Leaving Aransas Pass

'Vacation' over, time to head back to San Antonio. We drove the 180 miles back to Admiralty RV Resort stopping at a Love's Truck Stop to fill up with $2.57/gal diesel fuel (it was $2.55 on the way down). We got our coach back into our spot(#110) for our last two weeks, no problems, and then went about getting everything hooked back up. That done, we relaxed as Shelly has to work tomorrow. We had a nice dinner of baked Quail with squash, took a walk around the park, before heading off to bed.

Relaxing Day (Aransas Pass, TX)

After yesterday, we decided to relax "at home" today. We slept in and then spent part of the day paying bills and working on information/updates for Shelly's travel nursing companies. Hopefully they'll find something soon. Either way, we plan to leave Texas when Shelly's assignment is over(July 3rd), as it's just too HOT(100 degrees everyday for the last 10 days or so). Although it has been about 10 degrees cooler here, so who knows, maybe we'd consider an assignment here (Hurricanes)?

A local waterman came into the campground selling fresh local large Shrimp for $6/lb, so we bought 3lbs for tonight's dinner, and a good dinner it was! Sorry no pictures, guess we got too excited and didn't even think about pictures! After dinner, another guy was in the park washing vehicles, so we had him wash our car for $15. He did a good job and it was nice to have the San Antonio bird 'presents' removed.

We took the cats for a short walk around the park before turning in for the evening. Heading back to San Antonio tomorrow.

Sightseeing on the Gulf Coast

Got up early today to do some sightseeing.



We started off taking the ferry (free!) over to Port Aransas.


It was a very short ride, less than 5 minutes.



Once we got off the ferry we spotted a "Public Beach" sign, so we headed there first.


We parked our car on the beach (a first!) and then promptly kicked off our flip-flops to walk down to the water.

Ahhh...what nice soft sand...feels so good under your feet.

What a nice clean beach!

and once we reached the water, we could have kept going...if only we had our swim suits! So instead of swimming, we walked up and down the beach searching for 'treasure'.



We found a nice variety of seashells and a few things we couldn't identify - some blue inflated balloon looking items, as well as clusters of bubbles, some of which we found in a bluish colored seashell.


We also found more items on the north side of the pier where a lot more things wash up. We picked up clusters of pink barnacles and we saw what looked like a lot of yellow wires. We took a picture of our finds and then left all except for the cluster of barnacles.


We left Port Aransas beach and headed south going over Mustang Island and onto Padre Island National Seashore. Thanks to our National Parks Pass, we didn't have to pay the $10 entry fee.


Our first stop in the park was "Bird Island Basin". Good place where we could boondock, just pull the coach in and face out to the bay. The water here is calm and quite shallow until you reach the drop off. We walked out about 200 yards with the water never getting any higher than our knees. This "basin" has a nearly constant breeze and is one of the nation's top windsurfing areas. We walked back to the shore and then headed over to check out "Malaqiute Beach" campground. It had more sites (with water and dump station), but they were smaller and we would prefer the "Basin's" campground.

We then headed to the park's visitor center. There, we discussed our prior beach findings with the ranger on duty.

We learned that the 'blue balloons' were Portuguese man-of war!

The bluish seashells was a common purple snail, one of the man-of-war's few predators and the yellow 'wires' were actually a type of coral. Who knew we'd find such things on a beach?

After our Q&A session in teh visitor center, we walked out onto Malaquite Beach. However, the sand was so hot by this time that we couldn't stand to walk barefoot. So we put our flip-flops back on, walked down to the water for a temperature check (84 degrees!) and then headed back to the car and made our way back home.

Bridge across to Corpus Christi.

Once we were back in Aransas Pass, we passed the campground and went to Hamptons Landing restaurant for a late lunch. We shared a basket of fried flounder, shrimp, oysters and fries. Very good, fresh food.

What a nice day!

Vacation ;-)

Decided to take a 'vacation' from San Antonio. So today we drove the coach 180 miles down to Aransas Pass, Texas, just north of Corpus Christi to "Ransom Road RV Park" for a few days while Shelly is off.

Very nice park with concrete roads and sites.

No big trees, just palm trees. Manager was very nice. We would come here again. There's no pool, but you're not far from the beaches.


We took our time setting up and then drove around a bit, checking out the area.

Got back, had slow cooked pork roast for dinner (Yum!), walked around the park, and then turned in for the night.

Group Bike Ride

Bobby went for a group bike ride(@7AM) with some road bike riders (Team USAA) he had met up with last weekend while on a solo ride. He had a good work-out, as they rode up some mountains called "the steps", then to Rio Medina and back. He returned home and got his bike cleaned up and we had lunch together.

