The 2006 Travels of Richard n Shirley

We went out for breakfast this morning. Just not the everyday type of you might expect at a "regular" restaurant. This place required our leaving at 7 am (they opened at 7 am) and making an hour's drive and be there by the 11 am closing time. We went to 60 miles to Kingsville, TX to the famous King Ranch.

The first pic is of the walk from the parking pasture, really a pasture too, down the road to find the place that the food was being served. This is the annual "Ranch Hand" breakfast.

The three tents is where the food is served. There was all you could eat scrambled eggs, home made biscuits, gravey, link sausage, orange juice and coffee. All prepared, except the OJ, on site by the cowhands. The food was very good and we had plenty of it.

We stood up at the table to eat. Its been a long time since I have stood to eat a meal. In the pic to the right is some of the people eating their breakfast. Once you are done, there is the roping exibition right next door, outdoor cooking from the chuck wagon, real weaving by a ranch hand and more than we could see.


The cowboys are all lined up to take their turn at calf roping. This is much the same as the rodeo shows but here it takes on a different atmosphere. We watched some of it but there was other things to see also. And we had a tour of the ranch at 10 and it was after 9.


We stopped and watched the cooks making cornbread with hot coals,




On the way out of the breakfast area is this corral with the cows. There were 3 of them and they had these long horns. Yep, more of those Texas Longhorns. There is a close up of one of them in our links. This is a real working ranch.

They have their cattle, and large farming, Cow development and horses. Lots of horses. They raise their quarter horses for working on the rance and for sale. Most of what I am presenting here we got from the hour long tour. The driver was a local college student working part time on the ranch.

On our tour we saw one of the out buildings that is not currently used as it was in the past. Many years ago, these buildings were used to house and feed the cowboys during the annual round up. This round up took 3-4 months and the cowboys were away from there families and this was their home away from home.

Here the cooks had a place to prepare the meals and the cowboys had a bed to sleep on, and etc. With the use of the motorized vehicle (pickups here) the guys can drive home for the night. Not shown is the "push" gates for entering and leaving areas without getting out of the truck.

Can you see it?, There in the grass just this side of the trees. Look closely and see if you can see the critter. He is looking you in the eyes.

Lots of the property is used for hunting leases. Per the driver, that is a 10,000 acre lease for something like $12.00 per acre. At this price, the lease holders are mostly big business.






How do you like the quality of the fence post? The camera was set on automatic and the focus was on the post not the cow beyond.

What you won't see is the ranch brand, "W". And on each of the cows is the year of its birth also branded under the "W". Just watch what you point at as it might be a surprise for what you get. Darn!

We had a good time, walked a lot and asked questions. Since I'm a city boy, ranching is way beyond my limited knowledge. There is more going on here than you can imagine. And lots of it is very technical and scientific.

We did go on to the Seaview RV Resort to find it, and directions to and from. The place is nice, lots of room between spaces and nearby fishing and, in Kingsville, golf. We meet Rudi of the Escapees club and chatted a bit. There will be more once we get moved on monday.

One of the two anchor chains on this ship. The links appear to be 4" thick. As you can see there is lots of exhibits here.

The floors and walls were very clean. Though the whole ship is metal, it was not slick.

You could get up close and personal to the chains.

There were several of these but we got pics of these. This is the enlisted sailor quarters. Put a mattress on, two sheets and a pillow case and you got your bed.

There is a locker for your stuff and even a safe for the valuable things. Each bunk had a light to read by at night. And the mens restroom area was about as crouded. There were no doors on the stalls and the urnials were close by.

The officers quarters were nearly all single rooms. Both the officers and enlisted shared showers but had their own.

Each room and hall had a location painted on the wall.


Look at what came by our place this morning. We have seen another critter but only once and no pic. This doe came by and stopped and stared at us. I was on the laptop and got up, got the camera, and took this shot.

The other critter is much smaller and has those little tusks. Hopefully we will get a second opportunity and get a pic.

It was a cold 38 this am. Going to be a warmer 78 this afternoon.



