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The coast of Texas is sheltered by barrier islands, and Padre Island is the longest island at 113 miles.  The sand is hard packed and easily navigable by foot, bicycle or vehicle, which means you can drive for miles at the edge of the gulf.  We heard about an area 25 miles south of where we were parked, where the currents bring in lots of shells.  The area was called, appropriately,  Little Shell Beach and Big Shell Beach and was a fun place to visit.  About this same time,  we discovered that another couple from Montana (the first MT folks we had seen in Texas) was parked near us.  We decided to take our two vehicles to find shells. We timed our trip so that the tide was out mid-day and the weather was nice, and off we went.

This is why we took two vehicles:

It was a gorgeous day and the beach did have a few soft spots and some beached logs to navigate around, but it was a great day for an adventure. After a few miles we were the only people on the beach.

The beach area this far south is not maintained and so we found all kinds of interesting debris.

At around 25 miles, we started to notice we were driving on a crunchy surface and that told us we had arrived at our spot.  The area was amazing; the beach was pretty much covered with layers of small shells and pieces of polished shells.

We did find some Big Shells as well.

Bruce flew the drone to capture some nice shots.

We stayed a few hours, picked up shells, ate our lunches and then headed back.  On the way back,  the tide was already coming in and we had to drive through water in a couple of spots.  Time to end our adventure!

The end of January brought to an end our stay on Padre Island and we moved into Corpus Christi to take care of the necessary things in life.  Tom and Kathy (our new MT friends) joined us for a tour of the USS Lexington:

We also had a great day at South Texas Botanical Gardens, where we got to see gorgeous flowers and feed and meet all kinds of resident parrots:

We  got to pet their resident iguana, who loves to have his sides scratched.

A chance conversation with a local biologist, who told us that more of the  tropical birds  could be found further south, determined where we headed next.  South we went!

First stop was Arroyo City, where we parked along Arroyo Colorado. Tom and Kathy followed and we enjoyed several pleasant evenings sitting outside on our lawn chairs and watching the fireflies around us. The Arroyo was used as a shipping channel and a fishing area so there was always something to watch.

We were parked a few miles outside of Laguna Atascosa Wildlife Refuge and we visited there for several days. We hiked some of the trails, took their guided tram tour and thoroughly enjoyed the blind at the bird feeding station.  It is there that we first saw Green Jays, Altamira Orioles, Groove-billed Anis and so many more colorful birds.  Cardinals also became a part of our time in the south, they are very plentiful and stay mostly hidden, but have a distinctive call that we came to instantly recognize when we heard it.

Male and female Cardinals, Long-billed Thrasher and a Green Jay are the last 4 pictures.

We also saw alligators and one that was having a bird for lunch

The thick brush is full of birds and that has drawn in bobcats and  rare ocelots, who make their home there as well.  We were lucky enough to spot a bobcat walking on the same path we were on during one of our hikes.

Kathy and Tom headed to Montana at this point, but we stayed here a bit longer and then headed even further south on the Gulf.

More to follow.

Some of the Port Aransas bird areas are still under reconstruction, but we were able to enjoy several of the smaller walks.

Beach activities became our every day life and the sunsets and sunrises were awesome.

After a week in Port Aransas, we decided to go Total Beach, and so we moved a few miles east to Padre Island National Seashore. Here we lived on solar power and woke up and went to sleep to the sounds of the ocean.

Beach walks (and picking up trash)  and bird watching were the only tasks we had all day! Great Blue Herons, which are a rarity in Montana, became our every day companions.

Bruce was able to use his drone to get  some high altitude pictures.

Ghost crabs, in all sizes,  were a source on entertainment and there were so many of them scurrying around at times that it looked like part of the beach itself was moving.

We even performed a rattlesnake rescue on the beach.  A large trash container had been emptied and when it was put back, it landed on a rattlesnake.  We came upon the trapped snake and were able to lift the container enough that the snake was able to wiggle out.  Not sure if he said thanks, but his tail was wagging a bit.

We did have to abandon the beach one night and camp at the visitor center parking lot when a big storm came in.  The storm pushed the tide up to the sand dunes and under our coach.  It washed out some of our leveling blocks and we had to move mats, equipment and the car to higher ground.  We stuck it out one night but then moved the next day, along with most everyone else on the beach.

More to come.

We were looking for a warm spot to spend the winter and ended up with so much more. First of all, Texas is HUGE! No surprise there.  We came into the state at the far northwest corner on November 10, 2018, at El Paso.  We went to several museums in the area, but the most colorful and fun place to visit was the ‘Sugar House’, one man’s 30 year project to build a beautiful home for his wife (he used painted cement).

Next stop was Hueco Tanks State Park, where rock depressions capture rainwater that has been used as a watering stop through the centuries and where we found peccaries roaming, instead of deer and buffalo.

Traveling eastward, we had a beautiful fall hike on a trail in Guadalupe Mountains National Park,  that took us to an old cabin in McKittrick Canyon.

Next stop for us was Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, which will be in another post.  We headed north a bit to Roswell and then spent Thanksgiving at a wonderful little state park, Bottomless Lakes.  It is here that perhaps the ‘birding bug’ started to bite us when we got to watch a little bird called a Least Bittern hunt along a creek bank.

After Thanksgiving, it was time to move south again and we found a wonderful spot to camp near Monahans at the Sandhills State Park.  We loved the park, camping amidst the sand dunes, but did not think much of the surrounding area – all oil well related and you could smell petroleum in the air.

We took several barefoot walks in all that sand, which stretched for miles.

And then it was further south, to the wonderful Big Bend National Park, which will have to be in another post.  We stayed in tiny Terlingua, just outside the park, and that town is built around  the adobe ruins of an old mining town. Some houses have incorporated an adobe ruin into their new house.

At the very southeast edge of Big Bend we did get to cross the Rio Grande, via rowboat, and visit a little Mexican village,  Boquillas,  where we had a nice lunch and Gail rode a donkey for the first time.

Christmas was spent in Von Ormy, TX, in a little park outside of town.  Not much there but did have some great hiking trails along a river bottom.  We shared potluck supper with fellow RV’ers.

New Year’s Eve in San Antonio won the ‘Noisiest New Year’s Eve EVER’ award.  Between the fireworks and the gunfire, it sounded like we were in the middle of a battlefield. But, there was a nice sunset. We spent December 31st touring the Alamo site.

Now we headed straight to the coast, to Port Aransas, a small town southeast of Corpus Christi,  that is being rebuilt after being severely damaged by Hurricane Harvey in August, 2017.  We stayed at a nice park aptly name ‘On The Beach’ where we were just steps away from a lovely beach.  Our home is the first RV you see in the picture, which was taken from the beach.

Sandcastle building was sometimes intricate and sometimes just pails of sand dumped on top of each other.

We also found that bird watching is a big deal on the Gulf Coast,  and there were probably a dozen birding sites in the small area of Port Aransas.  And so we got the bug:

More to follow!