Touring Tales from Texas

After our stay in Houston we headed south to Corpus Christi. The RV Park we stayed in wasn't nice. The entrance road was not only ridden with huge bumps and craters it also had an obnoxious amount of speed bumps. Their Wifi sucked and it was in a shitty part of town. The only good thing about it was its proximity to all the nearby attractions we were interested in and more. The weird thing is the day we were suppose to leave we had fifty mile per hour gale force winds which grounded us an extra day there. Ha! Life could be worse, aye?

The day we got into town we drove down to the harbour to checkout the waterfront. We often like to scout out a town or city when we first get there. Our interest in Corpus Christi was that it is one of the few beachside/waterside towns in Texas. We found out that Selena, the famous Latina singer was murdered in Corpus Chrisiti. Along the waterfront they had this memorial for her. You can see it below. Then we went downtown which was underwhelming. Architecturaly it had character but a lot of buildings were vacant. We strolled around a bit downtown and then ducked into this place to eat called the Water Street Oyster Bar. We hit it at the right time! Happy Hour and half price on all the sushi rolls. Everything tastes better when it's discounted. Their sushi was fresh, with unique flavours, and interesting combinations paired together. We dug it! Since we often eat a late breakfast and skip lunch we wind up eating an early dinner. This was one of those times. Around the block from where we had dinner was the Texas Surf museum which was lame. We never saw a museum that sold its attractions or exhibits. In this place, everything was for sale. Surf boards, newspaper clippings, photos, it was a goof. Everything had a price sticker on it.

We often will play 500 gin rummy or an occasional game of chess, or better yet backgammon at night. Since we finished binge watching all four seasons of Yellowstone, we're waiting for Ozark to start back up again. Plus, between all the football on TV for the first week of Playoffs there was plenty of TV to watch.

The next day we went to check-out the USS Lexington. Which is as much a museum as it is a ship. It's an air craft carrier that was bombed by a Japanese kamikaze bomber during the Pearl Harbor attack. Fifty sailors were killed in that bombing and over one hundred and twenty injured. Before that it spent twenty-one months in combat. Her planes destroyed nearly a thousand enemy aircraft and she sank or destroyed 300,000 tons of cargo and 600,000 tons damaged or destroyed. It was later repaired and did some additional service in San Diego. After that service the boat was decommissioned in 1962 and retired to it's current location in the Corpus Christi Bay. After touring it we agree, It is true national treasure.

Thursday we went to the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History for our first stop of the day. It was a better experience that we thought it would be. The best part for Brad was learning the history of Corpus Christi and for Kathy it was the splendour of the crystal and rock elements displayed. Quite beautiful! We learned that Whataburger a fast food hamburger chain that started in Corpus Christi. They have grown to over 500 restaurants and do a billion dollars in business a year. We ate in one the next day. It was called Whataburger cause the owner wanted his customers when they bit into the burger to say, (you guessed it)... "WHAT A BURGER"

After the museum, we broke out the bikes and took a ride to Cole Park along the shore. It had a pretty good bike trail connected to it. Before though, we picnicked a packed lunch by the harbour we scouted out the night before. The weather was good that day, the temperature got up in the upper seventies. It's crazy in Texas. The mornings regularly started out in the mid-thirties or forties and then by four or five o'clock at it's peak, it's thirty degrees hotter. Everyday! After the bike tour we put the bikes back on the car and drove to the Texas A&M Campus. The most memorable part of the visit was Brad driving up a sidewalk that he thought was a driveway. Luckily the kids were off campus for winter break so no-one was on the sidewalk. Kathy of course hollered at him while he was backing up...Oops!

Hey Padre! We're heading to Padre Island National Seashore. It's about a forty minute drive northwest (we think?). We were hoping that if it was anything like the Gulf Island National Seashore in Pensacola it would be a home-run. It was more like a double. One thing that we have consistently done during our trip is stop at Visitor Centers. We wouldn't have thought to do that in a million years if it were not for Uncle Mel and Aunt Judy's recommendation to do so...Speaking of home-runs most are! Or at least a triple.

The reason Padre Island was good but not great was because there was only a stretch of five and a half miles you could drive your car on. The remaining fifty-five miles you needed a four wheel drive vehicle to ride along the beach. We stopped at a couple campgrounds on the Island to check them out. The four pictures below were at our next stop Mustang Island State Park. It was about a twenty minute drive and worth the $10 admission fee even though we only stayed about a half an hour. We drove to Port Aransas as we were contemplating taking the ferry back to Corpus Christi. After seeing the huge lines to get on the ferry, we decided to take the forty-five minute drive home instead. We did stop at Whataburgers for lunch. It was good, WHATABURGER!!!!

We were cruising around the harbour at Corpus Christi and stopped in at Joe's Crab Shack for a refreshing beverage. The bartender had good people skills but was novice at making an old fashion and a vesper martini. Brad taught him how. As we're cruising around we drive up to the back of the American Bank Arena. Some dude was guarding a load-in with a HUGE tour bus behind him. We were wondering who's bus he was guarding. So we googled it and found out it was The Marshall Tucker Band and tickets were still available. We figured what the heck, and we purchased two. We were an hour early for the start of the concert so we broke out a couple of the cold beers out of the case we bought in Port Aransas. We started drinking beers in the car like high school kids before we went into the venue. The musicians in the band were awesome. This one guy who played the flute, the saxophone and keyboards was awesome. The lead singer and the only original member of the band Doug Gray was showing his age and 50 years of touring while the other musicians rose to the occasion and rocked it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdrRDAdPlD0

All day yesterday it was only thirty-nine degrees. Brrrrrrrrr! We did our Walmart food shopping, played 3 games of 500 gin rummy and worked on our blog. It was an off day due to the cold. Today it's going up to fifty. Yay! We're headed to Austin tomorrow so we'll catch up on our visit to San Antonio next week. Thanks for reading down this far. Peace & Love, Kathy and Brad