My new favorite place…Port Aransas, Mustang Island…

   I have already taken so many pictures that there is no way to put them all on this blog…We  arrived here Wednesday about noon.  They  have a water and electric area and also some dry camping on the beach. MacGyver and I opted for the hook-ups.  We have parked on the beach before at Goose Island State Park. While the views are beautiful, we found that the salt water spray corroded everything in and outside of our rig..I was warned that this place was just a big parking lot.  I guess you could  say it is, but I really enjoy it. We have the sand dunes and Sea Oats right behind us, and when we have our window open we can hear the roar of the ocean at night.  The Gulf of Mexico lies about 1 block beyond us…

   

Left is the view of the sand dunes out our window..and the endangered Sea Oats…We are all set up and ready for cocktail hour..But first, a walk on the beach…

Yes, our weather was lovely..about 68 degrees..but that was to change soon. Yesterday we needed to resupply the food and wine dept. of our cupboards, so we drove into Port Aransas and took the free ferry ride across the bay to Aransas Pass..(all these things “Aransas” are making me crazy crazier).

One of the ferry guys (did I really just type that?) was conversing with a passenger on the ride over…In the second photo you can see that they have more than one ferry.  Actually, I think I counted 6,and 4 of them were in service…It is typically a 15 minute wait and about a 5 minute ride across the bay…We found the Wally Mart got our groceries and went to catch the ferry back.  As luck would have it we were first in line to get on…”front row Joe”, with a great view of everything portside.

 

Here we were….missing that ferry by “that much”, but first in line for the next one.  I was trying to hold my excitement in check, as the lady in the car next to us didn’t share my enthusiasm for missing that ferry.

I cannot begin to tell you how much I love this island experience, and the little town of Port  Aransas.  At the grocery store I was grabbing up Real Estate magazines like crazy.  I know, I know, the hurricane season can be a bit of a deterrent …and ..you probably need to have a house up on stilts…Tomorrow Den and I are driving  back into Port Aransas to do some site seeing, shopping, finding a local watering hole and picking up some carry-outs…It IS  Date Night , after all!!

 

When you are in the front row of the ferry, you get a great view of the  water…and…I spotted  pod of dolphins ( not sure if that is what you call a bunch of dolphins, but I just had a flashback to the TV show “Flipper”.)

Now, in the left photo, if you get real close to the monitor and squint, you can see the dolphin right next to the pylon…keep looking…see him? Hey, I only had my phone camera on this trip, so this is all I got for ya!

OK, the weather took a huge “dump” here yesterday late afternoon. The sky got dark, the winds came up LOTS, and the temperature dropped drastically. I, for one, was very glad I was NOT riding on the ferry at that point in time. We had just been back about an hour…The winds gusts were about 40mph, and I just may have caused a scene if waves came lapping over the ferry deck. Just before all Hades broke loose, I did manage to get a photo of a rainbow over toward Port  Aransas…

Again, look closely and you can see both ends of the rainbow…As for the little Casita next to us..I’ll bet he didn’t sleep much last night…Rock and Roll, baby!! That wind hawked all night and the temp went down to 32 degrees here, some icing occurring on the mainland. I had visions of my picnic tablecloth and candles flying toward South Padres..Our Satellite Direct TV dish did get knocked over.. This is  hard to do..MacGyver  has a big wood platform low to the ground that he sets it up on…Also, he usually puts  tent stakes in each of the 4 corners…OOPS! didn’t do that when we landed here…No worries, he got it up and working today…Sooo here we sit in the Hiker, all our day/night shades are pulled, 2 heaters are going, and it’s going to be a soup and sandwich lunch kind of day…But, Hey!..At least we aren’t in Illinois!!! More adventures to come!!