Wednesday-Thursday, May 11-12. Blogger has been down since Wednesday, so I've gotten behind on my travel log. We left Galveston Island Wednesday morning, driving right along the coast for miles, then we crossed a toll bridge over one of the bays, then the big bridge to get off the island. Our windows were scummed up with ocean mist, but Joe didn't think there was any point in washing them until we got away from the water, so we are looking out through a layer of haze as we drive along. At our morning stop for his soda, he did wash the side windows so he could see his mirrors. For miles, we drove past huge, colorful houses perched on stilts. We did see one house that might have been damaged by Hurricane Ike 3 years ago and never repaired, and a pier that went nowhere, but everything else looked fine so I don't know if this is all new or what. We got started about 9:30, and drove along FM 3005 right along the water (FM stands for Farm to Market, we learned). It was a beautiful coastal drive, but the wind was pounding us pretty good. At one point, Joe said he felt like he was driving a race car and started giving out info like the drivers do -- loose coming out of the corners, won't turn, etc. He thought he needed to find a pit crew. We finally left the coast and hooked up with Highway 35, then 181 into Portland, which is right across the bridge from Corpus.
We got into the campground about 4:00 and called John to let him know we had arrived. He was at school, which is where his meeting is tonight, so we did not hook up with him. One of those meetings was enough for us. The campground here is really nice, has a pool and game room, and is right on Nueces Bay and has fishing in a canal as well as in the bay.
Thursday morning, I got my laundry caught up first thing, then we decided to tour the USS Lexington, a WW II ship known as the Blue Ghost. This is our sixth trip to Corpus, and probably our last, so we thought we should see this ship before we left. We had intended to tour it last year with Collins and Marilyn, but it rained that day so we left the area. At the ship, there was an emergency just as we were parking, and fire trucks pulled in and moved some school buses out of the way. It turned out that an employee had fell and broken his ankle. At the same time, we could see smoke just up the beach a ways, and that was a shrimp boat that was on fire. We had seen the smoke when we were driving in, and it took firemen a long time to put that one out. Actually, it had caught fire out in the water and they had to tow it in so the firemen could go to work. No one was hurt, but the boat eventually sank in the bay.
The USS LEXINGTON, CV-16, is a World War II-vintage aircraft carrier. Commissioned in 1943, she served the United States longer and set more records than any other carrier in the history of naval aviation. The ship was the oldest working carrier in the United States Navy when decommissioned in 1991. Lexington, an Essex-class carrier, was originally named the USS CABOT. During World War II, the final work on it was being completed at Massachusetts' Fore River Shipyard when word was received that the original carrier named USS LEXINGTON, CV-2, had been sunk in the Coral Sea. A campaign was launched to change the new carrier's name to Lexington, and the rest is history. The USS LEXINGTON, CV-16, was commissioned on February 17, 1943. The tour was a lot of walking and a lot of steps. We got there just as a movie was starting so we watched it; it was about the Red Flag training of fighter pilots in Nevada, which Joe had heard of (I hadn't). Then we went up on deck. One of the Blue Angel's planes was on exhibit there.
We saw the bridge, officers quarters, the ready rooms, the engine room (Joe thought we should have been able to go deeper into the engine room, but he did abide by the signs and stayed on the tour path), and the mess deck. As we stood on deck, a huge ship went under the bay bridge. It looked amazingly like the ship we saw leaving Galveston a couple days ago, but I don't know if it was or not.
We had driven through a car wash this morning, because the car was in the same shape as the RV, so we at least got the top layer of ocean mist off it. But while we were in the Lexington, Corpus got its first rain in weeks -- thanks to us, I guess. It absolutely poured, but they were giving shuttle rides to the visitors to get them back to their cars so we didn't get too wet. But there went the car wash job! We drove back to the RV in torrential rain; fortunately, it was only a couple of miles, but visibility was pretty poor and we sat in the car a few minutes before dashing into the RV. It rained for a couple hours, so we read, then Joe took a nap (I couldn't get to sleep for his snoring). After the rain quit, it was really clear outside, the humidity was low (which was a surprise), and it was probably in the 70s. We walked over and talked to a couple who were fishing in the canal behind our RV. They were fishing for stone crabs (I didn't know anyone purposely caught crabs!). They explained that you can only take off one of their claws, then you have to throw them back. They re-grow the claw.
We went for a drive then, out through the country, and stopped for dinner on our way back. Seeing the water standing in the fields was a familiar sight to us, but the farmers are very happy to have gotten some rain. When we got back, we walked over to the water because you could see the lights of Corpus clearly (usually, there is such a haze that you can barely see them). There was a wooden swinging bridge, well lit, so we walked over to that.
There was something in the water that Joe just knew was an alligator, and something sitting on a stick, which he first thought was a turtle, then he decided it was a stone crab. I didn't know what a stone crab looked like, so I asked him if he was sure, and of course, Joe is always sure (even if he's wrong). So he picked up some rocks and threw it at the crab -- which took off flying! Scared us both to death, and when I stopped laughing, I questioned him again about that being a crab. He said it was a flying crab. He threw several rocks at the alligator, which turned out to be a stick. But it was exciting for a while!
I went over this morning to take a picture of the flying crab and alligator, but the tide was in and the sticks were not sticking up.
We walked back to the RV and he immediately got on the computer to look up "flying crabs." He found some! The first site was an animated game, then he found one in some country I'd never heard of. It said they move through the water so fast it looks like they are flying. He never really did give up on his theory, so I doubt I've heard the end of flying crabs.
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