February 21, 2016
DAY 11

David and I are travelers,  not “stay – put – ers”.    Today  was fun.   We are on the road again.  Up at 6:00 a.m.  We caught the sunrise.  When we arrived at Mustang Island,  I told David that one of the mornings I was going to get up early and catch a sunrise.   I didn’t have to get out of bed.  I could lay in bed,  raise the window shade and vawala!!  A beautiful sunrise.  This morning I walked out with E T,  for the photo op,  and we were bitten alive by mosquito’s.  Have you ever heard jokes about things being  BIGGER in Texas?   The bites on my legs will vouch for the mosquito’s being bigger.   David has been taking Benydryl daily for whatever has been biting him.

First Stop … the RV / Car wash.   RVing is NOT all fun.  It’s a lot of work.   One of the things that David scoped out on our previous trip to Port Aransas was an easy in, easy out RV wash.

Second Stop …. We took the RV and  E T on their first Ferry ride.  What a hoot!  I LOVE ferries.  I have taken all five “Grands” on the Rocky Hill, CT ferry.   It’s an,  almost,  extinct mode of transportation, at least it is in CT.

Our new route takes us on Tropical Route 136.  Sorry but this is just not my idea of Tropical.  It looks like more of what we’ve seen on every other HWY, Route and Interstate we’ve been on in Texas.

It is February on the Gulf Coast of Texas and it is hot and humid.  Eighty degrees with 80 per cent humidity.  The locals are saying the temps are about 10 degrees above normal.  The area is also in its second year of serious drought.    My thoughts are “What would be different,  if we came on a different month, in a different year?”

Would there be no snake warning signs?

I didn’t have to ask what kind of snakes.   I learned my lesson at the Texas Visitor Center and had googled  snakes in Texas.  All four major species of venomous snakes can be found in Texas, especially in swampy areas.   I am not going to google the difference between an Island and a Swamp.   I want to sleep tonight.

On the lighter side, you’ll love this story.

Travel Tale ….   This is a true story, told to me by a Texas sheep and goat farmer.  One day HER teenage daughter came to her in a frenzy.  “Ma! Ma! There’s a snake in my bedroom!” They rush to the bedroom.   The mother can barely open the door to the bedroom.  There’s clothes, shoes, books … scattered and piled up everywhere.  She yells at the daughter, “How am I suppose to find a snake in all this mess?”  Well, as it turned out it wasn’t hard at all to find.  All coiled up in a corner was this big ole’ corn snake, round as a Coke can and maybe four/five feet long.  Well, darned if her husband wasn’t anywhere to be found.  Wouldn’t matter anyway, cause he’s scared to death of snakes.  So, She does what any woman would do.  She puts on a pair of high rubber boots, a pair of hefty work gloves, grabs the kitchen trash can and the biggest pair of salad tongs she can find.  She opens the back door and heads back into the bedroom.  Well, it wasn’t a pretty sight.  She grabbed hold of the snake, right below the head with them salad tongs.  It was wrestlin’,  twist in’, turn in’ and swing in’ every which way.  The dang thing was heavy.  She finally got it into the trash can, yelled to her daughter, “Hey! Ya wanna come take a look at this snake before I go toss it?”  The daughter yells back with disinterest, “NAW!”
Well, it ain’t over yet.  Goin’ down the hallway the dang snake comes up, over and out of the trash can. Fortunately, it heads right down the hallway and with a little cox in’  from the trash can, out the door.  “Now if it had been a rattler” she says “I woulda just got the gun and shot it.”
I wanted to ask how the snake got into the house in the first place, but decided I was probably better off not knowing.  I did google corn snake … they resemble copperheads.

Would the dozens of Fire Ant Nests not be here?

When we arrived at Mustang Island I asked one of the Volunteers what were all the Volcano looking piles of sand.  The answer was Fire Ant nests.  Fire Ants nest in mounds of 1 to 2 feet in diameter that are about 1/2 foot high.  Large colonies can have up to 250,000 workers.    Yowza!   Her suggestion was,  if you accidentally disturb one of the nests,  drop your pants immediately and run.  For any of you free-spirits, that like to go commando, I’d watch where I stepped in this part of Texas.

Would there not be as many  Portuguese Man Of War on the beach?

The first time I saw a Portuguese Man of War was on a beach in Florida.  They are so interesting looking I almost picked one up.  Fortunately, David saw what I was about to do and stopped me.  I have never seen so many,  in so many different sizes, as here.  Some are as small as a pencil head and others, like the one above, the size of a plum or larger.   If you get stung by a PMOW, according to a Texas beachcomber I met,  you have two options # 1.) You can urinate on the area of the sting or #2) If you happen to have Adolf’s Meat Tenderizer on hand you can “treat it” with that.   We went out and bought Adolf’s!

When David went to the Park Office to tell them that we would be leaving a few days early the Ranger asked if it was because of the wind.  The wind patterns here change so quickly that it’s difficult to plan any outdoor activities.  We tried taking evening walks on the beach, but the wind whipped up blinding sand storms without a moments notice.

David and I like spending a lot of time outdoors.  We found ourselves very limited in what we could do here and enjoy safely.  Alas,  it was time to move on.  Were we glad that we came, yes.  We would have always wondered.

We stopped for the night at our favorite Texas campground, Gulf Coast RV Resort in Beaumont,TX.  We had a ton of laundry to do and they have four washers ($1 a load) and four dryers ($1 for 1 hour of drying time).  David got to watch the Daytona 500, Congratulations to Denny Hamlin.

Next Stop … Dauphin Island, Alabama