Texas - Gulf Coast

January 21, 2024

On January 5 we moved west and then south into Texas and the Gulf Coast, camping for a week at Goose Island State Park north of Rockport, Texas. This was our third time camping there and we really like it as the birding is very good. The area is known to be the winter home of about 210 Whooping Cranes - these are huge birds standing 5 1/2 to 6 feet tall with a 7 foot wing span. We went on 3 park sponsored birding tours and had 91 bird sitings on the 3 tours including 24 Whooping Cranes. The birding hosts are very very knowledgable. 

Whooping Cranes

American White Pelicans

Whooping Cranes and Sandhill Cranes

Whooping Crane and Juvenile

Crested Caracaras

One day we drove to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and walked most of the trails, climbed the observation towers, and took the nature loop road. We saw 35 different bird species there plus alligators, a feral pig and an armadillo. Another day we drove over to Port Aransas ( this includes a short ferry boat ride) and went to the Leonabelle Turnbell Birding Center and saw 22 different  bird species and a very large alligator. We also went to Roberts Point Park and saw a view birds there. We had a good lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Port Aransas.

Black Necked Stilts

Avocet

Green Winged Teal

Roseate Spoonbill

Observation Platform at Aransas NWR

We rode our bikes a lot around the park to see the Whooping Cranes in a nearby field and the the huge “big tree” a very old live oak. The park also has a very long fishing pier and one afternoon, we walked to the end of it. One calm morning Mark got his kayak out and went boating. It went fine until the tide went out a bit and he got stranded on an oyster bed. He had to get out of the boat and pull the kayak over it.  For the most part, the weather was nice while we were there although we had some windy times.

Fishing Pier Goose Island SP

Big Live Oak Tree

On January 12, we moved south to Padre Island near Corpus Christi. The day we moved it was very windy. We stayed for 3 nights at Padre Balli County Park. The day we arrived we drove 8 miles south to Padre Island National Seashore which is the longest undeveloped stretch of barrier island ( at 70 miles) in the world. When we were here in 2020, we took some  birding tours here also, but we were very disappointed to find out they have been discontinued since covid, We braved the wind to walk down to the beach and drove around and saw a few birds.  

The next day we went back to the Leonabelle Turnbell Birding Center and saw more birds. We also went to 2 other little nature parks, but I think it was too windy for most of the birds. We drove down to the beach and watched huge ships go through the channel which leads into Corpus Christi and we enjoyed watching people flying kites on the beach. We drove back south about 12 miles along the beach!  We didn’t know for sure whether there was an exit road from the beach to the south, so we were glad when we saw one and knew we didn’t have to turn around.

Observation Towers Leonabelle Turnbell Birding Center

Corpus Christi Shipping Channel

Driving on the Beach

Kites!

Kites

Avocets

American White Ibis

The next day, Sunday, we crossed back to the mainland into Corpus Christi and went to the South Texas Botanical Gardens and Nature Center.  They had two greenhouses. One had bromeliads and one had orchids and also had lots of beautiful roses. The park has a nice nature trail which went through the wetlands. Our next stop was Ona Bay Wetlands Preserve which had very nice trails.

Ona Bay Wetlands Preserve

South Texas Botanical Gardens and Nature Center Bromeliads

We got back to our campsite that afternoon and it started getting very windy again and the temperature started dropping. All the weathermen had been talking about for the past few days was the Arctic Blast coming our way. They are not use to weather near or below freezing down here and we kind of chuckle, but when you add this to the wind chill it was pretty cold. It got down to 29 degrees Monday morning and was sleeting, so the trailer had icicles on it and the trailer steps and truck windows were coated in ice. 

Trailer had Icicles

We had to move to another park 8 miles down the road so we waited as long as we could hoping it would warm up ( it didn’t). The roads were clear and dry so we moved to Mustang Island State Park. We moved into our new site, turned on the heat and barely left the trailer it was so cold. We stayed at Mustang Island 2 nights and didn’t do much because of the cold and the wind. 

Stormy Beach at Mustang Island State Park

On Wednesday, the 17th we moved south and west to the Rio Grande Valley for the birding. It is a little warmer here, but the highs haven’t got out of the 50’s the past two days. But…more about that and all the birds next time!

 

Florida and the Big Easy

January 6, 2024

Our second week at Gulf State Park was very nice and pretty quiet. We rode a total of 116 3/4 miles on our bikes on the 28 miles of bike trails over the 2 weeks.  We had fun searching for geocaches along the bike path and found several. We also walked the hiking trails and the beautiful white sand beach. We had lovely weather except for December 24 when it rained most of the day. But, the weather made up for it on Christmas Day when the weather was beautiful and got up to 70 degrees. We had Cornish Games Hens for Christmas dinner.

