Our Travel Blog

Warm and sunny to start, but the clouds moved in throughout the morning.

I wasn’t feeling too bad this morning and Lyn has almost recovered, just waiting for one ear to clear. We headed out after breakfast for a farewell trip to Aransas. Lyn had discovered a couple more wild life areas there, as well as a quilt store.

We were hoping to see some dolphins as we crossed on the ferry, but apart from a quick glimpse of a fin we were out of luck. We went through the wild life areas and managed to see a couple of new bird species as well as a couple of turtles in their natural habitat.

We stopped of at a local restaurant for a fresh seafood lunch and then headed out to the quilt store. Back on the ferry we managed to see a couple of dolphins in the channel, making the trip well worth while.

Tomorrow will be a day of preparation as we head out early Thursday for day one of the 700 mile trip to Alabama.

Something unfair here, the weather is great and we both feel lousy, off to sulk and recover.

Both still “under the weather” so apart from sleep not too much happening today.

Woke up to temperatures over 70F and sunny.

Also woke to Lyn with a sore and blocked ear and me the the aches and stuffiness of a cold .

We decided to go down to the pharmacy to see what they could advise for Lyn as the pain was not going away, if that failed we’d try to find a doctor. After giving the symptoms it was apparent that the problem was most likely a mucus plug in the estu  estac eusta ear tube!! We got some medication which came highly recommended and hasbeen released from requiring a prescription. So far it seems to be working and the ear is draining.

A friend who is on vacation in the UK deposited some money into my UK bank for me and asked me to confirm it was indeed there. I can log into the bank on the internet but it is a little more convoluted than logging into Canadian Banks. You have to insert one of your bank cards into a special electronic gizmo they provide you with, you enter your pin and the machine generates an 8 digit number which is your password of the minute. Anyway the system wouldn’t log me in so I phoned the bank. All went well until they got to security question #5 and #6, when, and for how much was your latest transaction with the bank, well I had no idea as I couldn’t log in to find out, and they couldn’t let me log in without answering the security question. This went round and round for a few minutes until I asked, in that very calm and diplomatic tone that I am renowned for when I get nowhere on the phone, to speak to a supervisor. After holding for 5 minutes I hung-up and called back This time I bluffed my way through the security questions, and on we got with the process of working out why my login failed. Turns out that the card expired on Feb 29th, whoops! For some reason our not too reliable phone link decided to die (well maybe it had a little help!)

Once or twice a week they have jam sessions at the resort where all manner of musicians get together to play. Tonight they had a sing-along / concert which we went to. It wasn’t too bad, and provided some entertainment. Turns out I had met the leader of the group previously, he was an Air Traffic Controller in Winnipeg…. small world

Warm and not foggy this morning, we got up into the 80’s again today.

After a week of being sick, Lyn has successfully managed to pass the lurgy on to me!

Today was shopping day and the smartphone shopping list got its second use, this time at Lyn’s request! When we got back I decided to check our flight reservations for the NZ trip (Air Canada has a nasty habit of changes flights and not telling anyone). For some reason I could not check the itinerary on the web, so I phoned Aeroplan. As it turns out there was a change, it appears that on one of the legs the departure time and flight number were the same, but we arrived at destination 5 minutes early! The only real downside to our original booking was the fact that I had to leave the Cook Islands 2 days ahead of Lyn as there was no availability on her flight when we booked, on the off chance I asked whether any space had opened up on Lyn’s flight. It must have been my lucky day, as there was now a seat available on the flight.

After lunch we headed down to the pool and spent some time in the  water and then lying out in the sun to dry. Life is sooooooo tough!

Foggy and warm again this morning.

Lyn seems to have regressed and the cough has taken a hold now.

We decided we would head out any way; about 60 miles back on the road we arrived from Brownsville on is a working ranch that has guided tours. As usual we had issues finding the place, but that’s another story. We arrived in time to book our tickets for the tour and had enough time to head back into town to get some lunch.

Once back at the ranch we boarded a small 20 seat bus for the tour, luckily the A/C was working well as the temperature was 30C / 86F. The ranch started life back in the 1850’s when a river boat captain bought a couple of cheap land claims in the middle of nowhere. He continued adding land, and there are now about 850,000 acres with 30, 000 head of cattle and 300 horses. The horses raised down on the ranch are known as quarter horses, some of which are quite famous and valuable; at least I now know what a quarter horse is.

