Day 7

 We have arrived safely at Daingerfield State Park, our home for the next three nights. Main reason is we have never been here before and we once had a goal of visiting every state park in Texas. I suppose we still have that goal but have begun to drift far a field.

 Pretty obvious we have left the valley.

 Last night was spent in a forest service recreation area. Nice little place between Crockett and Lufkin.

  Back to our fishing trip for a minute or two. Doug had the music playing loud and this song came on. I thought it was pretty funny and found it on a YouTube video and decided to share. No disrepect to my dog owner friends.

Mexican dog


Travel map


Gathering rosebuds

Time to move along

We have enjoyed our stay here in the Aransas Pass/Rockport/Fulton area. Today we toured the Fulton Mansion, a state park historical site. Worth your time and $6 if in the area. Mike and Cheryl went out fishing again and limited out on trout plus bagged some reds. Doug Rives is the guide in case you would like to try your luck. Nice guy and can put you on the fish. We have eaten way too much the last few days and HAVE to get back to our diets starting now.

 Tomorrow we lift our jacks and head north. A one night stand in Ratcliff then on to Daingerfield State park. Forecast calls for rain while there so may be more book reading than fishing.

 Till later in the week from Daingerfield, go gather yourself some rosebuds...



Carpe diem

fishing trip

 Enjoyed a guided fishing trip out in the gulf. We limited out catching speckled trout and I caught a nice redfish and spanish mackerel. Nice morning

 Also bought some extra large shrimp fresh off the boat, $6 per pound

A word about videos. If you are of a certain age, shooting movies was done on 8mm, super8, or more probably VHS or beta tape. In those scenarios every time you pressed record it started recording where the last session ended. Not so in this digital format. Press record and shoot video and when you stop that completes that video. Next time you hit record it begins a new and separate video. In trying to capture the essence of the fishing trip I had 9 videos I needed to combine into one. Add in trying to cut out some parts of one video added to the fun. I am enjoying learning and am slowly improving.

Tourist stuff tomorrow, our last full day in Rockport/Fulton area.



gathering rosebuds

goose island state park

 A nice day touring the area culminating in a nice meal with Mike and Cheryl.

A couple of lessons learned relative to shooting videos: the camera picks up everything on window, my 10 year old laptop struggles to process the videos. You try and shoot in high resolution for sharpness and clarity, then have to dumb it down to upload. The original of this video was 1.57gb in size, got it down to 900mb but still took 30 minuets to up load. I have a lot to learn...







 Rockport is a nicer little town than I expected. Nice shops instead of tourist traps and some nice restaurants. Tomorrow the plans call for a fishing trip, that means rolling out of bed in the 4:30am range. What the hell was I thinking...

carpe diem

palmsrv

Pardon my learning in real time. It is one thing to shoot multiple videos, combine them together, add captions. Then they have to be "shrunk" in order to upload with out taking for ever, then added to blog for viewing. Not complaining, but a lot of effort goes into making it happen. Hopefully as I learn more and get better it will become easier. And for you sharp eyed readers, yes I misspelled "between" but refuse to go thru steps to correct my boo boo.

Hope you enjoy my future efforts

Day 1

 Well Elvis has finally left the building. We left home this morning after our traditional IHOP going away breakfast. It was a relatively short travel day to Aransas Pass and we will be here till August 2nd. Mike and Cheryl arrive tomorrow and will be here till the second as well. Not much done today but getting settled in. Tomorrow we plan to go visit Goose Island state park then meet Mike and Cheryl for dinner HERE

 Our travel day looked like THIS

 Compare that map to our friends Steve and Judy little summer trip MAP

 Internet speed, or lack of, is frustrating me but will try and post more pictures and some videos along the way.

 Courtesy of Google Earth, our home for the next five days

we are back to gathering rosebuds. Was a great summer and will miss our friends but we are happy to be road warriors once again




carpe diem

Countdown time

Ten days to go before we leave.

 It has been a quick summer so far. We have learned a new card game and have enjoyed some great evenings playing it with friends. Mary has become a regular in the volleyball pool and has really improved. We play four days a week, two hours at a time. Full confession in that we do not play regulation volleyball in the summer. During the season it is predominately regulation play as preferred by the winter Texans. We play a version that we call jungle ball. No limits on number of hits, or same person hitting it twice. Just keep the ball dry, do not let it hit the water. Good exercise, good time spent with friends, and yes it gets competitive. Added bonus of being in the water keeping cool. Speaking of the heat, we find it milder here. Yes, it stays around 100 but with a breeze. Back in Alvord it would be 100 and not a breath of air moving. In fact Alvord has recorded higher temps than has Edinburg.

 I have purchased an action camera that shoots movies in 4k resolution. As part of that I have been learning video editing. Hope to present some to you along the way. Promise they will not be like your fathers home movies.

Life is good here in the magic valley but our wanderlust is calling us to the road.



"...gather ye rosebuds while ye may..."