The weather started warming up on Wednesday, we took a walk on Copano Bay beach, it felt pretty good to be out and about without heavy coats. I shouldn't complain, our cold was mid 40's vs Salem's 20's with snow and ice. I hope our renter kept the place warm enough, our laundry room pipes are notorious for freezing. No news is good news. Wednesday nights are happy hour and dinner here in the park. We are getting to know more people, the majority of them from Michigan and Wisconsin. Friday we took a drive across Copano Bay bridge to see the 1000 year old tree. Of course we left the camera home but trust me it was big, being held up by wires and posts. The grove of live oak surrounding the tree are very big too, not tall but wide. We did some geocacheing while we were there, one was in a cemetery with headstones dating to the early 1800's. They are building a new bridge over the bay, as we were crossing over we saw a barge with 2 cement trucks on it, I said that I'd never seen that before. Gary said maybe it was for the bridge constructions. As we crossed the bridge back into Rockport, that same barge was heading back to port, Gary must have been right.
Friday was warmer yet. We had a mobile repairman come to fix some wiring that coincidentally stopped working right after our water repair. Poor Gary came down with my cold and to top that off he twisted his ankle. Happy hour at the clubhouse helped.
Saturday warmed up even more!!!! We took Luci for a long walk, there is a road within the park that isn't open for cars so she chased sticks, nothing like a tired puppy. The walk really hurt Gary's ankle so he went to Urgent Care. They weren't sure what the problem was but gave him some prescription strength IBO's. After dark we went down to Little Bay in Rockport to watch the lighted boat parade. There were only 8 to 10 boats, a little disappointing after seeing the parades on the Columbia, a bit warmer though.
Sunday we took a Whooping Crane tour out in Aranasas Bay. We had a 3 hour tour with the Skipper and Christina. I didn't need to take a suitcase, we were back in a little over 3 hours not years. The Skipper is quite a "birder" he was able to navigate the boat and spot birds at the same time. We saw over 25 different kinds of birds. The Crested Caracara bird looked ordinary enough but when it flew over it is pink like a flamingo. The cranes were almost extinct, but with prevention measures the flock is up to over 300. Cranes mate for life, they migrate down from Canada, lay 2 eggs and raise the chick,. I said chick because one of them kills the other, talk about sibling rivalry. One pair the skipper pointed out were interesting, the male was bitten by a water moccasin. His head and neck quadrupled, lost feathers and almost died. He survived but has a nasty scar on his head.
We had gorgeous weather. As we were coming back to the harbor the skipper spotted an oyster boat stuck on a sand bar. He circled around the pulled him off. We asked how many times he'd done that, this was the first time. I didn't realize the oysters were put in bags on the boats before they are taken to market. We got home at half time to watch the Green Bay/Cowboy game. With us it's ABC anybody but cowboys so we were rooting for GB. Our neighbors here in the park are from Wisconsin and got to go to the game. It was so exciting to watch the Packers come back from over 20 points behind to win.
Monday morning I was leaving to go to Snap when my car told me I had a low tire. Fortunately Gary hadn't left on his bike ride yet so he pumped it up enough for me to go into town. Three of us at the park have had flats because of nails. Walmart has a tire repair shop, pretty handy I got the tire fixed and shopped for groceries at the same time. In the afternoon we took Luci to the dog park, a not so nice labradoodle decided he didn't like her and started to fight with her. Poor baby was so scared, she didn't try to fight back, she kept trying to get away to get to us. No harm was done. After we walked around the park, found about 5 geo caches.
It is a little hard to think about Christmas with the warm weather.
Photos top to bottom: Loading the Skimmer; all bundled up for the 3 hour tour; pair of cranes, one on right has scar from snake bite; towing the oyster boat off the sand bar; our home in Rockport; hanging with Luci and our Christmas lights.
Merry Christmas to all,
Pam and Gary
No comments:
Post a Comment