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Trip08

Wow! We drove over two hundred miles today. Almost two hundred fifty. Got to sleep to the sound of rain all night. I have to remind my Pacific Northwest brothers that’s a treat. Took a walk in the morning mist. Cold and foggy. We walked on the birding boardwalk around the wetlands. At the time of its construction, this was the longest boardwalk in the world, constructed entirely out of recycled plastic. It wasn’t as long this trip as it was last trip. Neither was the fishing pier. They had a hurricane in July. Got to see the spoonbills, and snow geese. Got to see all the usual ocean shore suspects: pelicans, gulls, turnstones, sanderlings, willets, sandpipers, egrets. You know. And in the marsh, we got to hear a clapper rail. I’m happy to report that the boat covers held. They never blew off yesterday. And they hold water just fine too. Two boat cover lakes on top of the Jeep in front of us. We left Port Lavaca, drove north through Point Comfort, glanced off Houston, and came to rest right back by the water again at Sea Rim State Park. It’s a parking lot campground, right on the water. We headed into our spot rather than backing in. Now we can sit in the front and look right out the big windshield across the dunes to the waves and water. The water is all of 100 feet away. Good wave noise. I got to run on the beach today. It involved long sleeves and long pants, but it was a run on the beach. Judy has been reading the park literature we got at the gate. They have mosquitoes here. We already knew that. We noticed the bug clouds forming as the sun went down. In their literature they’re proud to announce they have sixty separate species of mosquito that inhabit this park. Wow! Guess we’ll have to start a new list. I might need bigger binoculars. We accidentally popped a window open briefly a few minutes ago. Now Judy is busily killing sixty species of mosquitoes. She knows she only has to kill the females. The males don’t bite. But since none of them are exhibitionists, she has to kill them all. Sure glad we’re not sleeping in a tent. There are four people in the 23 foot class C next to us tonight. Three adults, one kid, a great dane, and two other dogs. They’re expecting three more adults and two more dogs to join them Saturday. The three more adults are supposed to sleep in tents. I couldn’t sleep in a tent in this bug-storm. I’m guessing they end up with seven people and five dogs in the 23 footer. We’re sure glad to have this nice tight motorhome. Annie is a bug-killer. Whenever Buck saw or heard the fly swatter, he would run for cover. Aha! Another mystery. How could a big strong dog like Buck get negatively conditioned to the fly swatter? Any answers? Any speculation? Children? But Annie. Annie loves bugs. Every time she hears the fly-swatter smack, she comes running to see if something tasty will fall off the ceiling into her mouth. During a serious bug smacking event, like tonight, you can’t smack the furniture or walls without smacking Annie at the same time, she is so anxious for her morsel. Good bird news. I’ve been reviewing the park bird list, and they have a wren here we’ve never seen. It’s called a sedge wren, and it’s listed as abundant here, so this one will be a slam-dunk. After all, how hard could it be to find a bird that’s listed as abundant? It is warmer here. I turned the furnaces off for a while for the first time this trip. They’ve run a lot keeping us warm and comfortable. Now Judy is roaming the motorhome with a sponge, cleaning all the bug smears off the walls.
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Trip09

