February 13, 2006

February 13, 2006

Padre Island National Seashore to Wharton, Texas

YEAR 2 DAY 241

 

Today was sunny and warm.

We had a meeting scheduled for 1:00 P.M. this afternoon, and we didn't know how long it would take. We thought that it made sense to have a late, large breakfast, in case we had to skip lunch. We started today with a pancake brunch. We spent the morning romping on the beach, all four of us. Well, Teddy doesn't exactly romp. He just flops. He loves flopping and rolling in soft sand. We took Bo off his leash for a short while, to give him a chance to run around on the beach unencumbered. It's always a huge risk to allow him to be off leash, because usually he resists returning to be leashed. It wasn't a problem today. We explored the beach at low tide, finding interesting shells. Mostly we just enjoyed the bright sunshine and warm, soft sand.

At 12:30 we retracted the trailer' s slides, and drove off South Beach to the Malaquite Beach Visitor Centre for our "job interview". Ardrianna's superiors wouldn't permit her to offer us a 2 week assignment as Campground Hosts. The National Parks Service has a formal International Volunteers In Parks program. Because they're a federal agency, they're sticklers for doing things "by the book". They require their International Volunteers to acquire a U.S. J-1 Visa for "temporary employment", with the National Parks Service as the "sponsoring employer". That paperwork takes 6 weeks. So we had an "interview" with Ardrianna discussing future assignments for us at Padre Island National Seashore. I believe we made a good impression, and are likely to receive a winter job offer next year. We attended an Interpretive "deck talk" conducted by another Park Ranger on the Visitor Centre's outdoor deck. It was a very interesting "show and tell, touch and feel" presentation on the shells and sea creatures that can be found on the beach at Padre Island. Since we weren't going to be their campground hosts for the next 2 weeks, we decided to leave Padre Island today. We drove over to their trailer dump station, drained the shower grey water holding tank, and refilled the fresh water tank.

We drove out of Padre Island National Seashore, following Hwy. P22 back to Corpus Christi. We drove through Corpus Christi, then onto Hwy. 181, first north across Corpus Christi Bay, then west to Sinton. At Sinton we got ontoHwy. 77 headed north. We stopped at a road side rest area to change drivers. Joanne drove to Victoria. At Victoria we changed drivers again, and got onto Hwy. 59 heading northeast towards Houston. We stopped at Edna to fill up with diesel at a Love's. We were considering stopping for the night and staying in Love's parking lot over night, but I wanted to drive for another hour or so, since we got such a late start today, leaving Padre Island about 3:00 P.M.. As we pulled out of the Love's, I had to be careful not to run over the baby armadillo on the side of the road. Cute little thing ! We drove to Wharton, where we stopped for the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

After walking Bo, and feeding Teddy and Bo, we walked over to a fried chicken restaurant across the mall parking lot to check it out. It was late, and Joanne was feeling a bit too tired to prepare the meal she had planned. We bought some take out fried chicken, and brought it back to the trailer. We fried up some hash browns, sliced some tomatoes, and had supper. I did today's accounting and journal entry.

DSK