Roses 1.0 Van Life

3/3/2023. Leaving tomorrow AM. We stayed at the Tiki, north end of SPI. Here’s Peggy and Sammy saying goodbye from the balcony pool side…

The pool is heated. Peggy exercised in it nearly every day. And we walked at least 4 miles each day. Birding was the main activity for me, that and beach walking with Sam. The SPI birding center and the Sea Turtle Conservation center are walking distance, we went to those Monday and Tuesday this week. Wednesday we went to Brownsville, Tx for the Red-Crowned Parrots. There were 100’s of parrots and about a dozen birders congregated around the roosting trees. Just as much fun was seeing the families, all mexican Americans, watching or coaching their children as they played baseball, soccer or kickball. A very pleasant evening and an all-American scene if there ever was one.

We went to the main public beach one evening this week. It is very nice. Just as nice as any beach we go to in Florida. It ends at the jetty, a long straight row of rocks that mark the beginning of the Brownsville ship channel. We were told sea turtles can often be seen feeding along the jetty. It was almost dark by the time we got there so didn’t see any. The ship channel was dug in 1936. About 17 miles long it extends to Brownsville. Very large ships can go through it, including for example tankers and some aircraft carriers. Here’s Jesus Christ of the Fishermen that overlooks the gulf end of the channel.

In case we come back our favorite restaurants were Tortugas and Joe’s Oyster Bar in Port Isabel, Palm cafe at Palm resort hotel (a dive hotel for sure), Padre Island Brewing Co. and Porkies Pit food truck. Sea food was a little better than in Florida. Porkies Pit BBQ was out of this world.

Without tennis, pickle ball or golf, birding became my number one activity. Well, that and beach walking Sam. Tonight Peggy said, after the umpteenth time someone went through the script, “answering questions about this dog is a full time job”. Of the 37 life birds I wrote down as possibilities before coming here I saw 22. But there were three I saw which I didn’t expect, Fulvous Whistling duck, Pauruque, Sooty Tern. So 25 new life birds. Since the last blog mention of life birds I’ve seen Red Crowned Parrots, Ladder Backed Woodpecker and Curve Billed Thrasher. Biggest misses were Clay Colored Thrush, White Tailed Kite, Hooded Oriole and Couch’s Kingbird. The latter I probably saw but it can only be distinguished from the Tropical Kingbird by it’s song and all kingbirds I saw were silent.

Last pic from SPI…..

Tomorrow we plan to drive to a Galveston area hotel. Sunday I want to see high Island, famous for birds during migration, it won’t be anything special this weekend, just want to see it. Sunday we will either go to Lake Charles or Lafayette Louisiana to see cajun country and hopefully find an authentic local place for crawfish. Then we will head north, home 3/7 or 3/8.

Well after all he is a bird dog. Here he is with us while we bird the SPI birding center…

That was Wednesday, 2/21. We tried to go to Sabal Palms yesterday, it was closed but we did see “The Wall”, and Space X …

I’ve wondered how the wall was positioned relative to the Rio Grande. Sable Palms, our intended destination, is an old plantation a few hundred yards from the river. The wall is a little more than a quarter mile from river and as you can see there’s a gap for the road to Sabal Palms. The gap is guarded 24/7 by army personnel. They were friendly and very bored. That’s the levy on the other side of the wall.

Why Space X chose the coastal plain 2 miles from the border and the mouth of the Rio Grande is a mystery to me. Maybe someone can explain it. We could drive right past it, within about a 100 yards….

These are two separate sites about a mile or so apart. The one on the left is a launch pad, called Starship landing pad on google maps, the right is called Starbase.

Today, Friday 2/23 I went to McAllen to bird. Two excellent places, Estero Llano State Park and Edinburg Scenic Wetlands. Both, but especially the first, were filled up with birders. Some intermediate level, like me, some novice, and some that can tell you the feeding habits of the long-billed vs. the short-billed dowitcher. There was probably a quarter million in optics in that park. Cameras with lenses the size of small canons. Both trips were successful for me. Life birds Tuesday to today. Least Grebe, Neotropic Cormorant, Tropical Kingbird, Green Kingfisher, Buff-bellied Hummingbird, Black-chinned Hummingbird, Plain Chacalaca, Inca Dove, Verdin, Long Billed Curlew, Aplomado Falcon, Pauruque.
Going to try Sable Palms again tomorrow, then eat at Vera’a Backyard, a road food place in Brownsville.

