Steve and Judy's Travels!

 

Jesse’s first ride on a ferry.

 

Some things around Rockport are still crooked from Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

 

We went to a shop where Judy used to buy shirts with pelicans painted on them and there was Dovie!  Still there after all these years (now she’s 93).  Still making decorated shirts (in the picture behind her).

 

And there in the shop was a photo of the perfect woman!

 

The Big Tree is still standing too.  A very large coastal oak.  They don’t know the exact age.  Historically it has been thought to be 1,000 years old, but recent estimates make it 2,000.

 

It’s a little sparse after the hurricane but it has been through at least 50 before so it should be just fine.

 

And this billboard still makes me smile.

 

 

They look like this:

 

Do you wonder why that little trailer is so far back?  Me too.  So I googled it.

 

The little trailer is called a Pup.  That long hitch is to create extra length.  Length matters.  You can be an 80,000 pound rig on highways, but if your load is heavy and you’re too short, you’ll have too much weight over too small an area.  If you’re carrying something really dense, where you could overload the roads and bridges, by federal regulation you’re limited as to how much you can carry, unless you make yourself much longer than you otherwise need to be to spread the load out over a larger area.  Mystery solved; thank you google.

 

There are other solutions to the weight distribution problem.  Some cement trucks have wheels folded up high.

 

That they can lower when they have a full load and spread the weight out over a larger area.

 

This dump truck has multiple solutions.  There are extra wheels in front of the drive axles that can be lowered.  There is a tax axle in back that can be lowered and locked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life on the road!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nah, make that here for a week!  We’re at Mustang Island State Park.

 

Dinner at Snoopy’s.

 

 

Where I did my long walk.  There is a seven-mile paved loop road.

Vehicles are no longer permitted on the road, so it makes for a quiet smooth walk.  That was worth a couple laps.

 

Then it was time to wander the dirt trails.

 

 

 

 

Past plastic tubes sheltering seedlings planted to reforest a huge section along the river.

 

 

And a section of trail that had been churned up by something.

 

I was running through my mind what animal might do that much damage to dirt.  Javelina?  Wild boar?  I discovered the culprit a couple of bends in the trail later when I startled an armadillo engaged in destroying the trail.  He got off before I could get a photo of him.

 

Past local history.

 

On a trail out to the river I found where the rangers had marked an owl pellet

 

A pellet is what owls regurgitate once they’ve done all the digesting they can of teeth, skulls, claws, fur, and feathers they’ve eaten.  The gizzard compacts the indigestibles into a solid pellet and sends it back out a less dangerous route for the bird than passing all the way through the digestive tract.

 

And bobcat scat.

 

Right along one edge of the park, broccoli as far as the eye can see.

 

And onions.

 

Into the evening light.

 

And back to my little car waiting all by itself in the parking lot. 

 

Last one out.