Texas/Arkansas Road Trip

     I left South Padre Island on Thursday March 31. I traveled in the van across Texas. That night I slept in Tyler, Texas. It is in northeast Texas. The drive was very pretty.  The landscape changed from cactus , yucca plants and shrubby mesquite trees, to taller trees, pine trees and a little roll to the land.
     The wildflowers blooming were various colors---dark pink, light pink, yellow, orange and blue.  The blue ones were Blue Bonnets, the Texas State flower.

     These pictures were taken in Arkansas.  The roads became more curvy and with hills.
   We drove to Little Rock , Arkansas, then went north on Highway 65 toward Branson.

There were many sawmills that we drove by. This picture is of a truck load of logs going to a sawmill.

Port Isabel, Texas

                                         

   Today I visited 3 museums in Port Isabel, Texas.  The Lighthouse was built in 1852, to guide ships through the barrier islands. In 1952 it opened as a State Park and is the only lighthouse on the Texas coast open to the public. The lighthouse is 70 feet tall. From in the top, a view can be seen for 16 miles.

     Treasures of the Gulf Museum tells the stories and shows artifacts from 3 Spanish shipwrecks in 1554, 30 miles north of Port Isabel. There also is a Children's Discovery area where kids can dress up like a ship crew or pirates.

     Port Isabel Historical Museum is in a building built in 1899. It has a gift shop . It has a large collection of Mexican artifacts from the US Mexican War. As I walked through, it told about the history from when Columbus came over from Spain, the war with Mexico, the ranching history, and  the fishing and shrimping industries.

 This view, from inside the top of the lighthouse,  is looking east toward South Padre Island. The bridge is the Queen Isabel Causeway. It is the longest bridge in Texas. It is 2.5 miles long.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

This view is looking west, from in the top of the lighthouse.

Port of Brownsville Tour

    

  The Port of Brownsville tour went out from South Padre Island. There were about 15 people on the boat. There was room for about 40.   The boat went across the Laguna Madre Bay and into the intercoastal waterway that leads to the Port of Brownsville. The trip took 4 hours. It was about 15 -20 miles one way.  The ship channel is 55 to 60 feet deep for the big ships to get through. It is only wide enough for one ship at a time. In the port is a building where the Ship Master is. He is like an air traffic controller for the ships. He communicates with each ship , then tells them where to go, instead of the ships communicating with each other.

    

 The first boats I saw were the shrimp boats.

The red one is a shrimp boat. They spend a couple months at sea. The blue boat is a supply boat. It takes food and stuff out to the shrimpers. The shrimp are frozen fresh on the boat.

In the nets is a large metal ring with like metal flaps across it. The metal rings let the sea turtles back out but not the shrimp. When the nets are dropped , they go along the bottom for a long time, catching the shrimp. The turtles can only hold their breath for 20 minutes. The nets are down longer than that. Before they had the metal rings, many sea turtles died. Now the turtles can get out and very few die.  For the rest of the tour, they did not let us take pictures, due to homeland security. What I saw was , the off shore oil rigs being worked on. They are very large. The platform is a triangle shape. It has 3 very large legs, that look like a 4 post cell phone tower. One leg was on each point of the platform.  In the Gulf of Mexico, the platform legs go down to the ocean floor, so the platform is just above the water. In the port, the legs only go about 15 feet deep, so the legs are sticking way up in the air. 

Also in the port were many ships and a navy ship that were old and being taken apart for scraps. The navy ship has the name removed first, so that people touring the port do not get emotional, if they served on it.  It takes 6 months to up to 2 or 3 years to dismantle a ship for scrap. They cut a piece off and pick it up with a giant magnet on a crane, then drop the piece in a pile on the land. The scrap pieces are then either loaded directly into a barge or else they go through a shredder, and then into a barge. The area had a strong smell  like burnt metal from the welding and the cutting.

They also had piles of crushed cars. The cars were going through the shredder.

At this time, the scrap metal goes to Japan. They sell it back to us in electronics and cars!

In the port , were piles of crushed rock. It is from Brazil and is used for building roads in Texas.

I also saw some dolphins, pelicans, sea gulls and some other water birds. Some large birds build their nests on the bouys. One bouy had 3 big nests on it.

