Day 24, Galveston Island, view toward gulf at Comfort Suites

Shirleen's e-mail is working. We are headed to Portland, Rockport, Freeport (where Aunt Vi tied up the shrimp boats). Then to Galveston Island, city. jerr

Late arrival will work on update soon. Look at last picture.







Yes we are still in the State of Texas, good waffle.






Just my type but the question still exists, which is full of more bull?

Today we started out toward a sanctuary way out of Portland. We traveled through four miles of road work over packed gravel, never did figure out what they were doing but a lot of activity in one spot. We turned down the back road and looked for the place. I asked this one man raking hay if he knew where it was, he could only speak Spanish. Down and further down the road we went. It was two miles past where they said it should be, now turning around and low and behold there back those two miles was the sign. This is where we ran into the bull and his gals, so it was worth it. It was just a trail with no parking area so off we went to Rockport, right on the gulf.

These are the gals.









This parrot is for Michelle, look no snow!!!

This is an artsy area; half the shops were open on Monday. Most museums and artsy places are closed Monday’s we are finding out. This is a really neat place, pictures in water color, oils, acrylic and mixed media. Some real nice paintings of the waterfront, shrimp and fishing boats, wildlife and more. One we both thought was neat was a crane with a small fish in its beak. After an hour and a half we passed through the open galleries.

Eating at Rockport, shrimp boats coming in.

Off to lunch we go, we headed to an Island a couple miles north of the town but a heavy fishing area with mansions lining the drive. We did not find the restaurant we were headed for but opened the window and asked a couple with child where a good place to eat was and they just ate at Charlotte Plummer’s Seafare Restaurant and recommended it. We sat upstairs and watched the deck hands arrange their nets on their trawlers. We split a large platter of blackened fish, deep fried oysters – yummy, grilled and boiled shrimp with fries. Good eats.

Shrimp boat Mystery in Freeport Texas

We entered Freeport, not much left of the town, a lot of big manufacturers, acre’s of equipment to make olefins and other chemicals from the natural gas. We found the shrimp boat that made this area popular and the deserted downtown area. Saw some more trawlers and off we went.



Fountain in Freeport which I am sure Aunt Vi had seen.

More trawlers and shrimp boats alongside the berm.

We then meandered up the coast along the off the major road route we developed.

We got to Galveston Island as the sun was setting, light wave action.

This is off of our GPS, we are the arrow in the circle, we will be turning right to the hotel. If I turn left we are in the blue, signifys the Gulf. I posted this because I can't take a picture of the waves gently washing upon the shore.

We ate at Landry’s again because of the gulf side view and got a seat right up front. We had a glass of wine (Glass Mountain chard) with a plate of Calamari and a Landry’s Gold Burger, a hamburger with broiled cheddar on top, this we split. jerr

Day 23, Tonight at Comfort Inn, Ingleside Texas

I started the morning about 2:30 am, as the young peoples nightclub was getting out, loud Mexican music, cars revving up their engines and people talking really loud for me to hear on the 5th floor.

We started the morning by going to the 11th floor for the complimentary breakfast. What a view of the Gulf, it was windy so waves were crashing onto the rock boundary, and cloudy.

We then debated either going to the 11 o’clock Spanish mass or wait till 12:30 for the English one. Well we went to the early one in order to get on up the line. We went to the Cathedral, this mass was sparsely especially compared to the one that was getting out before we went in. the church was re-built in 1940 and is on the historical register. The inside is as one would expect big, with the alter in front but the Eucharist was at a side alter and was brought to the main alter for the mass. The side alter was for the Virgin Mary and as people walked toward the main alter they turned toward the side alter and bowed or genuflected to it, as one would expect. We read the parts on the left page that was in English, Spanish on the right. What was said during the homily is up for grabs; staying awake was difficult for me, as the 2:30 wake up call didn’t help. At the end of the mass, the priest came down the isle and shook each of our hand and said a couple words, he was shocked when he realized we didn’t understand Spanish, but recovered well.

We thought a good meal was in order, not much on the waterfront but saw an Omni Hotel, they generally have good eats. We went there for their buffet lunch. It was unremarkable, and there was no ham either, except for the fresh shrimp there was not much to talk about, after fleecing each of us for $36 that really made the experience hard to swallow; at Las Vegas it cost more but were well worth it. They must have got phone in requests for seating the day before and realized they needed to have more space than there dining room. So there were tables set in the ballroom, now you can see how many people were there. Ramon, our waiter said that the hotel was not prepared for the amount of people. He had worked there for the last 5 years and a number of times before, even living in Rockford IL for a while, then coming back for Mom. He was missing out on a family BBQ, He has a brother in law who cooked up a mean rack of ribs on the grill.