The first cattle we saw were Texas longhorns. Although the picture isn’t too clear, you should be able to see where the name comes from.

Texas Long Horn King Ranch Tx

Although there are a number of these cattle on the ranch they are kept for historical reasons, not commercial.

Further around the ranch we spotted a couple of deer

Deer - King Ranch Tx

The ranch employs between 150 and 300 workers depending on the time of year, many of the workers live for free in houses on the ranch. We even saw our first “real” cowboys riding around as well.

We came across a field that was fairly clear of vegetation (each field can be from 100 to 30,000 acres in size) with plenty of cattle grazing. I guess this is what I had as my pre-conceived idea of a Texas view

Cows Grazing King Ranch Tx

We also saw a couple of new (to us) birds, the buzzard and the sand hill crane, there were probably a few others but the guides “John Wayne” accent was a little hard to translate at times

Foggy and warm this morning with the temperature climbing to about 80F.

This morning was laundry time, and in the afternoon we intended to find the elusive Frank Jones Wild Life Sanctuary. We headed out after lunch and found the place with no problem; however I have to admit to being a little disappointed when we got there. To me the place  was nothing more than an overgrown area of land with a few walking trails beaten through it. There was hardly any wildlife / birds there at all. However there was one thing there I had not seen before. As we walked along the downtrodden track there was a brown line, about 4 inches wide crossing it. On closer inspection it was an ant superhighway. There were ants moving in two directions along the highway, in one direction they were carrying bits of leaves and plants, in the other direction they were empty “handed” heading back for more. Kind of neat really.

Rather than head back home we went down to the bay to visit Indian Point Park, as we turned off the highway we saw a small (as opposed to great) blue heron. This heron is smaller (obviously) and has a reddish brown colouring on the head and neck.

Small Blue Heron, Indian Pt Park, Portland Tx

and also a flowering cactus

Flowering Cactus, Indian Pt Park, Portland Tx

As we crossed under the highway we were right on the coast so we stopped for a few minutes and sat on the rocks watching the waves. We drove on a little bit to a large pier maintained by the city and took a walk along it hoping to see some more sea birds, unfortunately there were none.

The fog and drizzle closed in again this evening, but we were still able to manage a BBQ; just like real camping!! Right Hazel?????

Warm overnight and up to around 68F today.

Lyn was still suffering this morning, but by lunchtime she felt fit enough to go out. We planned to go looking for the Fred Jones Sanctuary again, but then the rain started!

Once the heavier rain let up, it turned to a light drizzle so we headed off to the local hardware store to get some stuff with the intent of heading of to the sanctuary after shopping. At that stage the fog rolled in so we gave up and returned home. Since that time there have been announcements on the radio asking people to remain off the roads unless travel is an absolute necessity due to poor visibility. One day we’ll get some decent weather; at least it’s warm!

Needed the furnace on this morning, but we reached about 68F as the day progressed.

Lyn hasn’t got over her sore throat yet so we hung around the trailer this morning. After lunch we decided to go out to the Fred Jones wild life sanctuary, about 10 miles from here. Only 2 roads were involved in getting there so it would be easy to find.

We headed out, in the right direction, and drove past a large wind farm. The farm is located in a number of fields, as well as agriculture the fields also house oil wells. Good use of land I guess

Oil and Wind Portland Tx

We carried on along the road looking for County Rd 69 E. This seemed simple, but all the road signs were 4 digits for the County Roads. We carried on until the distance travelled far exceeded the distance to destination then turned around. Although we didn’t have an address we put the GPS on just to monitor our location. Lo and behold as we headed back the GPS showed us as passing County Roads 75, 73, 71, could the next one be 69? Yes it was, I guess the 4 digit signs were new and the roads had been renumbered, as usual the GPS hadn’t caught up. We wend along the road looking for the wild life sanctuary, but still couldn’t find it. At this point we called it a day, the trip was not meant to be. We got our exercise by walking around the resort when we got back.

Later I fired up Google Earth and went to the junction where we turned on to CR69, went down to the street level view and “walked” along the road. Sure enough, hidden in the trees back from the road was a gateway into the sanctuary. Maybe another day