Bridgette's Graduation Day

Saturday, May 14 - Today is Bridgette's day!  It was a long, arduous road with more than her fair share of challenges, but she made it in grand style, and today she got to be the star!

We picked up Bridgette, John and Barbara just before 8:00 a.m. and took them to a fine Whataburger breakfast.

Well, at least we took her to the Original Whataburger, which is just off the beach, and is the only two-story (we think) Whataburger,  She was too nervous to eat much anyway.  Then we dropped her off at the American Bank Center Arena (where the Corpus hockey team plays), and did not see her again until she walked in the processional into the ceremony.




Most of the pictures we took inside the arena did not come out very well, the lighting was not sufficient, but I'll post a few.

 

Time seemed to drag while we waited for the big event to get underway.  

Finally, the Processional began and started filing in to fill the seats.  The faculty was seated first, but Bridgette marched in just after them, because she was in the FRONT ROW.


In this picture, Bridgette is in the front row, 4th from the right, with the black tam.  On her left, in the blue tam, is her advisor, Dr. Greg Stunz, who hoods her on the platform when they announce her name.

Bridgette was the only Ph.D. candidate receiving her diploma today, so she was in a category by herself.  Later, standing around outside, we would hear people whisper "she's the one who got her doctorate" as they pointed to her.  John said they heard that in the elevator too, so she really got to be the star today.
But we took lots of pictures outside, so I'll post some of them.

 

As you can see, this is a beautiful setting, and the day was perfect -- low 80s, low humidity, slight breeze -- Corpus at its best.  I think this was probably the nicest day, weatherwise, that we had ever experienced in Corpus, and it couldn't have picked a better day!

Here's Bridgette with her advisor, who is a great person, mentor, and friend to both John and Bridgette.  When Bridgette lost her advisor last year due to a tenure issue, Greg stepped in and took Bridgette on, even though he had just then finished with John.

This was Greg's first Ph.D. graduate to walk at graduation, so he was very excited (and a little nervous) to get to do the hooding process on stage.  He, along with the rest of us, had tried unsuccessfully last year to get John to walk, and since Bridgette's ceremony, he said he is now going to make that a requirement for all future Ph.D. students -- that they have to walk at graduation!

So here's the rest of us:  Bridgette and John.

Bridgette and her Mom:

Her dad couldn't come -- he had to work, so here's Bridgette talking to her Dad on the phone just after graduation.

John held her gown and hood while she was on the phone -- I guess this is the closest we are going to get with him and a cap and gown.

Here's Bridgette with the in-laws.

The regalia is a really big deal, and the colors, tassels, caps and hoods are color-coded for the different degrees.  The doctor's cap is a six-sided velvet tam, and a Philosophy degree is dark blue.  The gowns also differ--bachelor has long, pointed sleeves; master has an oblong sleeve, and the doctor's gown has bell-shaped sleeves.  The velvet border of the hood represents the degree or the color of the field of study, current trend is for the color to represent the field of study, but historically, dark blue was characteristic for a Ph.D. in any field.  Cap tassels for the doctor's degree are gold, while the tassels for the master and bachelor degrees are black.  Holders of all these degrees wear the tassel on the left.  The ritual of bachelor degree candidates shifting the tassel from right to left marks the conferring of one's first university degree. 

Finally, we left this area and drove over to the party!  On the way, we passed the Holiday Inn, which was the turn-around place for Bridgette's marathon training, so she has fond memories of it.  She and her friend, Sandra, ran this coastline drive many, many times, and she wanted to run it one more time, but we never had time for that (when she had running shoes on).

The bay was very pretty today, and there was no haze so we could see a good distance.  There was a line of sailboats right along this drive which brightened up the horizon.  (If you click on the picture, they may show up a little better.)

So we got to Megan's and Brian's for the party.  Although it was to celebrate 4 people (2 master graduates and one person leaving the lab), but Bridgette was truly the star.  Everyone was so thrilled for her accomplishments.

Greg always brings his family to these affairs, and he has two of the cutest kids [Madeline and Hunter], which Bridgette will miss, so I'll put their pictures, and their mother, on here for posterity.

Bridgette wore her cap almost all day, as well as a big smile.  Congratulations, Bridgette!!!

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.

Corpus Christi

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.

This picture on the right side here is the one from Galveston.  It sure looks like the same ship to me.


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.

Galveston Day 2

Tuesday, May 10 - We woke up our ocean view this morning, then drove around Galveston to see what there was to see.  We found the harbor and saw some ships, and saw a couple of dolphins.

There is the remains of an old 90 mm gun battery from WWII here, on the northern tip of the island, at Ft. San Jacinto.

We drove past Texas A&M -Galveston, and the cruise ship terminal, but no cruise ships were in at the time.

John came here from time to time during his doctorate work to do research.

We drove back to the RV for a while, then John called so we came back into town and met him at his hotel.  He and co-worker Emily, along with the Texas Gulf Council member Joe, were holding a public hearing tonight on a couple of amendments, so Joe and I sat in on that.  It was very interesting to see John at work, and we could really see what his education had done for him.  It was a very proud moment for us when he was introduced as Dr. John Froeschke!

Joe and I sat quietly throughout the meeting, which only had 3 attendees, but it was interesting to hear the discussions, which mostly were about setting annual catch limits for different species along the Gulf Coast (the handout is entitled "Generic Annual Catch Limit/Accountability Measures Amendment" and John gave a short powerpoint presentation).  After the meeting concluded, we went to dinner with John and Emily and had a very enjoyable evening.  He has two more meetings this week (Corpus Christi and Port Aransas), and we will be right there, but I don't know if we will attend.  They usually involve a lot of griping and yelling, and I can probably do without that -- last night's was pretty mild, probably because there were so few in attendance.