Now off to the South Texas Institute for the Arts,

http://www.stia.org/. The post Lewis and Clark exhibit was in its last day. There were many paintings, sketches and artifacts. Some of interest to us were those of George Catlin and Sully, they sketched paintings of Midwest Indians and Fort Snelling. Many nice paintings, and as we were walking in the room at our own pace, I was standing in the corner and thought, if these people didn’t do these paintings and sketches, we would not have known how things looked and events of those by gone years. Shirleen came to that spot and said the very same thing as I have just written, spooky. As I was looking at another picture of a cowboy on a horse, the lady next to me said to her male counterpart. See how the masculinity of the horse shows through the picture, to the beholder. Yes the muscles were well defined. She then said, it is similar to Remington’s works. I butted in and said that now I understand the difference in his and C. M. Russell’s works. When we saw their works earlier Dallas I asked Shirleen why do they always make the horses in these dramatic poses. Now I know why, to show masculinity. The lady said that is what’s missing in art now a days. We then went up to the Collectors Club Collection, that is a space put together by people of the area that buy art for the museum, there were two Rembrandt etchings, what detail. But as we walked into the room and turned right there in the middle of the room was a young lady laying on a table. She was covered by a sheet but looked so real I was embarrassed, as I had walked into her room. That is how real this sculpture looked. It was a live figure bronze cast painted in oil. It looked so real that it had light moles, veins in her hands, to bad we could not take a picture to show the detail. The sculpture was by a famous sculpturer, whose name I did not remember.

We then headed to the coast, down North Padre Island, nice looking homes and many dug out boating areas behind the homes. We went to the National Park and Shirleen got her stamp for the park three minutes before they closed.







We headed back up North Island onto Mustang Island. We ended up taking an access to the beach, as you can drive on it for miles. The waves were still strong and splashing heavily.

As we drove along we saw these jelly looking things washed up on the beach, I got out and looked at them and said they are Portuguese Man-of-War. We saw a couple walking and confirmed this. We got a charge out of watching the birds trying to get something to eat without getting wet, fun to watch. This went on for miles and Mom wondered if we would ever get off, I must admit, I was hoping that the gulf waters would not get any higher myself.

You see where we are this eve - jerr

Happy Easter Day 22

As close as we have come this trip to a picture or statue of a bunny is this jack rabbit!!

Day 22, Corpus Christi - Holy Saturday - Best Western Waterfront

The gas down here has been good to the pocket book. The Texans give us all a break! Or was this a defunct station?

She will love me for this!!!! Looking out the window of our room on Corpus Christi, nice view.

Kings Ranch Store.

We started the day visiting the King Ranch store. It had some nice looking chairs and benches made of cow hide and some with hair on the back. It had a lot of clothing with the running W brand on it. The neat part was the saddle making area. They had a number of saddles in different states of being built.

Off to Corpus, we were headed to the South Texas Botanical Gardens and Nature Center. We again had a no cost tour; we belong to U of MN Botanical Society. This is just south of the city. It has an orchid house with over 2,000 plants, Cattleya, Phaleonopsis, Pathiopedlum and Dendrobium. What beautiful colors, orange, white, purple, white with many different colored trimmings. The rose garden was in full bloom for the second time. Then there were tropical collections of bromeliads, cycads, cacti and succulents. The colors of the hibiscus, oleanders, and bougainvillea bloom nearly all year round and today were just beautiful. We walked the graveled paths around the pond with its wildlife, indigenous trees, especially the different types of mesquite and ebony trees. A nice place to visit for an hour and a half.

They recommended Andy’s restaurant, they are only open from 6 am to 2:30 pm. Turns out it has a railroad train motif. Two tracks above the eating area, train memorabilia abounds. What a neat place and I was wearing a T-shirt with a locomotive on it, by chance. The food was great, Shirleen had too much of a vegetable omelet with hash browns, I a chicken fried steak with white gravy and French fries. What a great meal and place. Rachael Ray back in 1993 did her meals on $40 dollars a day segment at this restaurant.

