Bridgette Arrives in Corpus

Friday, May 13 - We had a busy day today.  John invited us to join him and Emily for a  private tour of the Texas Agrilife Research Mariculture Laboratory at Port Aransas, part of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, a lab which seems to specialize in trying to get several different species of fish to reproduce in the lab.  They had several tanks with good-size fish in them, and other tanks with tiny babies.  He showed us what they feed the babies as well -- we got to look through a microscope at that.  It was a very interesting tour, and John and Emily asked good questions so we learned a lot.

He created a feeding frenzy in a couple of the tanks when he started throwing food to them, and some of these fish probably weighed 20 lbs.  You can't really see the fish, but you can see the effect of the frenzy.

 
We had to cross the ferry to get over to the lab at Port Aransas, so we came back the same way.

We saw a couple of dolphins each way.  We stopped for gas for the Explorer on our way to the airport to pick up Bridgette, and our car started acting up.  We can't remember for sure if that had started before we fueled, but we are wondering, among other things, if we might have gotten some bad fuel.  We are going to try to wait it out until we get to Tampa to have it looked at, but we'll see if that is an option.  We will probably cut way back on our sightseeing along the way, especially since New Orleans is going to now get all the flood water, and try to get to John and Bridgette's sooner, so we can take the car in there.

Anyhow, we met John at the airport where he had dropped off Emily and turned in the rental car, then we picked up Bridgette and her mother.  Bridgette carried her cap and gown in a bag on the plane, not trusting Southwest to get it here if she checked it.  Bridgette needed to go to school to clear out her desk, so that was our first stop.  We now have a box and suitcase full of papers and books to haul to Tampa.  John had promised to meet Megan there to help load tables for the graduation party she was hosting tomorrow for Bridgette and 2 others who were graduating with masters degrees, and one post-doc who is leaving next week for a job in Mississippi.  So they loaded up tables, then we drove over to Megan's house and unloaded.

We then dropped them off at their hotel, the fancy Omni in Corpus, and Joe and I went back to the RV for an hour or so, then picked them up for dinner at one of their favorites, Franks.  We all came back to the campground for a while, then we dropped them back at the hotel.  We are across the bridge from the hotel, so we have gone back and forth several times today.  Bridgette gave Joe strict orders about picking them up on time in the morning, because she doesn't expect to sleep too much tonight and knows she will be nervous tomorrow.   She is pretty excited about tomorrow's graduation, although she's not sure even a Ph.D. degree will prove adequate training to get her cap and hood on right.  Fortunately, her advisor, Dr. Greg Stunz, will be putting the hood on her so she just has to figure out how to carry it on her arm to the podium so he can get it on her.