We hit Houston (elevation around 150 feet) about noon. It's about 45 miles through Metro-Houston (from Katy on the westside to Baytown on the east) and I was kinda dreading it. However, it was Saturday, traffic was relatively light, there was no road construction, and the highway was fairly good. We made it through in fine fashion. This picture shows it - 5 lanes, plus 2 HOV lanes on the other side of the pickets. I can imagine gridlock during rush hour!
After a long 339 mile drive, we arrived in High Island, TX at an elevation of 30 feet and checked into the High Island RV Park for 5 nights. We've been here several times over the years and it's the only game in town. We have got to know the lady that runs the place - she's originally from Millbrook, AL which is close to Wetumpka where one set of our kids & grandkids live.
High Island is a birding hotspot - it's only a half mile to the gulf and with all it's trees and vegetation, it's a prime spot for the migrating birds to come into from their journey across the water.
Sunday (yesterday) was a cloudy rainy day. We went to the 1st Baptist Church for worship service and then rode into Winnie for lunch. Later in the day we went over to one of the Audubon Bird Sanctuaries, but with the rainy, breezy weather, not much was happening.
We had some big-time thunderstorms come through last night and into the wee hours of this morning, then today was rainy on & off all morning, cloudy & windy in the afternoon until around 4:00 when it cleared off and the sun came out. We went back to the Audubon Birding Sanctuary and did see a few birds. Pictures are hard to come by in the trees - the birds flit around and don't pose very well.
In the early afternoon we rode down the coast highway about 7 miles to Rollover Pass - this is a canal from the intercoastal waterway to the gulf. Last night's thunderstorms and heavy rain caused some flooding over the roadway. They had a road crew out taking care of it.
There's been a lot of construction since the last hurricane. Everything is built on stilts - some plain, some fancy, and some just very inventive!
The Rollover Pass canal is usually lined with folks fishing from both sides, but today with the wind & rain, there weren't many folks there. However, there were lots of water birds & that is what we were there to see. Here are some of them.
Today is just Monday and we are going to be here two more days. I wanted to go ahead and make this 'blog' post because of the number of pictures. I didn't want to wait until a couple of days later and have the post be really long. I'll try to do another post maybe Wednesday night before we leave on Thursday.
Interesting reading and pictures. Of the houses on stilts, I really liked the second house cause the stairs go up from underneath the house part! Won't get as wet when it's raining! I liked the third house all open but you'd get wet in rain! First bird with pink under it's neck and pink beak was interesting; never seen those before. The road on the beach is much like what happens to Ft Pickens Rd down here on P-Cola Beach sometimes. The difference is that our beaches have sugar white sand which I absolutely love! Happy trails. Diane
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