On Monday April 6th we made the long drive across I-10 from Dauphin Island, AL to High Island, TX - 434 miles! Most of it is OK, but there are a few ROUGH sections - especially the bridges in Baton Rouge, LaFayette, & Lake Charles, LA, and Orange, TX. Also, there is one section about 10 miles long before you get to LaFayette, LA that is extremely rough. I had to go about 35-40 mph to keep from shaking the motorhome all to pieces. It really messed up all the stuff in the cabinets and refrigerator and shook a couple of pictures off the wall.
Coming in to High Island, we spotted what we thought was two dead black bears beside the road (I guess being from the mountains had us thinking bears). Anyway, later we found out they were wild hogs - not bears. Seems like there are a lot of them around here. We're wondering how someone managed to hit two of them this close together.
Even though High Island RV Park is a commercial park, we got a nice site that is not jammed up close to any neighbor. The lady here is really nice and we've gotten to know her over the several times we've been here. She's originally from Millbrook, AL which is close to Wetumpka where Scott & Pam live.
Tuesday was our first day of 'birding. In the morning we went to one of the Audubon sites here in High Island. This site is called the "Boy Scout Woods" and they have bleachers set up where you can sit and watch an open area where they have a water drip in a wet area. They also have a kiosk run by volunteers that sell t-shirts, hats, and other souvenirs. There are also several trails around and through the woods.
Tuesday afternoon we went about 25 miles down the Bolivar Peninsula on the coast highway toward Galeveston. There is an area at the end (before the ferry crossing) where you can walk on the beach and look for shore birds. We like this place because of the sign that says "Walkers Welcome"!
We always like to explore some of the side roads and on one of them we saw a Crested Caracara, several Willets, and one of our favorites, the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. You can see from the picture where he got his name!
Crested Caracara
Willet
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
We got up early today (Wednesday) and went to Anahuac Wildlife Refuge about 25 miles away. Along the way we got a 'feel-good' picture of a cow & calf.
Anahuac (pronounced Anna-wock) Wildlife Refuge is a pretty big area with all kinds of canals and ponds for water fowl. We took the 'auto-tour' around a 2.5 mile loop (going real slow) and saw a lot of birds.
Double-crested Cormorant
Red-winged Blackbird
Black-necked Stilt
Fulvous Ducks
Great Blue Heron
Little Blue Heron
White-crowned Sparrow
We'll be here the rest of this week, so there'll be more later on. And by the way -- as Lewis & Clark would say, the "musketters" here are terrible!
Looks like one of the chickens we had one time.
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