Day 21, Mon.,April 22, 2018. Earth Day! Drive from Galveston to Rockport TX.

Chevron/Phillips Refinery south of Houston

  Didn’t it rain in the night?  Yes! For about an hour at 12:30 AM it came down in “buckets”, so much so that in the morning after it had stopped raining, the grass that had been cut had waves and bands of dead grasses where the water had piled it when the water  was evidently deep.  But by dawn’s light all the water was gone as here, it easily drains into the sandy environment along the coast. One thing is sure. Growing grass is tough here, but water does not accumulate. The grass is a drought resistant type.

In the morning we got the trailer all stowed away, and everything in “ship shape” and headed down 3005 toward San Luis Pass and beyond. (We had ‘birded’ that Pass earlier this week ,remember? ) The road is a good road  all the way to Rockport with a few 90 degree turns as we move west and south on the Upper Texas Coast. (We are entering the Central Texas Coast.) If you drive at any time the street ( Velasco Blvd. ) that leads through Freeport to highway 36, …be careful.  It has a cross street that is also used as a rain drain. Do NOT drive there faster than a crawl. I moved from my lane to avoid a car and hit it at about 15mph and had the BIGGEST JOLT we have ever had with the trailer on. It jackknifed and snapped at us!  I stopped  and checked it out and all seemed well.  We made it to Rockport without incident. Amazingly when we checked the inside there was nothing out of place or broken. It is a sturdy trailer.

Corn along the upper TX Coast is the dominant crop.

The second most visible crops are beans of many kinds I would imagine.

San Luis Pass has a small bridge and a toll booth. A single worker toll booth that services traffic both ways. The gatekeeper watches tv and waits until you put your money under the rock of the sliding door and waves you on.( $2.00 per vehicle no matter the size.) The driving lane for vehicles is just wide enough between the concrete walls,  to accommodate trucks and trailers and motor homes. No “wide vehicles “can use it. The land between there and Rockport is filled with farmland ,growing mostly corn, beans and some rice.  We saw only a few cattle. Texas leads the nation in rice growing, I believe. They are just now putting water into the  fields as the rice is starting to grow having been planted a few weeks back. Furrows made into foot high hillocks surround each field to hold the water as it is administered at different times.

Corn  in the fields is now already neck high in most  places although a second planting in some places is just a few inches above the soil.

In Freeport we passed the huge Dow Chemical plant, among other chemical industries, and along the road before Bay City a very large and up to date factory was seen.  100 feet high is the work area and hundreds of feet long. They manufacture pipes for many uses in oil, water, gas, etc.  Would assume the height was for pulleys to move the pipes around. Another plant was the Refinery of Chevron-Phillips (66), which seemed to be spread over thousands of acres. How do the engineers figure out where all the pipes should go at those places?

We stopped to eat lunch in the trailer at Tivoli  (Not Italy!) which has  a very fine park next to San Antonio Bay. . Talked Ruth into stopping an hour after lunch (her rule tis to wait an hour) at the  DQ for her favorite …a Heath Bar Blizzard. I opted for the flavor of the month…Blackberry .(It had some blueberries in it as well as huge backberries)

Our arrival at 3:15  at the RV Park was easy as I took the bypass around Rockport.  The  Park is located south of town. I was amazed at how much damage is still apparent after the Hurricane of last year. Street after street still in damage repair. Many businesses are still in reconstruction or are rebuilding their structures. On the street where the RV Park is located, five or six homes still are in need of repair of roofs  rooms, siding, and front walls  Along some of the streets the trees are stripped of leaves yet, and damage is evident. Signs around town indicate Rockport’s efforts to ”Rebuild Rockport”!

We are south of Rockport about 4 miles, so away from the hubbub of the city. There is great  fishing here right off the breakwater, and kayakers as well as boaters embark from here. The Intracoastal Waterway is visible from here and looks like an island across the water as the ships go through the “island” with their wheelhouse just visible above the grass.   

A tug that is assigned to pushing barges heads for a Rockport pier.

This gal was out in her kayak after work to catch some fish. She took time afterwards to clean up a hugh piece of aluminum siding that had been left over from the Hurricane. Good stewardship.

Still getting some colorful sunsets every once in a while.

 Even the RV Park we camped in ,has been hit hard (right on the Bay by the Intracoastal Waterway,) and much work needs to be done to bring it back to full operating shape. (no wi-fi, little signage, and gravel pads are in need of work as an example.)  This is reputed to be a great fishing bay and is indicated by the three fish cleaning station by our trailer on the Bay. It is busy especially in the evening. The lady across the trailer from us sells (or gives away?) fish that they have caught from her freezer each day .

Tomorrow we will  cruise the area for birds especially migrant, tropical  warblers  if we can find them. We will be here just one more day before heading to Harlingen nearer the Rio Grande where the tropical  birds will be more abundant. The weather predicts more of the north wind so it is quite unlikely  that we will see many warblers.