Now we went to the downtown area of Corpus Christi, not a lot to look at. Found a nice hotel, Best Western, five floors up overlooking the gulf and sand islands. We then walked down to Landry’s Restaurant. A nice seafood place to eat, we had shrimp scampi, fried shrimp, fried fresh catch Pontchartrain, stuffed shrimp and sautéed scallops with a delicious orzo pasta. The shrimp were over done but the flavors were just great, would not eat there tomorrow but would next month. Nice harbor area, tomorrow a historic home tour, looked nice and some other areas of the arts. We also found the Cathedral for tomorrow. More to come tomorrow – Jerr

Day 21, Tonight at Comfort Inn Kingsville Texas - Good Friday

A note I meant to put in a couple days ago - Texas Mountain Laurels are better known to us as Lilacs, like Texans they like to have there own thing.

http://tx.audubon.org/Sabal.html This is Sabal Palm Audubon Center and Sanctuary. We arrived to late to view the many birds this sanctuary offers. But we did the entire walk. The first two miles was on the trails below. It was where they filmed many of the Tarzan movies that I watched when I was growing up (or have I). This area was used because of the Sabal Palms made it look like Africa.

Another Rio Grande shot, one over the sign and the green water shot with the water hyacinths washing along the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. This route was a mile walk.

This Audubon Sanctuary would be a must see. It is a nature walk in nature, the trails are not groomed nor are they covered with anything but dead leaves, palm branches, or hard packed earth, seems the only ones that can use the path besides us were red ants. Can't say enough about this area, after three hours of walking we called it over.

In the Sanctuary, there were flowers and this prickly pear was in bloom, this one although not in full bloom has a nice color to it. The other is a tree with red finger like blossoms.

Thought seeing that this is Good Friday we visited an old mid-1800 church now a Cathedral the Immaculate Conception Cathedral, and the next picture memorializes the day.





This was a 1886 cemetery at Brownsville. Right is Born 1792. The area had many old grave sites. There were many markers tipped over and broken. Vandals probably, as the monuments were on solid ground or flat concrete bases, what a shame. few had people tending after them.





Stayed even with him until I missed a shift at 70!! It is a Ferrari 512 M.



This was right before we had to go through a Border Patrol stop, he asked are you American citizens, I said yes and he said go.

We ate mid afternoon at Vermillion Restaurant and Watering Hole, a Mexican style place. Shirleen had her old stand-by BBQ pork sandwich, I fish taco, they had a nice pico de gallo sauce, nice bite with the peppers. Before the meal she offered us a taste of Ceviche, marinated fish cocktail, with fresh cilantro, diced onions, tomatoes in fresh lime juice. The fish is sliced thinly placed in the marinate and placed in the refrigerator overnight, never cooked by heat but cooked by the lime juice.

Tonight we had little choice, Chili's, only place for a wine. We had there appetizer, three small hamburgers, cheese, bacon bites with fries and fried onions. Worked out fine.
jerr

Added Tonight at Holiday Inn Express Brownsville Texas

Tried a border run again. Out in the boonies we had an electrical incident which caused minor concern. Now we are on TX highway # 4 east of Brownsville, looking at the last battle of the Civil War plaque, turns out it memorializes the battle a month after the end of the war.

On the way back we stopped at the border patrol and called New Ulm at that stop. New Ulm Jensen's said if they did not put a new battery in, have it done and they will take care of it. Well we got directions from OnStar, they gave us directions to a Cad dealer. Then they called the Cad dealer and hooked me to him. When we arrived with the MN plates the group jumped in the car and 35 minutes we were on our way, no cash changed hands. I pulled in behind a Viper, blue and when started it snorted, neat car. The service guy had an 81 Vette, we hit it off fast. We were seated in the visitor room and then they brought in two calendars, one a GM super car and a 08 GM car's one. They sure treated us well, much like I feel when I go to Jensen's.

Here is for Sheryl and the girls. The first was a sand carving at South Padre Island visitor center, next is a tortoise by Wyland on the Whaling Wall of the convention center, the last is in a sea turtle rescue park on the Island, specie Hawksbill, the upper shell has a beautiful rich reddish brown or dark brown mottling. At the center we walked out on a board walk and looked at the many birds in the waters and mud flats.

We walked the shore for about a mile, again I was washed by the waves washing onto the beach. Reminds me of Door County with the Grand-daughters on those rocks.


