Beach Fun and a Glamorous Camping Spot...

We are back home, at least for now after about 1700 miles and 10 out of the last 11 nights in the camper. This leg of the trip was down to Surfside Beach, Tx. which is one of our favorite places and also the location of a family beach house reunion for my son in law Tim's people, many from out of state and who we had met before at other family events. Their rental was just a short walk down the beach and they made us welcome at their communal meals. 

Instead of roughing it as we usually do on the free county beach with our solar power beefed up by generator use we sprung for the prime camp spot at The Breeze RV Park. We camped here about two years ago when we were still in the RPod Camper and many improvements have been made since then. In addition to the full hook up RV sites there are hotel rooms and I think some beach house property available to stay, beach buggy and jet ski rentals, a bar with kitchen and free continental breakfast, fire rigs, volley ball, cornhole, chair and umbrella set up, and a very attentive staff present to make sure things are going how you like it.    

We rented a beach buggy and the initial one they gave us, which was electric, slowed to an intermittent crawl way down the beach when I was giving Tim's family a tour. It gave his relatives a Texas tale to tell about the big hairy guy who stranded them but the Breeze staff saved the day replacing that cart with a brand new gas powered rig. 

I can tell I'm getting somewhere in life because I have grandkids to drive me around. Remember kids, first one to back the boat or the camper in the garages at home gets $100 prize but then they have to do it all the time after that. 

I did manage to catch a dinner of whiting that I turned into fish tacos. There is no size limit or restriction on Gulf whiting and they are a delicious eating panfish. I caught these on the first day while the water was still a bit green before the west wind turned it sandy brown and slowing the fishing. They were schooling right in the first gut close to the shore and I used a light rod with a tiny hook tipped with a pinch of shrimp. 

Generally there has been good beachfront fishing this summer and I am sorry to miss it but the lack of rain has made the sand loose with some of the beach entrances becoming a bit treacherous. I'm too old to be getting stuck and digging out, especially with a camper. 

There might be an October trip in the works but we will see. 

 

   

 

A Quick Travel Blog and Then Off Again...

We have been traveling and I am writing a quick blog to answer all your questions like where did you go and who is that woman in the closed beach area and so on. 

We have traveled to Kentucky for my cousin Carolyn and husband Doug's 65 wedding anniversary. It was a great party with great testimonies from their kids (cousins I'd never met) to their love, good food, music and fun. 

Along the way we camped in addition to our stay in Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas. The total trip was a little over 1500 miles.  

All the parks we stayed were familiar places to us being we camped there before and in Kentucky at Lake Malone State Park we always see sister Margret and Kevin at their lake house which is right across from the state park swimming area. You can see the house and dock in the trees behind Cathy. I guess since we area back in Texas maybe Kentucky laws concerning the use of closed swimming areas no longer apply. 

We are not home long and depart for the beach shortly where the swimming areas are always open. 

This is a month for travel because with Mary off from work with the baby we have have some free time. More blogs soon. 

Holiday Weekend Driving...

 I don't know if it was the high gas prices or if maybe everyone was home on their phones but the highways and campgrounds for the most part were very manageable on our recent trip from East Texas to Indiana. Even a pass through Little Rock, Arkansas which seems to be a magnet for every big truck in the tristate area was easy. Only one campground was really packed and on out final leg home Sunday the Love's Travel Stops where I buy gas because I have the 10 cents off per gallon app had crowds but it might have just been the fast food boxes of fried chicken livers that all these in the Midwest and south serve. 

Our first stop outside Memphis was T.O. Fuller State Park. It's a famous place, built by African American CCC workers it was the first state park east of the Mississippi open to their use. The pool was our of order which is something that seems common in these older CCC built sites but there was plenty of good day use areas in addition to the camping and an Indian village, excavation and museum which we will have to check out in the future. It's usually the kind of site I like to visit but with just an overnight stay I'd have had to ride my bike 4 miles on a farm road that was pretty narrow to share with automobiles.        

The most crowded park was John J. Audubon, also a CCC built park, in Henderson, Ky where we made three nights. It was handy for visiting family in Evansville, In. and close to attractions and good restaurants. Not crowded the first couple of nights but as the weekend progressed the campers poured in and sites were close and as there were more arrivals I noticed some challenging camper back ins and there were lots of kids on scooters and bikes. I tried to capture it in these photos. 

There was the John J. Audubon Museum on the grounds which is the largest collection of his art in the world and though he was very prolific and hard working he was very much the starving artist. 

Our last camp on the way home was Willow Beach, a Corps of Engineer facility located off the old Arkansas River. Good spaced out campsites and we had one of the best. Campground was full but only a couple of groups using the beautiful day use picnic sites along the river on a holiday weekend Saturday. Guess they were on their phones or something. 

There was a good boat launch and plenty of people fishing from modest boating rigs instead of the big bass boats with not a live scope sonar in sight. There something calming about casting a spinner bait and not worrying about gas prices. Works for me every time.  

  

 

    

The Latest Road Trip...