Nice night. It rained off and on, then the wind came up and blew all the mosquitos to El Paso. It dawned bright and calm in the forties. Did some birding from the car, and by mid-day it was sixty degrees with a sea breeze. T-shirt and shorts for a run, but otherwise it was chilly without a windbreaker. We went in search of the secretive sedge wren. We got distracted. Wow! What a great place to bird. We saw 38 different kinds of birds today. Tons of great, large, colorful, easy to spot wading birds. Snow geese by the thousands. Egrets by the thousands. Roseate spoonbills. Hundreds of white pelicans. Hundreds of herons and cormorants and ibis. And a bobcat. We got a long look at a huge male bobcat that haunts the area. Saw a new bird of prey: a black shouldered kite. Saw him flying. Watched him hunt. Then later, Judy spotted a pair of them perched on adjacent posts, so we got an extended look. There sure are a lot of warning signs around here not to annoy the alligators. I swear, they really use that word. Do not annoy the alligators. We don’t get to see our neighbors sleep seven people and five dogs in their 23 foot camper after all. They had a difficult night with the mosquitoes. The mosquitoes are only a problem around sun down and after. We didn’t have any bug problems all day today. But our neighbors were in an old leaky motorhome that didn’t seal up well. They were infiltrated by intruders all night. They packed up today and went back to Dallas. We discovered how to peacefully coexist with the mosquitoes. We go anywhere we want and do anything we want all day long. By about five o’clock, we finish everything that involves going outside, then leave the doors and windows closed as much as possible. A few mosquitoes get in anyway, of course. When we’re completely through going in and out for the night, Judy fires up the vacuum and wanders the entire motorhome sucking up mosquitoes. They’re not a problem. Life on the beach. Fresh shrimp stir-fry for dinner tonight. We saw all those big birds. We saw lots of little birds too. There are several really cool kinds of sparrows here. We saw bushes with sparrows in them, but didn’t see many sparrows clearly. How many wrens did we see? The slam-dunk, can’t miss sedge wren? Zero. Not a single wren of any kind. What is their habitat? Salt marsh. Where are we? Surrounded by salt marsh. It’s going to take another day here, ignoring the big obvious birds, looking down into the bushes. Then, south along the coast.

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Trip07

South. I mean East! Went east. I know, it’s raining to the east. But it’s not like we really decided. It just happened. We slept in late, took a walk, did some birding, had a run, had lunch, pulled out, hooked up, and were out of there. In the early afternoon. We had the most comfortable birding yet. A great campsite with birds flitting all around the motorhome. We got our binoculars, sat in the big seats in the front, tilted them back, rested our elbows on the armrests, and went to work. Twenty-two different birds. All of them from warm and dry with hot coffee and snacks. But wait! It gets better! One of those birds was a never-before-seen Harris’ sparrow. That gets us to 284. Two hundred eighty-four birds on our list. We have been close to three hundred for several years now. Wonder if we could make it this trip? Probably not. It’s hard to find a new bird very often now. We got the most important one, though. The green kingfisher. Boy was it fun to get that one. Now we’ll have to pick a new “most important one to get”. The co-pilot navigated us here. Not only does it provide all the directions and tell you how you’re doing, it provides a continuously updated ETA. Judy wants a bumper sticker: “GPS is my Co-Pilot”. Still no suspects in the great cream cheese incident. Guess it’s a mystery that will never be solved. We had a laundry detergent incident today. Liquid laundry detergent all over the bathroom sink cabinet. There was a bottle of laundry detergent there, but it appears undamaged. We banished it to the bathtub for a couple hours and no more soap appeared outside the bottle. Another mystery. This one does not involve pets as suspects though. Left the inland parks and drove east through Victoria to the coast. Here we are in Port Lavaca. Cool and rainy, right on the water in the RV camping for a Texas State Fishing Pier. Full hookups, so we can take long hot showers, wash our hair, do a couple loads of laundry, and a little cat vacuuming. Downright decadent. A 100 mile day. We’ve been using a humidifier to combat the cool dry weather. Doesn’t look like we’ll need that again for a while. Update on the mobile office project. We figured out how to identify all the rural nonprofit organizations in Colorado, and began our mailing to them in November. The response was underwhelming. Very quiet. We kept mailing. Then, in the week after Christmas, we started getting some calls. In the two days before we left the office, we got three inquiries, one of which wanted a proposal. Just got an email from Jamie today, telling us there are five more that want proposals. Maybe we will be doing more traveling around Colorado. Something to look forward to on our return. We’ll check out the wetlands bird watching boardwalk in the morning. Last time we were here we got to see some roseate spoonbills. Still have to pick a direction to go next. The decision got easier, though. We’re right on the water, so we eliminated one of the direction options, and we just came from another one. We’ll go north along the coast, or south along the coast. The forecast is for warming across South Texas.
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Trip06