Since Shelly is working tomorrow, we went to church tonight. The service was great! Bruce Bowen, NBA star, was the guest speaker!

HOT (San Antonio, TX)

It's been so HOT this week with high's in the upper 90's to low 100's and today was no different. Too hot to be outside, so we stayed inside and worked on laundry as well as continued our search for Shelly's next nursing assignment.

Dentist (again)

Today we're off to the dentist. Bobby had his filling done while Shelly had a cleaning and two temporary crowns placed. Bobby's took about an hour or less, while Shelly's took over three hours. We'll go back in about two weeks to get Shelly's permanent crowns placed as well as repairing the filling to the 3rd tooth, as we will be leaving the area before they would be able to get a permanent crown made.

Dr. Tom(dentist) called us tonight before we went to bed to see how we were doing. How nice! We've NEVER gotten that before! We have been very happy with this dentist and would return if in the area.

Oh and confirmed with Norcold that our refrigerator (1200LR) is indeed included in the NEW EXPANED recall. Since our fridge had already been recalled in the past and the Cooling Unit replaced(before we purchased coach) we haven't been affected by the recalls until now. This morning Bobby drove down Wagner RV Inc. just down the street and they are ordering the "safety thermal switch kit"(7-10 days). Although we haven't had any trouble with our fridge and hate to 'cause' a problem, it would kill us if we didn't do it and burned up our beautiful coach.

Dentist Visit

After paying for another month for our campsite here in San Antonio, we were off to the dentist, Thomas R. Watkins, D.D.S. & Associates. We've both had some partial fillings come out and we needed to get these repaired. Since this was our first visit and new clients to 'Dr. Tom', we got FREE full mouth ex-rays and exams. They were very thorough and saved us $185.00 each! Bobby's results not so bad, he only needs one filling(re-done). Turns out Shelly needs 3 crowns! She will have two done next week along with Bobby's filling. We aren't sure about Shelly's third tooth, as that one isn't in as bad shape. We'll have to wait and see, as this is all very expensive!

Met a new fulltiming couple here at the park tonight. Since Gary is also a road bike rider, we plan to go out for a ride tomorrow morning!

Slickdeals

Went out today to pick up a few freebies that we found on Slickdeals, as well as look for some new sneakers for Bobby. We found a good deal at JCPenney, which would have been even better if we had remembered our $10 off coupon.

Church and Jasime update

Since Shelly had to work Saturday and Sunday this week, Bobby went to Northwestern Hills United Methodist Church with Barbara and Dennis from the park today. It was so nice of them to take him as Shelly had the car.

Jasime(our female cat) continues to do well. She's putting weight on and hasn't gotten sick. She's been on meds and new food for 4 weeks now.

David Robinson (church)

Went to church @Oak Hills, this time David Robinson from the San Antonio Spurs(NBA) was speaking. It was great to hear him profess his faith in Christ, as he encouraged up to grow in our Christian walk. It was a wonderful service and we enjoyed having a choir to help lead us in singing.

Bye Mom & Dad (San Antonio, TX)

Today's the day for them to return home to Delaware. We helped them get packed up and then drove them to the airport. After a few tearful goodbyes, we separated, as we weren't allowed to go through security with them. We'll miss them and look forward to when we can see each other again.

After we left the airport, we stopped at Sam's Club to stock up on essentials. Think we did well to survive 2 weeks with 4 people and 2 cats in our 40' motorhome. We plan to do a whole lot of nothing over the next couple of weeks, having been so busy with Bobby's parents here.

Rudy's BBQ and more relaxation

Another day to relax. We took this opportunity to sleep in for a change.


After a restful morning, we went to Rudy's BBQ for lunch. This was so much better than Bill Miller's, even if it was still cafeteria style.

The atmosphere was much improved, as was the food. We especially liked the creamed corn and the turkey.

Back to the coach, we played more Canasta until dinner time. Arlene and Shelly went to HEB to by more of their Sushi to eat. We all enjoyed it and relaxed the rest of the night until bedtime.

Relaxing Sunday

Since Bobby's parents are going to be leaving in a few days, we decided we should relax instead of running around doing touristy things.
This morning, we went back to Oak Hills Church where we heard Max Lucado preach for our first time. He was finishing out his series on "The Story", his version of the bible, to be read like a novel. So the topic was Revelation. We really liked how he approached it, looking for basic themes and not getting so caught up in interpretation.

After church, we headed home and spent much of the day relaxing and playing Canasta(a card game).