Every Mile a Memory: Louisiana to Padre Island, Texas

January 27, 2016

We arrived at Sam Houston Jones State Park near Lake Charles, Louisiana yesterday.

Our campsite at Sam Houston Jones SP

The Bayou behind our campsite

Spent the day in downtown Lake Charles today. It was in the 50’s so most of the things we did were indoors. Our first stop was the information center where we picked up pamphlets and maps of the downtown area. Our second stop was the historic city hall arts and cultural center. It was actually just an art gallery with paintings by local artists. The art was nice but we were more interested in learning the history of the area. Lake Charles is known as The Festival Capital of Louisiana, because it hosts over 75 festivals each year, the most famous being Mardi Gras, the second largest in the state. So our next stop was the Mardi Gras Museum. The museum houses the largest display of Mardi Gras costumes in the world. We learned the history of Mardi Gras and saw some amazing costumes along with the photos of the people who wore them during the parades. Some of the headdresses weigh over 75 pounds.

Lamp posts downtown have the names of the different Krewes in their Mardi Gras parade

which was being held on January 30th.

Costumes in the Mardi Gras Museum

After the museum we went for lunch at Steamboat Bill’s, recommended by locals. I had popcorn shrimp and Dave had shrimp etouffee, (a Cajun dish that uses a method of cooking called smothering). It was delicious! (Dave wanted crawfish but they are out of season.)

Shrimp etouffee and popcorn shrimp. If you're in the area, this is a great place to eat!

After lunch we went to the Imperial Calcasieu Museum where we learned the history of the area from the Native Americans through the early settlers. The museum also displayed a beautiful collection of Audubon prints, many were original Havell prints from 1827-1838. We didn't take pictures inside the museum, but they had a nice collection.

Our last stop was right across the street from the museum…very popular to the area…bakery called Jo’s Party House. We wanted to buy one of everything but settled on 3 sinfully delicious things.

Desserts from Jo's Party House

New Orleans brewed beer

January 28, 2016

Today we traveled from Mississippi to Edna, Texas. We left Sam Houston Jones SP at 10:30 and arrived at 3:30 (with a stop at a Pilot to fill up on gas). By the way…thank you gas prices for being so low as we travel across the US. The lowest we saw for diesel was $1.49/gallon. At the Pilot we paid $1.98…should have gone a little further into Texas for the super low prices.

Texana Park and Campground is awesome. Our site (107) is right on Lake Texana, which is a reservoir on the Navidad River. All of the sites are asphalt with lots of trees for privacy.

Our site 107 - its hard to tell from the photo, but the lake is in the background.

There weren't any other campers near us when we got to the park on Thursday,

but over the weekend the campground was packed.

After dinner Dave started a fire. The sky is amazing here…we’re out on a peninsula with no city lights for miles. At one point, Dave went in to get coffee. I heard rustling in the leaves near our campsite and thought our neighbors dog (four sites down) had wandered far from his family. I grabbed a flashlight and saw that it wasn’t a dog at all, but an armadillo. :)

Armadillo

One afternoon, I was sitting in this chair reading and yup, he walked right up.

Had to move to get this picture.

He figured out we were there and started running.

January 29, 2016

Got up early to see the sunrise. It was beautiful! Got on our bikes and rode around the campground and decided to take a ride on the Bobcat Track. It was a good hour bike ride with lots of cool sights to see. The Spider Tree (so named for its curving branches) is an ancient live oak. Very cool the way its branches touch the ground and curve back up. There were cows on a neighboring farm, who didn’t appreciate us stopping to take pictures while they were trying to eat. Lots of deer. And bobcat tracks and scat everywhere, hence the trail's name. A small footbridge over an inlet to the lake looked like a grassy path and not a body of water.

Spider Tree

Wendy starts a stampede!

Bobcat Track

This is a plant covered stream...it looked like a grassy path.

In the afternoon we put our kayaks in the water behind our campsite. It was a breezy day, but we figured we’d hug the shore and head for the cove. As Wendy was paddling along, a large fish jumped and smacked into her kayak! The wind kept picking up so Wendy bailed at a kayak launching pier and Dave continued on. Some nature sights we saw along the way: a bald eagle, little green frog (who didn’t seem to like the wind either), water turtle, and of course the fish that tried to jump in the kayak. No alligators, but the regulars here say there are many in the warmer months.

We were able to launch our kayaks right from our campsite

Wendy before bailing due to the wind picking up.

Dave on his own

At 7pm, we went across the street to the Brackenridge Event Center and watched a youth rodeo competition. It was amazing what these young kids could do! We watched the barrel and pole competitions and calf roping. We would’ve stayed longer but it was an outdoor arena and it got chilly as the night went on.

Hard to take pics on my cell phone of these fast moving rodeo riders, but I tried. This is the pole competition where they had to maneuver around the poles.

Cattle roping

Little cowgirl taking a break from the competition

January 30, 2016

Got up for the sunrise again and went for a bike ride. Tried to retrace our ride from the day before since our bike lock seems to be missing. Had a nice ride, but the bike lock is still missing. Drove to Edna to buy groceries at the local food store (HEB). After lunch we went for a hike on the Texana and Hummingbird Roost Trails. Didn’t see much wildlife but it was a good hike. When we got back, Dave set up his hammock and took a nap. After dinner we were invited to sit around the fire of some folks camping a few sites down from ours…brothers, Wes and Paul and their wives Diane and Cheryl. All from the Houston area. Great stories were shared by all!

Natural arbor created by yaupon birds

Leaning live oak

Dave's hammock

January 31, 2016

Dave went out on his kayak this morning with Wes and Paul. Dave brought his depth finder so they could find some good fishing holes. It was windy again so they didn’t stay out long. In the afternoon we did some planning for future legs of our trip…we want to make sure we get to Mesa on time, but we have so many stops we want to make along the way.

February 1, 2016

We left for Padre Island National Seashore at 10:30 and had a very windy drive to our new campground…Bird Island Basin. We were originally going to stay at Malaquite Beach but due to the wind, we decided on the gulf side of the island. It was beautiful when we showed up…clear blue sky and about 80 degrees. We went for a walk along the shore and then walked through the water to get back to the RV. We were surprised that the water was so warm. Dave wasn’t feeling very well today…stomach pains from about noon on. At around 8, the pains got really bad and the vomiting began. Needless to say, it was a rough night for Dave. Also very windy last night…gusts up to 30 mph.

Our campsite

Dave in the water with our Forza in the background

Enjoying the warm weather...

...and the view of the Laguna Madre, one of only six hypersaline lagoons in the world.

February 2, 2016

Dave is recovering from his illness. He’s not sure what caused it, but he didn’t get much sleep. He started feeling better in the afternoon so we drove to the Malaquite Beach Information Center. They had nice views from a rooftop deck. When we got back to our campsite, we took a bike ride along the shore.

String coral...it looked like rusty wire that you'd probably mistake for trash on the beach.

View from the rooftop of the Visitor's Center

This is called a Gomberg Bol, it's a kind of kite invented in Germany; its attached to strings

but stays on the ground.

This particular kite was being used to advertise a kite event taking place at the

Padre Island National Seashore this coming weekend.

A park ranger took our picture on the other side of the Gomberg Bol.

Boat launch and fish cleaning pier

Our Forza is in the background of this pic.

Bird Island Basin is a major migratory route for birds, about 380 species of birds have been documented within the park, which represents about 45% of all bird species documented within North America.