and decided to make it another day.
We did a little driving tour of Aransas Pass and saw a sunken fishing boat. Other than being along the water the town is just like any other town.
I'm still very fond of the quaintnes of Rockport and their multi-colored buildings and houses.

Monday we drove down to Corpus Cristi to see the Texas Aquarium. LOVED IT!!! I'll post more about it later when I can safely post pics.

The rest of the week has been rather uneventful. Just regular stuff like laundry and groceries etc etc.
I did go to the quilt store yesterday. I want to make a wall hanging in remembrance of our trip down here so I bought some fabrics that I think will tell my story. Now to just get the design out of my head and into the fabric. May take awhile. :)
Bye for now all.
Humidity: 100% in very foggy 68 degree Rockport.

I'm still hanging on here.....

Gosh....it's been almost a week since my last post. Sorry about that. After we went to the Refuge the next few days were very very uneventful so I really didn't have anything to tell you. We just stayed around the camper and I stayed off my leg. I had one day that almost had me wanting to just give up and go home so I could get to my Dr.
But the next day the knee felt a little better and I could walk better so..... we're still here. Yeah!!

I do want to tell you about the day we drove down to Aransas Pass and took the ferry over to the island again. That ferry is a blast! heehee
We had been told that was the best place to go see lots of dolphins.....and yep ..... we did. Found a parking place along the channel and sat and watched the barges and boats come and go and saw several dolphins. Of course they were all over by the other side! None of them were on our side so they were really too far away to get any pictures.
An old gentleman came along and started talking to us. Such a small world we live in. He's from Lawrence.!! And his wife's sister's husband has relatives from P-burg. He couldn't remember their names tho. hahaha
Anyway....he told us about a better place to go to see even more dolphins. It's called the City Park. Basically a road that runs along the channel with parking spots and grass and benches and a walk-out pier.
The old man was right. They were all over in that channel. I took lots of pics.... and had to delete a whole bunch because I missed the shot. haha Here are just a few of the ones I did get.

The second pic was in a little cove that people park their boats and there were at least three of the dolphins that swam in there and stayed a bit. They were probably only about 30 yards away from shore. What a blast!!
Do you see the birds on the rocks? I didn't even know they were there until I saw the pic. heehee I was so engrossed with the dolphins.
We stayed there the rest of the afternoon and watched a lot of boats come in. Then there was this BIG ship that came in called the Texas Treasure. It's a gambling ship. Can you believe it? People actually pay lots of money to go out in the ocean on that ship so they can stay below and *gamble*!! Criminy!!
See the tug boat? It was there to shove the ship closer to shore to connect to the pier. Very very interesting watching it inch it's way to shore.
On another subject......
I hope I can limp along with this puter for the next several days. I've never really thought it was quite right ever since I got it. And two days ago it locked up and I had a terrible time with it.
Well to make a long story shorter....I did manage to finally get to talk to Paul and he is sending me down a new mother board and will walk me through installing it. So until then I'll be babying this thing along.
So if I don't post it will probably be because I can't.
Grrrrrrrr!!!!!!
from cloudy and slightly cool Rockport.
Have a great day!!

Our day Friday....

We drove up to Aransas Wildlife Refuge for the day. It's pretty good size and it's where the majority of the Whopping cranes winter. There is soooo much information about the Whoopers but I'll try to condense just a bit here for you.
Whooping cranes stand nearly 5 feet tall and their wing span measures about 7 1/2 feet across. They are unique to North America and became almost extinct due to their food source turning to farmland) and hunters mistaking them for other birds. In 1941 there were only 16 whoopers left that wintered in South Texas. The Aransas National Wildlife Refuge was created in 1937 to protect them. Over the years there has been a steady rise in numbers to over 450 in North America today. Aransas NWR hosts the largest flock of wintering whooping cranes in North America with over 280 birds last year.
Well there you go.... the details in a condensed version. I was really excited to go see some of them.
When we first drove in there was a visitors center with several displays set up with all the animals and birds that live there. Very interesting.
Then we went back to the pickup and coming right up the road by us was this armadillo. He wasn't nervous about us at all. In fact Don was able to walk right up to him.

We drove along a few viewing spots then decided to stop for lunch. I had packed some cheese, fruit and crackers so we stopped in a designated picnic area right by the water and under lots of oaks. As we sat there eating we both noticed several other people looking and pointing to something. We walked around our truck and saw a javelina right by another table of people.
I took several pics.....

He was very used to people and sure seemed to know where food was. There was another group there that had a dog and the pig wanted to go right for the dog. The owner had to keep shooing him away.
Then we drove down to the viewing tower. I (very slowly) managed to walk up to the top. Thankfully it was a ramp and not stairs. From there we could see a long way and finally I spotted three white spots. As they started walking I could tell they were big whoopers (by the size of them). It was so far away that I didn't even try for a pic. They must have been at least 1/2 to 3/4 mile away.
Back to the pickup and we drove thru the rest of the refuge looking for alligators.
No luck. Bummer!! But we did at least see a baby gator while we were at the visitors center. A lady that worked there brought it out to show us. He was about 10 - 12 inches long.
My goal for the day was to see Wooping Cranes and alligators....so I guess we did both. Even tho not exactly what I had planned for.

We came back and decided to stop for a quick bite and decided to go to the boat docking area. We found a ramshackle place called MoonDog and went in to order. It was a bar with an outside seating area and an enclosed patio area that could be opened in nice weather and then the inside bar area. We wanted to sit outside....but quickly changed our minds because it was too cold. We did sit in the enclosed patio. I had crab cakes and they were delicious!! A tad bit more expensive than hamburgers. But at least now I can say that we've dined at most of the seafood places. :)

After eating (when we came out to our truck) Don noticed one of the tires was a bit low. So this morning we found a place to go and they fixed it.
Now time for lunch and we're off to buy more groceries.
Have a great weekend all
from much much warmer and not so windy Rockport.

Another Bird story. heehee

Good morning everyone. Yesterday Don wanted to get a haircut so I checked out a couple of stores close to the barber shop. Lots of candles, lotions, knick-knacks, wall things etc. The last store I went in had a real nice display of Jim Shore figurines. OMGosh they are sooooo nice. I finally decided on 'just one'. This is what I bought. I may go back for more! :)

Then we went to the bay wall again and not many fishing. It was pretty windy and the tide was out. But we took some bread and started throwing out the window for the gulls. I would throw and they would swoop in to grab the bread before it fell to the ground.

Then I took a piece and just held it up .... swoop & bam... took it right out of my fingers.

What a riot!! Should have heard the squeals. Me and the birds. hahaha

I asked Don to go out and stand in front of the truck so I could get pics. It took several to get the ones I wanted but you can see the action.

When we started home I saw some of the fishing boats coming in so we drove down to the docks. We found where they pull up to unload their catch of the day. These looked like oyster fishermen and they had big burlap bags filled. They would unload the heavy bags onto a pallet and would apparently get paid per bag. We sat and watched at least 6 boats. As one would leave another would back in to unload. Fasinating!

Oh....and then we found an authentic Mexican resteraunt. Yumm!!