On our way west

If you happen to look at our map, you might think that, contrary to the title of this post, we are heading further south (from Columbus, TX to Aransas Pass, TX), and you would be correct. But, interestingly enough, while we were 75 miles west of Houston in Columbus (and Houston is then probably 40 miles inland from Galveston - so a total of over 100 miles inland), and we moved to the coast at Aransas Pass (well, not totally on the coast yet, but *close*), we are probably about 20 miles further west than we were in Columbus. The southwest coastline of Texas does quite a majestic swing west.

We drove a long way along the coast, crossing various bays along the way. This was Lavaca Bay.

I think that must be the old bridge over to the left - ARGH! You know how there are certain things that you have in recurring nightmares? Mine are bridges that end. The good news is, (in my dream) I'm always driving some vehicle that seems to continue on without sinking...

Miss Kitty has no nightmares, or daymares either... as long as she has a lap to sleep on!

Much of this area had beautiful HUGE fields. We looked up what they would grow and it seems that cotton and sorghum are common. They have a long growing season with last frost at the middle/end of March and first frost mid November.

Beautiful fields on both sides of the road.

 We made it to our campground in Aransas Pass - Ransom Road RV Park. I haven't gotten any pictures of our site yet. We were able to get Passport America for two nights.

We decided to head over to the barrier island to check out the state park and national seashore and do some planning about where we want to go next.

There is a free ferry from Aransas Pass to Port Aransas. We wanted to make sure that they would be able to take Miss Doozie - I asked one of the folks on the ferry and they said it would be no problem. Of course, we probably will need to be one of the first ones on (we were about the last one to board this ferry).

The journey across.

We drove down Mustang Island to Mustang Island State Park. We talked to the fellow at the gate house about campsites and he gave us a pass to go in and check it out. We drove through the campground and then down along the beach. Supposedly you can take an RV down the beach but we definitely would NOT take Miss Doozie down there. We plan to head over and stay a couple of nights at Mustang Island State Park when we leave Aransas Pass.

We continued down the barrier island to Padre Island National Seashore.

There was a whole lot of nothing for about 10 miles before we got to the entrance to the National Seashore. Nothing = dunes and sea grass.

We stopped first at Bird Island Basin campground - these spaces are on the inland waterway and we could park looking directly out on the waterway for $2.50/night (boondocking, senior pass rate).

We are thinking that we may stay for a couple of nights either at Bird Island Basin or Malaquite campground within the National Seashore. There is even more of the park south of these campgrounds but it was getting too late for us to explore today.

Coming back to Aransas Pass, we went through Corpus Christi (well, on highways that went through Corpus Christi). It was a little longer drive, but we wanted to see the city just to understand how much of a "city" it is. There are waterways all around, lots of bridges. Really, quite a pretty area!