Sammy really is the life of the party at the beach. As soon as he feels sand under his feet he starts prancing, and doing his army crawl. But its when he hits the water that the fun begins. This blog site doesn’t support videos so here are some pics to get the flavor of his antics:

I see people watching, pointing and laughing. People regularly come up to us and tell us what a beautiful dog he is, then ask what kind of dog, then ask if I hunt with him. He’s a lot of fun

Chose this refuge for our first bird outing. Its 110,000 acres and more bird species have been recorded here than any other NWR. Ocelot are present here (we didn’t see one) and occasional bird species considered endemic to Mexico are sometimes sited.

We did about 4 miles of hiking. These two are life birds for me and were easy to cell phone photograph thanks to the blind and feeder station provided by the refuge.

7 life birds today, Olive Sparrow, Harris hawk, Altimira Oriole, Green Jay, Black Crested Titmouse, Long Billed Thrasher and Yellow-rumped Warbler Audubon variant. Ok that last one is a sub species.

We ate lunch at Laguna Bob’s because two musicians I met yesterday who are living in their camper van were playing there and I told them we would come. They were good, oldies type stuff, from the 60’s, they played to this crowd for sure. Why not, they are living off the tips. Across the street was a sand artist, for $600 he will teach you how to do this:

That’s just one of many creations he had on display.

No plans for tomorrow. Doesn’t look like tennis is in the cards, no one seems to be playing, can’t even find a pickle ball court. This ain’t Florida for sure.

*South Padre Island

We checked the weather in the AM, thunderstorms and even possible tornados on our route so we chose to drive north, through St Louis then south to avoid them. Added 1.5 hrs. Roadfood.com is our go to site for out of the way local places, this was our first roadfood meal of this trip:

The owner and his wife were the only people working there. Three kids doing homework in a back room were theirs, I assume. I never cease to be amazed at how hard people work. He was very friendly, talkative. Said they make over a 100 pies by hand each day, 6 days a week. No store bought crusts here. There were over a dozen sweet pies on display in the case, several more savory pies were ready in the back. We each had a pot pie for supper and took a slice of pie with us for dessert. Actually I took two, blackberry and cherry/raspberry. Then back on the road to a cracker Barrel in Springfield, Mo. Slept in the parking lot, ate breakfast there then headed south. Ate lunch in Conway, Ar. again at a roadfood “meat and three” place, seen here:

Known for their chocolate gravy, we passed on that and had a traditional southern lunch, with pie of course. Arkansas is the pie state. We drove well passed dark, Houston traffic at 9:30 PM was bumper to bumper but moving at 70 mph. I’m not used to that. Slept at a Cracker Barrel again just south of Houston in Sugarland, Tx. Made it to SPI around 3 PM Friday.

SPI vs. Florida

So far no contest, this is nice but I’d pick Fl. hands down. It was cold here Friday when we arrived, very cold, mid 40’s but felt colder. There is much less to do here. No plays, no concerts, no shows, no farmers markets, that we are aware of. The beach is ok, but not up to Florida standards. The entire strip is about 4 miles long and not as built up as Ft. Myers/Naples where we usually go. Fewer people means fewer things going on. The birding is better though, vide infra, next post.

They allow cars on long stretches of beach:

As usual Sammy was a star attraction. He loves the sandy beach, loves the ocean more. Beach goers enjoyed watching him jump the waves and body surf back. At first he jumped too early causing him to crash into the wave, later he got the timing down. The beach road isn’t easy to maintain:

The beach walk, basic island exploration and shopping, unpacking and lastly supper at Señor Donkeys was all we managed on this day.

Sunday and Monday, July 24 and 25. Ate lunch with Will and Colleen at the Buttery, in south Boston, loaded up Will’s bike and hit the road, with no idea where we would sleep. Got as far as Middletown, NY. Boondocked in a Sam’s/Loews parking lot. The only noteworthy encounter was a stop for food in Newburgh, NY. What a sad place: litter, deteriorating homes and buildings, garbage, and of course poverty. Monday we drove to a Harvest Host farm in Perrysville, Ohio – Forbes Farm Market (stopped at Kravitz Deli in Youngstown for lunch, worth remembering, reasonably close to I 84). Larry and Wendy Forbes own a large farm and have a well tended store by the road with lots of food and other merchandise to chose from. Wendy is an award winning master gardener and it shows. The spot for us to park was level, reasonably private and very quiet. It’s a place worth remembering for future trips. We drove home today, Tuesday July 26 to find the sweet potatoes devastated, I assume by rabbits since I see no deer tracks. All the apples are gone, not a single one visible where 3 weeks ago there had been perhaps over 100. Blackberries are nearly gone although at least friends were able to pick and use most of them. On the bright side there are lots of tomatoes and peppers and the watermelons look good.