It did make the 78 high for the day. Georgous day.

We went to Alice, TX Wal-mart to get food, etc. While there we went downtown to the city hall and got these pics of this water tower. There is something about this tower tthat sets it apart from the others. Any guesses?



The base is approx 55 feet square, the vertical panels are space equally at approx 33 foot. The slope on the legs appears to be 1" in 12". The tower is 165 foot tall. There is horzontial bracing in the panels but notice there is no bracing on the legs. Normally there is "x" or "k" bracing on the legs to transfer the wind loads to the base. The fill and drain pipe is a single pipe of small diameter. There could be a pipe in a pipe here , but the pipe is rather small. Still an interesting structure.




The top of the tower has the logo of the high school mascot. For Alice it is the Coyotes. Mine was the parrots but that is another story. The tower is well kept up as you can see. There is no lack of paint or other markings indicating need of repair or maintance.

EDIT: I just took a close look and saw the pipe handrail missing, missing floor pieces and more if I kept looking. But still interesting.

I would hate to be the poor soul having to paint this. Hanging from the top is one thing, painting the bottom, underside is a whole different matter.



I guess you could put scaffolding from the ground up. I would think its to tall for a manlift, or "JLG" basket.


Anyway, This is the sight to see here. The golf course is nestled in among the low mesquite trees. And there are alot of trees as we drove by.
Any guess yet!

The weather has not been good for golf or the nearest course was unknown to us. There are two here in town.

We are planning on going to the King Ranch this saturday for their annual open house. If you are in the area, stop by and have a ranch hand breakfast. We are hoping to move to Riveria monday to the SeaWind RV park on the bay. I'm going to have to call them since they have not answered my email of two days ago. I will post what we see and do there when we get a chance

Temp: 42 for the low, 68 now, 72 for the forecast high, sunny with better days ahead.

There's been a problem today. We lost power here at the park about 1 pm and it just came back on at 5 pm. We went to Mathis to the USPS and mailed a couple of things. They had power in town.

The game room just outside of our entrance was without power also, so it was not just here. There will be hot dinner vs cold dinner tonight.

The wind did blow, gusts to 41. Enough to reset the DW in elevation. Now all is well.


No day trip and no pics. Tomorrow is another day. Lets see what adventure there is in Alice.

Since this was to be a gorgous day, why not go fishing. And off we went to buy minnows. There is a convience store on the way from town so we went there first as they advertise bait and tackle. We went in and the woman behind the counter was talking to a customer and she talked, talked and talked. The customer pointed to us but the woman seemed to ignore us.

I finally walked up to her and asked for minnows. She said "we have shad". I said "no, we want live bait". She said "we have only frozen". I asked where we could get some minnows.


She said "I dont know". I stated that we were not from here so we didnt know where to go. She stated she was not from here either. I told Shirley as we started for the door, lets go, we won't be buying anything here. To me that was rude.

We left and found a place and got our bait. The park has a pier for fishing and this is where we went. The Texas Parks system has "FREE FISHING", no license required. As quest's of the campground, we went to the pier. The lake is down some and bank fishing is difficult to not possible.



We were there 3 hours, used 4, yes just FOUR minnows, and had one bite, and one little stripper. Folks, thats all. The two guys arrived after us with their gear and brought some shrimp. They bottom fished and caught several catfish. And threw them all back as they were to small. They were getting frustrated too at the little catch. And all they caught was bottom fish too.

In fact this guy had two rods out and caught two at nearly the same time. He reeled one in, put


that rod down, picked up the other rod and reeled in the other fish. We watched this as he was frustrated at the small catch. It was fun to watch though.

Wednesday is not a fishing day or much of anything else. The wind came in just before daylight and its to be very windy. Forecast is for 15-25 winds with gusts 30-40. And it is blowing. Most of the whole state is under this wind advisery. We may venture out to Wal-mart in Alice later. We do need to get some things.



Temp: 63 with a high of 75 forecast, pc skies, wind advisery in effect.

Here comes this tanker into the bay. Its pouring water out the front as it enters. One of the ferry's left our side and had to go around the back of the ship as it passed by.