A 150 mile day. Palmetto State Park. There is a spring here, lots of water, oxbow lakes, and the San Marcos river. It does look swampy, but it’s a winter swamp. It would be more inviting if it were 20 or 30 degrees warmer. We like the campground. They’re not killing things here, so there are no campground closures. Of course we have the campground almost to ourselves. One other unit here. Lots of birds on the bird list for this park. Maybe we’ll hang around awhile tomorrow morning and watch for them before we continue on south. We hear the weather has been tough in Denver. A nighttime low of 11 below zero.
That would have taken a lot of propane to keep this thing from freezing during that. The Co-pilot navigation system directed us through some fantastic hill country scenery on tiny Texas back roads before we struck Freeway outside San Antonio. It put us in the correct lane every time, with plenty of notice, as we negotiated that maze. It may have been offended when we disregarded its instructions, and detoured to a major grocery store just inside the city limits, but it never let on. It just calmly calculated a new route, and directed us back onto the freeway. “Make a left turn in two miles, then bear left onto the ramp.” Smooth. I’d have been in the wrong lane for sure on that one.

We put the cockpit covers back on the kayaks today. They were not off because we’ve been using the kayaks. The kayaks remain on the rack, waiting for warmer weather. We had to put the cockpit covers back on because that stiff cross-wind our second day out blew them off. They didn’t blow all the way off; there are safety straps for them that wrap around the boat, so they won’t blow entirely away. But they had been blow useless, so I took them the rest of the way off and carried them inside the car. Now, we’re thinking we may encounter some rain, and we want to be sure to have cockpit covers in place, before we find ourselves trying to take kayaks down off the car after they have filled with rainwater. Tomorrow. South. Probably.

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Plans change. It’s too nice here. A low of 42 degrees last night. Woke up to birds singing. We’re not leaving. Drove around. Looked around. Got a good look at another roadrunner. A nice long look. They’re not usually that cooperative. Saw phoebes, juncos, cardinals, blue birds, mockingbirds, warblers, flickers, sapsuckers, wrens, and tons of ducks. Red-heads, buffleheads, coots, scaups, widgeons. Tons of ducks. A very birdy place. And armadilloy too (picture). Judy found one to follow around and get next to. It came over and sniffed her foot. She reached down and touched it. It hopped! Judy made an armadillo hop!

Quiet day. Walked. Ran. Watched birds. Ate. Tormented armadillos. Drove the Jeep thirteen miles to town. Survived a satellite hookup challenge. Watched some football. Outdoor dog washing. Indoor blow drying. Visited with our only neighbors (they’re from Colorado too). A high of 75 degrees. Calm weather. A nice day.

The ranger told us story after story about Texas. Unsolicited. He insisted in fact. He didn’t seem very busy. He told us about Texas longhorns, Arbuckle coffee, peppermint candy, soft tissue, Comanche Indians, Mexican slaves. The capture/capture/recapture of the settler’s child by the Indians, then back from the Indians by the settlers twenty-five years later, then by the settlers again after she escaped them to go back to the Indians. And a ghost story. A really bad ghost story. And boy scouts. And the ampitheater. They had an amiptheater until they got boy scouts. Now they don’t have an ampitheater anymore. It’s a logical sequence of events. The boy scouts spotted a rattlesnake. So they chased it into some rocks. They couldn’t get it to come out of the rocks, so they set the dry grass that was mixed in with the rocks on fire to flush it out. It still wouldn’t come out, so what else could they do but keep adding more fuel to the fire until they were successful? Maybe they were after their “persistence” merit badges. The wind came up. The ampitheater went up in flames, as did the rest of that section of the park.

Checked the weather forecast. It is going to get colder here. It is going to rain to the east. We’d better go south.