I even saw a pelican swallow a fish!

Dolphin Watch and Eco Tour

    The Dolphin Watch went out from the south end of the island, into Laguna Madre bay. There are about 3 from the island and one from Port Isabel. It lasted about 2 hours.  There were about 20 people on the boat. For the Eco Tour part , they dropped a net out the back of the boat and drug it along the bottom to catch stuff. They caught a few fish, hermit crab, blue crab , and snails. They talked about each one and then put them back into the water. The water there was about 6 to 8 feet deep.

     We saw several dolphins. They are the Alantic Bottlenose dolphin. In the bay they weigh about 300 pounds. A dolphin is like a goldfish in that it grows to the size of the environment. In the ocean, they get up to 600 pounds. They are mammals. They come up for air. If they get scared, they can hold their breath for 20 minutes underwater. The baby is born in the water. The mother guides it to the surface for air. A baby nurses from and swims beside it's mother for 3 years. I did see a couple moms and babies. They are in perfect form together when they come up. Dolphins make funny high pitched,  squeaking noises. When they surfaced, I could hear them. The water they were in was about 20 -30 feet deep.

     The center of the channel was being dregged out to make it 60 feet deep so the oil tanker ships can get through to the Port of Brownsville.

USS Lexington, CV-16, Corpus Christi, Texas

The USS Lexington, CV- 16, is a WWII , aircraft carrier. It served from 1943 to 1991, longer than any other navel aircraft carrier in US history. It was involved in the battle at Pearl Harbor.

Here are some details about the ship-- Crew  1550 men and women

Length  910 feet, Height 52 feet, Width 196 feet, Weight 42,000 tons.

There were many airplanes on the flight deck.

It had medical, dental, library, barber and food service.  The tours through the ship went through narrow passages and up and down many ladder type stairs.

It currently is a museum with a theater, gift shop, restrooms, small resturant and many informational displays.

King Ranch, Kingsville , Texas

The King Ranch owns around 850,000 acres between the Rio Grande River and Corpus Christi, Texas. It is larger than the state of Rhode Island. It was called the Wild Horse Desert. The first 15,500 acres were purchased in about 1860 by Captain King.
The King Ranch has been very influential in many things. The land on which the city of Kingville is located, was donated by Mrs. King, after Mr. King's death. She also donated money to build churches and schools.
The Texas A & M University in Kingsville, sits where the old King Ranch race horse track was located.
The King family bought Thoroughbred horses and raced many of them. Out of those , they developed the Quarter Horse. Their horse Wimpy , was the first registered American Quarter Horse. They raised and owned the 1946 Triple Crown winner , Assault. I met the man who was the first person to ride Assult. The man is about 78 years old and very proud of his accomplishment. They also had 2 National Cutting Horse Champions in the 1970's.
They have a store that makes saddles and saddles blankets. It also sells clothes, leather items and furniture. Almost everything carries the Running W brand.
The King Ranch developed the Santa Gertrudis red beef cattle and the more recent Santa Cruz.

In Texas , the 60,000 acres of farmland produces cotton and milo. The about 40,000 acres in Florida grows oranges, sugar cane and sod.

They also own a pecan company, a John Deere equipment shop, and have wild game hunting land.

They struck oil and are involved with Exon.

They currently employ about 250 full time people. They also have many part time workers. Ranch hands can either live for free in the King Ranch housing  or live off the ranch. Many of todays employees are decendants of the original 150 families Captain King brought from Mexico. He offered them a job, food and place to live. They were very happy to work for Captain King .

Kite Fest

The South Padre Island Kite Fest was held Saturday Feb 5 and Sunday Feb 6. It was at The Flats on the island. The Flats are on the bay side. It is a beach area. People from all over the USA and Canada were there flying their kites. The big red octopus is about 60 feet long. It cost $5,000.
There are many different styles of kites. Some can twirl around in a circle on the ground, or look like a giant windsock. Some have one string, some 2 and some 4. Some are up to 3 kites hooked together.
The four string kites are the ones they do tricks with. Professional kite flyers made their kites perform to music. It was a very colorful, relaxing event!