Didn't see the flag but you can read the name. Would you take a guess as to the length of this ship? Or better yet, see if there is a listing in the internet for it.

As it came in, there were some dolphins swimming in front of the huge bulb.



Just look at the size of this thing. When the pic was taken, the ship was maybe 200 yards away. I was not sure I could get it all.

Thie is a better view of the water coming out of the bow. We were on a ferry waiting the final loading when it passed.






A close up of the bulb on the bow. I did know that the current large ship design has this bulb. I'd like to know just what its for. If you know, post a comment here so we all will be smarter.

Across the way is more of the palm trees. We saw lots of them in yards and lots of them in the fields growing wild.

We filled up the suv on saturday. We have put over 220 miles on it since then and we will need to get gas again. We have a full hook up (water, elec and sewer) so the rv sits with the mileage to get here and a near full tank. Got gas, 12.421 gallons at $2.01.9, 288.5 miles = 23.22 mpg. All since saturday night, 3 days of seeing.

Temp: 64 for the low, 68 now with 88 forecast. becoming pc with 5-10 mph winds becoming 15-25 this afternoon. Sorry its cold (41) back home. We will see ya next year when its warmer!

We took a day trip. Actually an "all day" trip. Yep, we went to a place I have been to only once and DW has been to atleast four but not in the last 16 years.

As you can see, the population has increased abit in that time period. We started our trip from the campground then to Mathis at I37. From there we went to Sinton and then to Port Aransas vie Aransas Pass. This city limit sign could be any where but its on the park road north from the park.




Its been here for about 13 years. It was decommessioned in 1991 after many years service. This ship carries a name going back to the 1700's. Its the USS LEXINGTON, CV16. A trip well worth the cost of $11.95 per person or less $2.00 for a senior. The tours are well designed and more then long enough.

We got to see the engine room, actually the turbins vs the diesel engines, to the "Island". In between was the flight deck and the crew and officers quarters and their "mess".


We took a side trip to the beach. You have to take a beach access road to see it as its beyond the sand dunes. We saw some of the commerical RV parks and both of us went "yuck". Their crowded and we are not use to that.

The tide was out and we got to drive on the sand about a 1/4 mile and turned around. Where the sand was dry was soft and I guess you could get stuck.

We drove south toward the parkn the park road and decided it was to far so we turned around.


While we were awaiting the loading of the ferry, here came this tanker. It was empty from the looks of it. In front of the bow were some dolphins. With this camera, getting a pic was impossible. Timing is everything.

Here we are aproaching the far side to unload. There are 4 ferrys, two going each way.

Look at the palm trees. Lots and lots of palm trees. Temp was in the mid 70's and we were in shorts.


We took 46 pics and made a panaroma of some of them. The pic of the front of the carrier did not match the second so there is not a "Stern" shot. I hate that as it would have been a very nice grouping of the boat.

I will post more tomorrow. if you just cant wait, they are in the links folder. We had a good time and had fish for lunch.

Lets see what tomorrow brings.

These two pics were taken at long distance. There is definitely two bridges out there. The near one could be a fishing pier. You can see it jut out from the land but it seems to end and go no where.


Beyond that bridge/pier is a second bridge. This one has short spans and I would guess it to be a railroad bridge. Our yahoo maps does not show a bridge across any part of the lake.



We did take a drive around the lake yesterday and we get to see nothing. The lake is not accessable by road. Its either developed or farm/ranch land.

There is more of the second bridge as it appears to cross land again and then continue on as a bridge again. The first bridge ends and has to be a pier. We did not have or binoculars with us so this is the only long range view we get.

All these and the others, used to make the panorama's, were taken from the overlook. Not a boat in sight as it was too windy and cool. Out of the wind it was nice but not in the wind.

Our temp got to 72 per the suv. Oh, the suv has an outside temp indicator and direction indicator.
And being a GM product, it came with OnStar. I do like the car phone, hands free when necessary.

Temp: 51 with a forecast of 75, sunny.