No more blogging until the next trip, ? Florida in January ?

July 23, 2022 Woke up in the Walmart parking lot, started the day with a visit to a Tim Horton’s then to the dog park, and still got to The Cat by 8:00 AM. Although we arrived fairly early we were the very last vehicle allowed to drive on. But they had us back off of the ferry at departure so we were the first off. Here’s The Cat…

Loads of comfortable seats inside and a movie but we chose to sit out back where you could get a 180 view of the ocean, all the better to see whales. We saw exactly one…

The Canadians made a big deal about our dog needing proof of rabies vaccine, said the US customs would “impound” him until we had it. We do keep vaccine records with us but they were not up to date so I called the vet, open on Saturday mornings, and had the most recent vaccine records emailed. And of course all the customs official did was pet Sammy, and tell us what a beautiful sweet dog he is. Then we drove on, first to a lunch place then to Acadia National Park. Taking The Cat saved us two days driving and roughly $200 in gas. Of course it cost more than that. Acadia NP was kind of a disappointment. Nova Scotia is like Maine only slightly better on everything, likewise when comparing Acadia NP and Cape Breton NP: more picturesque, better food, fewer people, nicer people, cheaper, more birds but farther away. After Acadia we went to Young’s Lobster Pound again then to Stone Tree Farm Cidery to spend the night. Hope we can meet Will and Colleen in Boston tomorrow, get Will’s bike and hit the road for home.

One new life bird this morning in a wetland next to the Walmart parking lot, Alder Flycatcher. I’ve never been completely sure on the ID so never recorded it on a list. This time the wetland was full of Alder trees, the bird was sitting in top of one of them, in plain sight and was singing it’s two note song over and over, three beers…three beers…three beers… etc. No doubt.

July 22, 2022 From the small park where we stayed in Antigonish we drove to Lunenburg, on the Atlantic side of NS. As soon as we drove in Peggy said “Now this is what Cape Cod should look like”. Narrow streets on a hill descending to the harbor, lined by brightly painted houses and shops create the image we had of Cape Cod before we went there and actually saw it. Lunenburg is the home of the Bluenose, the wooden clipper ship featured on the Canadian dime. Built in 1921 it was used mostly for racing other such ships. It was built and harbored in Lunenburg. Now it goes out two times a day giving harbor tours to tourists. It’s the reason Nova Scotians are sometimes called Bluenosers. Here are some pics of the harbor and the Bluenose…

See the grass covered hill on the other side of the harbor, that’s where we were when we took the first picture above. We talked with the elderly gentleman in the photo below for quite a while. He fixes the sails when they develop tears. He told us he’s 83, and born in 1937 (?). No matter. The Bluenose is in the background.

We had planned to go to Digby next, famous for seafood but the urge to go home overtook us so I booked a ride on the ferry from Yarmouth to Bar Harbor, Me. So we headed for Yarmouth instead. We ate at the Rudder, on the harbor. A festival was going on outside the deck where we ate. The band was heavy on fiddle in cajun and ceidlidh style. The latter is pronounced Kay Lee. It’s a scottish gaelic word for dance party. We’ll get to Bar Harbor around 1:00 pm tomorrow, stay at the Stone Tree Farm and Cidery tomorrow night, visit Acadia NP if time allows and get Will’s bike in Boston Sunday, then head home.

Tuesday July 19,

Driving day, but since it was overcast and raining that made it a good day to drive since we couldn’t do much else. Started from outskirts of Halifax and drove to the Cabot trail, a road that circles Cape Breton. We didn’t make it to the Cabot trail until around noon. The most interesting stop was Baddeck. A beautiful small town on Lake Bras d’Or. Baddeck is where Alexander Graham Bell choose to retire. We could see the grounds of his home from our picnic lunch site. The large lake has a small connection to the ocean and lots of coves so it’s protected from ocean swells making it a good harbor. There was a movement in the 18th and early 19th centuries to make this a new Scotland. That and the rugged beauty of the land attracted Bell to live here in retirement. Here’s a picture of the Baddeck harbor…

A hedge fund billionaire’s 226 ft yacht was docked just to the left of this picture. It was all the talk of the people at the dockside restaurant. I didn’t think to take a picture of it and the couple I spoke to didn’t know his name. We drove on to Cape Breton NP. Ate seafood dinner at the Crofton. Campsite is ok, nothing special. It’s a short walk to this view from our campsite…

People swim off this beach, in the cold, cold north Atlantic water.