This is NOT Jerry, but they invited me and had it been 40 years ago, I would have.

So where did we eat? At The Palms Resort outside by the beach on the Island. Shirleen had a nice piece of red snapper with Caesar salad, I deep fried oysters, shrimp and fish, scrumptious. The evening was at a restaurant across from the hotel, Cobbleheads Bar and Grill, we split some enchiladas, tacos and a flat taco. jerr

March 19, Pharr to Harlingen TX, Day 19, Wednesday, at a Econ O Lodge

It is starting to get hard to find places because of spring break and Easter and the Mexican families come north.

The following was sent to me and I think it describes the Rose window in the church of San Juan in San Antonio: The term rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in churches of the Gothic architectural style and being divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery. The name “rose window” was not used before the 17th century and in all likelihood stems from the Old French word roué, meaning wheel, not from the English flower name, rose. Not sure this description fits the window you saw. Love, Mary

Yesterday I forgot to include the restaurant stops. When we were having the Cad looked at, we had to eat as it was 2:30 pm. We stopped at a Danny’s Restaurant, a chain from Laredo, but this one in Alice has been open for four months. The chips and salsa were good, the chips were thicker than usual but well done. Shirleen’s BLT and fries was good, my Enchiladas Rojas special – Enchiladas de Picadillo, was great. The meat filling had small pieces of potato and carrots, rice had some carrots also, refried beans and salad. It is a restaurant I would go to at lunch again. The evening was at an Outback, we split the Blooming Onion and a glass of wine. The fun part of the meal was watching the Orientals across the way. They brought there own deep fried peanuts, placed there plates on their napkins as there was no table cloths. The napkins were triangle up and half the napkin was on the table the other over the edge. Fun to watch customs of others.

Today we started the car and headed to Mission, Shirleen wanted to look at the pictures on the wall of a store with the hand and footprints of Tom Landry the coach of the Dallas Cowboys. Before we left the room Shirleen called her cousin Rosemary and Jim who live in Donna TX. She gave us some really good ideas and we did most of them.

We took a couple pictures and off to Our Lady of Guadalupe parish, we appreciate the hard work these poor people put into what they believe in. This is the floor, like the geometry.

We went to another old church but it was being refurbished, but to our luck we found a place to eat. Pepe’s on the River (Rio Grande). It was an immense pole with thatched roof. We grabbed lunch, Shirleen a chopped pork sandwich with fries, I a half rack baby back ribs and BBQ polish sausage. There were eight tables of 4 to 10 people, retirees down south. We noticed the guys got there golfing irons out and hit golf balls across the Rio Grande into Mexico. A couple of them ended up over the river. Looked like a good crossing area to me.

We went further down the line to the Los Ebanos Ferry Crossing. The crossing was used by explorers and colonists in 1740’s. it was also a salt trail from Mexico. Used by Mexican war troops, 1846, by Texas Rangers chasing cattle rustlers in 1874 and smuggling in many eras. The crossing is named for the ebony trees here. This is known as the only Government Licensed, hand pulled ferry on any boundary of the US. The men that do the work are hard working, as it is a dirty job, no nice concrete or tar road; it is sand to the entry point. The men have to pound in five inch stakes and sandbag the entry points as the ferry hits the banks to stop. There are a small number of people and three cars at the most on it. It looked about three house widths at the crossing, 200 feet? The marker is an International Boundry between the United States and Mexico placed on the US side by the ebony tree and marker.

Next to San Jose to look at the ‘Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto’. The Virgin Mary is seven foot high and purchased from a studio in Paris. Nice stop.

Then on to our next stop ‘Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan Del Valle’ in San Juan. Absolutely beautiful it is hard to describe, but if you get close, stop in. They have an alter with carved figures in it and centered with the Virgin in a purple cape. When we walked around to the alter it turns out that there are hundreds of 2 X 6 inch lite candles, as more are put behind the alter where people sit and pray, Yes a room specifically made for the candles, hand carted in flats of 18, four or six flats pushed by a little old lady where they are put into a candle room to burn out. There is another room that has the clothing of individuals who have died, some with pictures on them some with names and dates. Really a different display

We then headed for the shed, we ate at the Marriot. Nice and quiet, split a rib eye with fresh fried mushrooms and veggies with fries. They gave us complimentary Margaritas, nice of them. Jerr