Choke Canyon and Mustang Island State Parks

We headed South for warmer weather.  So far we've gotten rain with the balmy 16 C days, and as cold as 8 C during the day!  It's supposed to get better this week.

Choke Canyon.

This is the first place in 6 months that we actually set out our hammock and swing chair.  It was beautiful, with large sites and a paved walkway right to the showers.

 This manmade lake is the site of the largest ESPN bass fishing competitions.  The largest to be pulled out was almost 22 lb.  The county is Callaham.  If your family has lived here 15 years and you graduate at their only school, the county pays for up to an 8 year university full ride.  It's all ranches and oil here, and one of the ranches is Nolan Ryan's.  Apparently he and some other high rollers will be at the annual kids stock show auction on Jan 22, where the grand champ will go for around $180 000.  We may drop in to watch, but I'm not bidding.  You don't even get to keep the COW!

Clouds are better in real life.

Now South and to the Gulf of Mexico near Corpus Christi, Tx.

Karate Kids At Mustang

 This sea sponge has done its last syphoning.

 Trophy Catfish

From this Jetty you can see an oil rig out there.  We counted 10 of the over 300 in the Gulf.

 You can smile, but you might get wet standing here.

This Sandhill Crane is appropriately posed in front of the sand hills that separate our campsite from the beach.

The real Mc Coy Pufferfish

This little guy was washed up along with a lot of Portugese Man O Wars.  They get pushed into the shore with really turbulent waters sometimes.  The jellyfish were up to 25 cm across, and had tentacles that were usually balled up, but some stretched out to almost 2 m. long.  Tori picked one up but I didn't have the camera at the time.  Blowing sand seems to bury them in a matter of hours.

On Thursday night, 4 young guys (20's) were very fortunate to get away with their lives.  Their 16 foot aluminum boat capsized on what they called 10 foot waves about 1 km straight out from here in the dark.  They were in the water about 1 hour, but got no hypothermia.  Friends of ours took them into their motorhome for warming up with some hot chocolate.  Their boat washed up on this shore by 8:00 pm, shortly after they got to shore.  One of  them had been under the flipped boat for a moment as it started to sink.  I'd say if you've got wits enough to get out of that situation, you  should have wits enough not to get into it in the first place.  I'm glad God had his hand on them.