We are back home after 1641.3 miles and 33 hours of driving that saw us, along with Cathy's brother Matt visit Evansville, Indiana and see their sister Margret, husband Kevin and daughters Grayson, graduating from high school and Addison who had a birthday. We stayed in campgrounds in Tennessee, Indiana and Arkansas. You can check the truck dashboard photo for the full statistics.  

Here's Cathy and Matt at T.O. Fuller State Park in Tennessee. All equipment performed flawlessly. I'll probably do a run down of my campground reviews later.  

Cathy, Margret and Matt. 

Margret, Addison and Kevin celebrate Grayson's graduation from Signature School in Evansville, Indiana. She will be headed off to Georgia Tech to major in bio-medical engineering. Georgia Tech is a good place to be for that degree.  

 

In the lower right of this photo made from the balcony Grayson accepts her diploma and gets a hug from her grandfather, Bob, who is the President of the Board of Directors of the school. The 80 odd graduates on stage represent 24 million dollars worth of scholarships to top colleges around the nation. Signature is a very good high school.   

Since Georgia Tech is in Atlanta and we must drive right through there to visit Morgan, Ali and the grandkids is South Carolina we might see more of Grayson in the future.  

It was a good trip and I am sure I'll write a bit more later but in the mean time I need to get ready for the next one. 

Beachfront Camping Report...

Once, in another life, I was parked beachfront in my truck just sitting on the tail gate enjoying the sun. Three girls came walking by and said hi. I was at a loss for words but quick thinking led me to ask them if they wanted to toss a frisbee. I did not have any idea what girls wanted to do but I was giving it my best shot. One of them said, "Nah man, I could never throw one of those things," and they continued on down the beach. I've never asked a girl if they wanted throw a frisbee again. I've never even asked my wife if she would throw a frisbee. She'd probably say,  "Nah man, I could never throw one of those things."

We made of first beachfront camping trip of the summer this week at our secret spot on the Brazoria County Free Beach. If you are a regular reader here you will know it's where we camp free on the beach. No hook ups but bring water, run solar on the camper and a generator as needed. It's a sweet deal. We stayed Monday till Wednesday morning, avoiding the weekend crowd and pretty much had it to ourselves. The fish left us to ourselves as well with a rough surf and wind making conditions less than ideal for the surf. By Wednesday morning the wind had subsided, the surf lay flat and the sea weed rolling ashore had diminished and green water is expected with a couple of tide changes. 

In fact browsing the fishing reports looks like they caught them off the jetty yesterday and the surf was good this morning. I had netted a few live baits and tried lures since I did not feel the percentages were going to be high for me but I'll be ready with some shrimp for bait next time. 

Water looks pretty in this photo and even though no bites I wouldn't say I had a bad time. Some one once asked Cathy if Carl had to catch fish. She said, "I don't think so. He looks at stuff, makes pictures." I like the beach and I'm glad my wife is a beach girl. 

Water looks pretty in this reflected photo off the camper glass. 

On those windy days the fire felt good sitting on the beach at night as the air cooled when the sun went down. We never used the air conditioner but on the morning we left it was warming, the wind had dropped and made it easier for the biting horse flies to torment you. If the fish are biting I have enough repellant to make that tolerable.   

If ever on Surfside beach and you see a guy that looks like he wants to throw a Frisbee by all means, stop. 

 

 

Canoe Trip...

Milo was after me everyday last week with the cry, "I want to go fishing!" Heck I did too but sometimes you just get caught up in doing those big people things and neglect other things but I finally found a day to load the canoe and head over to Martin Dies Junior State Park for some fishing along the paddling trails on B.A. Steinhagen Reservoir.  

We only caught a couple of small bass but I think Milo was more interested in loading, unloading, dragging to and from the water and the strapping for transport of the canoe. That's OK, we all have our gifts and if we get through those terrible twos looks like hard work will be one of his. 

I have had some world class bream fishing along the trails but seemed like the lake was just a little low and that made it hard not to snag the small 1/32 ounce swim jigs the panfish like so well in the mats of hydrilla. I think fish were present and maybe sometime I'll take a cane pole and drop a bait in the openings instead of dragging weeds. 

There was plenty of bird watching and though the lake is loaded with gators we did not see any. Of course that does not mean they did not see us.  

 

I did scope out some of the camp sites as I usually camp at this lake in the other unit on the other side of the lake and I noted easy access to a part of the creek I usually don't fish so I'll keep that in mind. 

Camping at Broken Bow, Ok...

We made a spring break trip to Beavers Bend State Park in Ok. It was our second trip to this area and we really covered some ground this time with camping, kid activities in town, hiking, cooking, a bit of fishing and more. It was a multi-family trip, really all one big family as we took grandkids Warren and Coraline, Great Grandma Geneva, the Zamora family and the Smith family. 

The Zamoras' and Smiths' had planned on tent camping but with rain in the forecast and thundershowers through the night ended up splitting a rental place (very nice) and we camped along the river.    

Geneva will soon be 86 and traveled to Broken Bow pulling her own camper. 

Our campers at the dam. This was where we saw the most fishermen and the only place I saw someone catch a trout. Last trip I caught one trout be this time I really saw few fishermen at the community holes when they have periodic stockings. This makes me think trout had not been stocked lately.  

