Day 5, Fri., April 6, 2018--Arrived at the Gulf of Mexico

Yes! We arrived at Galveston this afternoon after another interesting day on the road.  One of the highlights , however was seeing and "ID ing "31 bird species both on the road and in the small pond that we can see out our trailer window. We are parked in the back part (last row) of this huge park that has three poools including an indoor "sand beach, swim up to the bar"  pool and two outdoor ones. It also has a circular "river" that you can float around in all day if you wished.

Arrival in Galveston along the Breakwater.

Ah! The Gulf of Mexico. We head for the campground.

Looking out the back window at the pond and meadow.
See ducks and gulls.

But back to the birds in a minute.

The drive from Buffalo TX, to Hempstead , NW of Houston, led us to the chiropratic office of a classmate  of Ruth's chiropracter in Michigan. They were on the same "football " team together (Frisbee). He was good enough to get her in soon, so we tried to arrive before noon and we did at 10:30. He worked with her for a long time to try to get that rib to settle in place, but as yet it has not cooperated and she is still in pain. We willsee hw the next few days go. Resting will help.

Hempstead, a small rural town about 50 miles from the downtown Houston, has abut 5,000 people, and was named after the brother inlaw of the man that donated 1,000 acres to the government to form the town. During the Civil War it was a base for training the Confederate Soldiers and also a prisoner of war camp for Union soldiers.  As the occupation gradually took place after the war, General George Custer brought 4 Regiments to Hempstead to occupy the area and see that the Confederate troops showed up for ther 'paroles' Anyone know what that was? Neither did I  but  some research shows that when taken prisoner,  if he had parole papers he was allowed to travel back to his "side "of the fighting until he was part  of the army again. But at any rate the 'occupation' went on for a few years after the war.

Let's go back to the drive from Hempstead  to Galveston. This included driving around the west side of Houston on the Sam Houston Toll road. There were  four tolls  at $5.25 each and with the trailer  That was $21.00 for abut 40 miles . About 20 of those miles were under cnstruction which limited the lanes to two with those ubiquitous concrete barriers on the sides which causes "white knuckle" driving. Ruth confessed that she finally closed her eyes during most of it. On top of that the road is built out of concrete. It rides like someone put the slabs of concrete down with out leveling them . Talk about  bumpy ride. We found after setting up in the cmp,  that much of the insides of the trailer was on the floor when we finally stopped. Bathroom, kitchen, cupbards had all been disturbed. Fortunalely nothing broke or was damaged.

Ok it's the birds time.  We did not see a bird on the campground tghis morning, but did on the road. Ruth saw 19 species before we arrved at the park and after my slow walk out in the field behind the trailer, we collected a total of 31 species.  And ...we haven't started "birding"  yet. A few outstanding birds we saw were, Common Tern, Scissor Tailed Flycatcher,  Killdeer, Black Duck, Western Meadowlark (they were 5 feet from me in the field) , Snowy Egret, Black Bellied Whisting Ducks,   Moorhen,  Pied Billed Grebe, Spider Lily, White Ibis,  Caracara,  Osprey , and Brown Pelicans

A Pied Billed Grebe in the campground pond.

One of the MANY flower displays along the TX roads

 So it ended up being a fine day in spite of the tough driving and "concrete" roads.

Tomorrow will be a day of recovery as we make plans for a week of doing what we want to do, including but not ilmited to "birding".
 

A yellow "daisy" like flower

Texas Blue Bonnets with a few Indian Paintbrush.

This is wild plains indigo an abundant field flower growing near the trailer.

One piece of news today was  that the "Tall Ships" are in town for three days .  So seeing them is on the agenda. They are touring the Gulf towns this spring. Of course good seafood is aso looked forward to and we have two places already picked out.

See you tomorrow- Jim and Ruth