Wednesday July 20. Staying put in Cape Breton NP. We chose two hikes, Coastal Trail/Jack Pine and Lake Trail. The former about 3 miles, the latter less. The views are stunning.

I eat seafood at every meal. Peggy thinks she’s allergic to shellfist so sticks to fish, which here in NS means haddock. We had lunch between the two hikes…..

Seafood chowder circled by lobster and mussels with crab meat on top.

Thursday July 21 Started driving south along the west coast of Cape Breton. This side was more heavily settled by the scottish. Crofters, the scottish term for sharecropper, were kicked off the land especially in the highlands when the laird realized he could have more sheep if there were fewer people on his land and therefore make more money. This was known as the highland clearance, occurred in the mid to late 1700’s. Lots of those very poor highlanders came here where they could own land and continue their lifestyle. As we drove south at first the land we saw was too rugged for farming and shepherding but it began to level out as we proceeded south. Again the scenery here is stunningly beautiful.

Both of the above pictures are of the gulf of St Lawrence. Didn’t see any whales from these or other over looks.

We ate lunch at The Seafood House just south of Inverness after doing two hikes.

This side of Cape Breton is known as Canada’s musical coast. The scottish immigrants kept their music alive and there is still a thriving music scene. We stopped for a drink in the afternoon at this place owned by the Rankin Family, well known throughout Canada for their scots/irish themed music .

Staying tonight in Antigonish. Going to see some of south island Nova Scotia before heading back. Finally learned that Will is flying back from his Indianapolis to Boston bike trip so we are not on any time constraints other than our own.

Got 4 new life birds while in Cape Breton; Northern Gannet, Guillemot, Great Black Backed Gull and Common Eider (have seen the latter but never recorded into eBird).

Sunday July 17. We picked two places, hike to Matthews point and the Sea Caves in St Martin. Matthews point was a fairly easy 3 mile round trip to get views of the bay. Then we went south to St. Martin to see the sea caves, short caves created by the tides. We almost got caught by the rising tide, ankle deep when we waded across, knee deep and rising when we waded back 15 minutes later.

Had lunch at The Sea Cave, aptly named restaurant with a deck overlooking the caves. Everyone there was from Canada, and most from New Brunswick. I’m sure they were tourists, this is a tiny town, but its interesting that no US tourists were there other than us (based on the license plates in the parking lot). From there we went back to near the park and walked around Alma, NB. High tide that started when we left St. Martin was now gone, and it was approaching low tide again. The lobster boats literally are on the sea floor at low tide.

There are two tide cycles each day, so two low tides and two high tides, 6 hours apart. From the Bay of Funds the boats go out and return at high tides, they must. Other places, Maine for example, they are free to set a more normal schedule.

Monday July 18 We drove from Chignecto NP (very nice btw) to Hopewell rocks. These cliffs and rock formations are the result of erosion from the extreme tides. The pictures show the cliffs are composed of sand, gravel and rock sediment deposited several million years ago. Tides have eroded the sediment layer forming these intricate cliffs and rock towers. We were walking on the ocean floor, notice the seaweed.

The tide will be up at least covering the seaweed in just a couple of hours. People do get caught. Look at this safety warning.

On to Nova Scotia and a hotel room. We ate on the Halifax waterfront, at Salt Yard Social. The downtown is on a hill that descends to the waterfront. Some streets are steep, some quite narrow. The city looked clean and prosperous. The waterfront is where most of the restaurants and night life are. It was very busy, hard to find parking, and this is a Monday.

Here’s another picture with a view of a lighthouse from the waterfront.

There were lots of dogs. I continue to be surprised by how much our Sammy attracts attention. He’s also fairly well behaved, better than most.

Finally a picture from a small restaurant outside Moncton, NB

Really, gluten free scallops clams and fish.

Tomorrow we plan to drive the Cabot trail around Cape Breton and we will stay at Broad Cove CG in Cape Breton Highlands NP.