 

The Smith Family. 

We had a couple of good hikes over steep rocky terrain. I report no chest pains and Mary checked my pulse once and it was only 120 so not too bad. 

Last trip I saw some folks catching a mixed bag of fish on earth worms and I brought some but the coons ate them. 

One day I may look back on these hikes with the grandkids like I look back on that 2019 climb to the top of the Statue of Liberty. Glad I did it then cause isn't happening today. 

I took a bunch of scenery photos so ya'll will think I spent the whole summer camping. 

Did I mention the groceries? Thanks to Travis for all the cooking he did. 

We don't have another big trip planned till May but hopefully with the rains our lake comes up and we squeeze in a few local camping trips to fill our days. 

A Big Announcement at Galveston Mardi Gras...

 It was a big party this past weekend as we camped at Galveston Island State Park to attend the first Mardi Gras Weekend (before the big one) with the Scheurer's and Zamora's joining us. Capping off the parades was the announcement by Miguel and Mary that our #10 grandchild will be a boy. I guess you stick with what you know as it will be their fourth boy and I don't know how many Mardi Gras we have been to. We just keep doing the things that make us have fun. 

They all got blued by the wind blowing the gender reveal smoke back on them but it ended up looking like some kind of Mardi Gras Face paint. 

Parades were good but maybe just a bit shy on the beads. I guess that could be expected as we were standing in the free area along the Galveston Seawall with beautiful views of the Gulf of Mexico as opposed to the downtown area where a fee is charged for admission and and you find all the expected Mardi Gras things. I would imagine the word was out to save throws for the paying customers.

Each year when we attend a parade we store up the beads we catch to use for decorations at our St. Patrick's Catholic Church Fat Tuesday Party. This year the party is Feb 17th at 6pm with Fried Catfish by the Knights of Columbus and Gumbo by yours truly. Plates sell for $10 to benefit Saint Vincent de Paul helping our neighbors in need (97% of funds this past fiscal year assisted our neighbors with the remaining 3% for cell phones, checks, etc...) and gumbo is all you can eat. 

Cathy and Warren beg for throws. Note the long fingers on Cathy's hand. You see that throw coming your way and then those fingers extend and it's not yours anymore. 

You ought to go Mardi Gras. It's a good way to throw a monkey wrench in the cogs of the machine which expects you to be doing something constructive like watching a Kid Rock Concert or something. 

Actually Milo's second Mardi Gras as he did attend last year at age 9 months. He's an old pro now. 

We had a great spot on the Seawall. We got up at 6am and with help from Warren and Coraline who camped one night with us arrived to set up the grill and lawn chairs for a full day of fun. Many folks set up campers. I think some actually camp but others just drop a trailer and pay for the parking space to save a place to watch the parade, cook and have a bathroom. 

Someone decided he like his hamburgers rare. Both Ezra and Warren did a little grill training with Pop-Pop. The torch is being passed and not long till I'm out to pasture. 

Of course we saw good bands in HBCU style with blasting tubas. 

A good time for all. Next year will be old #10's first Mardi Gras.

    

    

This is the Part I'm Not Good At...

With a weather event predicted this weekend for East Texas it looks like we sit around the house. It's not quiet down to freezing yet so the event is still on the way and I'm not good at waiting on disaster.. 

I would imagine since the good folks around here are not used to such events and are scrambling around to buy toilet paper and closed toed shoes it's pretty crazy in town. We live like we are camping most of the time, which means doing outside things such as sitting on the porch working crossword puzzles and playing tuba we are ready as we can be for something like this. Since it has not hit that's what makes me antsy. 

I have been busy as I can be to counter that feeling this morning. There is some spitting rain but I did my exercise walk, an regimen I have adopted for this new year. There's a first world problem unfolding with the hot tub.  A service visit yesterday to fix it turned out to revel another part needed to be ordered and while that's nothing a fistful of cash won't fix it means no one gets a polar bear badge tonight. The service guy advised draining the tub to protect against freezing and also make repair easier when he returns. I do that by siphoning which takes a while so I made busy and have that process under way before the expected hard freeze. 

I plan on slow cooked ribs on the grill so there's that for later.

All that done Cathy is still sleeping so it's not tuba time yet. We wait and not just on her to wake but what the weather brings. Hopefully we don't have to leap into action too fast but action is what we do.  We camp and fish often so there is plenty of cookers, firepits, a fireplace, axes, chainsaws, propane tanks, spare gasoline, warm clothes, boots and more to address any emergency. We do have a generator and it probably won't power the whole house but it would run the freeze, fridge and probably the camper where we could snuggle up if worse came to worst which is where I do best rather than just sitting around or at least I used to. You know what they say, another year older and deeper in debt which could mean from any account. 

Next weekend is expected to be bad also. The weekend after that is a camping trip to Galveston Island State Park for (I'll be at the free parades Feb. 7th) Mardi Gras. It's important we survive this because nothing cleanses the palate like going ape crazy over plastic beads on string and I'm good at that.