With the late night at Pleasure Pier yesterday we were quite happy to have a hotel room to relax late into the morning, Continental breakfasts are much better than the yogurt, applesauce, sandwich meals we've had while living out of the van. After a short visit to Apffle Park at the east end of Galveston Island (where I added a lifer Clapper Rail) in heavy fog we sat down for Chinese Buffet before heading to our afternoon surprise. The girls are terrible at guessing surprises, second guessing themselves yesterday after driving by Pleasure Pier. Today was no different as they still hadn't figured out what it was until we started talking to the guy with kayaks, which was our surprise.
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| Michaela is in the front seat, trust me. |
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| Danielle is holding a hermit crab. |
With daily heavy fog and rain we were blessed with a small window of sunshine and paddled near South Deer Island and Oxen Bayou in West Bay. With no wind to start our guide Mike mixed in wonderful information and conversation as we looked at all the birds and houses. We found two Tri-colored Herons (another lifer) in the Bayou and stopped on a Oyster Reef where we found Hermit Crabs.
Danielle found an Lightning Whelk shell where the muscle was dead. The decomposing muscle and shell is now gracing our van with its unique perfume.
We were out for almost three hours and are a bit sore with sunburns where we missed sunscreen. The wind picked up while we were out and we are also a bit sore from paddling against the wind on the way back to the van. We found misty weather within half a mile of driving away, soon the fog had rolled back in and overtook the Bay.
Afterwards we stopped at Taco Bell, the first of the trip, and switched into dry clothes and grabbing supper before starting our drive north. We made our way to Corsicana before crashing for the night and have a day in the van planned for Friday.
Michaela's Journal
Danielle's Journal