On December 26 we noticed 2 ships pretty close to the beach. We rode our bikes down to the beach to investigate and noticed that they were rejuvenating the beach. Sand was pumped up in big pipes from out in the gulf and landed near the beach where big caterpillar bulldozers piled the sand and increased the width of the beach. They must have been at work all night because when we went back the next day, the caterpillars were working probably a half mile down the beach. We were very impressed with all the work that had been done.

We left Gulf State Park on December 28 and headed west. After going around Mobile Bay, we headed south to route 90 in Mississippi and went right along the gulf with a really nice drive. We crossed into Louisiana and camped south of New Orleans at St. Bernard State Park.

Our first day in New Orleans, we went to the City Park where we went to the New Orleans Botanical Garden which was lovely. They have a Japanese Garden, a nice train garden, roses, camellias, azaleas, and vegetables and had a conservatory with tropical plants and another with cactus. It was a beautiful garden.

After lunch, we went to the Sydney and Walda Bestoff Sculpture Garden. It was large garden whose path  meandered around  several ponds and a large variety of very interesting sculptures. We capped off the day with a stop at Cafe du Monde eating beignets and drinking hot chocolate. It was a very nice day.

On our second day, we headed into New Orleans and the French Quarter. Our first activity was a 2 hour cruise on the steam powered sternwheeler Natchez on the Mississippi River. It was interesting seeing the big paddle wheel going round and round and visiting the boiler room. It was a lot of fun watching the scenery go by.

After arriving back on shore, we walked through the French Quarter to Jackson Square and the St Louis Cathedral. We walked down Bourbon Street. It was very loud and noisy with lots of people and street musicians. We remembered that this was the week of the Sugar Bowl and all the Texas and Washington fans were in town. We also went down to the French Market. We had a delicious lunch at the Gumbo Shop and both had tasty Creole combination platters.  I think we discovered that all this noise and people in the French Quarter were a bit too much for us!

Creole Food for Lunch

St Louis Cathedral.

The next day we moved to another state park a little farther to the west. To save several miles, we took the truck and trailer on a ferry across the Mississippi River. Between our old campground and the new one, we made a short detour to the Jean Lafitte Swamp Tours. We took a tour in a flat bottom boat through the bayous and canals of the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve. We saw alligators, turtles, a deer swimming across the bayou, a raccoon, 2 barred owls, a bald eagle flying off her nest, anhingas, great blue heron and a little blue heron. It was a very nice ride. After our boat ride we continued on to our next campground at Bayou Segnette State Park where we spent 3 more nights. This was New Year’s Eve and we have never heard so many fireworks going off as we did this evening from dusk to way past midnight. 

On New Years Day we went back into New Orleans to the National World  War 2 Museum. To say it was exceptional would be an understatement! It covered all aspects of WW2 from the 1930’s to current times. It had very interesting and informative displays and lots of audiovisual presentations to go along with them. I highly recommend it if you are in New Orleans.

On our last day in New Orleans we spent 3 1/2 hours at the very nice Audubon Zoo. My favorite part was the Louisiana Swamp exhibit and watching the orangutans play. The big cats were also fun to watch. The Zoo is very nicely landscaped. Afterwards we drove to St Charles Street, parked the truck and caught the streetcar and rode it downtown and back. It goes past a couple of universities and some very nice neighborhoods including the Garden District. It was a nice ride! We were surprised at how crowded it was.

St Charles Streetcar

We left New Orleans on January 3 and moved west. We took secondary roads much of the way and saw lots of swampy areas and field after field of sugar cane. Our stop for the next 2 nights was Sam Houston Jones State Park near Lake Charles, Louisiana. The campground seemed brand new and we found out that two hurricanes in 2020 almost totally destroyed the park. They have rebuilt it beautifully and we took some very nice walks around cypress bayous and along the west fork of the Calcasieu River. Thursday afternoon we took a tour of the nearby Bayou Rum Distillery. They make their rum totally from Louisiana sourced products including the sugar cane we saw growing. After our tour of the facility, we had a tasting of 7 of the 8 rums they produce there. My favorite was the satsuma, a orange flavor rum. The distillery was quite interesting.

Loraine Bridge also pictured below in the upper right corner

Now we have moved on the Goose Island State Park near Rockport, Texas. More about that next time…