Lunch with Fellow Traveler and another Dang Museum

 Location: Goose Island State Park; near Rockport, Texas

There are lots of RV travelers and bloggers on the roads now a days. Sometimes, our paths cross. My path crossed with Barney (www.ofmadventures.blogspot.com) at a pretty good Mexican restaurant in Rockport yesterday. It was good food and good conversations. Barney has been on the road for a couple of decades now. Be safe in your travels Barney.

This picture was a surprise. I didn't know I had it until I was transferring pictures to my laptop. This was when we were talking about taking pictures with cell phones. 

After leaving the restaurant I went driving along the beach road to see what I could see. I came upon nice looking house and found out it was a State Historical place called the Fulton Mansion. It was originally built back in the late 1800's and you can take tours of it, for a price. I wasn't interested in touring a house, so I took some pictures from the side of road and continued on down the road. 

The Fulton Mansion from the late 1800's

This is the view from the mansion. At least from the street in front of it.

The road came to the marina and I was surprised by the amount of activities for a weekday. There were lots of people working on their boats and some just hanging out. Next door to the marina, was The Texas Maritime Museum. I haven't had good luck with museums lately so I figured I was overdue. Perhaps this museum would break my jaded view of these types of museums. There was a $6.00 entry fee and that was about $4.00 too much. I did learn something new, thus the two dollars I was willing to pay. The thing I learned was about the  Texas Navy back during the Texas War of Independence. Come to find out, Texas bought a few small ships at the beginning of the war to raid Mexican merchant ships and help with possible blockades. Whoever made the decision to buy the ships was right on the mark since the Texas Navy was instrumental in winning the war and the decisive Battle at San Jacinto that ended the war. One of the Texas ships captured a merchant ship full of ammunition and food that was headed to Santa Anna. Before the final battle, both Mexican and Texans were running short of ammunition and food. When the Texas Navy delivered the captured goods to Sam Houston and prevented it from reaching Santa Anna, it helped tilt the battle in favor of the Texans. After Texas became part of the United States, its Navy was absorbed into the U.S. Navy.

You can't have any kind of maritime museum without an anchor (I think it is federal law). By the way, that's Freedom in the background.

I liked this picture of part of the marina from under the tree

This was the best picture I could take from inside.

One good thing about the museum is it had a third floor observation platform. Here is the seaward entrance to the marina.

Nice wide view of area from the third floor.

Back at the campground I went for a walk on the newly rebuilt fishing pier. It is a pretty long pier at 2/3 of mile round trip. It was the middle of the afternoon and about a half a dozen people were fishing. As I walked by each of them, I asked how things were going if they caught anything. Every one of them said they hadn't had a single bite. When I reached the end of the pier, there was a man fishing and a woman was sitting under an umbrella reading a book. He also said he hadn't had any bites but, he said people were catching Black Drum like crazy last night. I asked if the woman was for moral support and he said she was his good luck charm. I mentioned he hadn't had any bites yet and he said he may need to re-think the good luck charm. She quit reading and gave him a jokingly mean look. We all laughed, I said goodbye and turned to walk back to Freedom. On the way back, I informed all of the other fishermen that the guy at the end hadn't had any bites either and they all said, they weren't surprised. Oh well, I played the messenger role the best I could.

Freedom looking out to the fishing pier. I just noticed something on the passenger side running board. I have no idea what that was but it isn't there this morning, I just checked.

Looking back from the end of the pier.

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be headed to Magnolia Beach for two days of free beach camping. I should be set up about 15 feet from the water. I just hope it won't be too hot since I'll be boondocking plus a weather front is suppose to pass through with possible wind and storms. I guess it's time to try out my solar setup that came with Liberty2 as standard equipment.

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.