Port Mansfield

We are now staying at a nice RV Park in Port Mansfield, TX.   The park is full of deer so Jim has started feeding them.  One guy in the park gave Jim a bag of animal crackers to feed the deer.  It turns out that the deer love them.  All the stores sell deer corn because it is not illegal in Texas to feed deer.  Its kind of sad that you can have deer feeders and then shoot the deer that you have lured in during deer season.  There are hundreds of deer that hang around Port Mansfield.  They are in everyones yards and they are fairly tame.   They are also very small so not much meat on them.

There are several boat launches in town that dump you into the Laguna Madre.  Everyone that is staying in this town fishes.   The Laguna is over 10 miles wide and several hundred miles long following the coast down all the way to Brownsville.  The Padre Islands separate the Laguna from the Gulf.  You can get to the Gulf through the Port Mansfield cut.  They actually dug a channel (cut) through Padre Island in order to get out to the Gulf.  The Laguna is only 1 to 5 feet deep so you need a fairly flat bottomed boat to fish it. 

Very Nice and Very Odd Water Creatures

I'm still sharing pictures from Padre Island National Seashore.  We saw these wonderful Red-headed Ducks.  They are the first ones I've ever seen.  There was a whole pond full of them.  Its amazing how many birds come to the southeast coast of Texas for the winter.   Walking the beach was a challenge with all the jellyfish that washed up on shore.  The high tides must strand them on the beach and they were all over the beach.  I found out this pretty blue one that was still moving even on the sand is called a Portuguese Man O War.  Yes, their sting is poisonous but I don't think its deadly at least not the small ones.   They aren't really a true jellyfish.  They are some kind of polyp with many polyps forming one organism. 

There were other plate sized jellyfish with pink tentacles all over the beach as well but I couldn't figure out what they were called.  From what I read they can still sting even after they are "dead".   We accidentally stepped on a few while walking (we had shoes on) and they are very slippery -- its like stepping on ice.   People were fishing in the surf  and others were enjoying the water.  I couldn't believe none of them got stung.   Although people must get stung because there were notices at the visitor center on how to treat the stings (use vinegar).

Padre Island National Seashore

We spent two weeks in Corpus Christi, TX.  We stayed at a very nice campground and it ended up being fairly close to the Padre Island National Seashore.  This is a national park that covers over three fourths of Padre Island.  It is a sanctuary for the Kemps Sea Turtle.  The sea turtles come here every summer to lay their eggs in the sand along the shore.  The park service actually takes the eggs and incubates them in a safe place.  When the turtles hatch they make a big production of releasing them on the beach so they can make their run back to the ocean.  Everyone in the area is asked to help keep the gulls, etc. from trying to eat the turtles before they get to the water.   There are big fines posted for poaching turtle eggs or turtles.  

There are a couple of campgrounds along the shore in the park-- no electricity but there is a water faucet to put water in your tank and a dump station for your sewer.  We don't like this kind of camping because we don't have a generator so don't have anyway to live  "off of the grid".  There are picnic tables with shade covers for day use.  We saw all kinds of interesting shore birds.  Here is a picture of Ruddy Turnstones. 

U.S.S. Lexington

We followed US 77 highway south from LaGrange and when we got to the small town of Schulenburg we had to take the truck detour around to avoid the low underpass.  Well the truck detour was very tight so Jim was not happy trying to drive our train through it.  We got to Corpus Christi and decided we would park for two weeks.  Its beautiful here and the weather has been excellent. 

The first touristy thing we did was take a tour of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lexington.  This is the famous aircraft carrier from WWII.  It was in all of the famous battles in the Pacific and survived even after being very badly damaged.   Jim got pictures of the aircraft that are on display on the flat top of the carrier where they would normally take off.  The carrier is in the harbor by downtown Corpus Christi and is so huge you can't get a good picture of the whole outside.  It takes several hours to see the whole thing.  You get to climb many, many stairs to get up to the bridge.  Jim had to play with the phone and wheel and the airtubes used for calling the engine room.  They also show a 3D movie in a huge theater which was fun to watch.

Lots to see and do here so we are glad to be staying for two weeks.