Kev n Jens Adventures: Corpus Christi, Goose Island and Amistad NRA

Tues Feb 14, 2023 - Happy Valentine's Day! We had eggs and sausage for breakfast, a workout on the beach and then drove 30 minutes to Corpus Christi for lunch and a bike ride.

Nice view for our workout

We drove to North Beach to look around and walked by the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier museum. We've visited the USS Entrepid in NYC so we just read about the Lexington. During WWII it participated in nearly every major operation in the Pacific and spent 21 months in combat. The planes from the Lexington destroyed 372 enemy aircraft in the air and 475 on the ground.

I've been swallowed by a shark

Lunch at Pier 99 with a view of the Lexington

Kev was happy with his fish sandwich

After lunch we drove downtown for a bike ride on the Corpus Christi Bay Trail (we did about 7 miles round trip)

It was a beautiful ride along the water

a break at Corpus Christi beach

Corpus Christi marina

Wed Feb 15 to Thurs Feb 16 - We had originally planned a few days in Brownsville/South Padre Island, but the weather didn't look great, so we decided to save that for our next trip trip to Texas (we'll skip the extra 6 hours of driving) and stick around the Corpus Christi area. We booked two nights at Goose Island State Park, which was an hour from Mustang Island.

The foggy view Wednesday morning at our Mustang Island campsite...everyone wanted to sit in the same bush!

A foggy walk on the beach

The Port Aransas Ferry across the pass (quick and easy and free)

We rode our bikes all over the Goose Island SP. There were campsites in the woods and on the beach. It's going to be windy for the next few days so we opted for the woods, but enjoyed a ride out to the bay

The bridge to Goose Island

The state park has a HUGE fishing pier and it was a nice walk out to the end

After our ride around the park, we decided to ride out to the "Big Tree". This was a really nice 5 mile round trip bike ride. This Live Oak tree is estimated to be over 1000 years old and to have lived through 40 to 50 major hurricanes, including Hurricane Harvey in 2017, a category 4 hurricane.

a few of the big branches are being held up by metal supports

I loved this tree in the dead center of the intersection of 4 roads. It does have a reflector on it, so that helps.

the wind is BLOWING

Thursday morning we went for a nice hike through the park

this beautiful tree is across from our campsite

Campsite 145

Thursday we drove into the town of Rockport and had lunch with a view of the bay

Rockport has lots of nice shops and galleries. Who doesn't love a fish bench.

The town was fairly empty, and we enjoyed a few hours exploring

We spent an hour in the Rockport Art Center, which had a few exhibits that we enjoyed

as well as a nice view of the town from above

Greetings from Rockport!

Fri Feb 17 to Sat Feb 18, 2023 - It was a 5 hour drive to Del Rio, where we decided to stay 2 nights at Amistad National Recreation Area. The campsites here were only $3/night with our new lifetime, Senior National Park Pass. We will do some hiking here, stock up on groceries and do laundry before we go into Big Bend for a week. I don't think there are many services in Big Bend, and nothing very close to Big Bend, so we'll go in prepared. We stopped at the Amistad NRA visitors' center to find some hikes and look at their exhibits. Close by is the Seminole Canyon State Park which I'd like to visit the next time we're in the area. There are some really interesting pictographs in the SP (which you can only see with a guided tour). They are painted on the walls of caves in the park and are thought to be thousands of years old.