Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Goose Island State Park, Rockport, TX. beautiful sunshine today with weather for shorts and short-sleeve shirt.  We had a leisurely breakfast and read a while until it was time to go for our late lunch today at Shempy's Grill, located way south of Rockport on Highway 35.  We began our meal with crab cakes, probably the best we've ever had, no breading just lots of crabmeat followed by a fried oyster and shrimp platter with fries, coleslaw and (new to us) fried okra with ranch dressing.  Yum!  But the thing that put it over the top was the bread pudding that we shared and could not eat it all so took some in a go-box back to the motorhome.  Our evening was watching the evening news (never good) on the only TV station we could get. Then we had one of our favorite videos with us  "Notting Hill" and we watched it for about the tenth time.  Always enjoyable.

Thursday, February 2, 2017
Another leisurely morning watching the flog with big breakfast then a drive into Rockport to visit the Fulton Mansion right on the bay.  This was the home of George & Harriet Fulton for many years before their deaths and later families lived here some purchasing it with large acreages for $10,000 - 50,000. The state of Texas purchased it for $150,000 then spent $1.7 million restoring it.  It's a lovely old building from 1874-1877 and well worth a tour.  We had been here several years ago but before the restoration so we really enjoyed seeing the ground floor and second floor.  The third floor is exactly like the second, four bedrooms and one bath.  Then it was off to Alby's Fish Market where we bought some oysters and flounder filets for our motorhome frig.  Shortly later we drove back out to Shempy's to try the fried flounder that we had seen the day before.  It was as good as we suspected.  The bread pudding was just as good as the day before and again some had to be taken home.  Again tonight we watched the evening news on the channel then Bob enjoyed the western, "Appaloosa" again.

Friday, February 3, 2017
Up really early in order to drive back to Georgetown for 1:30 PM appointment.  Very windy today so driving the motorhome was a challenge but not so for Iris as she drove the toll road portion of the trip.  Traffic was light and we made good time arriving home with time to spare.  We got the motorhome unloaded and put into storage.  It needs a good wash but that will wait until next week when sunshine is scheduled to return to central Texas.

Monday, January 30, 2017

Loaded out of the house in Georgetown into the motorhome and away we went to Rockport.  Left at 9:05 AM and arrived 2:30 PM at Paradise Bay where we had decided to have our lunch before finding our way to the campground.  Paradise Bay Grille sits at the end of a road that gives access for the public boat launch, a marina for storage of all sorts of craft and a huge boat repair facility that looked like an aircraft hanger, tall, wide and long.

Table selection was a bit slow but we were finally seated and began our eating adventure.  First was clam chowder, the recommendation of a couple we met on the way in.  We then shared the fried seafood platter of mahi-mahi, oysters, shrimp, fries and coleslaw.  All yummy!  For dessert we decided to have the key lime pie.  When it came we were so excited we forgot to take a photo.

Leaving Paradise Bay we made our way (with only being lost once) to Goose Island and the Texas State Park where we checked in and were assigned a spot just off the water which meant we could see the water between other RV’s that were parked right on the water.  Got all set up and tried out our lounge chairs in the reclined position.  Some call this naps.  Slept until after 6:00 PM    Had a walk to see the sunset over the water.

Then a quiet evening watching over-the-air TV, not very exciting except for old re-runs of Fraser.

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Bob’s 77th birthday.  Started the day with a big breakfast of fruit, sausage, eggs, toast and peanut butter.  Installed our new towel rack in the bath, cleaned inside the motorhome, carried trash to the dumpster (don’t know how we make so much garbage in such a small space), read some, had a sandwich for lunch, discovered an empty space on the water so called the office to see if we could get it and found it was still occupied but they did have two spaces we could choose from.  We disconnected our water and electric and drove to see the choices and decided on one, called the desk and advised our choice and then set up camp in our new space, maybe 20 feet from the water’s edge with views of the shrimp boats working the bay and pelicans and ducks floating just offshore.  Much nicer spot

At about 3:00 PM we uprooted our motorhome again and off to see the birds.  Whooping cranes had been spotted in a large field close by so we drove there first but no whoopers but did see a large group of sandhill cranes.  With the long lens we were able to view them.  Had a stop at the "Big Tree".

Leaving the wildlife we drove into Rockport for our obligatory visit to Walmart for some essentials.  Several RV’s parked in the lot so we visited with some of them before making our purchases.  From Walmart it was off to our restaurant, Latitude 28.02 where we parked in the parking lot so we could see the water from our chairs where we enjoyed happy hour before our reservation at 6:00 PM.

For dinner we enjoyed a salad for Bob, poblano/corn chowder for Iris, grilled drum, Iris added crab meat and asparagus, Bob’s plain broiled fish, both with vegetables and orzo.  As usual it was very nice.

Asking for the check from Nancy she brought it and Bob handed over his credit card.  Nancy returned with the card but no bill and informed us that the gentleman seated behind us had taken care of the bill and tip and wished Bob a Happy Birthday.  Preparing to leave we thanked the men seated behind us and they seemed happy to see us enjoying Bob’s birthday so they wanted to do that for us.  WOW!

We drove back to Goose Island State Park and set up the connections in the dark but all went well and it was not long before we were in bed.  Iris had to sit up and read for a couple of hours but this did not disturb the birthday boy.