Texas - Day 51 - to Rockport

Goose Island State Park, Rockport

Wednesday, 23 December 2020

today's route

On the road

At Lake Corpus Christi State Park, we saw deer and several types of egrets and Great Blue Herons, and we continued to see them as we drove mostly east toward Rockport.

We passed flat farmland and plowed land, with occasional islands of trees.  Lots of mesquite and cows.

In Sinton, pop. 5,676, we found another county courthouse.

San Patricio County Courthouse
in Sinton

And about 45 miles down the road was Rockport, pop. 8,778.  I had 2 errands to do in town before heading to the campground.

I found an HEB for groceries.  And I found a laundromat, called Pirate Coin Laundry.  I was a little worried about the implications of that name, but I've learned that the local high school calls itself the Rockport-Fulton Pirates.

Fulton is the next-door town, with a population of 1,358, and though the line between the 2 towns is invisible to drivers, they see themselves as distinct towns.

In 2017, Category 4 Hurricane Harvey directly hit San Jose Island, which is a barrier island protecting Rockport and Fulton from the Gulf of Mexico.  Because there's almost nothing on this island besides sand, the force of the hurricane was scarcely dented when it went straight on to the towns.  The damage can no longer be seen easily, indicating a massive effort by the townspeople to clean up and rebuild.  There are large areas of open space and parks that may well once have had buildings on them, but they now present a pleasant picture to visitors.  Incidental note of interest: there will never be another hurricane named Harvey; they've retired the name.  Good call.

From there I crossed the LBJ Causeway, that separates Aransas Bay from Copano Bay.  It had occurred to me I might have trouble with a long bridge, so I took the precaution of checking a street view on Google and was reassured to see it was a nice flat 4-lane bridge.  Imagine my dismay to learn that only the northeast half of the bridge is flat.  The southwest half rises abruptly to accommodate tall ships that want to move from one bay to another, and I was actually on the approach to the bridge before I saw what I'd have to deal with.  So I followed my new coping technique of moving to the inside lane and going the speed I was comfortable with and not worrying about other drivers, since they could easily go around me.  But that was a tense moment.

Then on to Goose Island State Park.  I tried to stay here 3 years ago but hadn't made advance reservations and only learned the campground was closed due to hurricane damage when I actually showed up here.  Now it's impossible to see where the damage was - here too there's been an enormous amount of work.

I was lucky enough to get a campsite on the water.  Anna and David got into town not long after I did and came over to see us for a short visit.  Nice to see them again and they gave me detailed directions to the cottage they'd rented for the next few days, so we could go over tomorrow to visit.