We learned a little more about the seaweed. It's called Sargassum, and is a floating ecosystem to provide home to sea creatures, including mahi mahi, juvenile sea turtles and seabirds.  It breaks off while traveling the Gulf Stream, a natural phenomenon necessary to the life of a Gulf Coast Island.  Cleaning crews maintain sections of the beach by removing trash and debris from this seaweek during the night, then they rake an area behind or in front of the seawall for sunbathing and beach access.  We saw them working when we came back from dinner last night, but they don't seem to clean any of the area down by the state campground where we are camped.
 
Anyhow, today we move on down to Corpus.  We are planning on staying right across Nueces Bay at Portland, which is close to the Omni Hotel where graduation will be held.   

Galveston Island

Monday, May 9 - Before we settled in for the night Sunday, Joe added some frion to the RV since we are now in warmer climates.  We got all hooked up and plugged in, but for some reason the electricity went off about 9:00 p.m., we think in the entire campground.  It was off about an hour, then came back on so we were able to run the air conditioner.

This morning we called in to learn the impact of Joe's speeding ticket, which he is still griping about.  I think he is humiliated that it was for a speed of 49 mph -- he said he never in his life got a ticket for 49 mph (historically, his tickets were more in the 80-90 mph range).  Anyhow, the bad news was $175 plus $19 transaction fee to pay it by phone.   Marilyn had a category in her Alaska budget last year for "exceptions," which she explained was for unexpected costs, like unplanned ferry rides, etc.  I don't have that category in my budget for this trip, but I guess I should have -- it doesn't fit anyplace else in the budget!  I told him it comes out of his beer budget.

We finally got on the road about 10:15, eager to leave Louisiana behind.  We just saw a finger of Toledo Bend lake yesterday, so what we saw today was more impressive.  But it would be hard to fish even the main part of the lake since it is so low, and there are lots of stick-ups.

  They have marked channels for boating so I'm thinking it is pretty treacherous running out there right now.

One of the highlights of today was the fish sculptures along the highway.  The first one we saw at a gas station.  Notice the fish actually has a scene painted on both sides.

I missed the next two, (I didn't realize there was a series) but caught one more right before we crossed the bridge over Toledo Bend into Texas.  This one has an alligator at the bottom.



Finally, we got out of Louisiana to Joe's relief -- he is no longer a Louisiana fan.  We crossed into Texas about 11:00, and followed 87 through the Sabine National Forest, a very pretty drive with tall trees on both sides of the road.  It was pretty windy, so the trees helped block the wind.  We crossed inlets of the lake again -- and saw the turnoff for the dam, but we didn't drive back that road.

We finally crossed under I-10 and continued toward Port Arthur.  Paul sent us a website that maps gas prices, and so we held out off on fueling until we got close to Beaumont and probably saved 20 cents/gallon (approx. $9.00).  Joe continues to be impressed by how much mowing these people have to do, especially since all the lawns are freshly cut right now.  He thinks they try to outdo each other with the size of their yard, regardless of how humble their abode is.  For those who think I should share the driving, let me explain the situation.  Joe just sits over there and drives.  I have to take photos, read maps (not always too well), clean eye glasses, get drinks, fix snacks, pick up anything that falls, investigate all strange noises, find campgrounds, and keep Joe awake.  I am a busy co-pilot, while he just has to drive and identify roadkill.


We were starting to get close to the gulf, and crossed a couple of bridges that Eric would not have liked.

I took some pictures from the bridge of the houses that were practically under this bridge.

We didn't see any damage from Hurricane Ike of a few years ago, but there was a lot of new houses, up on high stilts, and some under construction.  They were painted lots of different colors, and there was even a school that was entirely on stilts.

As we got nearer the ferry which would take us to Galveston Island, our GPS Lucille showed that we were just about surrounded by water.  That car on there is us.

We got on the ferry about 4:30.  We did not have to unhook the car, and it was a nice crossing.  Joe started to take a picture of me just as the foghorn blew, and I about jumped over the edge.  It only took about 20 minutes, and the wind was blowing the mist all over the windshield, but we enjoyed the ride.

In this picture, you can see Galveston Island in the distance (and seagulls in the foreground).

We got to Galveston just about 5:00, and drove down Seawall Blvd., stopping every block at a stoplight, so it took us a while to get to our campground, which was about 6 miles out of town -- Galveston Island State Park.  We have a great view from the RV.  The third picture is through the windshield while I was fixing dinner, so that view from inside the RV was a nice bonus, and as we sat at the table eating, we could see waves breaking against the beach.  

After dinner, we walked over the little sand berm and walked the beach a little, but there is so much seaweed that it was not very pleasant.  Our camping neighbor said the seaweed does not even grow here, but drifts in from Florida and other places.  In some places, it was almost knee-high, and probably 4 feet across, so we couldn't even walk at the edge of the tide -- a disappointment.

It was another long day; 250 miles, and we didn't get set up at the campsite until about 6:00 p.m.  But we are going to stay here two nights -- we learned today that son John is coming here tomorrow for a meeting (public hearing) on Galveston Island, so we will try to meet up with him and see if he wants to ride to Corpus with us on Wednesday.  I might even get to go into a beach shop tomorrow (of course, I can't buy anything since Joe spent all our money on the speeding ticket).